 Bingo. It's ThinkTech. It's a given Thursday. It's what global connections today. And we have Karina Lyons. She's vice president of East West Center. And we have Tim Brown. He's a senior fellow there. Skilled, among other things, in epidemiology. Wow. What a combination. For a discussion we're going to have about New Zealand. Oh, and P.S. Karina is a Kiwi. We're going to find out what happened in New Zealand vis-à-vis COVID. And we're going to find out what they did, how well they succeeded, and what we can learn from them. This is a really important discussion. So, Karina, what isn't about New Zealand, where people come together that way, under the prime minister, Jacinda Adurn. And they listen to her. They take her advice. They enjoy her good spirit. And they come together in order to beat COVID off. What is it about the community there? Day, thanks for having us back. I'm glad that you're not sick of us yet. Yeah, that's a great question. And I think Tim and I were just talking about this before we came on. And two things come to mind. Firstly, the prime minister's leadership. She's a skilled leader herself. And I think what's been on display right throughout her term is her outstanding ability to empathize with people. And from a policy perspective, that enables you to predict how your decisions and actions will actually affect people. So there's a lot of skill involved there and being empathetic and being a strong leader in that regard. And then you've also seen that she has a lot of compassion. And she's shown a lot of compassion right throughout the COVID crisis. But she's had to deal with a number of crises during her tenure. And when I think about the way in which she's displayed compassion, the sort of some of the most standard examples during the horrible terrorist attack there was about a year ago, when a right-wing terrorist killed 50 yards New Zealanders as they were praying in a mosque. And he got a lot of coverage. That was in Christchurch, wasn't it? That was in Christchurch. And she had a lot of coverage because the US, as an ally to New Zealand, small a, the president of the US, Donald Trump, asked just another in the prime minister, you know, what could the US do to support? And she said the US could provide sympathy and love for all Muslims. And, you know, I think that kind of compassion has really shone through right throughout the the COVID crisis. And the other thing I wanted to talk about though was culture because that's long-standing. I mean, I think it's fair to say that New Zealand has a history of strong leaders. You know, I happen to vote actually for this current administration. But I worked for a decade with the previous administration. And that leader, John Key, really demonstrated an ability to connect with people and to show also that he took seriously the responsibility to citizens. And then underpinning all of that is this commitment to egalitarianism. And to kind of a good way to describe that and how it's important in terms of coming together as a community to hashtag United Against COVID is to compare the US and New Zealand. So in the US, I think the underlying or the main tenet of sort of American culture is this commitment to freedom. It's like the main political goal, it's fair to say. And in New Zealand, you would swap that out with equality. And so when you're trying to have a united community approach to fight off a common enemy that is COVID, you have the community looking after everybody because what they want to make sure is what's good for them and it's good for everybody else. It's all sort of fair. Yeah. Well, that is quite remarkable. And there's something Asian about that. We always have this tension between individualism and community. Originally, I talked to a number of our guests about this individually and you know, doing something for the community. Jefferson said, make yourself useful. And when he said that, he was saying make yourself useful to the community. And in those days, in the days of the founders, that was one of the tenets of our country. I'm not sure that it has remained as important in the balance. I think it has. Jay, where we live, I see a lot of that. Yes, I agree. I agree. And maybe that's one of the reasons why he's been relatively successful in dealing with COVID. So Tim, you know, you've studied AIDS, you've studied epidemiology. You bring a lot of expertise to the table on this. And I'm sure you've noticed that New Zealand has done very well as well as anywhere. I'm not sure I can say it's the number one place, but it's certainly right up there. Why? I would say fundamentally, actually, I saw a great headline a couple weeks ago that basically described it in terms of science and empathy. And I think that those are the two factors really that made the difference in New Zealand. They looked around, they saw what was going on in other places. Other places were choosing to try to mitigate the epidemic, the, you know, so-called flatten the curve approaches which still accepted that you'd end up with a large number of deaths and so on. Some places were trying suppression and just trying to keep it down without, you know, really eliminating it basically within the borders. And they weren't quite happy with those approaches either. And then they saw places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan that have really tried to eliminate the epidemic. They really tried to contain it completely within their borders and to prevent the reentry. And they decided that based on consultation with their scientists and others within the country, they decided the elimination approach made a lot of sense for New Zealand. They're an island nation. They basically do control their borders. And so, of course, one of the initial steps was basically to shut down international travel and basically prevent people from coming in. They recognized that because they already had entry of COVID, they basically, if they were going to achieve elimination, they had to stop the transmission within the country. So they went into a major lockdown. I