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This article was published in The BFD on October 21, 2021.

Ananish Chaudhuri and Simon Thornley 

The authors are academics at the University of Auckland. 

It is widely recognized that the recent vaccine mandates go against s11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 in providing citizens the right to refuse medical treatment. 

However, it is also clear that the right may be circumscribed in extenuating circumstances on considerations of public health or the common good. 

A recent High Court verdict makes this clear. A border worker sought judicial review of the vaccine mandate for those working in that sector. Ultimately, the High Court came to the conclusion that “the Court’s task in this case is to balance the benefit of the vaccine and the risk of being unvaccinated against any discrimination in relation to those affected”. The court found against the plaintiff and suggested that in this case the public health argument trumps the worker’s individual right. 

But in doing so the court also recognized that the decision was not carte blanche for such mandates. “One of the factors considered by the court was proportionality – the fact that mandatory vaccination was found to be justifiable for a relatively small group of “affected workers”, does not mean that it will necessarily be justifiable for others.” 

This brings us to the broader mandate for teachers and healthcare workers.  

Do they also pass the proportionality test? 

A recent scientific paper suggests that there is little correlation between vaccination rates and cases. This implies that vaccinated people may easily catch and pass the disease on as well. The authors write: “At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days.”  

Further, evidence suggests that children are not at much risk of falling gravely ill from Covid. In fact, the UK Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunizations does not recommend universal vaccination of those younger than fifteen. The JCVI points out that while the risks of such vaccination are small, they are still “being described” and the benefits are small too. Given this there is no compelling reason to embark on a program of universal vaccination of children. NCIRS Australia reports  that a majority of children diagnosed with COVID-19 during the current outbreak, including those who caught the infection in educational settings, experienced mild or no symptoms.  

So, who is being protected by these mandates?  

We have two conflicting objectives here: the abrogation of a fundamental right against the rights of those potentially vulnerable.   

If so, then the government needs to be up-front about this and lay out a specific case in favour of this mandate.  

In the absence of such clear guidelines it is not clear why we should be willing to sacrifice a fundamental right. 

We note that in recent times the US Supreme Court has struck down two challenges to vaccine mandates. Justice Sonia Sotomayor turned down a challenge against New York while Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a suit by students objecting to mandatory vaccines at Indiana University. 

But there are two very important differences. First, while the actual requirements vary, vaccinations are mandatory in the US. All states mandate vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella and chickenpox and all but Iowa require vaccination for mumps.  

Second, the US Bill of Rights does not spell out the right to refuse medical treatment; neither does the 14^th amendment, which formed the basis of the challenge by students at Indiana. 

New Zealand does not require mandatory vaccination; not even for measles; which is arguably a far more deadly disease than Covid-19 is. And as already noted, New Zealand’s Bill of Rights explicitly provides citizens the right to refuse medical treatment. 

But there is a broader point here.  

For a long time our government aimed at elimination. This proved elusive. Now they are reaching for vaccination mandates assuming that this will be the panacea.  

What if this next set of vaccinations prove inadequate especially as other mutant strains evolve?  

It is worth reiterating that Covid-19 has a recovery rate of nearly 99% and the overall infection fatality rates and rates of asymptomatic transmission are much lower than previously assumed. Given our lack of land borders and low population density, Covid-19 poses less of a threat to us than has been suggested by modelling that does not account for a host of contributing factors.  

Sooner or later we will need to come to terms with endemic Covid-19. No amount of coercion or abrogation of civil rights will change that fact. Realizing this sooner and making appropriate adjustments in the public health response, such as by increasing capacity in hospitals, will spare the citizens the ongoing pain and suffering from increasingly draconian measures, the latest of which is vaccine mandates.   

This article appeared on The BFD on November 2, 2021.

Ananish Chaudhuri 

The goal of achieving 90% vaccination, if achieved at all, will not happen any soon. Very few countries in the world have achieved this target and most started vaccination efforts much earlier. Scandinavian countries have jettisoned restrictions at much lower vaccination rates. With each passing day the collateral damage is mounting.  

