Excess Deaths

Eugippius has an interesting article on the pattern of Covid deaths. The pattern he discovered is fascinating. I have always considered that “excess deaths” are the best statistical tool for measuring the impact of a pandemic.

In New Zealand, we have had only had one prolonged peak (earlier this year), due to the country being locked down from the rest of the world for a couple of years. It will be interesting to see if our experience is similar to other contries in the late-outbreak group, which only had one peak.

Covid Shutdown

In his book called Shutdown, Adam Tooze describes the economic impact of the worldwide shutdown following the emergence of Covid19 in 2020. With all the debate about the virus and vaccines, the economic response by governments and central banks has largely been forgotten or ignored, but the issue is very important.

An initial supply shock occurred as workplaces shut down and trade ground to a halt, but this quickly translated into a demand-driven recession as people lost some of their income. The IMF predicted that world trade could collapse by 10-30 percent.

On 12 March 2020, stock markets collapsed all around the world. The drop in prices was worse than in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. As March progressed, the demand for US Treasuries collapsed. This was hugely concerning because US Treasuries are considered to be one of the safest assets that can be held. They can usually be traded in large volumes without influencing the price (a valuable property for a safe asset).

In 2020, 17 trillion US Treasuries were in circulation. They are usually bought during a crisis for safety, but during this one, they were sold. Economists were concerned that the collapse of this market could bring down the entire financial system.

Following the GFC, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasure had engaged in a massive monetary expansion to sustain markets during the crisis that began with mortgage-backed securities and related financial derivatives. This was supposed to be rolled back when the economy returned to normal, but by 2019 very little progress had been made on tapering the monetary interventions of the previous decade. Every time the Fed attempted to taper, the markets coughed, and the Fed relented. The result was nearly a decade of near-zero interest rates.

The Federal Reserve responded to the economic shock caused by Covid19 with an even greater monetary expansion than in the previous crisis. By 23 March 2020, the Standard & Poors share price index was down 30 percent. Worldwide, $26 trillion had been lost on the equity markets. After reducing interest rates, the Federal Reserve began a program to buy US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Within a few months, the Federal Reserve had brought 1 trillion worth of US Treasuries, which is about 5 percent of the total on issue. The Bank of England also purchased a huge number of Gilts, the UK equivalent government bonds.

At the same time, the Treasury provided fiscal support with various spending programs to support people and businesses through the downturn. My mid-August 2020, the situation had turned around. The Standard and Poors index had recovered all the value that it has lost since February. Once the markets were stabilised, massive corporate bond issuance occurred as large corporates took advantage of the Fed policies.

Treasury and the Federal Reserve support provided massive benefits for the investor class. Tooze estimates that worldwide, the wealth of billionaires increased by $1.9 trillion during 2020. Something seems to be wrong with this outcome. There is no reason why wealthy investors in the financial sector should be exempt from economic pain during a serious pandemic. In both this crisis, and during the GFC of 2008 and 2009, government agencies intervened to support the finance sector because it is supposedly too big to fail. Yet it is government protection and support that has allowed them to become as big as they have become.

Governments all around the world kicked in with fiscal support for their struggling economies to the value of 21 trillion by Jan 2021. Most of this additional spending was funded with debt. The OECD estimated that by the end of 2020 total debt issuance of governments was $18 trillion. This is far in excess of what was issued during the global financial crisis of 2008/9.

When purchasing government bonds, central banks claimed that they were just stabilising the financial system and massaging interest rates to keep them down during a period of uncertainty. Yet, in effect, the central banks were funding government debt, something they claim that they don’t like doing. When the Federal Reserve turns on the monetary spigot, the flow of new money floods around the world and all countries are affected to some degree. The problem with government-created money is that it usually produces inflation. Inflation does not affect an economy evenly. The inflation created by central banks efforts to mitigate the Covid 19 crises initially flowed into share markets. This was seen as a good outcome because it benefited the big investment funds (and the billionaires).

Here in New Zealand, the money creation fed a housing boom. The middle classes welcomed this outcome because they have benefited from a big increase in value for the largest asset they own. However, their gain is at the expense of the poor who cannot afford to own houses. The money gush has vastly increased inequality.

