The Guardian reports:

The inspirational second world war veteran Captain Tom Moore has been appointed an honorary colonel to mark his 100th birthday on Thursday in recognition of his efforts that have raised nearly £30m for the NHS.

The centenarian will become the figurehead for the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, which trains 16- and 17-year-olds, on a birthday that will be celebrated with more than a hundred thousand birthday cards – and two special flypasts.

Two helicopters are due to fly over Moore’s home in Bedfordshire in the afternoon, while the flight of a wartime Spitfire and a Hurricane will be broadcast live on BBC at 8.20am, to avoid large numbers of people trying to travel and see it.

The veteran said it was “quite extraordinary” that he was turning 100. “It is even more extraordinary that I am doing so with this many well-wishers and I am in awe at the response my walking has had”.

Well-wishers have also sent him more than 125,000 cards, which are being stored at his grandson’s secondary school ahead of delivery – and he is also due to receive a personalised message from the Queen.

The events cap a heady period in which Moore first captured the nation’s imagination by raising millions by meeting a promise to walk the length of his 25m garden 100 times before his birthday to raise money for NHS charities.

The veteran originally set out to raise £1,000 but donations wildly exceeded that, and he completed his efforts in the middle of the month, surrounded by a guard of honour. At that point he had raised £12m, but it has continued to rise and passed £20m on 17 April.

What an amazing acheivement. It is now at 30 million pounds.

The Guardian reports:

It’s been quite a six months for Boris Johnson. In rough chronological order – the prime minister’s timelines have always had a tendency to get messy – he has won a general election, taken the UK out of the EU, acquired a dog, finalised a divorce, got engaged to Carrie Symonds, announced they were expecting a baby together, taken 10 days’ holiday during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, been admitted to the intensive care unit at St Thomas’ with Covid-19 and become a father again.

That is a huge six months – election, Brexit, engagement, ICU and a baby.

Just how many children Boris now has is anyone’s guess.

It is at least six, but probably seven and possibly more. They are:

• Lara Lettice Johnson aged 27, born to Marina Wheeler whom he married five days before (he was married to someone else at conception, with an annulment four weeks before birth)
• Milo Arthur Johnson aged 25, born to his then wife Marina Wheeler
• Cassia Peaches Johnson aged 23 born to his then wife Marina Wheeler
• Theodore Apollo Johnson aged 21 born to his then wife Marina Wheeler
• Stephanie Macintyre aged 11 born to his mistress Helen Macintyre
• Another child to an unknown mother according to a court judgment in the Macintyre case
• Baby boy Johnson born April 2020 to his fiancee Carrie Symonds

Statistically there are probably more!

Newshub reports:

Public health experts have told Newshub the Health Ministry’s data on COVID-19 cases is meaningless and we haven’t won the battle on community transmission. 

The concern is that in-depth, targeted community testing is still yet to begin. 

Auckland University School of Medicine Professor Des Gorman says we can’t claim to have stopped community transmission.

“Quite frankly, given the way we’ve been reporting data and given the extent of testing we’ve done, I suspect that question [of stopping community transmission is still to be answered,” he says.

Another epidemiologist, Otago University Professor Nick Wilson, also agrees we are “some way” from being able to claim we’ve stopped community transmission because the level of testing in New Zealand has not been at a high enough level for long enough.

Another epidemiologist, who asked not to be named, agreed telling Newshub “we have not won anything yet”.

It comes after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday we had won the battle against community transmission.

“There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle.”

So who do we believe?

“If they’re confident that the community prevalence is trending to zero, and if they’re confident they can track people within 48 hours, and if they’re confident they can isolate cases, we should be at level 2. If we’re not there, presumably one of those three platforms is yet to reach the stage of confidence,” he says.

I’ve read this elsewhere also. Unless one of these is missing, we would be at L2. The government should be upfront and say which component is missing.

Oliver Hartwich addressed the Epidemic Response Committee and had some wise words:

I hope the Government listens.

