Wellington, August 19, 2020
After over 100 days of no community transmission of Covid-19, we have cases in the community again. The Government has always been clear that this was a possibility as the pandemic has continued to surge overseas and we have had about 40,000 New Zealanders return from countries where the Virus has continued to be rampant.
Resurgence Strategy
That is why our Government has had a Covid-19 Resurgence Plan in place for some time now.
In July, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech that included a clearly outlined plan in the event of new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
She had emphasised that even countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea and Australian states like Victoria and New South Wales where the first wave of the virus was under control, saw a resurgence. She had specifically mentioned Victoria as a cautionary tale for New Zealand to learn from as their second outbreak was linked to a managed isolation facility and that the entire outbreak was seeded by just two cases.
When the first cases of Covid-19 were reported outside of a managed isolation/quarantine facility, the Prime Minster activated the government’s Resurgence Plan.
Strong health response
The Plan, once again, is to go hard and early.
A strong health response continues to be the strongest economic response, and this is now backed by domestic evidence that going hard and early when we had our first cases of community transmission of Covid-19 enabled our economy to bounce back quickly after we progressed to Alert Level One.
International evidence also clearly shows that the economic benefits of the government’s strategy to manage Covid-19 are significant. Countries that have implemented a successful lockdown generally have better economic indicators of success compared to those that have not done so.
Another Wage Subsidy
In a bid to further support businesses affected by the current move to Alert Levels Three (Auckland) and Two (the rest of New Zealand), Finance Minister Grant Robertson recently announced another extension to the wage subsidy scheme.
The criteria for the new wage subsidy are similar to the current extension.
In particular, a business must have had, or is predicting to have, a revenue drop due to Covid-19 of at least 40%. For this new scheme, the revenue drop applies for any consecutive period of at least 14 days within August 12 and September 10 compared to last year.
The new Wage Subsidy Scheme will be open for applications from Friday August 21, 2020.
Leave Support Scheme
The Leave Support scheme has also been simplified to encourage people to get tested.
This means businesses with workers who have been told by health officials or their medical practitioner to self-isolate will receive the equivalent of the wage subsidy to help cover that person’s wages for the time they cannot be at work.
Other lessons from the countries that are deemed to have dealt with the virus well include the use of technology, using alert systems to provide clear guidance to members of the public, using contact tracing apps, locking down public spaces and the routine use of masks.
We also know that a stronger Police presence during lockdown and a strong border regime are also important.
We have also learnt, from other countries, that shutting down hotspots rather than implementing a nationwide lockdown can also be successful if the community cases are regional.
The Government’s Resurgence Strategy seems to be working, but it is still early days.
Election postponed
Given the disruption that Covid-19 resurgence has caused, the Prime Minister made the call to postpone the election date, which is now on October 17, 2020.
While the decision is traditionally that of the Prime Minister, Ms Ardern contacted the Leader of every Party represented in Parliament to find out their views (that were unsurprisingly varied!).
She also canvassed the views of BusinessNZ and the Council of Trade Unions to ensure that her decision was as fair as possible.
The Prime Minister’s decision also took into account the time that the Electoral Commission needs to re-book polling venues, print materials with the new date and organise their staff (that includes about 25,000 staff members on Election Day).
The Electoral Commission has been working for some time now, to ensure that the Election can go ahead at various scenarios – that includes the country being at Alert Level two and some areas at Alert Level three.
As such, the dissolution of Parliament will happen on September 6, 2020. Advance voting will start on October 3, Election Day is on October 17 and the last day for the return of the Writ will be November 12, 2020.
Testing and Contact Tracing
Our Resurgence Plan is well underway with high levels of testing and rapid contact tracing in place.
Unlike the previous time when we had community transmission, confirmed cases currently isolate at government-managed quarantine facilities that are designed and resourced for this purpose.
Many families, especially larger families, prefer this option as it limits the spread of the virus to family members who have been tested negative.
Covid is the world’s new normal.
In New Zealand, we are all working as hard as we can to make sure that our new normal disrupts as little as possible our lives and our businesses.
As a team of five million, we have done it before, and together, we will do it again.
Priyanca Radhakrishnan is a Member of Parliament on Labour List for Maungakiekie and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic Communities.