The majority of the those unvaccinated against Covid have been vaccinated for diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, or HPV. They are far from being “anti-vaxxers”. The proportion of true anti-vaxxers, those who are philosophically opposed to any vaccination, is small in New Zealand. Why are more objecting this time?  

First, the government is asking for 90% vaccination of those 12 and over. Yet according to the United Kingdom Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunizations (JCVI) there is little reason to call for universal vaccination of those under the age of 15.   

Second, we know that while vaccinations prevent serious illness, they do not guarantee complete immunity. Vaccinated people can transmit the disease. A recent scientific paper suggests that there is little correlation between vaccination rates and cases.  

Covid is not deadly for those under sixty-five, and for those under 50 (in the absence of other health issues) the risk is miniscule. If they fell sick with Covid this group will most likely have relatively mild symptoms. Given that the vaccines are not guaranteeing immunity and that they often come with side-effects, many are making a perfectly rational cost-benefit calculation in foregoing the vaccine. This group includes many young people who are in good health including professional athletes. 

There is a third group that are concerned with the newness of mRNA vaccines. Their fears may well be misplaced but this group is not objecting to vaccines per se, but primarily the mRNA vaccines. This group will be happy with vaccine like Novavax, which his supposed to be as effective as the Pfizer vaccine. Thus, this group is asking for choice rather than being anti-vaccine in general. 

A fourth and final group are clearly objecting to the element of coercion in all of this. The New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990 s.11 does confer upon people the right to refuse medical treatment. The government’s vaccine mandates are seen by many as violating the proportionality rule articulated by the High Court in a recent case. 

It is likely that as the pace of vaccination slows, the government will have to resort to more coercive measures to reach its goal. 

In fact, there is a valid counterargument that the government, in excluding the unvaccinated from many areas of social life, is prima facie discriminating (under s.19 of the Bill of Rights) against a minority that is merely exercising another fundamental right. This issue will most likely be settled in a court of law or if not then in the court of history. 

This is particularly salient given that New Zealand does not mandate any other vaccines; not even for diseases that kill children, such as measles.  

In any event, voluminous social science evidence suggests that there are limits to coercion; it may result in some compliance, but it is hardly conducive to long-term cooperation.  

It also seems that hubris rather than prudent policy making may be at the heart of the current initiative. If so, then this is hardly conducive to good policy making.  

According to news reports, the government has spent $4.8 billion in various support systems since the Delta outbreak in August. This money can be used to undertake a significant expansion of our healthcare facilities. The same is true of the money being invested in maintaining MIQ facilities. With numerous Covid cases in the community and people already being allowed to self-isolate, continuing MIQ seems anathema. This money too can be diverted to more productive use.  

The government could easily amend the goal to include 90% of those 50 and above. This will add very little downside while avoiding significant costs. It will allow us to open up much more quickly.  

Obviously, the risks are higher among more vulnerable communities even for younger people. But imposing a universally high vaccination rate makes little sense. Instead, an alternative would be to emphasize that for those below 50 with other health issues the risk of serious illness is much higher. This requires targeted messaging aimed at those at higher risk.  

But the current approach is creating deep divisions within our society leading to suspicion, distrust and rage. These divisions are going to be detrimental for the same vulnerable communities that the government wishes to protect. The damage to social cohesion will be difficult to repair and will adversely impact our future well-being.  

Denmark has removed all restrictions with 90% vaccination above fifty but 75% overall. Michael Bang Petersen, a psychologist advising the Danish government says that much of this success is due to the Danish government’s wiliness to trust the citizens and explain what is being done and why. New Zealand is also a high trust society. The government would be well advised to follow the lead of Denmark.  

This article appeared on The BFD on December 2, 2021. 

Ananish Chaudhuri and Martin Lally 

Ananish Chaudhuri is Professor of Experimental Economics at the University of Auckland. Martin Lally is Director of Capital Financial Consultancy. 

