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Mike's Minute: We can't learn even the simplest lessons around Covid

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 29 Mar 2021, 10:38AM

Mike's Minute: We can't learn even the simplest lessons around Covid

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 29 Mar 2021, 10:38AM

They'll say it's the system learning, of course.

But surely the question to ask after 12 full months of lockdown and the MIQ system is why is it the learning is so slow? Why is the obvious, the bit that is staring right smack bang in between their eyes, not addressed at first sight? Why aren't the red flags spotted until they're too late?

In other words, just how thick are these people?

The bus trips full of potential Covid cases are off. They have been cancelled.  Herding MIQers into a bus so they can go walk or jog are done because, after a full year, they’ve worked out what a mad risk they are.

Surely, it's not unfair to ask, just why it's taken this long? The same way we've asked all year, why they insist on running a programme where you leave your room anyway.

We all know the border is the weak link. We all know that even with the so-called unknown community cases, it always leads back to the border, or its weaknesses. MIQ, ports, airports, border services - it's always the same.

The testing at the border has been a mess, the security at MIQ has been a mess, the whole approach and looseness at MIQ has been a mess.

Through all of that, all the positives, all the alerts, all the track and tracing, all the lockdowns that resulted, all the constraints on our lives and ability to make as living, and they carried on loading up buses to wander off for walks and sunshine.

It's 14 days we are talking about for God's sake. It's not 14 months, or 14 weeks. For many it’s a pain. Yes, a bit of fresh air is no bad thing, but at what cost? And why does it always take an issue, mistake, or a cock up for the pin to be pulled?

Is this, as they would say in business, best practice? Is this gold standard?

Is literally asking for trouble, or running the gauntlet, really what we want from a government department that keeps insisting it knows what it's doing?

For a government with a hair trigger mentality on lockdowns, it is astonishing they keep giving us reasons to keep doubting they have the slightest clue what they're doing.

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