Now the inflation that was caused by the unprecedented money expansion is spreading into the rest of the economy. The prices of consumer goods are now rising fast all over the world. Consumer inflation causes the greatest pain for poor people, so inequality will be further exacerbated.

As the pain of this consumer inflation worsens, central bankers will try to hold it back by pushing up interest rates, but they struggle to turn off their massive monetary support because every time they do, share markets and house prices will fall and they will lose their nerve. Politicians will urge them to keep interest rates low and keep the asset boom going, so they are not punished in the next election.

In Bank Deposits and Loans, I explain the big problem with modern banking that the Federal Reserve is trying to resolve, but actually makes worse.

Not Living the Dream?

I have never voted for Jacinda Ardern, but I feel quite sorry for her. She never planned to be Prime Minister of New Zealand during a pandemic. She got into politics because she wanted to get rid of child poverty, a noble goal, but probably an impossible one. She was promoted to party leader because three other leaders failed and she was an effective communicator. Nevertheless, she has led her party to two election victories, the second a landslide.

Leading her nation through the ups and downs of a pandemic was not part of her plan for life. Now she is being blamed by everyone for every decision that her government makes that people don’t like. That level of scrutiny and criticism is probably not what she signed up for, but when she got a chance to lead her country, she had to take it.

Criticism of her leadership is getting intense. Some say that her government has moved too slow; others say it is going too fast. Some say it has not done enough, and others are saying it has done too much. I presume that Jacinda Ardern is a bit of a "people pleaser", so the intense hostility will be producing considerable emotional pain.

Government Decision-making
Part of the problem is that most people don't understand how government works and just assume that PM makes all the decisions. However, the process is far more complicated, and far more people are involved in the decision-making process than many people realise.

It is easy for outsiders to say, "That was a stupid decision", or "That will not work", or "The government should stop doing that". It is easy being an armchair expert because you are not accountable for the consequences if you are wrong. The political leaders making the key decisions for the nation don't have that luxury. If they get a decision wrong, the consequences will usually be obvious, and they will get the blame, and feel responsible for the harm done.

Political leaders don't have the luxury of trying a policy to see if it will work, because if the chosen policy does not work and they try something different, the news media will accuse them of flip-flopping, and the trust of the public will be undermined. Government decision-makers have one opportunity to make a decision, and they have to get it right. That brings heavy pressure to the decision-making processes.

Policy Analysis
When a decision needs to be made, the government department responsible (Ministry of Health or MBIE in the current situation) is tasked with preparing options and collecting information to help the leaders make a decision. They can't just say, "I think we should do this and not that." They need to canvass all the possible options and calculate the costs/benefits of each if that is possible. When recommending an option, they need to think about all the reasons why the option being proposed might not work. They need to get a good understanding of all the consequences of the policy, so that the decision-makers can understand of the risks involved.

In the case of Covid, the policy analysts will need to gather information from overseas about what has worked and how effective it is. That is a difficult task because there is diverse experience and collecting accurate information about what has happened in various countries is not easy. For most countries, there will be divergent commentators arguing about what has happened and how effective policies were. It is not sufficient to listen to those who advocated the policies implemented in various countries because they will tend to defend their decisions. Other voices need to be heard to get an accurate picture of what has really happened. The analysts will also need to determine which countries have experiences relevant to the New Zealand situation.

Once the government department has drafted a paper for the Cabinet to consider, it will be circulated around other government departments that will be affected, or have to implement it, for their comments. This process does not always lead to certainty; it often increases uncertainty.

Policy analysts supporting the government will also need to collect the insights of independent experts in the universities and other agencies. Again, that is not an easy task because experts often have conflicting views. For example, the various epidemiologists active in New Zealand often hold quite contradictory views. Decisions about which ones to trust are not easy. Relying on a majority view will not always be wise.