Vaccine mandates for Covid-19 are proving to be controversial. Consequently, New Zealand’s recent mandates have faced court challenges already and one expects more such challenges to come; particularly since the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill was passed under urgency in Parliament eliciting indignant responses from legal scholars and the Human Rights Commission.  

In this regard, a recent High Court case involving Christchurch based aviation security officers arguing against vaccine mandates (CIV-2021-485-509 [2021] NZHC 3012), provides a foreshadowing of the contours of this debate. In that specific case, the judge ruled against the plaintiffs and in favour of the respondents (the Minister of Covid-19 Response representing the government).  

Voluminous evidence suggests that the vaccines are relatively safe and significantly reduce the risks from covid-19 for many people. Accordingly, it is natural and sensible for the government to exhort people to get vaccinated.  

The problem lies with forcing people to get vaccinated. This is particularly salient since New Zealand does not mandate any other vaccines; not even for other highly contagious diseases such as measles. Furthermore, while the vaccine seems relatively safe, the risks of covid-19 to young healthy people are so low that they are likely at greater risk from the vaccine than the virus. 

The latest legislation makes amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 (Order) promulgated earlier which lay at the heart of the debate in the aviation security officers’ case. That order clearly limits the right to refuse medical treatment (s11 of the NZ Bill of Rights). The judge recognizes the conflict when he writes that the “issue that is raised by the applicants in this challenge is clearly a legitimate one to raise with the Court.” (para 23). The judge goes on to say: “The key question in this case is whether this limitation is demonstrably justified.” (para 30).  

The judge concludes that the Crown has satisfied the “demonstrably justified” test for border workers: “I am satisfied that the benefits of the vaccine are demonstrably high, with there being a need to take a risk minimization approach to stop an outbreak or spread of the virus at the potential entry point of the virus into New Zealand” (para 119).  

We consider that this line of reasoning is flawed in the sense of not defining the counterfactuals properly.  

First, the judge believes that the vaccination of airport border workers would materially address the harm from covid-19 because they are involved in the potential entry point of the virus into New Zealand. This might have been true prior to the arrival of the delta version in New Zealand. However, the hearing was held on October 21 and 22, and the judgment delivered on 8 November. At these points, the virus was well established in the upper half of the North Island.  

Further, by 8 November, the government was in the process of moving away from its elimination strategy because it was no longer attainable. Under these conditions, the virus was very likely to eventually spread to the entire country even if no new cases arrived in Christchurch from overseas. Accordingly, the vaccination of border workers at Christchurch airport was not going to have a material impact on the spread of the virus. Remarkably, even the judge states that “It does not appear that this outbreak can be eliminated” and that it is an “open question” whether the Order would “remain demonstrably justified when the virus is endemic in at least parts of New Zealand” (para 128).  

Second, international evidence shows that many people will willingly take the vaccine even in the absence of a mandate. In fact, at the time of writing Denmark has achieved more than 70% vaccination without any coercive interventions. Many other countries have achieved similar levels without coercion.  

Thirdly, the judge believes that vaccination “materially contributes” to reducing the risk of airport border workers transmitting the virus from an arriving passenger to other New Zealanders (para 69). Yet, the judge recognizes and concedes the importance of PPE, tests of border workers, and requirements for physical distancing, none of which the applicants have contested (para 69). Strong evidence for the effectiveness of these other measures is that there have been no known cases of delta entering New Zealand by transmission through an airport border worker. This includes the entry of delta to New Zealand in July, from an infected passenger to another person at an MIQ hotel.  

Fourthly, the judge effectively asserts that the personal cost of the Order to these workers is irrelevant to the “demonstrably justified” test. We do not agree. The need in principle to consider these costs is apparent by considering extreme cases in other situations. For example, suppose a government concluded that a virus was so serious that it ordered vaccination for all members of the population (by force if necessary) and the vaccine was likely to be fatal to people with specific medical conditions. In this case, we would expect that a judge would have to balance the cost to the individuals for whom the vaccine was likely to be fatal against the deaths that might result amongst the rest of the population if they were not vaccinated.  

