2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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Ultimate Geek
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#3399824 4-Aug-2025 10:10

My own observations have been that my coworkers, highly educated, very vocal about pro vaccination stance 2020-2024, really good about isolating after international travel just in case or when even slightly I'll.

Suddenly late last year seem to have taken a shift to making statements like "I get sick more now since I've been getting COVID boosters, so I'm going to stop"

"When I do get sick it's not that bad so not going to bother with boosters"

I love a good conspiracy theory, but it kinda feels like the appetite for risk suddenly increased for a bunch of people over a relatively short period of time, as well as suddenly believing getting sick is safer than vaccinating, not for all vaccines though just the COVID one.

freitasm

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#3460642 11-Feb-2026 14:24

Independent review of Covid-19 monetary policy | Beehive.govt.nz

The Government has instigated an independent review of New Zealand’s monetary policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says the purpose of the review is to identify any lessons New Zealand could learn to improve the monetary policy response to future major events.

“An independent review means the conclusions found can be objective and constructive.

“The Reserve Bank of New Zealand took unprecedented action in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This included reducing the Official Cash Rate to 0.25 per cent, and the use of additional monetary policy tools, including a Large Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) programme.

“These actions helped to preserve jobs and keep businesses afloat, but the indirect impacts included decades-high inflation, and losses of about $10.3 billion on the LSAP programme and a significant spike in asset values with house prices increasing 30 per cent in one year.

“The purpose of the review is to learn from experience. It will focus on decisions by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), and analysis provided by the Reserve Bank to support those decisions. This includes MPC decision making and communication, the use of additional monetary policy tools, and the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy.”

Monetary policy experts Athanasios Orphanides and David Archer have been appointed to conduct the independent review.

Dr Orphanides is a former governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, and a professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr Archer is a former Reserve Bank assistant governor and former head of the Central Banking Studies Unit at the Bank for International Settlements.

The review is expected to be completed in August 2026 and publicly released in September 2026.

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Canuckabroad

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Master Geek
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#3460646 11-Feb-2026 14:44

So the review of Reserve Bank policy during COVID is going to be released in September, just before the November election. It is only about potential learnings for the future, and the timing of this being requested and completed during an election year has nothing to do with scoring headlines with any criticism of the government of the day? I know government and reserve bank are meant to be separate, but considering Luxon stated that he meets with the governor prior to any decisions being made about OCR to give his ‘reckons and perspective’, it's fairly clear that government does try to exert influence on the Reserve bank.

The timing of this review is somewhat suspect in my mind. It's long been known that the decisions about OCR had significant impact, but to announce this review in an election year to be announced a couple months before voting would seem to be opportunistic.

wellygary

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#3460673 11-Feb-2026 15:34

Canuckabroad:

So the review of Reserve Bank policy during COVID is going to be released in September, just before the November election. It is only about potential learnings for the future, and the timing of this being requested and completed during an election year has nothing to do with scoring headlines with any criticism of the government of the day? I know government and reserve bank are meant to be separate, but considering Luxon stated that he meets with the governor prior to any decisions being made about OCR to give his ‘reckons and perspective’, it's fairly clear that government does try to exert influence on the Reserve bank.

The timing of this review is somewhat suspect in my mind. It's long been known that the decisions about OCR had significant impact, but to announce this review in an election year to be announced a couple months before voting would seem to be opportunistic.

Although its was a bit tricky to undertake this while the former Bank Governor (who was also in place during COVID) was still there...

You have got to wonder if the RB were adamantly against such a review and internally blocked it??

mattwnz

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#3460683 11-Feb-2026 16:08

Canuckabroad:

So the review of Reserve Bank policy during COVID is going to be released in September, just before the November election. It is only about potential learnings for the future, and the timing of this being requested and completed during an election year has nothing to do with scoring headlines with any criticism of the government of the day? I know government and reserve bank are meant to be separate, but considering Luxon stated that he meets with the governor prior to any decisions being made about OCR to give his ‘reckons and perspective’, it's fairly clear that government does try to exert influence on the Reserve bank.

The timing of this review is somewhat suspect in my mind. It's long been known that the decisions about OCR had significant impact, but to announce this review in an election year to be announced a couple months before voting would seem to be opportunistic.

The way the minister worded it, and the timing, it appears that if it is critical, it is going to be used blame the government of the day. Even though the Reserve bank is supposed to be fully independent. IMO the RB made lots of errors, including all the money printing, the FLP to banks, which also went on for far too long, and not reacting fast enough when it was clear inflation was rising, the lowering of the OCR to emergency low levels causing a massive house price bubble etc. But that should have nothing to do with the government, as the are independant decisions.

