March 24, 2025 • 20 mins
At 11:59pm on March 25th 2020, New Zealand entered its first level four Covid –19 lockdown.
To many, that moment may feel like it happened just yesterday, while others are glad its firmly in the past.
Whatever your feelings are about New Zealand’s response to the Covid pandemic, that first lockdown was a life altering event for many of us.
Five years on, did it change us for the better, or did it kickstart something else entirely?
University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker became a household name overnight for his commentary during the pandemic.
He joins us today on The Front Page to look back on the start of the pandemic, and forwards towards the next one.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hielda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. At eleven
fifty nine pm on March twenty fifth, twenty twenty, New
Zealand entered its first Level four COVID nineteen lockdown. To many,
(00:27):
that moment may feel like it happened just yesterday, while
others are glad it's firmly in the past. Whatever your
feelings are about New Zealand's response to the COVID pandemic,
that first lockdown was a life altering event for many
of us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Five years on.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Did it change us for the better? Or did it
kickstart something else?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Entirely?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker became a household name
overnight for his commentary during the pandemic. He joins us
today on the Front Page to look back at the
start of the pandemic and forward towards potentially the next one. So, Michael,
(01:11):
it's been five years since the first lockdown started.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Can you believe it's been that long?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Some days it seems longer, some days it seems like yesterday.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I mean, I feel like I know what your answer
will be already. But do you think that a call
for a nationwide lockdown was the right one?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes. But one of the things about lockdown is that
the term is used very differently if you're trying to
stamp out the virus, if you're going for elimination, versus
how the term was used in most countries that were
not trying to get rid of the virus. They were
just suppressing it to stop it overwhelming the system. And
(01:49):
that's how old influenza plan, which is about flattening the
curve and trying not to overwhelm the health system, it
took I think a radical approach and said we want
to get rid of the virus entirely. And that is
a very different use of lockdown because it's for a
much shorter period. I think with lockdowns we've got a
real problem with the terminology and that in much of
(02:11):
the world they were used to flatten the curve, and
that's the old approach to influenza in our pandemic plan,
whereas in New Zealand we had a much more radical approach,
which was to eliminate the virus entirely. We went alone.
I mean China had led the way and then countries
like Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and actually quite a few countries
(02:31):
in Southeast Asia adopted the same approach and in that
situation using lockdowns hopefully for a short period of time
to stamp out the virus and then you can go
back to life as usual.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Do you think if we had our time again, we
would take the same approach.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I think so, and for good reason. I mean, we've
had the raw Commission of Inquiry into the COVID response
that produced a very large, comprehensive report that was released
in November last year, and they concluded that this was
the optimal approach. We've also done a lot of research
on this, comparing countries that took elimination approaches with those
(03:06):
that use suppression and mitigation, which is a reduced level
of control, and the outcomes were so much better for
countries that took elimination. I think it should be the
default choice in future. Ever pandemic has sufficient severity, and
we're talking about with COVID nineteen a case fatality risk
of getting up towards one percent. Initially before we had vaccines,
(03:29):
and if you think back to nineteen well none of
us can think back to nineteen eighteen. But we can
look at that pandemic, which was the worst natural disaster
in our history, and that flu pandemic came through and
it killed about one percent of the useualm population in
just six weeks, So that was about nine thousand people died,
and so we know that that level of impact is
(03:51):
totally unacceptable. So if we had a pandemic that was
coming at us that we thought might be as severe
as that, I think everyone would want us to share
our borders until we knew what we were dealing with
and can work out how to manage it. So I
think that's a huge lesson we have learned, and I
think it's now going to be built into I think
our pandemic planning.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
The one PM press conferences, they were such a key
part of daily life for close to two years for
the majority of the country. It was the only way
of knowing how many cases there were on any given day.
Now most of us wouldn't have a clue how many
cases there were last week, or deaths or hospitalizations or
anything like that. So where are things at currently with COVID? Michael,
(04:33):
How serious is of a threat is it?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, we've recently looked at the last five years and
we're COVID as now and it's still our most important
single infectures to these I mean, last year it put
nine thousand people in hospital, it killed around six hundred
and sixty people, and also it caused a large number
of cases long COVID. We think somewhere around six to
(04:57):
seven percent of the population and now living with longe COVID,
which has a huge economic cost, perhaps around two billion
dollars a year. So it's certainly a major health problem.
But of course people don't want to think about it.