Stuff reports:

Raising taxes to recover the billions of dollars the government has been spending through the Covid-19 crisis may not be the best way forward, says former Prime Minister Sir John Key. …

In an interview with Radio Tarana, Key praised the government’s efforts to contain and eliminate Covid-19, but warned of consequences of the large spending during lockdown keeping businesses afloat and paying wage subsidies.

“They’re spending a tremendous amount of money and it’s appropriate that they’re doing so, but the question is will they try and recoup that through higher taxes?

“I certainly hope that they don’t, not in the short term anyway, because that will slow the economy down further and cost more jobs,” said Key, who served as Prime Minister 2008 to 2016.

I hope they listen to Key but I suspect they won’t. I think Labour will look to use this crisis to do what they have long wanted – to whack up taxes.

A guest post from MrTips:

The lockdown for COVID-19 had to happen, there is unlikely to be anyone with a combined pulse and brain who thinks life could continue ad lib as it did before. But I personally believe there is room for genuine debate about how much lockdown is/was needed. Hindsight is always 20-20, but there is also a case to be made based on “fool me once on me, twice on you”. We need to address the REAL consequences of severe lockdown before we contemplate doing it again.

Prior to us going to Level 4, many of my scientific and medical colleagues had already thought beyond the 4 weeks and expressed concern about the potential for loss of acute clinical service to people who genuinely needed it. Heart attacks, cancer, road accidents, important elective services. On top of this, the government and MOH flu vaccine and PPE distributions to GPs and some tertiary health divisions have been claimed as abysmal. Being closer than most to the action, I know who I believe.

In the last week or so, the economic consequences and debates have begun. The economic, societal and mental health consequences of lockdown are predicted to be severe. This could be classed as an understatement. But now, the medical consequences of a Level 4 type lockdown are becoming apparent. On the 16^th of March 2020, Austria went into a Level 4 harsh lockdown, about 2-3 weeks after its first COVID19 case. Sounds familiar. They are now loosening the restrictions. Also sounds familiar. But is there a previously unappreciated medical cost? This research article in the number one ranked European Heart Journal suggests there is. Metzler and colleagues looked at the cost of lost services in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) during the first two weeks of the lockdown, compared with the two weeks before. The conclusion? Estimated excess ACS deaths due to the lockdown likely exceeded actual COVID-19 deaths in Austria to 29 March (110 vs 86). So, the true COVID-19 related death toll at the time could reasonably be argued as more than twice the “official” rate. Given that the Austrian COVID-19 death toll went from 86 on the 29^th March to 491 on the 21^st April, one could be forgiven for being concerned that unmet acute cardiac service deaths rose to over 600! And that is just for one condition. What about cancer? Suicides?

If this single result bears out in further post-lockdown research (underscored by ICD-10 COD records) then it paints a bleak future indeed. Unfortunately, this outcome will almost certainly be repeated in other European jurisdictions, once their data comes to publication. So, its highly likely Austria got more than they bargained for; so will we. Now that we plan to loosen from our Level 4 restrictions, it is going to be very important for authorities to consider the TOTAL medical consequences of the lockdown. We only have 14 COVID-19 deaths to date (22 April). How many heart attack deaths do we have over the last month, who could have been saved but for reduced service, or its non-take up? Given that one New Zealander dies every 90 minutes from heart disease under normal circumstances, we really need to know. Further, the Austrian data suggests if we go into lockdown again, it’ll just get worse, and could be absolutely futile. Losing your hard earned business from this virus would be absolutely heart breaking – possibly fatal. Turns out, it may be just as heart breaking in medicine as well.

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Michael Reddell writes:

As far as I can tell, we have seen not a single pro-active release by the government or any of its ministries or agencies of any analysis or advice generated with those agencies and relevant to decisionmaking, or evaluation of decisions, on responding to the coronavirus, or the economic or social effects of the virus and private or public responses to (the risk of) it.  Perhaps worst is the Ministry of Health, which appears to have a central role in advising the government, and exercising some powers itself: they have belatedly released some (questionable) Otago University modelling, and belatedly released the Verrall report on contact tracing, but we have seen not a word of their advice or analysis, or of any frameworks they are using to shape their advice.