The same principle must then apply in the present case. The judge might argue that the costs to the individuals in question in the present case (loss of their jobs and likely considerable difficulty in finding an alternative in an environment where many employers are requiring vaccination for new employees) were less than the benefits to society from the vaccination Order, but in doing so they would still be balancing the two considerations. Ignoring the costs (and there are substantial costs) to the vaccine objectors is not appropriate. 

In view of these points, it is not “demonstrably justified” that compelling whatever proportion of border workers who are resistant to vaccination to do so “materially contributes” to reducing the risk of the virus spreading through New Zealand. This is true even without consideration of the costs to the applicants from the Order. Consideration of the costs to them further tilts the balance away from the Order. 

This argument regarding a careful weighing of the true costs and benefits from vaccine mandates apply with equal force to others. This is particularly so in light of the fact that both the judge in this case and other judges have repeatedly stressed that coercive mandates must be “proportionate”.  

In fact, in the above-mentioned case, the judge highlights another potential inconsistency when he points out in Para 37 that the Order may violate s19 of NZ BORA, the right against discrimination.  

In this instance, the judge decides to sidestep the logical inconsistency by arguing that the applicants did not raise this issue and therefore he is not going to consider it further. But the applicants did not need to raise this in their complaint! Given that the judge realizes that the Order poses significant conflicts with s19 of NZ BORA, the judge could have, on his own accord, decided to address this question and seek a response from the Government. 

Each ruling creates a precedent. Subsequent to this ruling, the government has significantly expanded the scope of vaccination mandates via the latest legislation encompassing an ever expanding set of citizens. Increasingly more of us are coming under the purview of such mandates. 

The government, which enjoys a Parliamentary majority, does not seem to be interested either in balancing the rights of the individual against the risks to the community or on the need for a “proportionate” response. One would think that it is the job of the judiciary to do this.  

Most of us are keenly aware that the pandemic has exposed deep-seated problems in our public health system. Unfortunately, it has also exposed fundamental deficiencies in the workings of New Zealand’s systems of checks and balances.  

This article appeared on The BFD on October 30, 2021.

Ananish Chaudhuri

It took our government 18 months to figure out that “elimination” was misguided.  

We were one of the few remaining holdouts on elimination; so much so that when we did, leading newspapers reported on this with bemusement; much like they do when we hear about hitherto unknown tribes left untouched by advancing modernity. 

A key reason behind this, of course, is the absence of any effective opposition in New Zealand. When it came to responding to the pandemic, the opposition marches in lockstep with the government and has completely failed to ask searching questions about the pandemic response.  

The unquestioning deference to authority and misguided “experts” has been painful to watch. It seems out of character with the rugged individualism that we associate the average Kiwi.  

This is the reason why our level of discourse is so poor, why voluminous and compelling evidence gets over-looked, why contrary views are suppressed, why shoddy modelling and ideology posing as science is not questioned and why our government is not held to account for its numerous failures. 

But an equally, if not more, influential fact in our pandemic response is nationalistic hubris. First, we were the team of 5 million that could eliminate Covid in spite of the evidence staring us in the face that this was not going to be possible.  

Now the new chimera is vaccination rates. Most countries of the world have opened up once they reached reasonable amount of vaccine coverage. Denmark has achieved around 75% while Norway is at 70% at the time of writing.   

But this is not enough for us. We must show the rest of the world and reach 90%, no 95% or higher!   

What is forgotten in all of this is that we are not trying to win a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games.  

What we are trying to achieve is respite from a disease in a manner than minimizes the total harm across the entire spectrum of society.  

No one seems to be paying much attention to the bankrupt businesses, the postponed treatment for all other diseases, child poverty or mental well-being as long as we can show the world that we beat them at something.  

