Jacinda Ardern’s Labor Party-Greens coalition government last Friday ended what remained of the lockdown in Auckland, allowing all remaining businesses and public places to reopen. This follows decisions taken in recent weeks to reopen schools and retail businesses in New Zealand’s largest city, which is at the center of the worsening COVID-19 epidemic in the country.
On December 15, the government will lift the border around Auckland, allowing people to travel to and from the city with a vaccine certificate or negative test result.
There are now 6,375 active cases, down from less than 300 in September. Nearly 6,000 are in Auckland and the virus has also spread to 10 other regions. In Waikato, there are 261 active cases; in the Bay of Abondance, 55; Northland, 27; Rotorua / Taupo, 10; Nelson, 20; and smaller numbers in Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Whanganui, Midcentral and Christchurch.
In October, the government abandoned its elimination strategy, which had kept the country largely free from COVID-19 and reduced deaths to just 26 before the outbreak of the Delta variant began in August. Since then, the virus has killed 18 other people.
Corporate media widely celebrated the reopening of Auckland businesses, with many outlets on Friday declaring ‘Freedom Day’, the phrase used by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to promote his government’s barbaric policy of suppressing all public health restrictions and to allow COVID-19 to spread unhindered.
Government ministers said the Delta variant will spread across the country, which has been moved under a new COVID-19 protective framework called the “traffic light” system. Auckland and some other parts of the North Island are in “red” and the rest of the country in “orange”, but the settings are similar. At “red”, gatherings are limited to 100 people, while both levels require a mask, social distancing and proof of vaccination to enter workplaces and workplaces.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told Radio NZ on Friday that the government would only consider imposing “localized” lockdowns if there was “a really big enough outbreak”, without explaining why he meant. The government has just shown that it is ready to end a lockdown with thousands of cases in the community.
The Labor government has not changed any of its plans in response to the emergence of the new, even more transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19. Omicron, first identified last month in South Africa, has spread to dozens of countries, including Australia, which borders New Zealand. From January 17, vaccinated New Zealanders will be able to return home from Australia without the need to stay in a hotel managed by isolation and quarantine (MIQ). The government intends to reopen the border to tourism from next May.
On TVNZ Sunday, Hipkins was asked if the government would “exercise caution and put New Zealand back on lockdown” if Omicron is discovered in the community. The minister declined to answer, calling it a “hypothetical question”.
Ardern told Newshub last week the new variant was “maybe more serious, maybe softer,” and insisted the government was “cautious.” In fact, dropping elimination and removing restrictions will allow Delta, and any other variant, to spread quickly.
University of Otago epidemiologist Dr Amanda Kvalsvig told the Science Media Center last week that the “traffic light” system was “significantly undernourished for meaningful prevention of Covid-19 outbreaks.” She said that “the system is very dependent on vaccination. This is concerning because, as we have seen repeatedly in other countries, vaccination alone is not enough to stop epidemics when there are cases in the community.
Nationally, 74 percent of the population is vaccinated, representing 88 percent of those eligible. That leaves over a million people unvaccinated.
In an article for Writing On Sunday, Dr Kvalsvig and his fellow Otago epidemiologists Michael Baker and Nick Wilson wrote: “We should not assume that a state of endemicity is inevitable, enduring or desirable. They highlighted the clear success of the science-based elimination strategy adopted by New Zealand in the first year of the pandemic, and said that this “appears to be the optimal health (and possibly economic) response to a new emerging pandemic disease with the severity of Covid-19. ”
Yet government policy is precisely that COVID-19 will spread nationwide, which, if not reversed, will make the virus endemic, with ongoing deaths and serious illness.
Speaking to Radio NZ, microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles urged Aucklanders not to leave the city during the summer, in order to prevent the virus from spreading to places with low vaccination rates, such as Northland , parts of Waikato and Tairawhiti. She warned that “depending on where the virus is spreading, we could see a massive increase in cases and hospitalizations.”
Professor Baker also warned on TVNZ that if Aucklanders visited unvaccinated people across the country “it could be a real disaster.”
Children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination and can easily contract and transmit the virus. The Education Department revealed on December 2 that it was aware of 75 schools and 56 preschool learning centers in Auckland that had cases of COVID-19 among students or staff between August and December 1. Many affected schools have not been publicly identified and the ministry told the New Zealand Herald the count was not exhaustive.
A number of schools outside of Auckland, in Waikato, Bay of Plenty, New Plymouth and Nelson, have also reported cases in recent weeks. In many cases, they are advised to stay open, and the ministry says schools with positive cases are unlikely to close under the “traffic light” system.
The reopening took place with the full collaboration of the union bureaucracy, including the teachers’ unions, which transmit and implement the instructions of the Ministry of Education.
Unite union leader John Crocker said in a statement that workers in the hospitality industry could face “exposure to COVID” and “assault” from people who refuse to comply the rules regarding vaccine passes. But Unite has not called on workers to strike against the dangerous back-to-work policy in a city of thousands of infected people. Instead, Crocker said Thing the government should consider an “increased police presence” around companies if they are targeted by anti-vaccines.
Meanwhile, big business is increasingly asking the government to speed up the lifting of restrictions. New National Opposition Party leader Christopher Luxon said on Friday the companies “still operate under huge restrictions” and Auckland should already be in the “green” framework. This would remove physical distancing and face mask requirements on public transport, and place no restrictions on businesses and gatherings for vaccinated people and unvaccinated children.