It is no better on the economic side.   On the purely economic response side, the Reserve Bank and its Monetary Policy Committee has appeared consistently complacent and slow to react, then lurching into the extraordinary commitment not to cut the OCR further no matter how bad the economic and inflation situation gets.  But none of their supporting analysis or advice, for far-reaching unconventional interventions (and not), has seen the light of day –  and, despite the Official Information Act, is unlikely ever to do so, successive Ombudsmen having proved extraordinarily deferential to the Bank.

On The Treasury side, pro-active release of papers relating to the annual Budget has long been a very positive feature.  But we’ve seen nothing at all of the analysis and advice that contributed to the large economic package –  some coronavirus related, some just electioneering –  announced a month ago, or any of the interventions since.   And, of course, we have seen not a hint of any advice or analysis provided to the government or the Ministry of Health in advance of either the inital partial lockdown decision or the latest extension of restrictions announced yesterday.    Is there even a hint of any sort of serious cost-benefit analysis in The Treasury’s approach/advice?  Are they even seriously near the top table at all?  We simply don’t know.   Even the economic scenarios paper released last week –  useful in its way – masked as much as it revealed, because most of the underlying analysis –  eg just how large are the economic losses at each of the government’s “levels” –  is hidden.

And, of course, we have seen precisely none of the Cabinet papers –  of which there must be very many, large and small, relevant to decisionmaking around the crisis over the last three months.  The Epidemic Preparedness Act can only be invoked on the advice of the Director-General of Health, but we’ve not seen the substance of his advice or recommendation.  We are told that yesterday Cabinet acted in accordance with the advice/recommendation of the Director-General, but we’ve seen no sign of that either –  including, thus, no ability to assess the Director-General’s advice on aspects that he (and his agency) know precisely nothing about –  not just the economic dimensions of choices, but those around liberty, rights, civil society and so on. It would be good some day to see, for example, the advice that led the government to acquiesce in the barbarism of banning funerals –  and, recall, they are still banned until next week.  At present, instead, we have nothing.

Reddell makes an excellent point. We’ve seen the most dramatic decisions of our lifetimes, and decisions that will costs tens of billiosn of dollars – and the Government has barely released any papers on which they made their decisions.

I asked Corrections how many convictions prisoners serving a sentence of under three years have.

Many might assume that the vast majority are first time offenders.

In fact only 23% have 10 or fewer convictions.

A massive 46% have 25 or more convictions.

17% have 50 or more convictions.

And 3% have 100 or more convictions.

These are who Labour wants to grant the vote to.

Spiked has an excellent profile of the great explorer Captain Cook. The woke generation are trying to turn him into a villain, so read this article to get a different view.

Here’s 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was one of eight children of his father, a Scottish farm labourer
2. He only attended school for five years
3. He has no descendants. His six children died without children. They were James died age 31, Nathaniel died age 16, Elizabeth died age 4, Joseph died before 1, George died before 1, and Hugh died age 17
4. Cook almost encountered mainland Antarctica
5. Cook spent 12 years of his life sailing around the Pacific
6. The botanists on his voyages collected 3,000 plant species increasing the known plant species by 25%
7. William Bligh served under Cook
8. During the US War of Independence, Benjamin Franklin ordered US forces not to attack or detain Cook but to treat him as a common friend of mankind
9. He mapped more of the globe than anyone before him
10. None of his crew died from scurvy due to his insistence on them eating sauerkraut

Mark Jennings at Newsroom writes:

The best thing the Government could do to help New Zealand media right now is to get the Prime Minister on a Zoom call with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and ask him for $100 million.