Our Zero Covid fanaticism has not only led to a loss of livelihoods, but it has also cost lives. Counting one year from our first lockdown in 2020, total deaths are much higher than the historical average; by nearly 1200 deaths. https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/14270/NZAE_Poster_postponed_deaths.pdf?sequence=14 

This does not even count all the other collateral damages as noted above.  

Martha Lincoln is an anthropologist at San Francisco State University. Writing in Nature, this is what Lincoln had to say about countries that have relied on such hubris: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02596-8. 

“One thing these countries have in common is ‘exceptionalism’ — a view of themselves as outliers, in some way distinct from other nations. Their COVID-19 responses suggest that exceptionalist world views can be associated with worse public-health outcomes. Researching this association could help in redefining preparedness and allow more accurate prediction of pandemic successes and failures.”… 

“In Greek myth, hubris is punished by the goddess Nemesis; in disease control, a hubristic world view risks a particularly vengeful nemesis. Overconfidence in national specialness has led to lack of preparedness, prevented collaboration with global health agencies and the opportunities to learn from the experience of other countries.”   

This article appeared in The BFD on February 19, 2022.

The images from the protest in Wellington have been sobering to say the least. All these years, we saw the violent images on our TV screens beamed from far-flung countries, and we felt a smug sense of superiority. That was not us. We were better than this. Now it has all come home and our shared sense of community and pride in being a tolerant society have come crashing down. Naked woman dragged by her hair and put in handcuffs. The Speaker of the House, that modern day Bull Connor, water-hosing protesters, a move decried by NZ Police.  

Trevor Mallard’s continued presence as Speaker within the hallowed halls of our Parliament would be offensive if we had not lost all sense of propriety.  

What is also astounding is that those heaping scorn on the Wellington protesters provided full-throated support for the Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and similar such outpourings of popular disenchantment with the reigning regimes. As if those protests all operated within the law and caused no inconvenience to anyone; as if none of those protests involved questionable slogans or placards.  

So, when it comes to the Wellington protests, why the double standards? If it was so important to listen to those other protesters and their demands and indeed it was since those protests grew out of legitimate grievances, then why the disdain for our fellow citizens many of whom are protesting the government’s intrusion into our everyday lives and not only the loss of fundamental rights and liberties but at times of our very ability to earn a livelihood?  

What kind of progressivism is this that turns a deaf ear to people who are protesting their very exclusion from civil society?  

It is one thing to laugh and joke with friendly reporters about creating a segregationist society; not so funny anymore when the marginalized show up on the lawns of Parliament to protest their demonization.  

Attempts to dismiss the protests as being “imported” (whatever that means) are quickly losing ground. A recent petition “Don’t Divide us” garnered nearly 90,000 signatures and was tabled at Parliament. A new poll suggests that 1 in 3 New Zealanders support the protests and an ad hoc online poll of New Zealand Herald readers with more than 8000 respondents found 49% in support.   

Regardless of what the government would have you believe, many of those protesting are not anti-vaxxers. Many, like Russell Coutts, are objecting to the element of coercion in all of this. The New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990 s.11 does confer upon people the right to refuse medical treatment. The government’s broad vaccine mandates are seen by many as violating the proportionality rule articulated by the High Court.  The government’s vaccine mandates have been questioned by Amnesty International.   

In fact, it is also the case that, in excluding the unvaccinated from many areas of social life, the government is prima facie discriminating (under s.19 of the Bill of Rights) against a minority that is merely exercising another fundamental right. This is particularly salient given that New Zealand does not mandate any other vaccines; not even for diseases that kill children, such as measles.  

This is exactly why the protests have wide-ranging support from a cross-section of Kiwis; because at its heart the protests are more about totalitarian control than about public health.   

One may or may not agree with the protesters; one may or may not agree with every slogan, every placard or every sentiment permeating the protests. But the protests do call upon us to engage in some soul-searching and ask: what went wrong with our society and sense of community?  

