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Away from Covid-19, let us rebuild our economy together

Priyanca Radhakrishnan

Wellington, May 13, 2020

We are back at Alert Level One, after more than two months of Alert Levels 4 and 3 of lockdown, which led us to where we are today – Covid-19-free, with no active cases.

Currently, all restrictions on gatherings, movement and work are lifted and life has resumed a sense of normalcy. The only restriction that remains are those on our borders, which are our main defence against Covid-19.

Earlier last week, I was a panellist at a webinar that brought together MPs from five different countries, to talk about the measures their country has taken to combat this virus.

It was organised by SocDem Asia, a network of progressive social democratic parties, thinktanks and institutes that work together to combat inequality and advocate for human dignity for all.

There was considerable interest in New Zealand’s plan.

Timely plan, timely action

We went with a single plan that had a dual purpose – and to protect lives and livelihoods. For the first time in our history, we closed our borders to everyone but returning citizens and permanent residents; we went early into a complete lockdown that allowed us to contain and then stamp out the virus and our initial economic response package was introduced just 19 days after the first case – and focused on getting funding to employers quickly and easily.

Modelling prior to lockdown showed that our number of cases could soar beyond 4000 and that we could lose thousands of lives if we did not take strong action.

As a result of strong leadership and the commitment of our team of five million, that did not happen. The weekend that our case numbers was projected to hit 4000, we were just at about 1000 cases. Instead, we came out the other side as quickly and as safely as we could.

While this is a milestone, there is more to do. Now, we go hard on creating and protecting jobs to rebuild our economy together and that is what Budget 2020 was all about.

Post-Covid challenges

We must remember also that cases continue to rise in many other countries. As such, we are not completely out of the woods yet. 

We have eliminated transmission of the virus for now in New Zealand but we need to realise that we may see cases coming in again. We need to manage any that do come through.

That is why our borders are going to remain our first line of defence and our managed isolation and quarantine at the border will continue. The last thing we want to do is to have to go into higher alert levels.

To that end, we each have a responsibility to maintain good hygiene and to keep a record of where we go and who we are with. We can do this by downloading and using the New Zealand Covid Tracer App on our phones and using it at places we visit when we are out and about.

This will help the government to test, contact trace, isolate and stamp out any  future cases as they arise.

Let us get New Zealand moving again and focus on our recovery.

We have had great success with our health response and now, our team of five million, now we go hard on our economic rebuild.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan is a Member of Parliament on Labour List based in Maungakiekie and  Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic Communities.

 

 

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