They want to imagine they've moved on from COVID, and
many ways we have. We don't need an emergency response,
of course to COVID nineteen, but we still need to
(05:18):
prevent it and manage it.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Over the past few weeks, the world has changed, and
it has changed very quickly. In February, it would have
seemed unimaginable to close New Zealand's borders to the world,
and now it has been an obvious step as we
fight COVID nineteen. This is because we are experiencing an
(05:43):
unprecedented event, a global pandemic that in New Zealand we
have moved to fight by going hard and going early.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Five years on social distancing. My q QR codes everywhere
you go, vaccine mandates, rushing to buy toilet paper, and
hunting for teddy bears all feels.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Just like relics.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, If people have adopted any lessons from that time
in lockdown, what would you hope those were?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, one of the big lessons is around how viruses
get transmitted, and prior to COVID, I think the conventional
wisdom was they were transmitted in droplets which have a
range of up to about two meters, or from touching
surfaces contaminating them. That's called fomite transmission. And the thing
we learned from COVID nineteen is something we should have
(06:39):
known for a long time, is that actually aerosols are
really important. These these very fine droplet nuclei that we
breathe out and cough out, and they can linger in
the air for long periods, and they can also waft
over great distances. And one of the benefits of the
really good science that we had during this period was
(07:01):
it just identified the fact that this was really important.
So this means designing our indoor environments differently improving ventilation,
thinking more about controlling infictions and hospitals and wearing masks
and situations where the ventilation is very poor, like public transport.
So I think it's one of the main lessons at
the medical or epidemiological level. I think another one, of course,
(07:25):
is just how effective vaccines can be. I mean, they
really did transform the environment once we could vaccinate, and
unfortunately we were able to vaccinate at a high level before
we got infected with this virus, and that gave us
extremely low mortality from this infection compared with most countries.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
The first part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into
COVID came out last December, and I'll read out one
quote from it to you. Contentious public health measures like
vaccine mandates wore away at what had initially been a
united wall of public support for the pandemic response.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Would you agree with that.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think that there was some overuse of mandates, and
I think they were well intentioned. One of the effects
of putting pressure on people we'd some people would say
nudging them to get vaccinated, but in fact it was
stronger than a nudge, was that we did achieve very
high vaccine coverage, but I think we did pay a
price in terms of cohesion and trust in what we
(08:24):
were doing, and I think I hope that we would
do things differently next time, if there was a next time,
which is very likely.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
When did you first notice the mood starting to turn?
Because we were so united there for probably the first
year of this and then things really started to shift.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Hey, yes, So I think midway through year two there
were a whole lot of pressures building up. I mean,
there were pressures around obviously vaccination, but I think one
of the other pressures was just New Zealanders wanted to
return to New Zealand more easily, and we realized that
the quarantine system was absolutely capacity. It couldn't take any
(09:00):
more people. So that created rationing and I think quite
a bit of ill will towards the response. So that's
the problem. And I think one of the great difficulties
with elimination is exiting for this strategy, because it is
quite binary. You know, you've got no transmission or you've
got ongoing transmission. You know, there isn't really a middle ground,
(09:22):
and I think that was a difficulty and you could
see by the end of year two we had reached
a really critical point and obviously it progressed to the
parliamentary occupation and very visible protests. So that was the
very difficult time for the government working on this exit strategy.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Now, just from doing this episode and speaking with you, Michael,
I know that I'm going to receive emails about this.
People are still angry about COVID. There are it's misinformation
disinformation online. Still how much do you get even five
years on now, Well it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Has decreased a lot, But basically every time I write
something or are on COVID or talk to the media
or talk about vaccination, I will get very unpleasant emails.
And there are still people. Most of the people I meet,
you know, out socially are very positive about New Zealm response,
and I think, thank me and others who contributed to that.
(10:30):
But then you occasionally meet someone who is mainly about
vaccination who is very verbally abusive and unpleasant. You know.
I've had a few encounters where I felt physically threatened,
but I haven't been assaulted, And I think that overall
the level of risk is actually much higher for other
groups who have to interact with the public during this period.
(10:51):
I think journalists I know did get assaulted, politicians got assaulted,
and I think frontline staffs, police and people were emergency departments.
