Revisioning State-Society Relationships in a Pandemic: New Zealand’s Response to Covid-19

By Naomi Simon-Kumar, Rachel Simon-Kumar and Monique Jonas, August 2020 Introduction N ew Zealand’s early success in containing Covid-19 proved a cause célèbre worldwide as the only Western country to pursue an elimination strategy committed to completely eradicating transmission of the virus within its borders. Led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the government acted swiftly and decisively as rates of infection mounted early on in the outbreak, placing the entire country into full national lockdown on 26 March. These efforts proved effective; the country was declared ‘Covid Free’ on June 8 2020, a status it maintained until a recent resurgence in August, localised mostly in Auckland, put the country back on alert. In this paper, we examine the factors that contributed to New Zealand’s initial success, highlighting the distinctive state-society mandates that were forged through the response. We also reflect, briefly, on the emerging recent resurgence and its impacts that are still unfolding. The paper first outlines the government’s response strategy to initial outbreak of Covid in March-June. This is followed by an overview of the broader institutional factors that paved the way for its success. In the final section, we draw attention to several political philosophical considerations that impact upon the viability and effectiveness of collective action in response to health threats and view New Zealand’s Covid-19 trajectory in light of them. New Zealand’s Covid response: acting hard and early An ambitious elimination strategy was not on the immediate agenda for Ardern’s administration; in fact, it wasn’t until late March that the approach was formally adopted and communicated to the public. Between January to early March, New Zealand managed a fairly precautionary approach to addressing the outbreak in line with comparable countries, with a clear emphasis on monitoring and surveillance of the fast-evolving situation. Several alert mechanisms were activated as ear