Birds in a gilded cage?
The Skegg Report has proposed a pathway towards freedom but maintained New Zealand should stick with an elimination strategy. The goal is maximation vaccination to make opening up as safe as possible.
Tag: coronavirus
Beating biases
Why did moa decline all over New Zealand around the time Māori arrived when the first people were not widespread? And what does this ahve to do with figuring out why COVID cases are dropping in the UK despite the country having opened up in July.
Bodies of knowledge
A group of academics have written a letter to the Royal Society of New Zealand expressing their concerns about the school curriculum being required to ensure parity for mātauranga Māori with other bodies of knowledge. What is the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science? Are the academic’s concerns reasonable?
Scales of change
Behavioural change takes 1.5 generations on average, technological change 2 to 3.5. If we want to have an impact on climate change, should governments start focusing on people’s behaviour rather than technological silver bullets? And how much of a role can community play?
Inflation & interest rates
Where are inflation and interest rates in New Zealand headed? Quantitative easing increased money supply but the government didn’t expect that to result in inflation. Huh?
Productivity
MBIE is preventing people using software innovations to book slots in MIQ. We have spent the last thirty years telling scientists to be more entrepreneurial but now we’re telling people to act dumb?
Third waves
Here comes the third wave of COVID-19 around the world. Luckily, it appears the 3rd wave is relatively non-lethal in countries with high rates of vaccination. Although NZ still hasn’t decided on our vaccination targets.
Reactions and over-reactions
An Australian visitor, coming here under the auspices of an open border saving our economy, came with COVID. Will we be lucky and they won’t have transmitted disease? Or back in lockdown?
Perverse incentives
Should we offer incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated? New Zealand isn’t yet but other countries are offering a variety of goods including cheap cannabis products, chicken wings and gold nose pins.
Living the divide
Housing in Queenstown is not affordable for many people, driving the community and skills we need away from the area. COVID is just making this worse and there are no obvious solutions.