So I think it has been very negative, some of
the disinformation and attacks. But I've got quite used to
them now, and I know in many ways it's not
really personal. It's just that people are getting so bombarded
(11:14):
with so much disinformation now, I think they are quite confused.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think people in your position probably hoped that the
pandemic would have united US and prepared us for the
next one. But instead we've got the likes of the
USA and other countries pulling out of the World Health Organization.
We've got that dis and misinformation being baked into public policy.
A lot of young people seem to be quite affected
by the pandemic, interfering with their.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Childhoods as well.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
If Christopher Luxen got a call next month telling them that,
you know, bird flu cases is skyrocketing and we need
to go into a lockdown again, you'd have to agree
that the public sentiment and support that was present five
years ago simply isn't there anymore.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well, I think it's decreased. The surveys that we have
done and also read about show that there's still a
high level of trust, and scientists and health professionals also
that most people supported the museum response. That's the elimination strategy.
So if we get it right, if there are future
(12:12):
pandemics of this scale or larger, there should be much
more reliance on rapid productive measures like closing borders and
switching to quarantine. And the good thing, or one of
the good things about those measures is they mean that
life in museum would carry on more or less as
it did during the good phases of the pandemic response.
That is that you could still have people attending mass
(12:35):
sporting events and going about their lives. And after all,
domestic tourism is always a larger contribution to our economy
than overseas tourism, so we can actually get by quite
well if we have to do that that response. Now,
I think lockdowns are a different measure. They do require
a lot of public support to work, and many of
(12:55):
us would say we need to actually use other approaches
much more. And one of the most effective ways is
it still requires public engagement, is mask use. And the
evidence and I've been involved in some very large international
reviews that show masks are highly effective. They can stop
any virus, and while you're waiting for a vaccine that
for fluid might take six months before it arrives. Masks
(13:20):
are very effective if we get local outbreaks, for instance,
if our border controls don't work. So I'm optimistic. We've
got a lot of good tools and really lockdowns should
be a last resort, but certainly if you had a
very severe outbreak that was spreading across the country, you'd
need to look at something like that.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
A few thousand anti lockdown protesters have gathered in the
Auckland domain for the third time since the Delta outbreak began.
It's been called Freedom Day and is being led by
Destiny Church leader Brian Tomicki. The card have also marched
through a new market and farmers have also joined. They've
set up some vegetable stands in front of tractors with
some signs reading no farms, no food. Although organizers have
(14:06):
encouraged it, little masks are being worn, nor is social
distancing being observed, and there is a strong police presence.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
What's the likelihood of us seeing another COVID level pandemic
in our lifetimes?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Well, there have been several modeling efforts that have looked
at this level of risk understandably, and the risk is rising.
And currently the estimate is around twenty percent of seeing
another COVID magnitude pandemic within the next ten years, so
it's maybe around two to three percent a year. That's
the risk. And it's like earthquakes. You can look at
(14:43):
the overall level of risk, but it doesn't tell you
exactly when and where it will happen. I mean, if
it did, that would be fantastic, but modeling can't do that.
It can just look at an average level of risk,
and that risk is rising, and it's for a number
of reasons. Partly just that a massive humanity our contact
with animal reservoirs that might be the source of the
(15:05):
next pandemic agent. But actually my biggest worry now is
for engineered pathogens. And we have a growing list of
laboratories it's now approaching a thousand across the globe that
are called a level four lab and they have the
ability to work on very dangerous pathogens, and of course
a lot of them as farther know, all of them
are doing this for the right reasons, to plan better
(15:28):
defenses for pathogens, better anti virals, and so on. But
we have the technology to edit genomes now and alter pathogens.
And the worry is that this can happen if people
are radicalized or have personality disorders, and there are still
bad actors who may be doing things that are not
known these at a state level. So I think that
(15:50):
is an increasing concern for the future that I think
raises the risk level several degrees.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And I mentioned before about bird flu or the H
five and one virus. Now that's been spreading over the
last year globally, but notably in the US. So, Michael,
how can we go about making people pay attention again
and prepare or even be interested in another pandemic threat.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
One of the best things we can do now is
to actually get people used to using basic measures with
the winter peak of respiratory and fictions we get every year,
particularly influenza, which is still Before COVID nineteen it was
our number one infectures disease killer and it's still a
very significant virus. So, for example, we could introduce measures
(16:38):
such as encouraging people to wear masks on public transport
when we're in the middle of the flu season every
year as a protective measure that would get us used
to the fact that that masks are actually quite comfortable
once you're used to using them. And these are the
N ninety five masks that actually filter out small particles.