Cabinet
Decisions about which policy to implement are made by the Cabinet, not the PM. A recommended policy will be brought to the Cabinet by the relevant minister (the Covid Recovery minister or Minister of Finance). The minister bringing the recommendation will be the most informed about the issue, as they will have been working with the policy analysts preparing the options. They will have had time to read much more of the background information than the PM or other members of the Cabinet.

This does not mean that the Cabinet will just rubber-stamp the recommendation of the minister responsible. There will often be sharp disagreement. All members of the Cabinet will be acutely aware of the consequences of getting it wrong, and some will have more tolerance of risk than others.

Jacinda Ardern's view will carry a lot of weight. The other members of the Cabinet will be aware that she won two elections for them, so they will be reluctant to cross her. She will be acutely aware that she has not had time to read all the information that the responsible minister has read, and will be reluctant to go against him/her. She will also be reluctant to agree to a recommendation that she cannot communicate with confidence.

Uncertainty
The decision will often be hard to make because there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of the recommended policy. All of the options might have negative consequences, and sometimes the risk of bad consequences will be significant.

When I am faced with an important decision with uncertainty about the outcome, I can put the decision off until I get more information or the situation becomes clearer. The government often does not have that luxury. Often a decision has to be made because action is necessary. The news media and the opposition had probably been calling for a decision to be made a couple of weeks ago. The business community will be saying that they need certainty. The consequences of further delay might be serious.

Government leaders always have to think about what will happen if they do nothing. Sometimes the consequences of not taking action will be serious. Politicians who fail to act in the face of a disaster usually pay the price at the next election.

Implementation
Armchair critics do not have to operationalise their decisions. They can say, "The government should do such and such", without thinking about how, or if, it could be implemented. The people really making the decisions don't make them a vacuum. They have to think about how any policy decision they make will be operationalised. They have to work through their plans with the various government departments and agencies who will be responsible for implementing them. Sometimes, the response will come back that the right thing to do would be too difficult to implement. Thinking about how decisions will be implemented slows down the decision-making process.

And once an implementation process been decided, it has to be communicated to the various agencies responsible for implementing it. Rules will have to be decided to ensure that the policy is implemented consistently across the country and for all people. These will be defined by the department responsible, but the minister will need to watch carefully to ensure that the rules decided are consistent with what the Cabinet decided.

It is virtually impossible to write rules that deal with every possible situation that might occur. Usually, the media will carry stories about people who felt they were treated unfairly by the rules, or who believe the rules did not apply to their situation. The news media will challenge the PM to respond to the victims of their stories.

The rules will be applied by people, not robots. So the implementation of the policy will not always be consistent. Some will be tougher than others. Some will be influenced by a "sob story" and give way to an applicant, whereas others would not. Some will be officious, and others will be a soft touch. The PM and the Cabinet have no direct authority over these people but are still accountable for the decisions they make. And if public servants don't apply the rules correctly, or fail to implement the cabinet decision consistently, the PM and ministers will usually have to take the blame.

Rapid Change
All these problems are compounded during a pandemic. During normal times, the government can set their own pace of change. During a pandemic, new decisions have to be made all the time. Before one decision has been implemented, another problem will be rearing its head. The policy analysts in the government department responsible will struggle to gather all the information and analysis the options in a timely manner. Before the process is complete, they will be pressed to start working on others. The speed at which have to be made will make collecting sufficient information to support good decisions will be almost impossible. The situation will be constantly changing, so decision made and information collected quickly gets out of date.

At the same time, the policy agency will have responsibility for implementing decisions that have already been made. All this activity will put the policymaking process under serious pressure. It may be possible to bring in extra staff to help, but they often won't have the expertise needed to prepare good advice.

It seems fairly obvious that MBIE and the Ministry of Health have struggled with the task of providing timely and clear advice to the government about the management of Covid. That is not surprising given the number of decisions that have needed to be made and implemented. They have also struggled to implement decisions quickly and clearly, but that is not surprising given the pressure that they are working under.

Difficult Task
I don't envy Jacinda Ardern. She and her Cabinet are having to make decisions at a pace that they have never experienced before, and nothing could have prepared them for it. The range and difficulty of the decisions that have to be made are immense. Being responsible for the welfare and health of a nation is a huge burden to carry.

