The many and varied Covid reckons of Mike Hosking
Dear readers.
I have gone out on a limb for you all and done something that I would not recommend. I have read the past couple of months’ Mike Hosking reckons on Covid and my head hurts.
I decided to do this after reading his latest missive where he said that the Government has to open up the border so that tourism can be renewed. He said this:
So where does all this lead? Think about that.
As we speak, people all over Europe are going on holiday. It is summer, the borders are now largely open, planes are flying, tickets are being booked, and you can go on holiday.
IATA last week issued a warning for countries like ours that if we keep borders shut we run the risk of being left behind. There is, of course, self interest in that. They are desperate for planes to fly and normality to return.
So where does all this lead? Think about that.
As we speak, people all over Europe are going on holiday. It is summer, the borders are now largely open, planes are flying, tickets are being booked, and you can go on holiday.
Clearly he wants tourism to resume. But he does not mention lockdown. So I presume that he thinks we should just get on with it and enjoy the wave of infections and the countless deaths that will ensue when tourists from Covid hot spots visit.
He might want to talk to his partner Kate Hawkesby who wants compulsory testing of everyone, even if they do not consent. From Newstalk ZB yesterday:
We didn’t work as hard as we did and sacrifice as much as we have, our little team of 5 million, only to have a few people assume they’re above all that and can just swan back home without a test. No siree, that’s not the way it should go.
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At this stage of the pandemic – which we’re told is “growing not slowing” – it should not even be an option to refuse a test. The test goes with the territory of coming home and isolating, surely.
Of course the testing is a side show. The most important aspect of quarantine is to spend two weeks without showing symptoms. If you show no symptoms then the risk of subsequent transmission is very low.
Mike has other reckons. Like these:
- On June 19 he thought that despite there being no examples of community spread for some time and for the quarantine system picking up a trickle of new cases the “health side of the equation been botched in comedic, tragic and gobsmackingly unprofessional fashion“.
- On June 10 he said Ashley Bloomfield was useless and should be sacked but we should feel sorry for Air New Zealand and cut them some slack even though they are a complete financial basket case and are on Government Life Support.
- On June 5 he insisted that New Zealand go to level one now and that Bloomfield was a “likeable wonk at the Ministry of Health who clearly has no real interest in the rest of us, unless it involves a nasal swab, an ICU bed, or some stats associated with a virus now essentially eradicated.” And that the forecasts of doom are being proven wrong, and in many cases badly and wildly so. I wonder if he is aware that the world has just clicked over 10 million reported infections and 500,000 reported deaths.
- On May 29 he complained that it was too difficult for Americas Cup teams to get into the country. The border was obviously being too heavily policed.
- On May 20 he thought that to win the election National needed to show “in dark days is spine, courage, conviction, and ethics“. He also thought National should have selected Steven Joyce as leader.
- On May 12 he thought that the lockdown “was too severe, that the evidence was there for us all to see way sooner than the Government was prepared to act on, that seven weeks should have been about four or five.”
- On May 7, when there was one new community spread case he complained that “the success of the lockdown, even though it came too late and was messed up through a lack of quarantine, enabled the Government to fudge their way to global recognition as far as “crushing the curve” was concerned. Sadly for them, those days are fast fading” and he said confidently that we are not going to eliminate the virus after all. Since then we have had 5 cases of community transmission, and none since May 22.
- On May 6 he relished the High Court decision ruling that allowed a recent arrival to see his dying father and railed against Ardern and Bloomfield saying they were heartless, cold and driven by little more than statistics.
- On April 30 he was complaining that the Government was allowing self isolation when they should have been insisting on quarantining returning kiwis.
- On April 23 he said that in June and July we will all decide if all that emphasis on health, the panic around ICU access, being kind and the determination that weeks on end crashing an economy was worth it. So far I am very appreciative of how it has gone.
- On April 21 he thought the lockdown worked a treat.
- On April 17 he railed against Ardern’s suggestion that we could eliminate the virus. “She is wrong. Elimination is a mirage. Unless you have a vaccine, you don’t eliminate a virus. And what, given we don’t have a vaccine, does elimination look like? Ask anyone and you will not get a straight answer.” This was potentially the dumbest take of a series of dumb takes.
- On April 14 he thought that asymptomatic sufferers of the virus were spreading the virus around like wildfire. Medical experts are yet to confirm this actually happens.
- On April 9 he said that he would have quarantined all returning New Zealanders, and that all we had to do was engage in social distancing. Tough and soft at the same time.
- On April 1, a day made for Mike Hosking, he questioned the disease modelling. Well ten million infections and five hundred thousand deaths later I think we can conclude that the modelling is quite sound.
- On March 23 he opinionated that Kiwis were not “taking it seriously. And the Government telling us to simply isn’t working. If you’re not taking shopping advice from the Prime Minister you’re certainly not taking health advice.” Five million kiwis would beg to differ.
- March 19 and he opined that the Government should have shut the borders. And John Key should be in charge.
- March 16 and the Government “doesn’t know how to be bold. You don’t close your country on Saturday and tell us to wait three days to be told how the economic gaps are to be filled.”
On Covid 19 Hosking has promoted a series of contradictory positions with the only common factor being that they are all anti Government.
Hosking is the Karma Sutra of New Zealand political reckons with an incredible number of rather strange positions. The only predictable thing is that he will be pro National and anti Labour. The only time he criticises National is when they are performing that badly it is clear they will lose.
Whether it is being too kind or not kind enough, too early or too late, or being too staunch or being too lax, the negative spin is so apparent and so toxic.
And yesterday when he and his wife managed to have totally contradictory and at the same time totally negative opinions on the Government was jarring.
And here is the thing. When I look through the Covid statistics for countries I see spiking infection rates, stable infection rates, and infection rates for countries, like Australia, that managed to flatten the curve but are seeing a second wave happen.
And here in Aotearoa New Zealand I see a curve that has been flattened, trampled on, spat on, rucked over and buried.
And we have a border quarantine system that is holding up and detecting cases. And a surge of returning kiwis wanting to escape the horrors of what is happening overseas. And there is no sign of community spread even though extensive numbers of tests are being conducted.
We do need to have an important discussion about New Zealand’s future and how and why we maintain eradication. And what we do with our economy. Mike’s reckons are not helping that discussion.