Blame game not needed in Covid battle

COVID-19 has once more seeped its way through New Zealand’s border security stations and into the general population.

How widespread the disease is remains to be seen, but with multiple cases in Auckland and cases now discovered in the Waikato, there is genuine fear that the dark days of Alert Level 4 may return.

Disease-modelling graphs not referred to for some weeks suggest that if there are some dozens of cases New Zealand will be "lucky" — depending on how long community transmission has been going on undetected, there may be many, many more.

The complacency engendered by 100+ days when the country believed there was no community transmission in New Zealand is well and truly shattered, and hundreds are queuing daily to receive Covid-19 tests which they had deemed unnecessary days before.

Quite where the index case which sparked this latest panic originated will take some time to track down, but the lengthy absence of the disease at large suggests it will inevitably be due to a returning New Zealander transmitting it to a close contact.

This would almost certainly not have been a deliberate act, and Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield is right to say people should not be blamed for unwittingly having caught a disease.

Even worse is news that health staff have been abused by people waiting for tests.

Frustration and heightened emotions are acceptable, taking it out on people who are trying to do a stressful job in trying circumstances for the benefit of the entire country are not.

Questions about border security will need to be answered very quickly — not to find a guilty party, but to ensure there is no repetition or reinforcement of this outbreak.

Some incredulity has been expressed at the fact workers at borders were not being regularly tested for Covid-19.

The Government is in a tricky legal position here; while the measure seems sensible and arguably necessary, there are very few situations when it can force people to undergo a medical procedure.

At the very least though, for the worker’s safety as much as that of the wider public, further testing should be done and Health Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday said it would be — be those people Customs officers, bus drivers, cleaners or medical staff.

Testing has also been, appropriately, widened to staff having anything to do with mandatory isolation or quarantine facilities.

Many of those tests are now completed, but for many this will smack of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

There will be legitimate questions asked as to whether these measures should already have been in place beforehand.

Those should be direct, fact-based questions, rather than the conspiratorial, "you should ask about that" piffle which National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee has indulged himself with in recent days.

Enough disinformation about Covid-19 is already in wide circulation without someone who has held high Cabinet rank and should know far better adding to people’s fears.

The inference that some have chosen to take, that the Government somehow wanted the current health crisis to occur for political gain, is baseless and senseless. For a start, if that were true the Government would deservedly be voted right out for playing politics with people’s lives — both in a health sense and an economic sense.

Secondly, the fact Covid-19 is back in the community will likely entail considerable political harm for the Government: if the slip which has let the disease back into the community can be laid at its door there will almost certainly be a loss of faith which could have electoral consequences.

For now, the Opposition is best placed holding the Government to account by asking pointed fact-based, entirely legitimate questions about its border security measures and the efficacy of its current health response.

The Government’s job is to fix this situation, and put measures in place which will hopefully prevent a repetition.