#nzpol
Late Feb / early March, C19 reached NZ, and we could see the way Italy was going. This was the time to pull the trigger on the advertising campaign, tell the public about levels 1-4 and what they would mean. Advise L1
20/ Mid March, if new C19 case numbers are still climbing, move whole country to L3. L4 if they
Late March / early April, new community cases should be falling, and R should be usefully below 1. Hold current level / restrictions until new community cases
1. The January brainstorming session didn't happen, or was ignored.
2. Most of the early-feb prep didn't happen, leading to the following when we started seeing C19 cases here:
a) healthline overload;
b) public uncertainty;
c) insufficient hospital capacity to cope with projected load;
d) no full border plan ready to go;
e) no quarantine capacity;
f) no extra trained staff in most pinch points;
g) near-nil test capacity, mostly flown to Australia for processing;
h) severe shortage of PPE in many areas;
i) no clear public picture of response strategy (e.g. levels).
j) no public advertising campaign until a couple of days before L4.
3. Once border restrictions implemented, it was not audited, leading to many cases of execution not matching govt direction or advise to public.
4. Once MIQ was implemented, it was not audited, leading to many cases of execution not matching govt direction / advice to public.
5. Many trivial risk surfaces at borders & MIQ were left unmanaged (e.g. mingling of guests & airport arrivals, no onsite staff with detainment powers, domestic transfers, unrestricted airline crew).
6. Many obvious defense layers were missing (e.g. health checks AND symptom
7. Quarantine was entirely urban, and mostly in Auckland - which means our biggest economic surfaces are threatened by any breach.
8. Processes were ignored without proper risk management (e.g. compassionate exemptions from quarantine)
9. Many KPIs were either not present, not watched, not understood, or ignored, and auditing was insufficient. This lead to things like:
a) no database that holds a list of NHI numbers for all border & MIQ staff.
b) many unmanaged risks that were not caught (see point 5).
c) many cases where execution didn't match govt messaging or direction (e.g. regular testing, mandatory quarantine).
d) issues that were caught, but much later than they otherwise would have been.
e) issues that were caught, but only as result of public or media attention.
10. When we reached L4, public only had a few days to get used to the alert levels, and only a couple of days notice before full L4. More panic than necessary ensued (some was inevitable though).
11. Following L4, the details of alert levels were constantly revised. Levels
12. No govt advise was provided to the public regarding what scenarios would cause NZ to move between levels, keeping businesses guessing.
13. Small business cashflow issues, especially regarding L4, weren't properly comprehended until after a lot of pressure, and only addressed a few weeks later.
14. Mistakes indicative of lack of (9) were not learned from, as proper KPI monitoring and auditing continued to be
15. Lack of layers in border defense, esp. testing, lead to the latest case not being picked up until mandatory testing was finally enforced. We got very lucky - had it occurred a couple of weeks earlier, it may well have
16. Not following up on tests lead to Americold cluster going undetected for about a week longer than it should have, and resulted in additional transmission.
17. Lack of mandatory quarantine lead to repeated household
18. Urban quarantine has likely resulted in a second, L3, lockdown of Auckland (Americold cluster is most likely to be border-origin, although not yet traced there).
19. Airline crew continue to be trusted with loose restrictions after arriving from overseas, or operating transfer flights, even with known positive cases on board.
20. Govt continues to deny that many of the risks exist, and still needs to be dragged into reacting to
21. KPIs are still not being properly monitored, auditing still isn't being done properly.