TwoSeven

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#3460732 11-Feb-2026 16:18

It would be good to see a review.

while I wasn’t really following the economic response, I don’t think it was the right approach (from memory quantitative easing) which usually always results in inflation (in our case I think about 28%) due to a drop in buying power of the dollar.

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mattwnz

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#3460735 11-Feb-2026 16:30

TwoSeven:

It would be good to see a review.

while I wasn’t really following the economic response, I don’t think it was the right approach (from memory quantitative easing) which usually always results in inflation (in our case I think about 28%) due to a drop in buying power of the dollar.

The problem is the timing, as it will no doubt become political, and a way to get one up on the government of the day, who aren't the ones who actually made the decisions. Often the results from such reviews come as no surprise.

wellygary

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#3460741 11-Feb-2026 16:50

mattwnz:

The problem is the timing, as it will no doubt become political, and a way to get one up on the government of the day, who aren't the ones who actually made the decisions. Often the results from such reviews come as no surprise.

Agreed, Fairly sure Nicola Willis will make sure this throws Adrian Orr under the bus... will likely also graze Roberston on the Way through

But dragging up the COVID response is most likely a vote winner in many parts of Auckland

gzt

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#3460743 11-Feb-2026 16:58

This looks like an expensive way of making an official report out of things that everyone already knows.

tweake

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#3460745 11-Feb-2026 16:59

yep its purely a political stunt.

the pro national supporters have still been chanting "ïts labours fault". i guess they know the economy has not improved enough and they have no other winning strategy, so they are going back to the old tactic of blaming labour's covid response for the state of the economy.

Rikkitic

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#3460746 11-Feb-2026 17:04

Luxon is still bleating about it all being Labour's fault, though I notice he did choke that back about halfway through another comment when he realised what he was saying. Even he understands it sounds ridiculous now.

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Handle9

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#3460802 11-Feb-2026 22:05

Canuckabroad:

So the review of Reserve Bank policy during COVID is going to be released in September, just before the November election. It is only about potential learnings for the future, and the timing of this being requested and completed during an election year has nothing to do with scoring headlines with any criticism of the government of the day? I know government and reserve bank are meant to be separate, but considering Luxon stated that he meets with the governor prior to any decisions being made about OCR to give his ‘reckons and perspective’, it's fairly clear that government does try to exert influence on the Reserve bank.

The timing of this review is somewhat suspect in my mind. It's long been known that the decisions about OCR had significant impact, but to announce this review in an election year to be announced a couple months before voting would seem to be opportunistic.

About as opportunistic as Labour blocking a request for an inquiry from Swarbrick in 2022.

Both the last government and this one have treated COVID enquiries as political excercises instead of something that could actually be useful. There should have been a Royal Commission with broad terms of reference into all aspects of the COVID response. Instead we've had a series of politically motivated and steered enquires which haven't been particularly useful for anything but soundbites.

There were lots of good things and lots of bad things about NZ (and every other countries) COVID response. Actually identifying each and learning from it could have actually been useful.

Handle9

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#3460803 11-Feb-2026 22:12

mattwnz:

The problem is the timing, as it will no doubt become political, and a way to get one up on the government of the day, who aren't the ones who actually made the decisions.

The government of the day did create the dual mandate for RBNZ, it would be interesting to see what impact that had on the banks decision making.

quickymart

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#3460828 12-Feb-2026 07:55

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360937122/why-it-took-years-government-investigate-reserve-banks-covid-money

On February 28, 2020 our first Covid case arrived. And nearly six years on, on a random Wednesday in February 2026, Finance Minister Nicola Willis has decided to instigate a review into the monetary policy response to the pandemic.

No, we are not in a time warp. Yes, we are in an election year.

The official line on the review is to “identify any lessons New Zealand could learn to improve the response to future major events”.

The timing of the review tells a different political story - it is set to land in the public sphere in September - weeks out from November’s general election.

It is a bit suspicious - they've had all this time to do this, and only decide to do it now, a few months out from the election? Spare me.

Canuckabroad

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Master Geek
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#3460842 12-Feb-2026 08:17

Someone has queried whether the two individuals chosen to lead this 'independent investigation' both have previous ties to the Atlas Group, a bunch of think tanks established in countries around the world to promote right-wing ideas. David Seymour and ACT are affiliated with the group, and it is looking like this investigation is even more suspect as a political tool just before the election rather than a genuine search for better processes.

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