In return for saving the New Zealand media, she agrees to let Zuckerberg off the hook that the Australian, French and other governments are planning to put him on by making Facebook pay for news content.

Eric Crampton points out:

I know that things are pretty tough in the newsrooms, but asking the government to run a shakedown operation to fund you is not all that hot.

We’ve seen this before.

The music industry demanded a tax on CDs to fund their previous business model.

The media industry are demanding a tax on Google and Facebook simply because they provided a better advertising advertising product than them.

I wonder if the horse and buggy people demanded a tax on cars?

Tim Hazeldine writes:

We need a big boost, fast. So, the Government has invited local authorities to prepare plans for “shovel-ready” projects – and, boy, have they responded, with long wish-lists requiring billions of dollars in subsidies.

I think this is quite the wrong thing to do. I have three concerns. First, a lot of these projects are dodgy from a cost-benefit perspective, and some may be particularly inappropriate to our new post-pandemic economy. Top of Wellington’s list is an international convention centre – does the business plan for this still stack up, if indeed it ever did? Auckland has prioritised the ruinously expensive underground railway, premised on the assumption of continued mass commuting to the CBD.

Can only agree. We certainly do need to do some infrastructure spending to soften the recession but they must be projects that produce benefits that exceed their costs.

And thirdly, because of problem two, it turns out that most of these schemes couldn’t actually be cranked up before six months from now, at the earliest. But we need a programme that will give relief to households and revenue to small and not-so-small businesses right across the country, and right away, the moment we get to lockdown level 2.

There is only one way to do this fairly and efficiently, and it is a very good way. On the day that the Prime Minister announces the move to level 2, the Minister of Finance should startle the country by proclaiming a GST holiday: zero GST from tomorrow until…well, he probably shouldn’t say when. Just get out there and enjoy it while you can, with 15 per cent more spending power in your pockets.

A great idea. It is an effective 13% boost the household budgets and will encourage spending, boosting the economy and jobs.

Instead of adding to the deficit by throwing expensive shovels at projects, and thereby taking the public sector’s share of total spending up even further than its current, very high, level of 40 per cent of GDP, let’s hold the line on spending and cut tax revenues for a while, and let the households and the business sector sort out the shovelling for themselves.

I 100% agree. What I find remarkable is that Hazeldine is generally regarded as one of the most prominent left leaning economists. When he is saying that what we need is to keep spending below 40% of GDP and instead cut taxes, well hopefully some of his former students will listen.

Stuff reports:

Waikato Mongrel mob members have been delivering food during lockdown but police have said their boss isn’t an essential worker.

The exact status of the gang remains unclear, with its media liaison Louise Hutchinson saying they had become essential workers prior to the lockdown to be able to support their people. 

So we have the Mongrel Mob themselves saying they have been granted essential worker status.

Leader Sonny Fatupaito was having weekly calls with police deputy commissioner Wally Haumaha and other gangs around the country to work together, she said. 

Weekly calls with the Deputy Commissioner!!

“Wally Haumaha put together a group of key leaders and we have been having telephone calls through the lockdown to make sure our people can access services.” 

Very important that the gangs are looked after with such personal top level service.

How many rotary clubs have managed the same?

It has become routine for various media outlets around the world to highlight the high number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA. Given the very low rate of deaths in New Zealand (and Australia which is even slightly lower than NZ), it has become common place for NZ media (and many New Zealanders on social media) to also comment on the high number of US deaths and to link to foreign media making this point.

Almost all such articles and posts focus on the raw numbers coming out of the US with rare attempts at balancing these statistics by rendering deaths as a percentage of population. With a pall of suspicion over the official figures coming out of China and Russia and with Indian in a stringent lockdown, the US’s large population of over 330 million always meant the numbers of raw cases and deaths in the US would be high.

However, a different picture emerges when you look at deaths per million population with a number of countries in Western Europe showing considerably higher virus death rates when the figures are rendered per million. Media that report on such high US figures also often fail to put the US figures into any proper regional context. The tables below attempt to do this.

