No accountability in Covid-land

Dileepa Fonseca has more on the latest installment of the Rako saga.

I know I've been going on about this since last December. 

But it really matters. 

If you can't get accurate test results quickly back to people in a pandemic, you're always going to be well behind the curve. Contact tracing is a mess of too-little capacity. Pinning down cases quickly makes that job easier. Fast results, and especially if collection is unobtrusive, reduces test hesitancy. If you have to self-isolate for days on waiting for a result, and getting a test is inconvenient and a bit painful, you'll be less likely to go do it for a sniffle than if you just have to drool in a spoon and get results same day (or overnight if it was later in the day). 

And the government has absolutely messed this up. 

Rako had offered to scale up its testing to help in the public health effort. The Ministry told them to piss off. 

Now the Ministry's threatening to expropriate Rako via requisitioned testing. 

This is fifty different kinds of stupid, but here's one of those flavors of awfulness. 

Suppose you had a testing company, and you knew you could make an investment that would 8-fold increase your capacity. 

Would you make that investment early, knowing it would wind up being needed for the public response once the Director General of Health pulled his head out of his arse, so you'd be ready to run?

How would that calculus change if the government threatened to just steal all your stuff?

If you make the investment early, increasing capacity, the government can just take it at the price the government sets, and you have to fight them in the courts about it.

If you know that they are giving themselves that power, well, it would be stupid to invest in more capacity. They can't steal what you don't have. But you might be able to work it into future negotiations, so you don't get wiped out for having made the investment before the bandit comes calling. So it's then better to wait. Even in a big outbreak where a pile of testing is needed. 

Someone on Twitter said that NZ right now is like the first people showing up at Fyre Festival. Would be nice if those who'd been warning about this lack of preparedness all year weren't being dragged along for the ride.