The Victoria University of Wellington policy journal Policy Quarterly has just published a theme issue examining COVID-19 and the New Zealand context.
Articles cover: government, law, globalisation, health, lockdown, the economy and much more.
Included is a paper on ‘Public Health Aspects of the Covid-19 Response and Opportunities for the Post-Pandemic Era‘
In this paper (which I co-author), we argue that New Zealand’s health outcome appears to be the best in the OECD, but that some other countries made better use of certain control strategies. For example, Taiwan avoided an intense lockdown by focussing more strongly on immediate and intensive border control measures. Taiwan also excelled at using digital contact tracing and widespread use of face masks.
We suggest that in the post-pandemic era there are many emerging opportunities for society to be gained by embedding better plans for controlling future emerging diseases, and strengthening public health infrastructure.
Moving forward there is an opportunity to embed other important changes such as a ‘green reset’ and other pro-equity health interventions in system changes that will naturally follow the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adapt Research Ltd 