mean, not unlike what we did here. But I think the difference was, again, I think Prime Minister Ardern was very empathic. She was on social media constantly. She was basically giving messages out to people, letting them know that we're all in this together, that basically you were united against COVID. You know, I saw some of her commentary from moving cars and the like, you know, it's been through her life. She would send these messages. And I tell you the truth. It reminded me of FDR and his fireside chats. We would get close to people, heart to heart. And I think that made a huge difference because, you know, it gets people on your side. And so, you know, you got the support. And, you know, she was even willing when the health minister basically ran off to the beach. She basically dressed him down in public about it. She didn't hesitate at all. It was like, you know, you're lucky I don't fire you, but we need you right now. So I'm not firing you. That was her basic message. And I think, you know, that sent a clear message to everybody. Hey, everybody is on the same footing here. We expect the same thing out of everyone. And she was in fact, you know, broadcasting on social media from her own home when she was under lockdown. So I think, you know, she clearly demonstrated by what she was doing, that she believed in everything she was asking everybody else in the country to do. And I think we have the exact opposite of that in the United States. We have somebody who basically is sending one message allegedly, changing it day to day, and then refusing to abide by any of the guidelines he issues himself. So I think it's been a totally different world of responses. But I think, you know, that empathy and compassion combined with a very solid science-based approach allowed them basically to, now they're at the point, you know, they get one case every two or three days, you know, it's similar to Hawaii, you know, we're kind of in the same situation right now. Yeah, the overall stats are a country of 5 million, which is what four or five times the size of Hawaii, that's all. And you have 1500 cases in total in all these several weeks, and you have 20 or 21 deaths. That's pretty good stats. And what I wanted to ask you, though, is there seems to be a distinction between eradicating the disease, which some countries have sworn to do, and suppressing the disease, which some countries have, you know, gone only that far. And the difference, for example, between New Zealand and Australia, is New Zealand under Jacinda, its eradication is what she wants. And, you know, what is the difference in terms of, you know, the action you take and the result you get? Okay, apology for putting my nerd hat on here. But eradication is a word that only really applies at the global level. It's talking about the complete removal of the virus from the human ecosphere. And so smallpox was eradicated. Okay, elimination is the word that applies at the national level. Okay, country can eliminate the virus basically by completely wiping it out within its borders. But it still exists outside the border. So there's always the possibility of reintroduction. Okay, New Zealand chose an elimination strategy, which is they decided, look, we're an island nation, we have an opportunity here really to eliminate this thing and keep New Zealand safe, basically to make it a safe environment. And I think, to a great extent, we have the same opportunity here, if we take similar steps to what New Zealand is doing. And that's still an open question right now as to whether we're going to take the proper steps. But they've been extremely careful every step along the way. You know, they're at level two now, which is, you know, if there are four levels, that's level one is basically more or less back to normal, although with some physical distancing and some other precautions, they're at level two now. You know, the cases are still staying very, very low. They've opened up to some regional travel, but they are still not allowing international travel, except for returning residents. And when those residents return, they have no option, they go into a 14 day quarantine. And it's not the kind of quarantine we have here, which to a great extent, I hate to say it is a joke. It's a make believe quarantine. It's a make believe quarantine. In New Zealand, when you arrive at the airport, you are tested for symptoms. If you have symptoms, you are then put on a bus and you are sent to a quarantine hotel, a designated hotel by the government and you stay there for 14 days. If you don't have symptoms, you were put on another bus and you are sent to the isolation hotel where you stay for 14 days. And you don't have an option on that. And the conditions at the hotel are just fine. In fact, you know, there was a social media blog that was actually complaining that the one problem they had at the hotel is there's just too much cake and they're putting on weight. They're feeding them very well. They're taking very good care of people at the hotel, but you go into that quarantine for 14 days, no ifs, ands, ors or buts about it. You are going into that quarantine. And I think, you know, that's the kind of approach that we need here if we're really going to properly do quarantine and isolation. There's a real tension on that, isn't there, Karina? Because for a country of five million people, New Zealand has a lot of tourists. They come from around the world. Everybody wants to go to New Zealand. There's something magnetic about the place. I can attest to that. I was there a few years ago and I loved it. I loved the people, the places. I loved how clean it was. They had the cleanest bathrooms in the world in New Zealand. Every single one. Yeah, I mean, it's not the normal way that we welcome tourists by locking them up. But I mean, I think just to reiterate the benefits of the elimination strategy. I mean, in the words of premonitors are doing, you go hard and you go early. And then you get two key benefits from an elimination strategy is that you have fewer cases and fewer deaths, which