(16:58):
It's not the the basic surgical masks. So that's one
thing we can do. We need to get much better
at infection control in our healthcare system. There's some evidence
that about fifteen percent of COVID deaths in Australia, for instance,
came from transmission and hospitals, and we have many reports
in New Zealand, but we're not even counting these cases here.
(17:20):
This is people who are very vulnerable, they earned hospital
for some reason, and then someone else gives them COVID
in that environment, and we really should be stopping this.
So these are practical ways of getting better at infection control.
The other area, of course, is vaccination. We obviously have
We're not hearing much about COVID vaccine, but it's still
(17:40):
very good at protecting us from serious illness. And also
one of its big benefits is reducing the risk of
long COVID and that's why I think we should lower
the age of eligibility for boosters down to eighteen, because
currently it's at thirty and that's different from other countries
like Australia, so that all these things we can be
doing now. I think we just need to have this
(18:03):
public communication about these respiratory infections and the fact that
we don't have to put up with them. There are
things we can do and all of that better understanding
would mean we're much better able to respond to future
pandemics that will probably be other respiratory infections. And at
the moment we're not really seeing this conversation happening. But
(18:24):
if you look at Asian countries which went through the
original SARS and then now COVID, they are a mass
wearing societies and public transport and so on, and of
course it's one of the things you really see is
quite striking when you go to those countries, and it
meant that places like Japan South Korea avoided largely avoided
(18:44):
lockdowns and they did have border management, but not the
intensity of New Zealand, so that seemed to have been
one of the big benefits for those societies. But one
of the other areas that I think is so important
is to have a strong voice for public health in
New Zealand, just to keep reminding us that we can
(19:04):
make our populations healthier and safer and give people longer
lives without suffering from some of these avoidable threats. And
I'm quite concerned at the moment that we're seeing this
as some effor it's to muzzle the voice of public
health in New Zealand. I think this is sending a
chilling effect through the system. So some of the voices
in New Zealand I can no longer speak out on
(19:27):
public health concerns, particularly the local medical officers of health,
and I think it's a missed opportunity because the best
way to really get people prepared for these future threats
is to keep them in the public eye, and so
I think it's a negative step to actually reduce the
public discussion about public health concerns. So I hope that's
(19:48):
something we can learn from our experience with the pandemic
and the period since that we need to have. We
need to encourage these voices in these conversations.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Thanks for joining us, Michael.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Great to talk. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
a sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
Hielda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. At eleven
fifty nine pm on March twenty fifth, twenty twenty, New
Zealand entered its first Level four COVID nineteen lockdown. To many,
(00:27):
that moment may feel like it happened just yesterday, while
others are glad it's firmly in the past. Whatever your
feelings are about New Zealand's response to the COVID pandemic,
that first lockdown was a life altering event for many
of us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Five years on.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Did it change us for the better? Or did it
kickstart something else?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Entirely?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker became a household name
overnight for his commentary during the pandemic. He joins us
today on the Front Page to look back at the
start of the pandemic and forward towards potentially the next one. So, Michael,
(01:11):
it's been five years since the first lockdown started.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Can you believe it's been that long?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Some days it seems longer, some days it seems like yesterday.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I mean, I feel like I know what your answer
will be already. But do you think that a call
for a nationwide lockdown was the right one?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes. But one of the things about lockdown is that
the term is used very differently if you're trying to
stamp out the virus, if you're going for elimination, versus
how the term was used in most countries that were
not trying to get rid of the virus. They were
just suppressing it to stop it overwhelming the system. And
(01:49):
that's how old influenza plan, which is about flattening the
curve and trying not to overwhelm the health system, it
took I think a radical approach and said we want
to get rid of the virus entirely. And that is
a very different use of lockdown because it's for a
much shorter period. I think with lockdowns we've got a
real problem with the terminology and that in much of
(02:11):
the world they were used to flatten the curve, and
that's the old approach to influenza in our pandemic plan,
whereas in New Zealand we had a much more radical approach,
which was to eliminate the virus entirely. We went alone.
