Three Problems

The lockdown in New Zealand seems to have successfully slowed the spread of Covid19. However, three problems have become evident.

First, the virus was brought and spread here by returning international travellers. The government was too slow to restrict travellers from countries with spreading infection, to put in place adequate screening at airports, and introduce strict quarantine for people with risk of infection.

Second, many of the big clusters of infection spread at big social functions, like parties and weddings. The government introduced a ban on meetings of more than a 100 people on 19 March, a week before the lockdown began on 26 March. A ban on meetings of more than 500 people had been in place since 16 March. In hindsight this tolerance of large social functions was a mistake, as in the ten days before the lockdown, big social functions allowed the virus to spread and create large clusters of infection. A much tighter limit on the number of people at a social gathering during this period would have significantly reduced the spread of infection.

Third, the virus has spread quickly in some large rest homes and associated dementia units. The way that we care for our elderly and vulnerable people with disabilities has been exposed as vulnerable to an epidemic.

In New Zealand, as in many places in the western world, the elderly are mostly secluded away in massive rest home facilities, which can house several hundreds of people on one site, offering variable levels of care. These rest homes are operated by large corporates, which make their money by selling units to retired people and then buying them back at a lower price, when the owner dies, or moves because they need a higher level of care. Any capital gains go to the corporate owner.

In the rest home part of the facility, elderly people sit close together in a large, shared lounge. The rest home facilities need a large staff of carers, administrators, nurses, cleaners, cooks, etc. Most of these positions are very poorly paid, so they have to be staffed by recent migrants, who are willing to do unpleasant work for poor pay. The government pays for people who have used up all their assets, so it is happy for the costs to be pushed down.

The government banned all people from visiting rest homes, to reduce the risk of infection. But large numbers of workers go in and out every day. The risk of them bring in infection is higher, because migrants travel overseas more frequently to visit their families, sometimes to places where the virus was spreading. The other problem is that poorly paid employees are often reluctant to stay home from work if they are sickening, because they cannot afford to lose their income.

The way we care for the elderly is a recipe for problems during an epidemic. I hope that when this is over, the government and the nation will find a better way to care for our elderly than our current financialise, corporatised system. They deserve better.