really matters because they're real people, you know, from full families and every time somebody dies, it's an entire community that's affected. And so the other benefit is that you can get back to business much, much sooner. And so as Tim was saying, there's four levels in New Zealand on the 25th of March, which just seems like an eternity ago. They went to level four, which was super intense. It was complete lockdown. And there were really strict rules. And the rules were fairly applied to everybody, even if you're the house minister. And, you know, I should say, like, you know, all he did was drive two kilometers from his home to go on a mountain bike ride. But the rule was you can only exercise and you're a local community. And that everybody was to refrain from doing the kind of activity that might mean that you hurt yourself and then you ended up in hospital and overloading hospital systems. And so, you know, he was he was slammed for that. But I think now that they've gone all the way down to level two, the schools are open. Businesses are open. And, you know, it's incredible. I mean, these are the benefits of going hard and going early. There are still pretty strict rules around that. You know, the number one message from the government right now is that COVID-19 is still out there. Play it safe. And if you do that, then you can get back to business. But basically, the rule of thumb is if you can open safely and do it. And New Zealand social media feeds are filled with the pictures of smiling parents because school went back on Monday. And, you know, aside from, you know, dealing with a whole lot of mental health issues that parents everywhere are suffering from, you know, that's also, you know, a really impactful way to deal with a lot of equity issues. I think, you know, seen right across the world and particularly in America where some of these studies are being done, that households in the lower socioeconomic sphere or category, those kids were not getting nearly as much schooling as kids in rich families. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So the sooner you can get back to school, sort of the sooner you can address those issues. You know, one of the things that Jacinda Adurn has said that struck me is that, you know, up till now the emphasis by the government has been on health. And when you measure health against the economy, health is the most important thing. Until you're satisfied about health, you don't try to reopen that. That's different from this country. And we have a question that came in while you were speaking. You refer to the government. And the person asking would like to know more about the kind of government and how the government can enforce these rules, whether the government is enforcing these rules and other sanctions, penalties, can you get fined, go to jail, what happens? First thing about the government, it's a, gosh, it's been a little while, it's a democracy. There are 120 seats in parliament. And right now there is a coalition. There's a true coalition between two parties, but there's also a third party. So it's the Labour Party and New Zealand first, and they have a coalition agreement. And then there's a third party with a confidence supply agreement. That's the Green Party. And so I guess on the spectrum, it's kind of, it's left-leaning. Having New Zealand first in there makes it sort of more centrist. And to give you a bit of context, New Zealand has traditionally had more conservative governments, so more Republican governments and Democratic governments. This would be the fifth sort of Democratic government in New Zealand and the history of our country. And I mean, in terms of sanctions, I mean, it's funny. I didn't really look into that because yeah, the government has enforced these rules. But when I was talking again, in terms of the lived experience of people, my whole family is in New Zealand. My parents are in New Zealand. My siblings, their kids. And they're healthy. Nobody has had a case or anything. And no question that they would do anything other than follow these policies, which make a lot of sense. I mean, I was thinking if you were going to ask me what are the factors of success in New Zealand, why have we been so successful at eliminating it? I would say three things. Firstly, prioritising science and data. I mean, the Prime Minister has relied heavily on the Director General for Health, actually Bloomfield. He's a really mild-mannered man who's basically a celebrity now. And the Chief Scientist, Juliet Drard, who's a researcher at Auckland University. They have done a lot of, they've done a lot of press, but also just, you know, the whole government has gone through screeds and screeds of actual reporting from, and, you know, and there was a time you recall when, because we're all learning about COVID-19 at once, all of that information was being learned about more quickly than it could be written down. And so, you know, the government was having to learn about it on the fly, the phone, the internet, all that kind of stuff. So it was one, prioritising science and data. Number two, strong leadership. You're taking responsibility. And then I think the third one is something that we've been talking about right throughout the show, which is really clear and responsible communication. It's been transparent. The narrative has been easily accessible. Anybody watching the show right now can Google New Zealand COVID. There is hashtag United Against COVID. Any of those sorts of keywords. And you can find the official New Zealand site. Has everything really set out? What all the levels mean? What, what it means for your, for your life? If you're a parent, if you're in risk, if you're unemployed, you know, all of that's been really, it's been really clear and consistent. That's another factor though. There's another factor, Karina, which you have referred to. And that is the sense of community. I was struck by articles in both the Lancet and the Washington Post about a week ago, where they described the tone of the meeting of the