I mean China had led the way and then countries
like Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and actually quite a few countries
(02:31):
in Southeast Asia adopted the same approach and in that
situation using lockdowns hopefully for a short period of time
to stamp out the virus and then you can go
back to life as usual.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Do you think if we had our time again, we
would take the same approach.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I think so, and for good reason. I mean, we've
had the raw Commission of Inquiry into the COVID response
that produced a very large, comprehensive report that was released
in November last year, and they concluded that this was
the optimal approach. We've also done a lot of research
on this, comparing countries that took elimination approaches with those
(03:06):
that use suppression and mitigation, which is a reduced level
of control, and the outcomes were so much better for
countries that took elimination. I think it should be the
default choice in future. Ever pandemic has sufficient severity, and
we're talking about with COVID nineteen a case fatality risk
of getting up towards one percent. Initially before we had vaccines,
(03:29):
and if you think back to nineteen well none of
us can think back to nineteen eighteen. But we can
look at that pandemic, which was the worst natural disaster
in our history, and that flu pandemic came through and
it killed about one percent of the useualm population in
just six weeks, So that was about nine thousand people died,
and so we know that that level of impact is
(03:51):
totally unacceptable. So if we had a pandemic that was
coming at us that we thought might be as severe
as that, I think everyone would want us to share
our borders until we knew what we were dealing with
and can work out how to manage it. So I
think that's a huge lesson we have learned, and I
think it's now going to be built into I think
our pandemic planning.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
The one PM press conferences, they were such a key
part of daily life for close to two years for
the majority of the country. It was the only way
of knowing how many cases there were on any given day.
Now most of us wouldn't have a clue how many
cases there were last week, or deaths or hospitalizations or
anything like that. So where are things at currently with COVID? Michael,
(04:33):
How serious is of a threat is it?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, we've recently looked at the last five years and
we're COVID as now and it's still our most important
single infectures to these I mean, last year it put
nine thousand people in hospital, it killed around six hundred
and sixty people, and also it caused a large number
of cases long COVID. We think somewhere around six to
(04:57):
seven percent of the population and now living with longe COVID,
which has a huge economic cost, perhaps around two billion
dollars a year. So it's certainly a major health problem.
But of course people don't want to think about it.
They want to imagine they've moved on from COVID, and
many ways we have. We don't need an emergency response,
of course to COVID nineteen, but we still need to
(05:18):
prevent it and manage it.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Over the past few weeks, the world has changed, and
it has changed very quickly. In February, it would have
seemed unimaginable to close New Zealand's borders to the world,
and now it has been an obvious step as we
fight COVID nineteen. This is because we are experiencing an
(05:43):
unprecedented event, a global pandemic that in New Zealand we
have moved to fight by going hard and going early.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Five years on social distancing. My q QR codes everywhere
you go, vaccine mandates, rushing to buy toilet paper, and
hunting for teddy bears all feels.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Just like relics.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, If people have adopted any lessons from that time
in lockdown, what would you hope those were?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, one of the big lessons is around how viruses
get transmitted, and prior to COVID, I think the conventional
wisdom was they were transmitted in droplets which have a
range of up to about two meters, or from touching
surfaces contaminating them. That's called fomite transmission. And the thing
we learned from COVID nineteen is something we should have
(06:39):
known for a long time, is that actually aerosols are
really important. These these very fine droplet nuclei that we
breathe out and cough out, and they can linger in
the air for long periods, and they can also waft
over great distances. And one of the benefits of the
really good science that we had during this period was
(07:01):
it just identified the fact that this was really important.
So this means designing our indoor environments differently improving ventilation,
thinking more about controlling infictions and hospitals and wearing masks
and situations where the ventilation is very poor, like public transport.
So I think it's one of the main lessons at
the medical or epidemiological level. I think another one, of course,
(07:25):
is just how effective vaccines can be. I mean, they
really did transform the environment once we could vaccinate, and
unfortunately we were able to vaccinate at a high level before
we got infected with this virus, and that gave us
extremely low mortality from this infection compared with most countries.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
The first part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into
COVID came out last December, and I'll read out one
quote from it to you. Contentious public health measures like
vaccine mandates wore away at what had initially been a
united wall of public support for the pandemic response.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Would you agree with that.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think that there was some overuse of mandates, and
I think they were well intentioned. One of the effects
of putting pressure on people we'd some people would say
nudging them to get vaccinated, but in fact it was
stronger than a nudge, was that we did achieve very
high vaccine coverage, but I think we did pay a
price in terms of cohesion and trust in what we
(08:24):
were doing, and I think I hope that we would
do things differently next time, if there was a next time,
which is very likely.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
When did you first notice the mood starting to turn?
