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Tim Dower: Covid outbreak was completely preventable

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 14 Aug 2020, 11:23AM
Photo / NZ Herald

Tim Dower: Covid outbreak was completely preventable

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 14 Aug 2020, 11:23AM

It's not long now until we get a decision on the road ahead.

Will the current restrictions will be continued or tightened.  

By now, you've probably heard what Winston Peters thinks, he's told Aussie media the current cluster will be traced back to the border.  

And Judith Collins says it's silly to think Covid's been quietly lurking in South Auckland for more than 100 days.

Somehow, someone...and it only needs one...has got through the net and screwed the rest of us.

That someone could well be one of the border and isolation staff...3000 people...who haven't been getting regular tests.

Right now, I can see why people want to get out of Auckland if they can.  

And you can bet a lot have slipped out...some may well be taking covid with them.  If it starts springing up on the Coromandel or Northland we'll know...and if it does, well we're buggered, aren't we.  

Even if that doesn't happen straight off...all the experts, all the officials, even the politicians now seem convinced the numbers are going to go higher.

What really frustrates me about this new outbreak, is that it needn't have happened.

The virus can't lurk down the back of the sink...it needs to infect people to keep going.

So the fact we stamped out community infections 3 months ago means the only way in is from overseas.

People declining to be tested before they leave.

People being granted exemptions...people granting themselves exemptions and bugger the rest of you.

Back in March and April, we complied, and we beat it.

All we needed to get right after all that sacrifice was the border.  

But still...months in...we haven't got the border right.  

And that...with unlimited resources and all the time in the world to get the powers and the rules right...well that's just not good enough.

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