Covid 19 Delta outbreak editorial: Auckland borders - Trusting science has limits for Govt

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Cabinet rejected advice from director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield and others to lift border restrictions earlier. Photo / Mark Mitchell, File

EDITORIAL:

News that the Government took a far more cautious approach to opening Auckland's borders than public health officials advised may have been a surprise to some.

This week it was revealed health advisors recommended Auckland boundary restrictions should have already been lifted and the whole country - bar Auckland and Northland - should be in the orange traffic light setting.

There is no doubt Jacinda Ardern and her Cabinet highly value health science advice. A team of researchers who gave the Government the maths it needed to keep Covid-19 at bay was given New Zealand's premier science award.

Efforts by University of Auckland-based Te Pūnaha Matatini – winners of the $500,000 Prime Minister's Science Prize – have been a crucial part of New Zealand's world-lauded pandemic response.

Likewise, our country's trust in scientists is among the highest in the world, according to a new study that linked that faith to our support for Covid-19 vaccination and other health measures.

The analysis – which drew on data from 12 countries, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil and Sweden – also found trust in science was likely to be what drives favourable attitudes toward vaccination.

The study's French and US authors explored trust among people in scientists, along with their trust in their governments and other citizens, using a range of surveys carried out over different periods between March and December last year.

Yet dozens of public health experts and scientists advised the Prime Minister the "hard or enforced" boundary around Auckland should be removed when the country moved to the traffic light regime.

"Put another way," director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said, "the boundary around Auckland has served its purpose."

But we now know this was rejected.

The discovery of the advice to lift restrictions was in an affidavit from Bloomfield to the Waitangi Tribunal. It supports his ministry's and the Government's narrative that it has done what it could to protect Māori from the pandemic.

It does appear our Government trusts science - but is even more cautious than what it recommends. Too cautious? Perhaps, but critics are not the ones tasked with putting the genie back in the bottle.