Anyone studying the spread of the virus in the US will acknowledge that New York is a major global hotspot. The concentration of cases and deaths in a handful of states is quite dramatic as the tables show. If you take the greater New York metropolitan area, when you incorporate the adjacent urban areas of New Jersey and Connecticut, shows that a huge number of US cases are found in that one urban conurbation of about 20 million. Add in the next 4 states with major outbreaks (Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania), these 7 states comprise a whopping 72% of all US deaths which means the remaining [EDIT: 43] US states share the remaining 28% of deaths!

The first table calculates the death rate per million for those 43 states and shows that the average of these less hit states is near the bottom of the 1st world rankings. The second table also demonstrates what an incredible hotspot New York is. The whole of the US sits somewhat in the middle of the 1st world pack and the 43 states are lower than Germany (considered somewhat of the European gold standard of results). Finally, as a comparison I have included Hawaii which has the lowest death rate of all 50 states explained by much the same reason why Australia and NZ have such low rates; it is an isolated island state where almost all incoming possibly infected people come by plane into a few airports where passengers could be more easily checked.

[EDIT] Japan’s figures in the table are their total cases per 1 M, the Japanese deaths per 1 M population is only 3.

Hopefully these tables give some clearer and more factual context to the actual virus death figures. I will do other posts in due course covering the US response to the coronavirus, China’s handling of it and finally some external views on New Zealand’s attempt at elimination and the financial impact of differing degrees of lockdown adopted by different jurisdictions.

The Herald reports:

Police are investigating a major break-in at a South Auckland car rental yard where almost 100 vehicles were stolen on Friday night.

Inspector Matt Srhoj, Counties Manukau West Area Commander, told the Herald it is believed around 100 vehicles, registered to Jucy Rentals, were stolen from the company’s Mangere yard.

How the hell do you steal 100 cars without anyone noticing?

Do you have 100 people as part of the theft, all driving one each?

Do you have 20 car movers that take six each?

Where do you store them all?

Also how did they get keys to them all? Surely the keys are kept in a locked safe or something?

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When Level 4 was extended by five days Employment Minister Willie Jackson said that another week at Level 4 won’t “hurt or destroy anyone” which showed his out of touch some Ministers were or are.

One of my readers suggested to me that I develop a Covid Cost Counter to show people in real time what the cost to the economy is of being in Level 4 or Level 3, to complement my current counters showing the number of Kiwibuild houses and trees the Government should have built or planted by now.

I consulted half a dozen economists on the best way to calculate this, and not surprisingly got a wide range of opinions. A key point they stressed is that the cost to the economy in Level 4 or 3 is not just because of the decision to be in that level, There will be some cost regardless of government decisions as people change their behaviour regardless.

So the counter shouldn’t be seen as measuring the cost of the decision by the Government. But what is can be seen as is the cost to the economy is huge and growing every day we continue, and that there is a very real trade off.

So what is the cost of Level 4 and Level 3? Treasury said Level 4 sees a 40% reduction in GDP or output and Level 3 a 25% reduction/

So an simple calculation is

• Annual GDP $320 billion
• 40% is $128 billion
• That is $350 million per day
• That is $14.6 million per hour
• That is $243,000 per minute
• That is $4,058 per second

For Level 3 it is $2,536 per second.

So on the right hand side you can now see a Covid cost counter. It shows the costs in thousands of dollars as it can’t move fast enough to show $2,536 clicks every second.

So far our economy has lost an estimated $11.8 billion and that is increasing by $219 million a day. Per household that is $6,700 per household and increasing at $125 a day.

Again this is now just because of the Level 4 and 3 restrictions. Some of this was inevitable the moment we started social distancing. But it is a constant reminder of the huge cost households and businesses will incur the longer we continue with the restrictions.

