Kerre McIvor: Are purpose-built MIQ facilities a no-brainer?

A purpose-built Covid-19 facility for just 11 million dollars maximum.  A purpose built facility that could then be repurposed into emergency housing perhaps or refugee resettlement.
11 million dollars represents just 11 days of housing people in motels around the country. 
Surely it’s a no brainer to spend that sort of money.  Some people have been calling for a purpose built facility since we first started quarantining people coming into NZ, but I can understand the Government choosing to use hotels in the first instance. 
For one, they were there, empty and ready to go.  For another, it kept people in work.  And thirdly, there wasn't awareness last year that hotels leak like sieves. 
With the benefit of hindsight, sure, a purpose built facility makes sense.  But at the time I can understand why the government chose to use hotels. 
They had an eighteen-month plan and hotels fitted the bill for that, and now that the Government has decided that Covid is enemy number one, and we will be quarantining anyone who comes into the country for the foreseeable future, they need more than a quick fix. 
This seems to be the plan, although there hasn't been a road map presented to us of when and what that might look.  It depends very much, as it does with every other country, on how quickly we can get the population vaccinated, and given that the vaccination programme is chaotic for many, we will be looking at quarantining being part of a new normal. 
How does that feel to you?  I'm well aware that there are many in the community who are quite happy being locked up in paradise.  They consider anyone who chafes against restrictions to be ingrates, anyone who calls for a loosening of restrictions to be heartless granny killers. 
Clearly though this Government has decided that there will be no deaths from Covid on their watch, and yet other killer diseases get a free pass.  RSV is a terrifying disease for parents of babies, diabetes and obesity related illnesses are crippling the health system and we all know about suicide. 
I get that Covid is serious, I get that a rampant galloping Covid could crash the health system and yet, while we're focusing so much energy and time and money on preventing a single death from Covid, I worry that resources are being diverted from other killers in our community. 
So purpose built MIQ facilities; a good plan? Quarantining for the foreseeable future; a good plan?

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