Because let us be clear: the primary blame here lies with the incompetence, ineptitude and indifference of this government. If the government was serious about dealing with the pandemic then they would have not have dithered on procuring vaccines, banned the import of rapid antigen tests to start with before realizing its folly and confiscating tests ordered by businesses who had greater foresight than the government.  

In Jacinda Ardern and her acolytes we have a group of left-wing authoritarians who are happy to tear the country asunder if they believe that this will marginally improve their electoral prospects.  

The government’s approach is creating deep divisions within our society leading to suspicion, distrust and rage. These divisions are going to be detrimental for the same vulnerable communities that the government supposedly wishes to protect. The damage to social cohesion will be difficult to repair.  

How did it come to this?  

This article was published in The BFD on March, 9, 2022

I saw recently that a media friendly scientist has taken to commenting about sailing. I presume this is to highlight the fact that Russell Coutts has spoken out against current government policies and joined the protesters in Wellington. The point being that if Coutts can talk about science, then scientists should be allowed to talk about sailing. Right? 

Wrong!  

Covid-19 has highlighted many deficiencies in contemporary political discourse in New Zealand; in particular, many of us and more importantly, our journalists, do not seem to have any understanding of the nature of “expertise”.   

I have a PhD in Economics but that does not necessarily give me any insight on whether Kane Williamson should choose to bat or field first upon winning the toss. Or why Ajaz Patel gets dropped from home tests in favour of another extra fast bowler even after becoming only the third player in the history of cricket to take ten wickets in an inning.  

But if Kane Williamson argues that the Auckland City Council should build a dedicated cricket stadium in Auckland at a cost of $200 million dollars, I, as an economist, can certainly weigh in. This is simply because now Williamson’s expertise in cricket intersects with mine on whether this is a good use of tax-payer money.  

But equally others may choose to weigh in: people with views about the impact on the neighbourhood or on the environment. Eventually, one would hope that a decision is made based on a careful consideration of the trade-offs in terms of costs and benefits.  

This is the distinction between narrow framing and broad framing of a problem. On the cricket field, I have no standing to question Williamson. But when his views intersect with larger social and economic questions, I have a right to express my views.  

Coutts after all has not said anything about case and infection fatality ratio, B or T-cells or about the superiority of reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reactions (RT-PCR) tests over Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).  

His point is simple: the NZ government’s response to this pathogen has gone beyond any reasonable limits. The needless demonization of those who do not agree with Dear Leader is causing deep divisions in our society. The ceaseless attacks on our civil liberties are not worth the price of temporary security from a disease that has 99% recovery rate.   

Coutts knows something about leadership and decision making under acute mental pressure. He clearly has something to contribute when the debate strays beyond the narrow scientific boundaries on to broader questions of ethics, morality, rights and liberties. 

Herein lies the problem. Throughout this Covid 19 pandemic, we have been told repeatedly to “trust the science”. But the “experts” and the media have insisted on narrow framing the problem, where trust the science boiled down to “listen to the advice of epidemiological researchers.” 

But this is a narrow, and indeed incorrect, view of what the relevant “science” is.  

Epidemiologists can tell us about case and infection fatality rates of pathogens or their prospective path of transmission. But what we do with that data, what level of risk we are willing to tolerate, what costs we are willing to bear and what freedoms we are willing to sacrifice is no longer a question for epidemiologists.  

In fact, this question should not be left to them. It requires expertise from other social sciences and humanities. This “trust the science” mantra is an abdication of responsibility by our leadership for decisions that require statesmanship and are fundamentally political in nature; a pretense that a narrowly defined view of science can substitute for ethical judgments that need to be made by political leaders and that all of us a have a right to comment on.  

For instance, we are currently facing many challenges both economic and social. Inflation is running high and first-time home buyers are being shut of the property market. Lockdowns have had many adverse consequences including on the mental health of children and adolescents.  

All of these are inevitable outcomes of the zero-Covid mindset. The government and its anointed experts have consistently refused to acknowledge that Covid-19 is not merely a health crisis; it is also a social and economic crisis requiring a multi-pronged response rather than single-minded devotion to elimination.  