cabinet. It took place where they decided to reopen the economy. It was only a week or so ago. And everybody was on the same page and dealing with how do you treat the science? How do you treat the community? How you balance? And it was all good faith. It was not politicized as we have in this country at all. And people were respectful of the science. PS, one of the articles this morning is that Dr. Fauci has somehow disappeared from the conferences, which is tragic. But in describing the tone of the meeting of the cabinet, at which this momentous decision was made to go back step by step, it was very clear that people were on the same page. I envy that. I admire that. I'm jealous of that almost as much as I'm jealous as the quality of the potato chips in New Zealand, which are very good. Yeah, no, the chips are great. I miss them a lot. And as soon as the borders open up, I'll be making my contributions to the GDP. And look, I'm sorry to be boring, a boring kiwi about it, but I totally agree with you, Jay. And I think a good way to measure the kind of community spread is to look at the opposition party. And right throughout this whole process, they have clearly decided to be nonpartisan about it and just focus on the greater good as Tim focused earlier. And because, you know, there is, I guess, I was speaking at an Indo-Pacum Conference just yesterday, so I have this kind of language on my head, but there is just one enemy in all of this, and it's COVID-19. Yes. And, you know, it's the issues are very complex. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's imperfect information. But one thing that's clear is that the enemy is COVID-19. And I think the government did a good job of calling on the community to unite against that. Yes. And everyone did. As you're saying, it's all about communications. But Tim, you know, I'd like to know from you what has happened to make this, you know, if we can unpack it a little bit, we have, you know, various things in your kit bag and in dealing with COVID. So testing would be one, tracking would be another, and lockdown would be another, locking the borders would be another. So which of the things we should look at, for example, if we were going to evaluate what to do. And also, you know, a sort of compound question. Also, you know, how successful have they been in the possibility that once you take lockdown off, you'll have a resurgence. So what about those tools in the kit bag? How did they work? Yeah, let me address that. I mean, like Karina mentioned, they've been science-based from day one. They've been extremely cautious. I think caution is a word I would use to describe their response. Okay, they haven't, they haven't made many mistakes. And where they've made mistakes, they've then corrected them. I think, you know, one good example of that is contact tracing, which is one of the core components, basically, of an elimination strategy. Because in order to keep the virus out, you basically have to immediately stamp out any growing transmission chains or clusters that come about. And that requires very good contact tracing. They had problems with contact tracing in the early days. But then what they did was they commissioned a, an external review of their contact tracing system. And based on that review, they then committed to scaling up and expanding their contact tracing system to make it extremely strong. Okay, and they've been in the process of doing that. They've got it down to the point where 80% of the cases are traced within 48 hours. They're shooting for 24 hours, which is a much better goal. Or 100% actually within 48 is what they're shooting for. That's their official goal. They put those metrics out for the public to see. They're on the website that Karina mentioned. They've been totally transparent about everything. When they've discovered clusters, they've actually put out a list of clusters. Basically, it doesn't name the specific locations, but it says, okay, this cluster is around a wedding. This cluster is around a private party. This cluster is around a church service. And so they've put that kind of information out there so the public could know, okay, these are the types of places where transmission is occurring. And this is something I should be careful about. On the other hand, you know, trying to get cluster information here in Hawaii has been like trying to pry the pearl out of a clam that just it's very, very difficult to get. And what little we get, we get out of press conferences rather than out of any clear exposition of what's going on. On testing, they've expanded their testing to include asymptomatics who are higher risk. We still have a strong reluctance to test asymptomatics here in Hawaii. They've expanded it to people in the tourist industry, although that's less of an issue right now with tourism shut off, migrant workers, backpacker hotels, all essential workers and workplaces that are kind of front facing if there's ever been a case. And those are lessons that we can learn here in Hawaii when we do open up and the tourist industry is going again. If we find a symptomatic case, one of the hotels in Waikiki, we should then immediately test every worker in that hotel basically to identify COVID infections and then immediately isolate any of the cases that we find. And I think, you know, that's a very valuable lesson. So they've been using their additional test capacity in a very intelligent way to identify additional cases within the community and eliminate them. And I think, but I think the point you make about New Zealand and Hawaii is that you can't let your guard down when you reopen your economy. You can't lull yourself into thinking that the danger is less. You have to have all of those, the testing and the tracking, you have to have it all ready to go in the event you need to use it. Otherwise, you have an unpredictable situation. Exactly. And also I think that, like I say, the other word I would use is caution in terms of reopening to tourism. Okay, that's an ongoing discussion. They have not made any firm decisions