One letter writer suggests raised alert levels for Covid 19 coronavirus are sustainable as we are getting better at them. Photo / Michael Cunningham
John Roughan argues that "Lockdown is not a sustainable response" (Weekend Herald, August 15). I would argue the opposite.
Lockdowns are sustainable, because each one is a refinement of the previous one and therefore cheaper. Even though both the April and August outbreaks
started identically, August's lockdown has been half the length and half the level of April's, and has affected less than half the population.
In April the testing rate was 3000 per day, now it is 19,000. In April nobody wore masks, now people do. In April, positive cases were sent home in the hope they wouldn't infect family members and visitors, now they are quarantined. And finally, authorities learn from their mistakes: Day 3 and 12 tests will always be a part of quarantine now, making outbreaks progressively less frequent.
The next community outbreak, if there is one, will no doubt be dealt with faster, more accurately and more cheaply again.
John Roughan (Weekend Herald, August 15) is right; it is wishful thinking, typical of economically-illiterate "progressives", that paying people fairy-dust money to stay home and do nothing, is "sustainable".
The problem is that the public has been terrified so effectively with selective, bad-news parts of the Covid story, that poll-driven politicians are now themselves too frozen with fear to provide an enlightened, evidence-driven lead.
We are lucky to have Sweden and some US States provide the statistical evidence. The human immune system works as designed, dealing with Covid with T-cells alone, in around 60 per cent of people. Antibody tests miss these people; you have herd immunity when a mere 20 per cent have antibodies.
Protection of rest homes and vulnerable people in poor housing conditions, which is where nearly 100 per cent of the otherwise very low rate of death occurs, is not averted by the socio-economic carpet-bombing of lockdown policy – see Britain. Herd immunity and "protecting the vulnerable meanwhile" is the rational "Plan B". Around 97 per cent of people won't die of Covid-19. If we don't know how to protect the vulnerable 3 per cent, we are likely to lose some of them anyway, lockdown or not.
Phil Hayward, Naenae.
So, John Roughan (Weekend Herald, August 15) has been invited by David Seymour to hear Simon Thornley from Auckland Medical School, and international speakers. Expect mimicking of Boris Johnson's bugle call: "Get Covid done!"
Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell persuaded Sweden to pursue "herd immunity". He now acknowledges there have been too many deaths, but doubts "there would ever be a definitive answer over which strategy was best".
So to New Zealand: Do you want to be part of an experiment? Not me. Incremental improvement of our winning protocol, please.
Dennis N Horne, Howick.
Saturday's newspaper (Weekend Herald, August 15) tells us that port companies have been urging Government since April that ports should be treated like airports with Covid testing. They were then stunned to receive an order from Ashley Bloomfield on Friday for all maritime border staff to be tested in the next three days as a matter of urgency.
As recently as two weeks ago, the maritime sector had been urging health authorities to test at ports without success. So along with two-thirds of border and quarantine staff, ports employees have not been tested at all.
Both our borders, sea and air, have been high-risk all along.
Perhaps the efforts to highlight the risks by port authorities and unions led to the sudden warning of it is "not a matter of if, but when" Covid returned.
June Kearney, West Harbour.
Reading "Cones of silence" (Weekend Herald, August 15) made me cross. How many main streets in Auckland are being ruined by Auckland Transport? Hurstmere Rd is my local and is under construction also. It has been for a year. Currently it looks like a third world shopping strip.
I agree stormwater should not flow into the sea and the paving that was introduced (by Auckland Council) has not stood up to the wear and tear of traffic.
But as for claims people will bask in the sun? Ridiculous - the street flows north to south and the shade is often windy and cold.
What most riles me is the poor shops who are bravely hanging on throughout a pandemic. The work is projected to last until mid-2021. No business could survive that long.
Queen St is the same basket case on a larger scale. Sack the planners. Auckland Council is irresponsible in its care of small business and local citizens
Lynne Lagan, Takapuna.
Stewart Hawkins (Weekend Herald. August 15) is lucky in that he only has Ardern and Bloomfield to criticise. Consider the plight of the National Party critics.