Because we were so united there for probably the first
year of this and then things really started to shift.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Hey, yes, So I think midway through year two there
were a whole lot of pressures building up. I mean,
there were pressures around obviously vaccination, but I think one
of the other pressures was just New Zealanders wanted to
return to New Zealand more easily, and we realized that
the quarantine system was absolutely capacity. It couldn't take any
(09:00):
more people. So that created rationing and I think quite
a bit of ill will towards the response. So that's
the problem. And I think one of the great difficulties
with elimination is exiting for this strategy, because it is
quite binary. You know, you've got no transmission or you've
got ongoing transmission. You know, there isn't really a middle ground,
(09:22):
and I think that was a difficulty and you could
see by the end of year two we had reached
a really critical point and obviously it progressed to the
parliamentary occupation and very visible protests. So that was the
very difficult time for the government working on this exit strategy.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Now, just from doing this episode and speaking with you, Michael,
I know that I'm going to receive emails about this.
People are still angry about COVID. There are it's misinformation
disinformation online. Still how much do you get even five
years on now, Well it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Has decreased a lot, But basically every time I write
something or are on COVID or talk to the media
or talk about vaccination, I will get very unpleasant emails.
And there are still people. Most of the people I meet,
you know, out socially are very positive about New Zealm response,
and I think, thank me and others who contributed to that.
(10:30):
But then you occasionally meet someone who is mainly about
vaccination who is very verbally abusive and unpleasant. You know.
I've had a few encounters where I felt physically threatened,
but I haven't been assaulted, And I think that overall
the level of risk is actually much higher for other
groups who have to interact with the public during this period.
(10:51):
I think journalists I know did get assaulted, politicians got assaulted,
and I think frontline staffs, police and people were emergency departments.
So I think it has been very negative, some of
the disinformation and attacks. But I've got quite used to
them now, and I know in many ways it's not
really personal. It's just that people are getting so bombarded
(11:14):
with so much disinformation now, I think they are quite confused.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I think people in your position probably hoped that the
pandemic would have united US and prepared us for the
next one. But instead we've got the likes of the
USA and other countries pulling out of the World Health Organization.
We've got that dis and misinformation being baked into public policy.
A lot of young people seem to be quite affected
by the pandemic, interfering with their.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Childhoods as well.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
If Christopher Luxen got a call next month telling them that,
you know, bird flu cases is skyrocketing and we need
to go into a lockdown again, you'd have to agree
that the public sentiment and support that was present five
years ago simply isn't there anymore.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well, I think it's decreased. The surveys that we have
done and also read about show that there's still a
high level of trust, and scientists and health professionals also
that most people supported the museum response. That's the elimination strategy.
So if we get it right, if there are future
(12:12):
pandemics of this scale or larger, there should be much
more reliance on rapid productive measures like closing borders and
switching to quarantine. And the good thing, or one of
the good things about those measures is they mean that
life in museum would carry on more or less as
it did during the good phases of the pandemic response.
That is that you could still have people attending mass
(12:35):
sporting events and going about their lives. And after all,
domestic tourism is always a larger contribution to our economy
than overseas tourism, so we can actually get by quite
well if we have to do that that response. Now,
I think lockdowns are a different measure. They do require
a lot of public support to work, and many of
(12:55):
us would say we need to actually use other approaches
much more. And one of the most effective ways is
it still requires public engagement, is mask use. And the
evidence and I've been involved in some very large international
reviews that show masks are highly effective. They can stop
any virus, and while you're waiting for a vaccine that
for fluid might take six months before it arrives. Masks
(13:20):
are very effective if we get local outbreaks, for instance,
if our border controls don't work. So I'm optimistic. We've
got a lot of good tools and really lockdowns should
be a last resort, but certainly if you had a
very severe outbreak that was spreading across the country, you'd
need to look at something like that.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
A few thousand anti lockdown protesters have gathered in the
Auckland domain for the third time since the Delta outbreak began.
It's been called Freedom Day and is being led by
Destiny Church leader Brian Tomicki. The card have also marched
through a new market and farmers have also joined. They've
set up some vegetable stands in front of tractors with
some signs reading no farms, no food. Although organizers have
(14:06):
encouraged it, little masks are being worn, nor is social
distancing being observed, and there is a strong police presence.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
What's the likelihood of us seeing another COVID level pandemic
in our lifetimes?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Well, there have been several modeling efforts that have looked
at this level of risk understandably, and the risk is rising.
