If one stubbornly clings to the Elimination strategy (I don’t support it, but that will have to wait for another occasion) then try to get it right. You need secure borders.

 We have attempted this with a very large measure of success. It has not been perfect as the Covid-19 Response Minister, Mr Chris Hipkins, reminded us recently: “You’re never going to have something that is 100 per cent fool-proof but you can get pretty damn close and I think we’re pretty damn close now.” 

 Well, that is a comforting remark and a convenient escape route for all sorts of bumbling mis-management and lack of reasonable foresight. The means to New Zealand’s Elimination end seem to me to be inadequate, and manifestly so when it comes to watertight border security against the Covid-19.

 The latest community-based Covid cases of three people who tested positive days after completing their fortnight in the Pullman Hotel, central Auckland can be added to the list of regrettable failures of the border measures to prevent Covid-positive arrivals slipping through the net. There had been 6 reported instances up in November last year: the Auckland August outbreak; the maintenance worker at the Rydges Hotel; a nurse at the Jet Park Hotel, Auckland; a person at the Christchurch MIQ facility; a Taranaki port worker; and, most recently, a worker at the Sudima Hotel, Christchurch. 

My suggestion is this: build a purpose-built quarantine facility and locate it on an island near Auckland. A state-of-the-art quarantine facility with several hundred rooms and the latest diagnostic equipment and viral-testing apparatus is surely better than commandeering and shoe-horning hotels (in the most densely-populated cities) into makeshift quarantine quarters.

We might learn from history and select an uninhabited island in the harbour to erect this facility . In Dunedin we have a wee isle called Quarantine Island (now, St Martin Island), Otamahua (Quail Island) in Lyttelton Harbour, Matiu (Somes Island) in Wellington Harbour and, in Auckland Harbour, Motuihe Island.

 Most arrivals land in Auckland, so it might be best to locate the sole quarantine facilitythere. I was looking at the map of greater Auckland and I saw Rangitoto Island, Rakino Island, and the previously-used isolation station of Motuihe Island. I see there is Puketutu Island in Manukau Harbour (not really an island, since it is joined by a causeway, but almost one) right there by Mangere Airport. (I discounted Waiheke Island you will be pleased to know.)

What are the problems? It might take a while to build. New Zealand builders are among the slowest in the world. Then there are the usual hoops to jump though under the Resource Management Act (but these might be by-passed). And what if the great speckled gecko or purple breasted tit lives on the island? The ecological guardians might not be happy, but then they are never easily mollified. How would you transport the arrivals there? One could have a purpose-built boat ready to ferry them there (helicopters might be too expensive). On the positive side, the quarantine headquarters, once the crisis of over, could be left in place for any future pandemics or, if that be thought too unlikely, converted in a nice holiday resort or even a correctional facility.

Perhaps my proposal is too difficult or just plain too late. Best, I guess, just to box on with the Jet Park Hotel, the Pullman and the like, and mop up the damage caused by the odd one (who slips through the cauldron) by rapid contact tracing. “Pretty damn close to foolproof”, as the Minister put it, is I suppose, close enough.