It seems that before we can get to our keyboards the party caucus has dumped it's poorly performing leader and replaced him with a guy who soon discovered that wanting the job was more fun than having it, forcing the caucus again to elect a stand-in leader to get them through the election, with a deputy who is out there peddling conspiracy theories.
All that without mentioning the ethical standards of two recently resigned party board members. Hopeless.
John Capener, Kawerau.
Perhaps J. Gibbs and Colin Nicholls (Weekend Herald, August 15) hanker for the "good old days" when Mum had to traipse around the baker, greengrocer, butcher, fruiterer, grocer and fishmonger.
Maybe these shops would be nice to have now, too. But each require a separate human-to-human transaction, which is exactly what the lockdown is intended to minimise, and where the one-stop supermarket is more effective.
This is not giving supermarkets a monopoly. Unfortunately, they already have it.
I suspect they are not making additional profit during the lockdown, as shoppers are simply stockpiling goods they would have bought later anyway.
Derek Smith, Newmarket.
The full-page on American activist Sarah Cooper (Weekend Herald, August 15) was revealing. Cooper's meeting sabotage tricks include drawing a Venn diagram, asking to go back a slide, and pacing around the room. Being proud of social sabotaging strategies epitomises all that's wrong with America now – too much denigrating, not enough working.
In 1950, the American Dream was to work hard to get a family and a V8 inside your white picket fence in suburbia. Now the dream is to tear down the plutocratic system. It's the exact path decadent Rome took to destruction - 1600 years later, there is still no solution because the rich cling tenaciously to power. Money is the root of evil.
Jim Carlyle, Te Atatu Peninsula.
It would improve compliance with a testing request if people were guaranteed paid isolation leave. Fiona Downes, Hobsonville.
Are these people who send letters to the editor claiming that Jacinda Ardern is useless walking around with their heads in a bucket of sand? David Mairs, Glendowie.
The Empress has no clothes. She and her fellow courtiers have been charged with only one job - make our country safe by ensuring our borders are tightly controlled. Chester Rendell, Paihia.
I firmly believe the NZ public will never find out what caused this current outbreak.
To release it would demonstrate the incompetence of the Labour administration just before an election. Dr Martin Spencer, Auckland Central.
What a leader we have in a crisis, the lady could sell me London Bridge or, in our case, the Harbour Bridge. Tony Barnett, Pukekohe.
It really does not become Sir Michael Cullen (Weekend Herald, August 15) taking potshots at other politicians while campaigning on behalf of the Labour Party. A J Petersen, Kawerau.
It is offensive that Ashley Bloomfield, with a stroke of the pen, can restrict my civil liberties and haul people off to managed isolation, yet can't test his quarantine staff and contractors. Bernard Jennings, Wellington.
Do Aucklanders enjoy being on level 3? Viewing the news and seeing people without masks and not social distancing, it may be a long time, if that many of them fail to comply. Marie Kaire, Whangārei.
For the greater good of New Zealanders who stayed put, the borders should have been closed for all. The majority who were elsewhere were there because New Zealand was not good enough for their wallets. Nishi Fahmy, Avondale.
Those who want tourism at any cost need to invest in robotics companies. The robotic nurse with a Jacinda kindness module and a Judith eyebrow twitch for humour is the future. Until then keep them out. Steve Russell, Hillcrest.
I agree with J Gibbs (Weekend Herald, August 15) that the many small businesses in our community must be as capable as dairies in combating Covid. What sacrifices are the politicians making with their massive salaries? B Hubbard, Onehunga.
Between the extremes of the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists, and the slavish parroters of the gospel according to "Saint Jacinda", most people are simply trying to live their locked-down lives as responsibly as they can. Mike Wagg, Freemans Bay.
It wasn't long ago that for all of us, a huge concern was plastic. Well, most of the disposable masks being used today are made of polypropylene, which is – yes – plastic. Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.
Why is the Hays Creek Dam in the Hunua Ranges not connected to the supply network? I realise this is only a small dam, but surely every drop counts. Warren Wilson, Bucklands Beach.
He vowed to retire from racing a few times. A recent crash made it real.