Saturday, April 04, 2020

What can't be seen right now

RNZ reports Ashley Bloomfield said today the number of new Covid 19 cases appears to be leveling off now.

If we come out of the lock down with just one death we will be told, and we will be tempted to think, that the lock down was a roaring success.


But if  unemployment has shot up to around 12 percent

If the country's debt has gone from around 20 to 35 percent

If GDP has shrunk by 30 percent

If harm from domestic violence, gambling, and binge drinking has increased

If the suicide rate climbs

If rates of death from cancers rises


Is that a roaring success?

Yes, some of the negative picture I have painted would have happened anyway as a result of what other countries did. But our own actions compounded the harm.




2 comments:

oneblokesview said...

Totally agree.

Lets hope some sanity returns to decision making and a balanced view emerges.
I am verfently hopeing that an upcoming election might persuade decison making politicians that going in to a an election claiming we have saved tens of thousands of lives rhetoric will be seen for what it is. Kneejerk decision making with no overall startegy.

Lets hope that restoring some sort of Financial activity and getting rid of the "dob in a mate" garbage will be gone and we can get some social cohesion back again.

My wife's sister, reported my wife to police. The crime doing her 3 times a week trip to visit her 95year old mother to check on her, do shopping etc....

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Ghastly. I hope she is ostracized.

We had two police station-wagons full of masked cops (until they all jumped out) at the bottom of our quiet street yesterday. Stopped in such a way as to block the road. I cannot tell for sure but they seemed to have apprehended someone that wasn't local. It's by the beach. BUT I am only surmising. This was minutes after I had watched at length the police launch prowling the perimeter of the harbour which is devoid of activity. No ships, no ferries, no kayakers, no fishing craft. And no planes in the skies overhead. I oscillate between feeling gutted and feeling very angry.