We all witnessed President Trump in denial about COVID-19 at his political rallies. The mantra 'we have turned the corner' ('bigly', no doubt!), became a daily diet for Trump's base in the final days of the US presidential campaign, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Similarly, he promised that a COVID-19 vaccine was just weeks away.  But on that front, it wasn’t all fake news.

Recent reports of three new, apparently effective vaccines suggest that on the latter issue at least, Trump was right. But, as COVID-19 continues to rage throughout the US and Europe his assertion that ‘it will go away' soon still seems crazy. Yet this claim, too, might turn out to be eventually correct.

Before we are thought to be living in the same world as Trump, we should point out that we recognise the virus might never 'go away'. Even if the new vaccines prove to be effective, COVID-19 might, like the flu, turn up each year in a different garb.

Already bored by reading yet another article about COVID-19? If so, you have cleverly grasped the main point of this article; namely that at some point this pandemic will cease to be a major political issue even if the virus persists.  Like viruses, most political issues have a natural life cycle. For example, during the recent NZ election, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern focused on her government’s successful management of the pandemic, labelling the contest 'the COVID election'. Post-election, however, political debate has quickly shifted to other more familiar policy issues, including public demands for the government to ‘do something’ about the shortage of affordable housing. 

In democratic regimes, the political agenda is always crowded. Many issues never manage to force their way onto the agenda and those that do face strong competition to remain in the spotlight. However, the process whereby issues come and go may not be random.

Just over half a century ago, the American economist, Anthony Downs, wrote a quite brilliant (and readable!) article entitled Up and down with ecology-- the 'issue attention cycle'. The article begins with the statement that American public attention rarely remains focused on any single domestic issue for very long.  The implication is that the attention span of the American public is short (in which case, President Trump is truly a man of the people!).  Typically, problems suddenly leap to prominence, remain on the agenda for a short time and then, often unresolved, fade from public attention. Though Downs’ study was of environmental issues in the US, his theory is apposite to COVID-19 and other major policy problems in western societies.  

Downs argues that political issues pass through five stages. The first, 'pre-problem stage' is when a problem exists and is recognised as such by experts or special interest groups, but is not yet on the political agenda. In the case of COVID-19, the threat of a pandemic was well recognised by epidemiologists, who had long warned governments that a global pandemic would definitely occur at some point in time. As one NZ epidemiologist told us, he had been 'preaching to empty halls' for years about the need to prepare for such an event.

The second stage of the cycle is 'alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm'. This enthusiasm is reflected in widespread public demands that 'something must be done' – usually by the government.  Once again, the COVID-19 pandemic fits Downs’s theory. Here in NZ (and elsewhere in the world), lockdown became the dramatic 'do something' response by governments. Prime Minister Ardern was particularly adept in leveraging the 'euphoric enthusiasm' of the 'team of five million' to ensure the lockdown was effective.

Alas, Downs' theory becomes more depressing from here on.

Stage three is about people 'realising the cost of significant progress'. Downs writes that solving the problem '...would not only take a great of money, but would also require major sacrifices by large groups of the population'.  

In New Zealand we have moved from a situation characterised by almost no debate about what to do (and almost no dissent during the lockdown), to a situation where there is increasing public concern about the economic costs of further lockdowns and prolonged border closures.  More interests (particularly business interests) are critical of COVID-19 restrictions, resulting in significant 'issue expansion' as those who have suffered economically from our successful COVID-19 response have entered the public policy arena.  The COVID-19 debate has morphed into a much broader and more nuanced debate about the costs of trying to eliminate the virus.

The epidemiologists, having been correct regarding their predictions of an epidemic and the efficacy of the solutions they proposed, now face increasing competition in the COVID-19 policy space. Thus, a gap between the government and some epidemiologists has begun to open up; the latter continue to advocate for ‘purist’ health-focused COVID-19 policies, whilst the government has begun to talk about the need for a ‘more balanced’ approach that takes account of other interests.  This policy shift is consistent with Downs's prediction that over time, other problems, including those connected in some way to the initial issue, begin to ascend the issue attention cycle.

However, the low level resistance to tough COVID-19 measures we have begun to witness in New Zealand is minimal compared to other democratic regimes. As one UK newspaper recently reported on the situation there, 'the political consensus about how we should live with the coronavirus has shattered completely'.

Throughout Europe and the USA, political leaders are now bitterly divided over what to do about COVID-19 and there is increasingly strong (sometimes violent) opposition to the tough measures needed to combat the second wave of COVID-19. The emergence of a second wave in Europe is largely attributable to governments 'giving in' to increased mobilisation against lockdowns, travel restrictions and mandatory mask-wearing. In the UK, Prime Minister Johnson’s fumbling and inconsistent attempts to manage the crisis (truly an omnishambles), have culminated in a power battle between central, regional and local governments and renewed, public demands for Scottish independence. In Britain and the US a large proportion of the population – including government leaders - seems to have concluded that fighting COVID-19 is just too hard.

In the fourth stage of the issue attention cycle, Downs argues that some people get discouraged, others feel threatened and so suppress thoughts about the problem, others simply get bored, and some exhibit all three reactions.  Public interest in the issue begins to wane.  In parallel, completely new issues enter stage two of the Downs' cycle (and media outlets), which exert a more powerful claim on the public's attention. In the US, Trump's shenanigans over losing the presidential election have pushed COVID-19 issues way down the news agenda, despite over 1,000 Americans dying from the virus each day.

Lest you find all this too depressing, Downs' fifth and final stage, 'the post-problem stage' holds some hope. As he explains, ‘the initial problem does not regress to the pre-problem stage; rather new institutions, new programmes, and new policies are developed to manage the problem longer-term.’

In summary, the issue recedes to a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest. With regard to COVID-19, there are signs that New Zealand may have reached this stage.  Notwithstanding some implementation issues regarding managed isolation facilities, new bodies, policies and resources have been created to ‘manage’ the problem; officials in charge of the ongoing pandemic response have been adept at learning on the job, steering and re-steering detailed operational policies as problems arise. As Minister for COVID-19, Chris Hipkins recently said, the government has never made the same mistake twice. Below the radar, a lot of 'policy learning' has been going on.

At some point, COVID-19 really will 'go away' as a political issue, even in countries currently ravaged by a second wave. In that sense, but only in that sense, President Trump will be proved right. Sadly, the New Zealand policy landscape is littered with examples of problems that have 'gone away', yet remain unsolved. To name a few: child poverty, domestic violence, drug addiction, the persistent housing ‘crisis’, obesity, youth suicide, environmental degradation and racism.

All these problems have had their day in the limelight, but all of them are still unsolved. The issue attention cycle highlighted above helps policy-makers to avoid taking tough decisions and to kick the can down the road instead. In order to actually solve these longstanding policy issues, we need to critically evaluate our policy-making processes to ensure they are fit for purpose. At present they are not.

Sonia Mazey: is Professor of Public Policy and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the College of Business and Law, at the University of Canterbury.

 Jeremy Richardson: is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canterbury, and an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Prior to moving to New Zealand, they both held tenured positions as political Scientists at Oxford University specialising in the study of national and EU public policy process.