Never one to be out the news for long, Professor Michael Baker has penned an article for the (deservedly) bankrupting Newshub. Apparently we could be on the verge of yet another pandemic. Seems we must live our lives in constant fear of imminent annihilation. But don't fear. NZ could always invite Jacinda Ardern back from her foreign exile, vote back in our former never-ending-Auckland-lockdown Covid Minister, Chris Hipkins, as PM, and the two of them could then bring back the likes of Professors Baker & Hendy to start back up where they left off last time. The thought of it.
Anyhow, Baker says the following in his Newshub article, "Some commentators [at a recent World Health Assembly meeting] had advocated to incorporate the experience of countries in the Asia-Pacific region that used an elimination strategy to delay the spread of Covid, giving time to roll out vaccines & other interventions. Such measures protected both high-income islands (Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, .. ) as well as low & middle-income nations in continental Asia (Vietnam, Thailand ..)". However, having read Baker's British Medical Journal (BMJ) article, Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 closely, as well as listened to his pronouncements, my understanding was that he never advocated elimination to "delay the spread of Covid" in order simply to buy time. His BMJ article (below) states repeatedly his aims were "Achieving & sustaining disease elimination". That is the heading of an entire section of his article, in which he argues that the "NZ & Australian experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic offer lessons for achieving & sustaining elimination". The Key Message of his paper is elimination is "achievable and sustainable".
Today in Newshub, Baker reverses himself by saying only that NZ "used an elimination strategy to delay the spread of Covid". This Blog argued at the time it was important to delay Covid's spread until scientists knew what we were dealing with (that was obvious to all of us - you didn't need a medical degree to work it out). However the pursuit of a long-term "sustainable" policy of keeping the virus out of NZ forever was never achievable. Instead the pursuit of the sustainability objective by Baker, Arden, and Hipkins, even way into 2022, imposed massive economic costs that NZ is still paying for now, in terms of high borrowing, inflation & a cost-of-living crisis. Our health system is presently starved of funds because of our stagnant economy, which was the direct cause of the aim of "sustainable" elimination.
To now try pretending the Ardern-Hipkins Covid health experts, like Baker, only ever viewed their policies as temporary attempts to buy time is, in my view, a re-writing of history.
Sources:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2024/06/michael-baker-and-alexander-gillespie-despite-improved-regulations-the-world-remains-ill-prepared-for-next-pandemic.html
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907
Today in Newshub, Baker reverses himself by saying only that NZ "used an elimination strategy to delay the spread of Covid". This Blog argued at the time it was important to delay Covid's spread until scientists knew what we were dealing with (that was obvious to all of us - you didn't need a medical degree to work it out). However the pursuit of a long-term "sustainable" policy of keeping the virus out of NZ forever was never achievable. Instead the pursuit of the sustainability objective by Baker, Arden, and Hipkins, even way into 2022, imposed massive economic costs that NZ is still paying for now, in terms of high borrowing, inflation & a cost-of-living crisis. Our health system is presently starved of funds because of our stagnant economy, which was the direct cause of the aim of "sustainable" elimination.
To now try pretending the Ardern-Hipkins Covid health experts, like Baker, only ever viewed their policies as temporary attempts to buy time is, in my view, a re-writing of history.
Sources:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2024/06/michael-baker-and-alexander-gillespie-despite-improved-regulations-the-world-remains-ill-prepared-for-next-pandemic.html
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Agree. Also in August 2021, the Skegg report advocated that continued elimination was not only possible but was the desirable response:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-releases-expert-advice-reconnecting-new-zealanders
New Zealand's Labour Government had the advantage of a compliant media. Other world leaders in democracies had fierce push back from journalists concerned about the implications of shutting down economies. It also presented an opportunity for the NZ Government to pursue an ideological agenda with little scrutiny.
The legacy of these people, Ardern-Hipkins, Baker, Wiles et al. is long term youth mental health issues and economic distress. I recall vividly having the "elimination" discussion with colleagues circa. 2021, they said Ardern and Co are smoking crack, the virus is a pandemic. Three months of Auckland lockdown, for what? All the special people were given exemptions or were breaking the rules, the safety protocols at the isolation hotels were a joke.
Virology as a field doesn't follow the scientific method. By definition it is not a scientific field and is pseudoscience. In his 2024 book "Can you catch a cold?" Daniel Roytas looks into the published scientific literature and finds that of the 210 experiments examining the contagiousness of the common cold and influenza the modal rate of "transmissions" was zero. It seems much of what we believe about these states of disease is based upon cultural beliefs that lack any scientific backing and that the present view has been forced upon the world to the objection of the majority of doctors and scientists at the time, though they are all now long deceased and mostly forgotten. We must look into the past to guide decisions about the future. There is zero reason for New Zealand or any nation to take any preventive measures in regards to these diseases because scientific evidence for contagion isn't there, rather the evidence supports that these states of disease aren't contagious in the mode claimed.
Absolutely nothing done by our authorities from the very start of the scamdemic was transparent, truthful or honourable. The fear propaganda was nauseating to anyone who had any perception of reality. But boy it worked a treat didn’t it? And now we are all ready for the rinse and repeat programme. BIRD FLU ANYONE?
Unfortunately Michael Baker is a perfect example of the type of academic who has a narcissistic desire to tell all of us less enlightened people how to live our lives.I would lay odds that he avidly collects every newspaper article in which he is quoted.
The only bird flew we will ever experience in New Zealand is the day that Ardern resigned.
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