Far out... the #nz govt #covid19nz response over the last two weeks is depressingly terrible. It's clearly turned into a politically-driven strategy now that is at odds with the best health outcomes. The messaging has stopped making sense and is contradictory. 1/n
The government is now avoiding answering basic questions like who is advising them, why they are ignoring public health experts, what modelling they are using, what sort of case numbers, hospitalisation numbers should we expect, whether Level 3 is likely for long term. 2/n
A few weeks ago govt said: 80-85% of 12+ fully vax'd could result in 4-7k deaths and 2.5 - 5.7k peak in hosp. Yet that is the exact scenario we face given with R1.2 now and it likely to be over a month before double vax rate reaches 80%. Now it's "we use a range of models". 3/n
We came out of Level 4 with health "confident" they had the outbreak fenced. Instead of revisiting L4 when it turned out we had unknown clusters the govt have "ruled it out", to a chorus of "why not" from the media today showing the questionable nature of this. 4/n
Reason given for no L4 is social compliance yet evidence shows we *were* compliant & supported lockdown strategy. Apple/Google movement data. Polls. Exposure events from cases. But no, the govt admit bowing to pressure from 'the media', and 'the opposition' --> L3. 5/n
L3 requires compliance too. And extended L3 for AKL and anywhere the leaky border seeds is what we face if evidence from NSW, Victoria and Singapore is anything to go by. They are all struggling to prevent overwhelming health system even in ~L3. 6/n
We are so close to vax availability for 5-12, second gen vaccines with better sterilising immunity, and still in early stages of understanding long-term implications of COVID. Yet we are removing tools before having others (vax mandates, rapid ag) in place. 7/n
Despite govt narrative, it feels like we have given up. Won't take many weeks of R1.2 before contact tracing is pointless exercise. Govt doing their best to avoid being the ones to say how bad it is likely to get. "Do your own maths", @chrishipkins says. 8/n
Why are we not doing more to buy time to allow vax's reduction in transmission to help us stamp out this outbreak? It might be possible at 80% and low case numbers. It's not going to be possible even at 80% if we have 000s of cases. 9/n
Why is the govt's response more and more at odds with expert commentary from those in public health, hospitals, modelling? Why are we apparently resigning ourselves to foreseeable future Level 2 in the South Island instead of hard border? 10/n
Our original response was excellent, science-driven, clear rules, concise communications, had a quickly apparent target (zero). This time? Unclear. Unprepared. No target in sight. New announcements out of the blue surprising everyone. Narrative constantly changing. 11/n
It's depressing and leaves me with little faith. I've gone from strong support to strong disillusion with response in the space of ~2 weeks. Worst I've felt about COVID since before the original outbreak. Get your damn act together #nzgovt. </rant> 12/12
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