The costs and impacts of lockdowns

How the NZ government resisted analysis of lockdown decisions and the unbridled derision of alternative views as it would not support 'the narrative' according to government papers

A few days ago a letter to the Chair of the UK Covid inquiry (led by Great Barrington Declaration author, Sunetra Gupta of the University of Oxford) relayed concerns on biases in the Inquiry and that key assumptions were being taken for granted “…instead of examining and critiquing them in light of the evidence.” The letter also requested to see a broader range of scientific experts with more critical viewpoints than the status quo.

The initial New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned already has the (deserved) perception that it suffers from the same issues. But the change in government has at least led to public submissions on what the terms of reference should be for the Inquiry.

The current scope does include ‘modelling and surveillance systems’ but doesn’t seem to explicitly review the basis that key decisions were made on (which modelling was a key factor in) and how and when critical viewpoints were considered.

Nor how the outcomes of those decisions were analysed and measured.

Otago University academics Michael Baker and Nick Wilson did initial modelling for the Ministry of Health and then a report that recommended elimination (aka lockdowns and no tolerance for any Covid case) to the government. Only days into the outcome of their recommendation - New Zealand’s initial lockdown in March 2020, they had a self-congratulatory opinion piece published in The Guardian. They mostly used it to claim success for their just-implemented ideas which they boasted was a world 1st and called then Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern’s leadership "brilliant, decisive and humane.”

But further down their piece they include a sentence where they admit the lockdown in place does “…have massive short-term social and economic costs” that would mostly be felt by low-income New Zealanders.

They also had a blog post around the same time where the duo co-authored a quick attempt at an almost/sort-of cost-benefit analysis on elimination. Spoiler: it confirmed their beliefs that no cost was too high when faced with Covid. (And notably the co-author on that post was their frequent collaborator, the Commissioner on the 1st Covid Inquiry in New Zealand - Tony Blakely who was their former colleague from Otago University.)

The costs and impacts of lockdown decisions

No real analysis of lockdowns and the decision to pursue elimination has surfaced in documents released by the government from when these decisions were being made. While the Productivity Commission has now been disestablished, in 2020 they did write their own cost-benefit analysis (CBA) on the 20th of April 2020 decision to extend New Zealand’s initial lockdown even further. It bears remembering that lockdown in New Zealand meant everything was closed - almost nothing was open except supermarkets and gas stations. People weren’t supposed to leave their house except for going to the supermarket or perhaps if they must - a walk.

The Productivity Commission’s CBA was sparked by the fact the decision to extend the lcokdown was announced as being based on what sounded like a CBA of sorts as the extension was claimed to deliver “much greater long-term health and economic returns.”

I haven’t seen any proactively released document that explicitly quantified or analysed those said returns - which was the same finding of the CBA author.

There was some limited discussion of the lockdown’s impacts within official documents. A Cabinet paper titled “Preparing to review New Zealand’s Level 4 Status” from the 14th of April 2020 said it may be several years before economic activity returns to pre-Covid levels and there was Treasury modelling showing “…enormous negative effects on economic activity that get worse the longer the restrictions last.” It noted that the impact would be most felt by smaller businesses and “…people on lower incomes or with low savings.”

The paper also mused “..social impacts of the lockdown are also likely to be significant” and there could be sharp increases in family violence rates.

The follow-up Cabinet paper from the 20th of April 2020, which recommended the lockdown extension, confirmed that a “significant increase” had been seen in police callouts for family violence during the lockdown. It also spelled out that the health system was not under any strain. The imposition of the lockdown meant any non-urgent medical care was postponed and public hospitals were only operating at 50 to 60 per cent of their capacity during lockdown, with over 70,000 appointments outright cancelled or deferred.

Largely the Cabinet paper to extend the lockdown talks more about certain impacts that were becoming apparent, and makes no mention of any potential ‘returns’ from the extension - other than stating that while community transmission was now ‘unlikely’ everyone needed to be eased into the little bit less of a lockdown that constituted Level 3! (The step down from the full Level 4 of a lockdown to Level 3, still meant schools and workplaces and retail could not fully re-open due in large part to social distancing requirements.)

Accompanying this paper was some rather obedient modelling to support the proposed extension by the only modeller now used by the government - Shaun Hendy from his research think tank, Te Pünaha Matatini (TPM) hosted by the University of Auckland.

The Productivity Commission’s cost-benefit analysis of the 5-day extension of Level 4 was that it cost the economy an estimated $741 million more than the benefits it delivered. Hendy quickly disagreed with their estimation and publicly demanded the Productivity Commission retract the paper - the Commission stood by their analysis and eventually stopped engaging with him when he attacked them over X (Twitter).

The appendix of their CBA included the apt mention that while the author’s colleagues and the media appeared supportive of both the lockdown and the extension - all those people were able to work during the lockdown.

Lockdowns are seen by many people and ‘experts’ in other countries now as a class-based response with no evidence to support their use at the time they were enacted. The people engaged in these decisions - were actively benefiting from them at the same time. Hendy was now paid by government for modelling he and his team could do from home. Cabinet paper writers and academics who wanted lockdowns - suffered no income loss. In fact their status increased - they were indispensable, churning out advice and being in media interviews while everyone else was non-essential.

