If lockdown is a “tool” for Covid-19 management, then small businesses would expect the government to innovate and improve the tool, to give them a fair chance of surviving any future lockdowns.
Small businesses cry every time an expert commentary appears in the media recommending extension of lockdown to get on top of the recent Delta outbreak in Auckland.
It’s not that businesses are not emotionally invested in the safety and wellbeing of New Zealanders, it’s just that small businesses are bearing the maximum brunt of keeping the team of five million safe.
Small businesses are bleeding cash every time the country is plunged into complete lockdown with zero commercial activities permitted, barring essential services, and with scarce government support available in the form of a one-off payment under the Resurgence Support Plan.
Under this government’s current lockdown management plan those who work for others are able to hunker down with a minimum assured wage subsidy, while those who operate small businesses and have given employment to others risking their own money raised in the form of savings or debts, do not have such luxury.
Notably, Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced the second round of Resurgence Support payments on Friday, September 10, that will bring an additional one-off payment, which has been welcomed by segment of small businesses, yet many calling it out as not sufficient enough to ameliorate their financial worries.
The small businesses continue to face the grim realities of keeping their businesses afloat during lockdowns, as they are required to pay for overheads to keep a business operational, despite no commercial activity permitted by the government.
One of the biggest anxieties small businesses face today is whether they would be able to successfully see through any future lockdowns in the near future.
As the country reels under second Alert Level 4 lockdown within 18 months, with several in-between regional Alert Level 3 lockdowns, one would be living in a fool’s paradise to not expect that many more lockdowns would be coming our way in near future, especially with several new deadly strains of the virus emerging overseas.
However, the question remains if the government has accepted lockdowns as a new fact of life for some time to come.
If not, why is this so?
If yes, then is there any publicly available information on the government’s view on the nature and scope of future lockdowns.
The government’s till date shambolic track record of Covid vaccination (21% of eligible NZ population before Delta outbreak) clearly suggests that former was the case about government’s view on lockdown and it was caught napping by assuming that the last lockdown (March-April 2020) was an aberration and not a new reality – at least for some considerable time ahead.
It is against this backdrop that small businesses would be crying out for better planning for all future lockdowns that does not disadvantage or punish them unfairly for their risk-taking entrepreneurial spirits.
Most human societies in general have incentivised and rewarded the risk-takers amongst them, regardless of time and space in history, for the potential benefit that risk-taking enterprises often can yield for collective good.
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This should not change even under the spell of the current global pandemic as long as such risk-taking entrepreneurship can happen in a safe manner without compromising public health safety goals.
Lockdown, as we know now, courtesy public communication around Covid-19 management so generously served to us by the Prime Minister-led 1 pm national broadcast and highly educative commentaries and interviews of epidemiologists and experts in media, is a “tool” for Covid management.
In a pre-Covid western liberal democratic world, lockdown would have been construed as a poor Third World response to any civic situation, often resorted to by illiberal dictatorial regimes or weak states and despised in the so called free world.
It is amazing to see how quickly societal norms can change dramatically in such a short span of time, making lockdown appear as one of the most potent, scientifically supported “tools,” in managing this public health pandemic.
The overwhelming support for this latest lockdown in response to Delta outbreak as captured in a recent NZ Herald survey nicely reflects how the public have quietly accepted lockdowns as a new normal for some time in near future.
Now is the time for any progressive government to not become complacent and think ahead of the curve and plan for allowing more commercial activities without compromising the public health goals.
ISSUE
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