And currently the estimate is around twenty percent of seeing
another COVID magnitude pandemic within the next ten years, so
it's maybe around two to three percent a year. That's
the risk. And it's like earthquakes. You can look at
(14:43):
the overall level of risk, but it doesn't tell you
exactly when and where it will happen. I mean, if
it did, that would be fantastic, but modeling can't do that.
It can just look at an average level of risk,
and that risk is rising, and it's for a number
of reasons. Partly just that a massive humanity our contact
with animal reservoirs that might be the source of the
(15:05):
next pandemic agent. But actually my biggest worry now is
for engineered pathogens. And we have a growing list of
laboratories it's now approaching a thousand across the globe that
are called a level four lab and they have the
ability to work on very dangerous pathogens, and of course
a lot of them as farther know, all of them
are doing this for the right reasons, to plan better
(15:28):
defenses for pathogens, better anti virals, and so on. But
we have the technology to edit genomes now and alter pathogens.
And the worry is that this can happen if people
are radicalized or have personality disorders, and there are still
bad actors who may be doing things that are not
known these at a state level. So I think that
(15:50):
is an increasing concern for the future that I think
raises the risk level several degrees.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And I mentioned before about bird flu or the H
five and one virus. Now that's been spreading over the
last year globally, but notably in the US. So, Michael,
how can we go about making people pay attention again
and prepare or even be interested in another pandemic threat.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
One of the best things we can do now is
to actually get people used to using basic measures with
the winter peak of respiratory and fictions we get every year,
particularly influenza, which is still Before COVID nineteen it was
our number one infectures disease killer and it's still a
very significant virus. So, for example, we could introduce measures
(16:38):
such as encouraging people to wear masks on public transport
when we're in the middle of the flu season every
year as a protective measure that would get us used
to the fact that that masks are actually quite comfortable
once you're used to using them. And these are the
N ninety five masks that actually filter out small particles.
(16:58):
It's not the the basic surgical masks. So that's one
thing we can do. We need to get much better
at infection control in our healthcare system. There's some evidence
that about fifteen percent of COVID deaths in Australia, for instance,
came from transmission and hospitals, and we have many reports
in New Zealand, but we're not even counting these cases here.
(17:20):
This is people who are very vulnerable, they earned hospital
for some reason, and then someone else gives them COVID
in that environment, and we really should be stopping this.
So these are practical ways of getting better at infection control.
The other area, of course, is vaccination. We obviously have
We're not hearing much about COVID vaccine, but it's still
(17:40):
very good at protecting us from serious illness. And also
one of its big benefits is reducing the risk of
long COVID and that's why I think we should lower
the age of eligibility for boosters down to eighteen, because
currently it's at thirty and that's different from other countries
like Australia, so that all these things we can be
doing now. I think we just need to have this
(18:03):
public communication about these respiratory infections and the fact that
we don't have to put up with them. There are
things we can do and all of that better understanding
would mean we're much better able to respond to future
pandemics that will probably be other respiratory infections. And at
the moment we're not really seeing this conversation happening. But
(18:24):
if you look at Asian countries which went through the
original SARS and then now COVID, they are a mass
wearing societies and public transport and so on, and of
course it's one of the things you really see is
quite striking when you go to those countries, and it
meant that places like Japan South Korea avoided largely avoided
(18:44):
lockdowns and they did have border management, but not the
intensity of New Zealand, so that seemed to have been
one of the big benefits for those societies. But one
of the other areas that I think is so important
is to have a strong voice for public health in
New Zealand, just to keep reminding us that we can
(19:04):
make our populations healthier and safer and give people longer
lives without suffering from some of these avoidable threats. And
I'm quite concerned at the moment that we're seeing this
as some effor it's to muzzle the voice of public
health in New Zealand. I think this is sending a
chilling effect through the system. So some of the voices
in New Zealand I can no longer speak out on
(19:27):
public health concerns, particularly the local medical officers of health,
and I think it's a missed opportunity because the best
way to really get people prepared for these future threats
is to keep them in the public eye, and so
I think it's a negative step to actually reduce the
public discussion about public health concerns. So I hope that's
(19:48):
something we can learn from our experience with the pandemic
and the period since that we need to have. We
need to encourage these voices in these conversations.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Thanks for joining us, Michael.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Great to talk. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
a sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
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