The long Covid-19 emergency: when does it end?

On 25 March 2020, the New Zealand government declared a state of national emergency and the country went into a strict month-long level-4 lockdown. Now, nearly two years later, they are preparing to relax border controls (initially for fully vaccinated New Zealanders returning from Australia who will have to self-isolate), and we are under the ‘red’ setting of the traffic light system. This isn’t a lockdown now, but it imposes restrictions on how businesses operate and excludes people who are not vaccinated. The vaccine passes have sparked protest action at parliament. (In case you’re wondering, I’m willingly triple vaxxed).

Let’s separate the actual pandemic from the emergency measures taken in response to it. Covid-19 will live on, but we need to understand the conditions under which the government would hand back disease controls to the community.

In a democratic society, emergency measures are justifiable if they are necessary, proportionate and temporary. Few would argue that strong measures weren’t necessary to combat Covid-19, although you can debate whether New Zealand’s approach was in proportion to the actual risk. Did we do too much or too little? The pandemic response has been costly in human and economic terms, but the country has come through with a very low mortality rate compared to others, so the government can make a fair case that its emergency powers were proportionate.

Emergency measures must also be temporary, and we need to know at what stage of the pandemic the restrictions and vaccine passes will no longer be considered necessary for our protection.

Denmark, for instance, lifted all pandemic restrictions because Covid-19 is no longer ‘a socially critical sickness’ there, given their high rate of vaccination. It’s still a serious infectious disease, but Covid-19 will exist along with other infectious diseases.

From early 2020, New Zealand was one of the last to be hit by Covid-19 due to isolation, and that gave us time to prepare. I’m not saying that we should simply follow the Danish example – especially given the vulnerability of some communities to infectious diseases. But we’re surely getting closer to the stage at which we could rely on the greater majority of individuals and whānau to follow medical advice, and on businesses (including airlines) to incorporate Covid-19 into safety and health policies under normal law. The time will come for the government to step back, terminate the traffic light system, and give responsibility for disease controls back to the community.

So, I’m saying continue to take Covid-19 very seriously, but plan now to give us back control, as coercive state controls can only be temporary.

(A similar but stronger case has been made by the American political scientist Yascha Mounk, though this should be read with the caveat that the United States has generally set a poor example in this pandemic.)

A constructive discussion about ending New Zealand’s emergency powers may have to wait until we’re over the peak of the omicron wave. Meanwhile, a protest currently on parliament’s grounds appears to be demanding the termination of Covid-19 restrictions and the vaccine mandate; but this is only an obstacle to rational public dialogue about the matter, as the government can’t concede to a group that has included some aggressive and dangerous elements. They’re doing their cause a disservice. If protestors would pack up, go home and be patient, they might soon see some light at the end of the tunnel. I’d just remind them to be obedient and stop at all red lights as they drive home – for everyone’s safety.