I did not vote for Jacinda Ardern. I don't believe in democracy and have not voted for many years, but I understand that most New Zealanders do believe in democracy and want a Prime Minister and government to lead the nation. Given that she was elected by a process that New Zealanders support, so they should cut her a little slack, given the immense difficulty of the task that she is trying to do.

The Labour government was elected with the biggest majority in the past twenty years, partly because they promised to deal with Covid in a conservative and careful way. They promised to put safety ahead of profit-making, so they cannot be faulted for doing that now.

I don’t agree with every decision that the government has made, but I am not sure that anyone else could have done any better. And of course, the good decisions are quickly forgotten as they become part of the new normal, while the bad decisions are remembered.

Anger
I find the vitriolic tone of much of the hostility to Jacinda Ardern quite disturbing, especially when it comes from Christians, who are supposed to honour their rulers (1 Peter 2:17). Some of her Christian critics seem to have become quite ugly in the way they speak. I can't help wonder how much of it comes from her being a woman (a relatively young one) given that many of her Christian critics have grown up under complementarian teaching that women should submit to men.

Traffic Lights

The NZ government has implemented a new Covid Protection Framework, also called a traffic light system. If vaccination certificates are required by event organisers, there are no limits on the number of people attending. If vaccinations certificates are not required, there are significant limits on the number of people who can attend a gathering (such as a wedding or service of worship), depending on the protection setting: Red 25; Orange 50; Green 100.

Some church leaders are worried about excluding people from their services if they don’t have vaccination certificates. However, if they don’t use vaccination certificates, the number of people able to attend their meetings will be strictly limited. Auckland is currently in red, with numbers limited to 25. If it goes into orange, the number will increase to only 50.

I am not sure if the government is doing the right thing, or if it will be effective, but that is not the point of this post. I am intrigued by the response of church leaders, who have focussed on their inability to have big meetings. Some see this as a breach of people’s right to freedom of worship.

This "right to worship" seems to be a truncated form of "freedom of religion", which includes the right to practice every aspect of one’s faith. The right to meet for a big worship service is a small part (and probably non-essential) of what followers of Jesus should be doing.

Limits on the size of church meetings are only a problem for pastors/churches that are committed to the large meeting model. Being unable to meet is a serious problem if Christians have been trained to need a weekly sermon to grow in their faith, or need a worship band to inspire to worship.

The truth is that Jesus has promised to be present by the Holy Spirit wherever two or three people gather together in his name. When it was not safe to go to Jerusalem, Jesus was content to focus on training twelve disciples. A church that claims Jesus promise and follows his example will be able to continue functioning effectively, even if the size of gatherings is limited to twenty-five. His followers can still disciple those in their care and gather in the presence of the Holy Spirit. They can still go out two by two to share the gospel.

The reality is that under the red traffic light, church leaders can do almost everything that Jesus did.

• They can send their disciples out two by two in the same way that Jesus did (Luke 10:1-2).

• They can meet with the twelve disciples that they are training just as Jesus did (Mark 3:13-14).

• They can go into a quiet place to pray in the same way that Jesus did (Mark 1:33; 6:31; 6:46).

• They could join together with the people they are discipling for a fellowship meal (Matt 26:19-20). They could even sing a Psalm or hymn together, as Jesus did (Matt 26:30).

• If they heal some people in a public place, as Jesus did, and a massive crowd gathers, they might have a few problems with the authorities. But if all the people with Covid are being healed, then the authorities would not be able to complain too much (Matt 9:22;14:14; 14:34-36).

The Covid Protection framework is probably a timely wake-up call. The big meeting model of church is not viable in the modern world. In a hostile culture, the influences imbibed during the week will overwhelm whatever Christian influence is imparted in a couple of hours on Sunday. As the culture becomes more hostile, followers of Jesus will need to find more effective ways of nurturing faith in Jesus and protecting vulnerable people from being overwhelmed by the pressures of the world.

The church would be more effective if it gave up its big meeting model of pastoral care and shifted to a model based on small groups living in the same locality watched over by elders raised by the Spirit from within the group.

