Quote Originally Posted by bullfrog View Post
I’d like the parties to lay down where they are taking the country in a Covid world. What’s their plan to maximise the NZ advantage of being one of the only Covid free(ish) countries in the world?

I’d vote for a party that didn’t open borders, concentrated on keeping us Covid Free, let the entrepreneurs come to us and transition us from a tourist service destination into a high tech, highly skilled team of 5 million.

I’ve not seen any inspiring vision, it’s all a bit local council atm.

Looking back to the start of the Covid pandemic, people could predict almost anything & to an extent at some point they would have turned out to be right. The rapidly unfolding situation was unlike anything the world had seen, reliable information was scarce, you could find experts in every field with contradictory views, no one actually knew how this would evolve & importantly we still don't. We just don't have the certainty around anything which planners and policy makers are used to, in order to formulate clear policy for the future.
We just don't know yet when a vaccine or effective medication will arrive, & how effective it will be, how many people will get it etc. Are we looking at 2021 or the following year?
Most NZ'ers are supposed to be experiencing an economic catastrophe right now, but clearly we're not. Things are tough for some but not nearly as bad as economists expected by now. Those predictions turned out to be wrong, though they might be right later.
So my point is since everything is changing so rapidly, Gov'ts can only react to what's happening now, since we don't know with any certainty how this will unfold, & how long this situation will last.
Dr Fauci seems confident a vaccine will be available mid next year, but who knows. Countries like Australia which were virtually Covid free & we planned to open the border with later this year, have plunged back into a mess again.
How do you plan for this?
It seems a little bit unrealistic to expect the Parties to lay down where they are taking the country in a Covid world, when the world situation is so rapidly changing & unpredictable.
Having said that, given the world crisis, we do seem to be doing pretty well, certainly better than most.