Editorial: Our Covid response has been a mixed bag - and that's likely to continue

Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Government's response to this hugely challenging pandemic has been more of a struggle than New Zealand's image overseas on Covid-19 suggests.

Many other countries have overall done a far worse job. Even those that have held it together for a long period, such as some countries in Asia, are now under stress.

Yet more evidence keeps emerging that New Zealand's coronavirus response has not been running smoothly.

The perception that we had solid immunity protection at the border has been eroded. Thousands of essential workers there are not vaccinated.

The re-heating of questions over the coronavirus' emergence in China, offers the chance for a look back. According to the director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield we could be only half-way through the pandemic.

New Zealand's experience of Covid-19 has quite often been overly reliant on people doing the right thing. This has occurred throughout, from lockdown and the running of MIQ facilities, to the travel bubble and the vaccine rollout.

It has been frustrating for some onlookers who wondered why obvious problems were overlooked or not anticipated; rules weren't being followed and enforced as they should; and different aspects of the health response weren't being emphasised more.

The missteps stood out from the basic success of the coronavirus response, since the virus only needs one weakness to break out.

Some virus breaches occurred but tens of thousands of people returned home through the border without incident. Many people in different sectors worked hard to keep Kiwis safe.

The Government, without doubt, got some big calls right, such as the quick suspension of travel from India over the Delta variant, and throughout the process it has been prepared to acknowledge shortcomings and act to fix them.

As far as most Kiwis are the concerned the fact that we've mostly been able to live normally and safely during this period is the main thing. The travel bubble has at least released some pent-up travel and economic pressure.

But there is a pattern of goals being publicly set and then being changed or the reality on the ground simply being different.

The vaccine rollout programme initially seemed pretty clear, but now it's become confusing for many. Highly medically vulnerable people are still waiting to hear when they will get shots, as news reports and anecdotal stories suggest some others are getting vaccinated earlier than the outline said they would.

A buyer-beware warning for flyers over the transtasman bubble is all very well, but vaccination should and could have been done first, resulting in more people making use of the travel reopening.

If the past year is any guide then wider reconnection to the world will similarly be a mixed bag.

It may seem unfair to focus on the details when the Government ticked the big picture side of its Covid response. It's far easier being a couch critic than having to make consequential decisions under pressure.

But it's important to scrutinise and be able to learn from mistakes - since it is too easy to just repeat them.

We need to emerge from this experience with a clear idea of what worked and what didn't.