As the chances of another pandemic increase by the year, New Zealand should collaborate more closely with Australia to prepare, according to a Covid-19 modeller.
Physicist Professor Shaun Hendy and his team at Te Pūnaha Matatini modelled Covid-19 scenarios for the Government during the height of infections. These models were instrumental in shaping decisions about lockdowns, border controls, and vaccination.
In his new book, A Covid Response, Hendy said climate change, industrial agriculture, and the displacement of natural habitats “seem to be increasing our exposure rate to novel viruses by about 5% each year”.
While New Zealand was better prepared for the inevitable pandemic after Covid-19, Hendy told Q+A there was only so much a small country could do.
“There are only so many scientific experts that we have to call on. By partnering with Australia, we can call on some of that expertise.
“That might have been really useful for us in dealing with that emergency versus crisis phase.
“It might have been useful for them as well at times when they were dealing with large outbreaks, asking us to help out there,” he said.
In his book, Hendy said while there was some collaboration with Australia during Covid-19, these were largely ad hoc.
He wrote future areas of joint investment could focus on the two countries’ capacity to manufacture vaccines and anti-viral medicines.
“In New Zealand’s research funding environment, it is often a challenge to maintain a critical mass of skilled people in a single team, let alone in two teams.
“Again, partnering with Australia is a more realistic option, but that too would require a sustained funding commitment from the New Zealand government.”
Hendy told Q+A the case for this sort of trans-Tasman integration to deal with infectious diseases was only strengthened as the US “kind of dismantles its public health at the moment”.
“It really is quite alarming and people won’t be aware of the extent to which we relied on the US scientifically.
“A lot of the best science was done in the US, has been developed in the US for dealing with infectious disease. We are looking potentially to the future where that capability doesn’t exist anymore.”
Under US President Donald Trump, budgets and thousands of staff had been cut across public health agencies.
Reflecting on the Covid-19 response overall, Hendy said New Zealand did relatively well but there were things it could have done better — for example, the MIQ system.
“It took us a long time to really get those systems working and, even then, it wasn’t perfect even after we’ve been running it for a year,” Hendy said.
“But I have a lot of sympathy for the people who had to put that together, something that had never been tried before, really, in New Zealand.
“We had massive expectations on those folks to build a system from scratch with very little preparation.”
Hendy also said the first phase of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry made a “fair observation” that the country had not pivoted fast enough after its initial crisis response.
“There are a lot of things we could be reflecting on and I’m not sure if that’s going on enough. A lot of us want to forget and move on.”
But the only way New Zealand could do better next time was through preparation, he said.
“The better the preparation, the better you’ll be able to deliver a pandemic strategy in coming pandemics.
“We will have another one, unfortunately.”
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of NZ On Air.
