Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
EDITORIAL:
The country faces a fork in the path this week as the Government decides if we will ease away from full lockdown.
It's not inevitable. Questions remain about our readiness for a fast-paced test-and-trace regime to keep on top of the coronavirus.
The Government will decide today whether toproceed with a drop to level three on Wednesday or delay. It's a balancing act: The best way to safely get the economy back into gear is to get on top of Covid-19.
Shuffling downward is hardly an invitation to a free-for-all. There would still be careful controls. It would be a slow exhalation of breath.
Bringing more businesses and workers back into circulation sooner rather than later is a goal to staunch some of the economic bleeding. And there's clear impatience from the business community for that to happen.
The challenge for the authorities would be to manage the health risk as well as possible. The fear is that a second wave of infections could follow. They may decide that sticking with lockdown is more prudent. South Korea is one country that suffered a second bump of cases but has managed to flatten it.
Germany is lifting some restrictions this week and its experience will be worth watching. Germany has identified more than 143,000 cases but has a low death rate of 53 per one million people and a high testing rate of more than 20,000 per million, according to the Worldometers site.
On the surface, a slight relaxation here could be justified based on the progress made in the past three and a half weeks.
Any death from Covid-19 is too many, but New Zealand's toll is still thankfully low at 12.
Our death rate from the virus is two per one million people. For Australia it is three. That compares to the United States (118), Spain (441), Italy (384), France (296) and Britain (228) as of yesterday.
Our new daily case numbers fell to nine yesterday even as we have been able to widen our testing levels beyond the initial tight definitions to hit more than 83,000.
Ourworldindata.org compiled data on how many tests a country carried out to find one confirmed case. It puts New Zealand at 68.6 tests per confirmed case – third behind Vietnam and Taiwan and ahead of Australia and South Korea. We are far ahead of the US (5.3) and Britain (3.3).
Our border controls should hopefully cut off a source of new infections. There have been concerns raised about not enough protective gear in circulation – which will need monitoring. An official recommendation for people to wear non-medical face coverings when in groups seems overdue.
Yet some countries appear to be in much worse situations. For example, British media reports say healthcare workers in England are being asked to reuse equipment because of fears of shortages. The Times reported 15,000 people a day were flying into the UK without medical screening or quarantine.
In the worldwide war against the pandemic, our Government and health authorities, like others globally, operate as battlefield commanders, adjusting strategies and plugging holes on the run. Researchers and health professionals are having to learn about this lethal virus in live time.
Until a vaccine for Covid-19 becomes available, our exit strategy will resemble a collective trudge down a dark tunnel with a faint light at the end.