On the assumption that surely David Clark is goneburger, this raises the issue of who will be the new Minister of Health. Not a lot of options. Let’s look at the Cabinet in order, assuming it must be a Labour Minister:

• Ardern herself. Could be justified until the election on the basis the portfolio is so critical. And she clearly is the de facto Minister already with Clark locked out of Wellington. But it is a portfolio that takes a lot of time, so not ideal for a PM
• Kelvin Davis – LOL LOL LOL
• Robertson can’t do a major spending portfolio with Finance
• Twyford – double LOL LOL LOL
• Megan Woods – a definite possibility. Quietly competent so far.
• Hipkins – won’t want to leave Education
• Little – would have to give up Justice which he loves
• Sepuloni – doubtful she is seen as having the political skills
• Parker – a possibility. Others could do his current roles.
• Mahuta – again political skills unlikely to be judged highly enough
• Nash – not trusted enough by Robertson
• Lees-Galloway – not after giving a drug dealer residency
• Salesa – a possibility as an Associate, but unlikely
• O’Connor – needed in Agriculture
• Faafoi – too new into Cabinet

So my overall pick would be Woods most likely with 2nd most likely is Ardern takes it herself.

The Herald reports:

Health Minister David Clark reportedly moved house while the rest of the country was on lockdown.

Clark was spotted repeatedly between two Dunedin properties during the month-long lockdown period.

He and his family are believed to have recently moved into a new home before the country went into level 4, with the minister seen moving large furniture and appliances as the country went into the mandatory nationwide restrictions, 1 NEWS reported.

Clark’s office confirmed he was working at times during lockdown from his old house, which he still owns and said it provided a quieter work environment.

What did Level 4 rules say? The house you are in the night Level 4 started you must stay in for the duration.

This really is a new low for political stupidity. Not even Ardern’s reluctance to sack Ministers for anything short of assaulting their staff can save him. Surely he is gone.

What is even more astonishing is that we are in the middle of a 1 in 100 year global pandemic and the Minister of Health has so little to do, that he has time to move house an be carrying furniture and appliances between the two houses.

The Times reports:

Labour officials ran a secret operation to deceive Jeremy Corbyn at last year’s general election, micro-targeting Facebook adverts at the leader and his closest aides to convince them the party was running the campaign they demanded.

Campaign chiefs at Labour HQ hoodwinked their own leader because they disapproved of some of Corbyn’s left-wing messages.

They convinced him they were following his campaign plans by spending just £5,000 on adverts solely designed to be seen by Corbyn, his aides and their favourite journalists, while pouring far more money into adverts with a different message for ordinary voters.

That’s really cunning. Spend $5,000 making them appear to the leader’s office and associates and they’ll be appearing so often they’ll think its saturation advertising to the public.

That’s one strike that everyone should get behind.

Charging students fees for rooms they are unable to access is just wrong.

Also it appears Vic Uni is double charging the same room. They’re charging those in emergency accom at Weir House $300 a week and also charging the original inhabitants $150 a week as a holding fee. Just nuts.

If student associations want to prove their value, they should be preparing a lawsuit on behalf of affected students.

Also have to laugh at this response:

The Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington says students’ education will suffer if they don’t pay a $150 weekly ‘holding fee’ for student accommodation they can’t access. …

In an email to students yesterday, Victoria University vice-chancellor Professor Grant Guildford said the halls operate as a “cost-recovery ancillary operation”.

“Without the hall fees being paid we are having to cross-subsidise the halls from the tuition revenue – disadvantaging the quality of the education of all students.”

He said the other option was to fire staff.

“Or we cut the costs of the halls which would means a lot of staff (including RA’s) losing their jobs which is the last thing we want to see happen,” he wrote.

What nonsense. The other option is just to wear the loss against your balance sheet as a one off loss, as many other organisations have had to do.

VUW has $150 million of current assets including $80 million cash reserves. Overall net assets are $800 million.

So claiming that it is sack staff or charge students for rooms they are unable to access is a PR claim, but not a binary issue.

The issue is one of common sense. You don’t charge people for a service they can’t access.