Preachers and Covid Vaccine

After listening online to some of the big-name preachers in Aotearoa NZ, I was surprised at how many of them are sitting on the fence with regard to vaccination against Covid. This is odd, because preachers are usually not shy about telling their listeners what to do.

The standard advice of the preachers is that people should do some research, seek God’s wisdom, and decide for themselves what to do. This is bad advice, because researching the safety and efficacy of a vaccine is a highly technical and complex task. You need to know quite a lot about statistics, genetics and immunology to investigate the vaccine test data and understand how the vaccine functions. I don’t have the knowledge to do this, and I presume that it is beyond the capability of most of those listening to the sermons.

Asking everyone to research the vaccine is foolish, because it pushes them towards people on social media with simple messages that seem easy to understand, when they are probably being misled about a topic that is too technically complex for simple explanations. They end up listening to non-Christian people who sound sure and certain, but they have no way of assessing if what they hear is right or wrong. Finding a voice on social media that you agree with is not the same as serious research.

The reality is that the only way to get to the truth about the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccine is to trust the experts in the health system, who have the knowledge and experience to assess the information provided by the pharmaceutical companies who developed it.

Preachers expect people to listen to their sermons because they are experts on biblical studies and theology and are skilled in hearing God’s voice, ie trust the experts. They would never tell a person who is concerned about a complex theological issue to do some research on the internet and decide for themselves, yet that is what they are doing with regard to Covid vaccines.

I presume that the experts in the health system did not spend years studying medicine to do evil. If the preachers think that they are dishonest and untrustworthy, despite their years of training and caring for the sick, they should come out openly and say it, rather than making vague insinuations that the people doing the assessment and making the medical recommendations about vaccination have sinister motives.

Telling their listeners to ask God about the vaccine is not very helpful either, because God seems to be telling different people different things. Some are saying that God has told them to have the vaccine, and others are saying that he has told them not to have it. This makes God seem to be confused. The preachers are supposed to be experts on hearing God speak, so they should be able to tell their people what God is saying about the vaccine.

If God wants some people to take the vaccine and others to avoid it, the preachers should be able to discern the criteria that God is using and help their people know which category they are in. Instead, the preachers seem to be leaving their people tossed about in confusion, “and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Eph 4:14).

If preachers want their people to decide for themselves about vaccination, they are not telling them the most important thing that they need to know. The preachers seem to be implying that Christians have a choice between trusting in God and trusting in the vaccine. However, if Christians are going to trust in God for their protection from sickness, they need to know that their pastor and the leaders supporting him have demonstrated the capability to heal the sick people in their church.

If the pastor and other leaders do not have victory over sickness and are not confidently praying for all the sick people they encounter, they have no right to tell people to just trust in God for protection from Covid. God’s protection comes from belonging to a strong body functioning in the gifts of the Spirit. If preachers can only offer vague hopes of healing in case of sickness, they would be more honest to tell their listeners to get vaccinated against Covid.

Clever Virus

All the experts are saying that the delta variant is extremely clever. The evolutionary biologists said that viruses like Covid generally mutate to become less virulent over time because the sickest people die, and their version of the virus dies with them. The reality has been the opposite. The delta version is more infectious, spreads to children and possibly has worse symptoms for those who get it. That is very clever.

However, a virus is non-living molecular material, so it has no capacity to be clever. So, we need to think about where the cleverness comes from. A better explanation is needed.

• Obviously, our God did not create this virus, so he is not the cause of the cleverness.

• It is very unlikely that the cleverness comes from malicious humans because humans are not that clever.

• The cleverness behind this virus comes from the spiritual powers of evil.

I assume that the latter is the explanation. I see this disease as a spiritual attack on the people of the earth, that does what the spiritual powers of evil love to do; kill, rob, and destroy.

Humans are using vaccines to try and roll back a spiritual attack, because they no longer trust God, but they are up against an enemy that is cleverer and more powerful than they are. So, it is not surprising that this solution is producing problems.

In a post back in September 2020, I wrote the following words.

