Covid 19 coronavirus: Jacinda Ardern v Simon Bridges – the second day of zero cases leads to pressure on PM; Winston Peters enters combat

LAST VIRUSES
• The death toll in the UK is close to 30,000, the highest in Europe and second only to the United States
• Globally, there are now 3.63 million cases and 254,400 deaths.
• NZ has recorded its second consecutive day of zero cases, now only 164 active cases
• Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison agree to start working on a transtasman travel agreement
• Dying dad was alone in the hospital for 10 days: “I felt like I was killing him”
• The Kiwi story poem goes viral, drawing attention from List A.
• Latest developments and essential information.

A second day of zero new Covid-19 cases has prompted pressure from National Party leader Simon Bridges to review the blockade by next week, earning him a strong reprimand from the Prime Minister.

Bridges argues that the cabinet should not be waiting until next Monday to decide when to move to level 2; He says the prime minister must ask every day what can be safely opened now to save jobs.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters also entered the debate this morning, indicating that he, too, was fighting for a quick release from the level 3 blockade, possibly on Wednesday of next week.

“I don’t break cabinet confidentiality, but I guess,” he told Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB, when asked who was leading the debate to get to level 2 quickly. “Our job is to get out and get out as quickly as possible.”

At the same time, he said, “We cannot guarantee a secure future until the vaccine appears,” so the country needed to minimize the risk by trying to get the economy back on track.

Level 2 rules were still working, and he said people should wait seven or eight days before rushing to court. “We are looking at the whole framework. Everyone will have different views on it and should be removed.”

The level 2 rules will be published tomorrow, but the cabinet will not decide until Monday when the country can exit level 3.

The debate comes as the death toll in the UK surpasses 29,500, pushing it above Italy to become the second most affected country in the world, behind the United States. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced the new death toll, adding that the outbreak “was not yet over” and that the next phase of the virus would not be “easy”.

Back in New Zealand, Ardern is again trying to quell impatience after a second day with no new cases, saying that in other places where cases had decreased, they had increased again.

Bridges repeated his call for the government to consider daily whether it was time to open up the economy rather than wait until next Monday to make a decision.

He said National had supported the shutdown, but the purpose of “going hard and going early” was also to get out faster on the other side. He said the government was taking too conservative an approach to getting out of the lockdown, and that business owners and workers were suffering unnecessarily.

When she asked Ardern about it later in Parliament, she earned him a sharp reprimand from the Prime Minister for neglecting while she was held accountable for the decisions she was making.

“That member can afford to sit on that side of the House, without bearing the consequences of a wrong move, but not us. We have to take into account the livelihoods of all New Zealanders.”

Bridges told Hosking this morning that if he were Prime Minister, the country would be at level 2 now. Every day now counts in terms of jobs.

“We have been caught up in this arbitrary system. What the prime minister should ask every day is ‘what can I safely open?’ With unemployment on the rise, just having low Covid cases is not a success when people are out of a job. “

In his daily press conference, Ardern pointed to the Australian state of Victoria, where one case at a factory had resulted in an increase in new cases, saying it showed how easily the virus could re-take off.

That opinion was echoed by Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, who said the second zero was “very encouraging.”

However, he warned people not to break level 3 rules, as he would send an invitation to the virus: “It will accept too easily if we do that.”

Yesterday, Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also formally agreed to start work on a transtasman safe travel zone.

The pledge was made in a joint statement released after Ardern participated in a video conference with Australia’s national cabinet, a special group called in times of crisis.

However, both prime ministers warned that travel between the two countries would still be far away and would depend on adequate health and transport processes.

Peters said that Hosking’s decisions about a transtasman bubble were not entirely up to the Australian government; states also had an opinion.

He did not say whether he was disappointed with the outcome of yesterday’s Australian cabinet meeting.

If interstate and domestic travel were allowed in Australia and New Zealand, then traveling between the two countries made sense, he said.

On the subject of a contact tracking app, he said the biggest obstacle would be adoption, which should be 60 percent or more, well below that. He wasn’t hitting the technology, but he said that without “buy-in” it wouldn’t work.

Ardern and Morrison pointed to the 1.4 million visitors that flowed each way each year, saying that starting that journey again would be a great asset to both parties and a possible lifeline for some companies.

Morrison said it was unlikely to happen before the travel restriction for some Australian states was lifted, but after that there was little reason why people who could fly from Melbourne to Cairns could not fly from Melbourne to Auckland or Christchurch.

However, Ardern cautioned those sectors that relied on international travelers not to get too excited about going further.

“We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for long.”

Bridges also delivered the first part of the National Party’s plans for an economic recovery package in a Zoom speech to a Business NZ audience yesterday.

That was a $ 8 billion package, including GST rebates of up to $ 100,000 for companies that had lost more than half of their revenue during the Covid-19 months, and changes in the calculation of depreciation on investments. of capital.

In that speech, he said that the wage subsidies were quick and necessary in the initial stage of the blockade. However, future assistance should be directed to those who need it. He used the example of the major law firms, which had claimed millions in wage subsidies as those who possibly did not need the extra help.

He said his concern would be to convert a cost of $ 40-50 billion into a cost of $ 100b if untargeted aid continued, leaving massive debt. “Not everything is a good expense.”

On Thursday, the government will issue new rules to apply at level 2, before the Cabinet considers whether New Zealand can drop to that level next Monday.

That will allow many companies to work if they can return to work and what they should do.

The Cabinet agreed to those rules on Monday, and the delay before releasing them has caused some frustration between schools and businesses. Auckland Grammar Principal Tim O’Connor told the Pandemic Response Committee that the reopening would be a massive effort and that as much warning as possible was needed for schools to ensure that necessary action was taken. .

He said the Ministry of Education seemed to have made little effort to inform or involve schools, and that if classes for older adults did not return soon, the damage would be “irreparable.”

The Executive Director of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds, also said that the sector had not yet heard anything about the guidelines for working at level 2. “We don’t need a sales job to reopen. We need a realistic view of the risks for sure about what ‘you’re doing to fix it.’

Both questioned why those in the sector could not receive material in advance with the condition of confidentiality.