But while there was little to no explicit mainstream discussion of the impact of these decisions in New Zealand - economists were considering their impacts.

Further CBAs cropped up outside of government, including by former academic Martin Lally, economist Ian Harrison (who also critiqued the Otago University modelling) and by academic John Gibson. He commented “…poorer people and poorer societies have lower life expectancy. The actions being taken to deal with the Covid-19 risk are making New Zealand poorer, and so will reduce life expectancy.”

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) confirmed in a 2022 OIA response they never considered Gibson’s cost-benefit analysis in particular - but nor did they perform or commission at any time any quantitative analysis when considering the impact of lockdowns on the public's health and well being.

Once the elimination approach was adopted - no discussion of it, and hence no analysis, could be entertained. Pursuing an objective without considering the costs? How can robust decisions ever be made if they cannot withstand critique?

Martin Kulldorff in an interview with Jay Bhattacharya observed when they released the Great Barrington Declaration with Sunetra Gupta it clearly exposed there was no universal scientific consensus on what had become the de-facto pandemic policy across many countries. While there was a debate among scientists on the efficacy versus the impacts of these restrictive measures - it was being actively suppressed from view.

Differing views censored to maintain the ‘illusion of consensus’

Prior to the 1st lockdown’s April extension, an epidemiologist from the University of Auckland Simon Thornley, and other academics, called for something similar to the Great Barrington Declaration in New Zealand which advocated to allow normal life to resume.

And Thornley was given some airtime by some media near the very start of the lockdown.

But despite that - this article shows the play book that quickly gathered steam. His views were torn down through commentary from government endorsed experts Michael Baker and ‘30 interviews a day’ Siouxsie Wiles.

Yet it’s blatant when you read that particular article that their statements that disagree with Thornley are not treated with the same scrutiny or questioning. Media largely accepted whatever Baker or Wiles said - there was no room for debate. That article spiralled to end with Wiles alleging Thornley just didn’t care as much about people to be questioning the lockdown - unlike herself presumably.

By the time the vaccine rollout slowly started in early 2021, any alternative viewpoint was treated with open derision or suppressed from view. By May 2021 the media were actively attacking Thornley with everything they had: “The scientist and the rabbit hole: How epidemiologist Simon Thornley became an outcast of his profession.” The same year NZ Skeptics awarded him their ‘bent spoon’ award for what they called his lack of critical thinking, along with having the gall to question and oppose lockdowns and sign the Great Barrington Declaration.

If lockdown analysis was done - it meant the narrative couldn’t be maintained

The 14th of April 2020 Cabinet paper that considered how to move on from a full lockdown also mentioned “The real issue is social acceptance. Variation could, if not well managed, cut away at the “we are all in this together” narrative. There would need to be compelling, widely accepted evidence…without that, public support may be harder to secure and maintain.”

But the public support was atop a castle of sand. Government didn’t do analysis nor use independent analysis as they appear to recognise that once they did so there would be no strong rationale for their decisions.

Critical scrutiny or ‘variations’ as the Cabinet paper called it were stamped out of the government response.

The science they claimed to follow went down only a straight and narrow path favored by the few.

But we all know much of what happened in Covid had simply never been tried before. Many interventions and restrictions had limited evidence in favor of them. They could have long ranging impacts that might trump the initial rationale of saving lives - but allowing any questioning or analysis of that would destroy the illusion the government had spun of being a supremely rational and benign cross-societal force.

Even the messaging of Covid restrictions was massaged and manipulated using flashy advertising agencies and heavy doses of behavioral nudging to increase acceptance of them. Hundreds of millions was spent by government buying airtime to run this Covid messaging relentlessly.

Government also propped up journalism (the public interest journalism fund was used to fund media stories against what was labelled Covid misinformation). And the catastrophizing of Covid became the ultimate click-bait for already struggling media to keep pushing out.

The 1st Covid Inquiry’s terms also find the need to mention “The measures New Zealand put in place to respond to COVID-19 generally enjoyed high levels of public support, and were positively reviewed by independent experts.”

But this support was manipulated through social media censorship and the compliant media that ran the government narrative unquestioningly.

(And just to double down - the independent experts mentioned in the quote from the Inquiry above probably refers to a small government appointed group led by Sir David Skegg that heavily supported elimination even before the group was formed, and when they didn’t respond to the government’s request to state an explicit vaccination target - the government ignored their advice and made a target up!)

The premise of the initial Covid Inquiry was to prepare for the next pandemic which on the face of it appears very similar to the UK’s inquiry. It’s institutionalising aspects of the Covid response without adequately questioning or reviewing vast parts of it.

Public submissions on the terms of reference close on March 24th 2024.

A note to readers:

The archive now has many posts on wide-ranging topics like vaccine passes and misinformation, the lobbying that kicked off mask mandates in 2020 which ran counter to some official advice, and the homogeneity of expert opinion.