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Kate Hawkesby: Why is the government prioritising schools over small businesses?

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Wed, 22 Apr 2020, 9:57AM
Photo / Getty Images

Kate Hawkesby: Why is the government prioritising schools over small businesses?

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Wed, 22 Apr 2020, 9:57AM

Yesterday Chris Hipkins got rolled out and I’m not surprised.

This is a contentious time for schools and early learning centres. I feel for them.

And if he was supposed to appease their concerns, I’m not sure it worked.

In the forefront of many minds will be the Marist cluster, one of the biggest in the country, and yet the Director General of Health is telling us children are not large transmitters of the virus.

When challenged on what evidence he was basing that view on, Dr Bloomfield quoted a study put forward by the W.H.O based on a report out of Wuhan, released in March.

When it was put to him that many paediatricians disagree that the evidence is not conclusive, and that it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions, Dr Bloomfield said ‘there is always emerging evidence and we will keep watching..”

So does that effectively make the partial reopening of schools a medical experiment?

Teachers don’t get a choice. When the Minister of Education was asked if teachers can refuse to return to work, he said he expects teachers to do their bit.

For early childhood centres, the Minister did at least acknowledge that physical distancing for under 5 year olds is impossible. Therefore there’re other measures for that age group.. like sticking with smaller groups and limiting the number of children who come into contact with each other. Teachers can hardly limit contact though can they? If a small child needs picking up or a cuddle, it’s got to happen.  

Here’s where I think the government has got this wrong.

It’s putting trust in all the wrong places. It’s trusting schools and ECE’s to be able to sanitise, socially distance, and contact log.. cohorts of young children in confined spaces for extended periods of time, yet at the same time saying it does not trust retailers and other businesses to be able to implement the same measures.

Why not?

Surely the local butcher or retailer has a greater ability to enforce all those same safety measures and in a more manageable way than a primary school or an ECE?

I worry that this government is too reliant on the bureaucrats to run this thing, too reliant on the Health and Education Ministries to give it advice, therefore placing too much importance on their questionable capabilities.

Also, in prioritising the opening of schools over small businesses, there seems an obvious disconnect between the government and business, and how it works.

Businesses need to be open to work, business doesn’t just get turned back on like a switch and go back to normal.

7 weeks with the lights out might be manageable for some, but for many, it won't be.

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