as to how they're going to reopen to tourism yet. But the current main topic of discussion is doing a trans-Tasman bubble that would allow Australia, people in Australia and New Zealand basically to go back and forth because that constitutes about 40% of their visitors. So that would actually give tourism a very reasonable soft start. But a large number, you know, basically about 40% of the industry could come back under those circumstances. It won't come back that fast. Because just like here, people are still going to be afraid to get on airplanes. They're going to be cautious about traveling and so on. But eventually, you know, that could open up 40% of their tourism. It has a double benefit. Number one is testing to see if that's going to increase the number of cases. And you're testing your own systems to see how you can re-employ them, redeploy them if necessary. Also, assuming you succeed in that, you're building brand. And when you go to the next phase, people will come to you because they're not afraid. They're not afraid because they've seen the, what'd you call it, the trans-Tasman bubble. Thank you. Yeah. Can I just talk about the bubble for a second? Because I was trying to explain this concept to the US Army just the other day. And it's a really simple idea. And it's just like, when we were on lockdown in New Zealand, everybody was told to stay in their bubble. And that's just the people that they live with, the little households. And as we went to level three, you went about a month ago at the end of April, you could kind of expand your bubble a little bit. So parents who were separated from grandparents, and you know, like having the kids get like, you know, they could merge their bubbles. And so this idea is really caught on as a vehicle for economic recovery. And the idea is that you have Australia and New Zealand, which are kind of trending on a similar trajectory in terms of safety. And you merge the bubbles, but you still have this protective outer layer. And so right now there are discussions about a trans-Tasman bubble, he's in Australia, but also a Pacific bubble. So all of the members of the Pacific Island Forum, there are sort of 18 nations there. I don't know that you'd get sort of north of the equator, because it's trickier. I mean, it's important not to underestimate the logistical difficulty of merging bubbles. Just at the moment, New Zealand has just started to repatriate citizens back to Samoa. So Samoa was in complete lockdown because it has a sort of a fragile health infrastructure. And in order to safely repatriate citizens back to Samoa, people have to get tested in New Zealand. And then if they are positive, then they have to go into quarantine before they go back to Samoa. When they arrive, they're sort of in isolation. And there's a formal agreement between the governments, like, it's a lot of work to merge the bubbles. But it's quite a good way to think about it, because it gives you the opportunity to exercise caution, as Tim's been saying. Well, you're a global person, Karina. You know, you've not only have you studied law in various continents, you studied diplomacy in various continents, and certainly around the Pacific. And, you know, I see New Zealand as somebody who knows a lot about this and all the levels we've discussed. Somebody who could export these ideas, these techniques elsewhere. And have those people, you know, benefit by learning from New Zealand. It's been it's been a real success story. So the question is, how can that be done? And for whom can it be done? And what can Hawaii learn? What can the United States learn the biggest none of all? That's a double entendre. What can we learn from New Zealand? And how can we get the message over? Yeah, that's that is tricky, because I clearly think the United States is is a great place. I live here, and I choose to. And I think that it's really just making about making choices. And what I would really love to see, this might sound really cheesy, but I would just love to see the US leadership choose to be more compassionate to its citizens. And then I think from there, a lot of other really sensible lessons that you can get from New Zealand, from Taiwan, from Singapore, from South Korea, all of those things would flow. And, you know, one example of that is something that hasn't got much press, I'm surprised, but the Prime Minister and all of the cabinet ministers took a 20% pay cut for six months to them in solidarity of all of those have been impacted by COVID-19. And I think at a time when there really is a lot of hardship, and we're yet to see the true, the full impact of this disaster, we need a lot more compassion in the United States. There you go. That's really a bottom line. I really appreciate that. And I think that strikes right at the heart of it. So if you were going to make a final statement of advice about this, Tim, what would you say to the American people? I'd say we need to do a better job of doing what New Zealand has done, which is to follow the science. That is pay careful attention to what's going on epidemiologically. Only open your businesses at the extent that the epidemic is allowing, which I think New Zealand has excelled at and has done an excellent job, like Karina said. They went early and they went hard and basically they controlled it and now they're able to open much more rapidly than we are here. We've done a sort of, you know, half a job and we're reopening places where the number of cases are still going up and it's a complete disaster. So we're not following the science. And if we don't follow the science, then we will basically damage both the economy and public health because the science is the fastest way basically to contain this virus, keep it down, and then basically be able to open up the economy fully again. Thanks, Tim. I think we need to follow the science. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Karina. We now know that it's both things, it's having heart and having science. It's the human condition. Thank you so much for this discussion. Aloha.