Over the last fifty years, there has been a massive decline of faith. Things still seem to be OK on the surface, but as God has been squeezed out, the spiritual powers of evil have been inadvertently allowed in. They are getting greater freedom and ability to work evil in this part of the world, so they are unlikely to stop.

Unfortunately, the spiritual powers of evil are not content with distracting people from God. They love to steal, kill and destroy, so they will have a go at achieving this whenever they get an opportunity. They were behind the GFC and the coronavirus, and have noticed how effective these events were for hurting people and disrupting society. These were not by any means their best efforts, so I expect that if there is a return to “peace and security”, it will not last long, because they will have another crack at destruction and harm.

From their perspective, the coronavirus has been really successful, so they will try it again when the time is right. They might try something different first, but they will try an epidemic again sometime, and it will probably be worse.

Whereas most viruses fade over time, the Delta variant of covid seems to be much worse than what went before. This version is more infectious, spreads to children and possibly has worse symptoms for those who get it. This suggests that the spiritual powers of evil are upping the ante.

Nothing big happens on earth by accident. If we don't understand that, we will fail to understand what is happening in the world.

• A secular materialistic world view assumes that all events are the result of physical causes.

• People who believe in meticulous providence assume that every event is totally controlled by God.

Both of these views result in a distorted understanding and confusion. All serious events are the result of interactions between the spiritual realms and the physical world that we see.

Covid and Popular Theology

I am interested that much of the Christian discussion about Covid focusses on the infectiousness and morbidity of the disease and the effectiveness of vaccination. While some of this discussion is helpful, this discussion takes place in a materialistic/naturalistic framework without any consideration of whether the cause of, or solutions to, Covid are spiritual. I am struck that my worldview seems to be very different from that of many other Christians.

The popular theology these days seems to be that God created the world and set it going (so everything that happens is his will); he sent Jesus to die and get us to heaven, but apart from that, we should not expect him to do too much in our world. I call this theology that we have imbibed from our culture “practical deism” with a bit of fatalism thrown in. Most prayer and thanksgiving is for things that could happen anyway; my daughter will find a nice man to marry (not surprising if she is nice), the surgeon will do a good job on my mother’s bowel (which he has trained for years to do), but we don’t expect too much more. Some hope that God will dramatically intervene in the world to bring revival, but they don’t really expect it.

In parallel to this is an implicit materialism/naturalism that says that everything important happens in the physical world we can observe and that the spiritual powers of evil do not influence the big events of life (also imbibed from the culture). The assumption seems to be that the billions of evil spirits that the Bible describes are in Africa working with the witch doctors or doing trivial things like tempting me to eat an extra chocolate biscuit (actually just my flesh). In the scriptures, the spiritual powers of evil are very strategic, working cleverly at pivotal times to shape history and shift the balance of power on earth in their favour.

I am concerned that many of the Christians I encounter are more willing to blame evil on human conspiracies than on the spiritual powers of evil: eg, the dastardly Chinese released the virus to destroy us, the medical organisations and governments are suppressing information about vaccine side effects, drug companies are suppressing good news about Ivermectin, the Democrats stole the election from Trump. Many Christians seem to be willing to believe that human conspirators are responsible for most evil in the world but choose to ignore the works of the spiritual powers of evil.

If it is assumed that the spiritual powers of evil are involved in situations where they are active, it appears as if the materialistic/naturalistic worldview assumption is correct. This is risky for the future of the church.

When Christians think about what is going on with Covid, they need to rise above the naturalistic assumptions that we have imbibed from our culture. I see the Covid pandemic as a spiritual attack on the people of the earth, that does what the spiritual powers of evil love to do; kill, rob, and destroy.

Luke records Jesus healing a woman crippled by an evil spirit that had done its best to rob and destroy her life.

A woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all (Luke 18:11).

If the powers of evil could damage a woman’s spine and prevent her from raising her head for eighteen years, it must be easy for a few evil spirits to meddle with the DNA of a bat virus so that it can infect humans, or to tamper with the Covid virus and create a Delta variant so that it becomes more virulent and infectious.