It's been a busy week of lockdown. On Monday, we released my report looking at cap-and-trade solutions for freshwater quality. Yesterday, Matt and I sent in our submission on the Commerce Commission's inquiry into supermarket competition.
Don't think the computer's shut down this week. The browser tabs....
- It's a shame that rapid antigen tests are illegal in NZ. They aren't nearly as accurate as PCR. But when people are waiting six days for a test result and, in some cases, trying to run at-home isolation from the rest of the family during that period, having rapid antigen testing as a complement would be really good. RNZ reported on nurses living with close contacts being told to turn up for work even where those contacts' results hadn't come in yet. We could have had rapid antigen tests rolled out for staff starting shifts in hospitals and care homes. MedSafe banned them in April 2020 and re-upped the ban in April 2021.
- I love this. North Canterbury's MainPower is telling staff to "Take Two for the Team". If 90% of their workforce is fully vaccinated by 1 December, every vaccinated staffer gets an extra day of special leave. Vaccination isn't just for you, it's for the team. Perfect.
- I had a bit of fun in our Insights newsletter comparing the stringency of SmokeFree rules with the stringency of rules for MIQ exercise facilities. I'm pretty sure the Crowne Plaza's exercise area would not have been approved as an outdoor smoking patio for the bar.
- Meridian is putting in battery storage. Presumably they'll use it during times of peaking demand when power prices are through the roof. And of course, screwing around with the electricity market with price caps would discourage these kinds of investments.
- Scientific American makes the case for the combination of carbon prices and carbon dividends. The Climate Commission pretends this option doesn't exist. It's depressing. I suppose the advice from NZ for Americans looking at this option: make damned sure that they're actually going to distribute the money back as a dividend, because the political establishment very much prefers to turn that money into its own discretionary slush fund to target to their voters. New Zealand's Green Party understands the case for carbon dividends. But they'd rather give their own voters a subsidy for a Tesla. It's depressing. Standard logic-of-collective-action stuff: concentrated benefits to Tesla-buying people, distributed cost to everyone who doesn't get a carbon dividend. And it'll make it easier to claim that reg measures on carbon are needed because of political pressure on ETS if prices rise - the sign on which would reverse if we had a carbon dividend.
- The Atlantic continues to be great on Covid coverage. Best case, stupid endemic Covid becomes more like colds and flus because everyone will have some protection through vaccination and our immune systems will be able to handle it. But the virus could mutate to evade vaccines and immunity from prior infections.
- My Dom column on the freshwater management report.
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