We just heard a few days back about COVID-19 infected numbers around the world reaching to a staggering one million mark and increasing by every passing minute, it appears to be never ending. Even in New Zealand, we had almost celebrated 23 days in a row with no new cases registered, gave us an impression that we have won the war against COVID-19.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case, we had some leakages, we faltered, and we missed at some strategic points which resulted in pandemic to rebound though in controlled environment now.

As we opened the borders to bring back our residents and citizens stuck in other countries including pandemic hot spot countries like UK, USA and the Indian subcontinent, we needed to be more alert and cautious in doing more rigorous testing and following stricter quarantine rules.

This is still not the time to get relaxed especially at strategic check points as Immigration check, when we know that people coming from hot spot countries can pose a risk to the locals. How can we be so slack for not testing people coming into our country? Some very strict action should have been taken against the persons responsible for it, so it is not repeated in future.

From zero numbers for three weeks in row to taking these numbers back into mid-twenties, is an embarrassment for the government, what ever the reason for it may be. Opposition parties, especially the main opposition party Nationals, made a lot of noise about the blunder and demanded to sack the Health Minister David Clarke. Clarke has been lucky so far for not been axed till now despite goofing up a few times since Corona crises started in early March.

There are many new challenges already come up practically for everyone since this pandemic struck 5-6 months ago and took the entire world in its grip. This situation is absolutely unprecedented, and the world was not prepared for it. In bigger countries like India these challenges are many folds bigger as compared to small countries like New Zealand.

It is relatively much easier to manage & resolve this situation in New Zealand as compared to a much bigger, complex, and geographically diverse country like India. A country like India has to fight on so many fronts together on a daily basis and now this Corona crisis has broken the back its economy. Imagine half of the population of a nation of 1.3 billion is in lockdown situation since over two months and on top of that, its hostile neighbour is ready to wage a war against it.

The opposition parties do not take a friendly approach even in these situations in India so we must feel lucky that New Zealand opposition has been quite supportive throughout the crisis period. Government needs to own up any lapses and make the concerned person accountable for it, to ensure its not repeated in future. It has already cost the country so dearly and we cannot afford any repeat of it.

A much bigger challenge is already there for the government to face and that is on the economy front and also elections in New Zealand are just around the corner. Fortunately for Jacinda, she does not have to face any formidable opposition in this election but if Labour is back in power even with a comfortable majority, her foremost challenge will be to bring the economy back on track.

As per estimates the unemployment will be at a historic high around Christmas and all sort of support and subsidies would dry up by that time so that will be real testing time of Jacinda’s political and economic management skills. Let us hope she wins over this hurdle as well like she has many other in the past.

-Yugal Parashar