"What we're finding internationally is that countries that have control of Covid-19, like China, even if they're experiencing occasional outbreaks, have stronger economies," said Dominick Stephens, Westpac NZ's chief economist, in a video statement last Friday. "Those countries that have lost control of the virus like the United States are seeing economic forecasts constantly revised down and are weaker economically."
But there is some spirit left in NZ:
Others questioned whether New Zealand's focus on elimination was the right approach after all. "Our attempt to eliminate Covid is an obsession that will destroy us," wrote columnist Damien Grant on the country's biggest news website, Stuff.co.nz. He echoed sentiments that have been rattling around New Zealand for a while -- in their paper in July, Gluckman, Clark and Fyfe questioned whether New Zealand could afford to wait out another year or two "in almost total physical isolation."
"We were told we went hard and early and we stayed longer in lockdown the first time, those additional hard weeks, because we wanted to avoid a yo-yo back into lockdown, and here we are again," Paul Goldsmith, from the National Party, said Tuesday.
“We were told we went hard and early and we stayed longer in lockdown the first time, those additional hard weeks, because we wanted to avoid a yo-yo back into lockdown, and here we are again,” Paul Goldsmith, from the National Party, said Tuesday.
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At the core of this is the liberal hubris that you really can control everything if the right people are in charge. You can’t. Control is an illusion. You can, however, make things worse by trying to control everything.
Isn’t that spitzmaus gone yet? Do they have elections every 20 years?
Trevor Loudon!
This china virus has been a test run to see how much governments could get away with doing to their people.
The woman prime minister is a hardcore socialist and has been from her youth. A true leader learns from mistakes but this egomaniac cannot admit that rollercoaster lockdowns don’t work. The entire world lifted her up as a champion and now she is proving a fool which she does not want to admit.
She is an extremist. She will not let one more person die from the virus in NZ. In the process, she is costing her nation’s people $440 million in economic damage PER WEEK.
New Zealand will be riding a rollercoaster of continual lockdowns way into the future if new leadership is not elected in the country. She cannot face the truth her approach is too extreme, yet ineffective.
They say her popularity is high but the 5 million citizens there will get tired of her failures in the near future and want to tar and feather her for destroying their futures.
New Zealand will be a future case study in leadership failure and will be compared unfavorably with Sweden for years to come.
Like the obsessed lunatic Captain Ahab pursuing the white whale, Moby Dick, Ardern will be seen historically as a rabid extremist not worthy of citizen support.
Jacinda Ardern is a tyrant. But New Zealand deserves her.
Covid-19 is endemic.
Everyone is going to be exposed.
If we had a chance to stop it, that chance was lost last November.