Yet the current government, “experts” and journalists have persisted with narrow framing the relevant issue. For the relevant politicians and the “experts” this is not hard to understand. The “experts” desperately want to hang on to their fifteen minutes of fame and the politicians are only too eager to trot out “experts” who are happy to support the official narrative. 

It absolves the “experts” of conceding the limits of their expertise and the need to engage with dissenting views.  

But one would expect journalists to know better and refute the narrow framing of the problem. But then as we have also come to understand the journalists in question also have significant financial incentives in advancing that same official narrative.  

This was published in The BFD on June 7, 2022.

It is now widely recognized that in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, the New Zealand government implemented policies that were often ill-advised, if not outright illegal. This applies to a number of issues including the implementation of the traffic light system, which raised concerns regarding potential discrimination with the Human Rights Commission and the operation of the managed isolation and quarantine facility (MIQ) that was questioned by the High Court.  

But the policy that generated the most intense opposition, by far, was the decision to bring in vaccine mandates; essentially creating social segregation where the unvaccinated were no longer afforded the same privileges as those who were vaccinated. Even the Prime Minister went on record to say that this would create a segregated society but seemed quite blasé about the prospect of social disharmony that this might create.  

It was noted by commentators at the time that the mandate set up a conflict between public health and fundamental rights.  

There are multiple problems with such vaccine mandates including the fact that New Zealand does not mandate any vaccines including for far more deadly diseases such as measles. It is widely recognised that the vaccine mandates go against s.11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 providing citizens with the right to refuse medical treatment.  

Parts of the vaccine mandate as related to police and defence forces was found to be unlawful  and “not demonstrably justified” by our courts. Not to mention that fact that the mandates also likely violate s.19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the right to be free of discrimination.  

It is also the case that in judging whether the mandates were demonstrably justified, the judges often applied an incorrect lens. At times, in justifying the vaccine mandates judges have effectively asserted that the personal cost to workers laid off as a result of the mandates is irrelevant to the “demonstrably justified” test. This is incorrect.  

For example, suppose a government concluded that a virus was so serious that it ordered vaccination for all members of the population (by force if necessary) and the vaccine was likely to be fatal to people with specific medical conditions. In this case, we would expect that a judge would have to balance the cost to the individuals for whom the vaccine was likely to be fatal against the deaths that might result amongst the rest of the population if they were not vaccinated.   

The same principle applied here. Evidence suggests that if these mandates lower the quality of life on non-compliers by just 1% per year, then the mandates would need to prevent at least 5200 deaths from Covid-19 that are due to the pool of unvaccinated people.  

The premise that one needs a mandate to get high vaccine take-up is also faulty. According to Our World in data, as of June 2, 2022, 80% of people in New Zealand are fully vaccinated with another 4% partially vaccinated. Denmark, which had no such mandates in place, has achieved a slightly better outcome with nearly 83% fully vaccinated! 

Polls have found that there is a broad support for vaccine mandates among the general public. But the question is: do people understand how the vaccine trials were organized or what these vaccines are or are not designed to achieve?  

Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic no.  

Recent research by John Gibson of Waikato University suggests that there is great misunderstanding about vaccine efficacy among the New Zealand public. 

Gibson added the following question to an omnibus survey (using landlines and mobile phones) of a nationally representative random sample of voting age New Zealanders. 

The vaccine for COVID-19 marketed by Pfizer is the main COVID vaccine available in New Zealand. Based on your own understanding, were the trials that allowed the authorization of this vaccine designed to: 

(a) Test if the vaccine prevents infection and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19)? 

(b) Test if the vaccine reduces the likelihood of getting symptoms of COVID-19? 

(c) Test if the vaccine reduces the likelihood of getting seriously sick and dying? 

(d) All of the above. 

The poll was conducted in the first week of December 2021 when Parliament voted in the traffic light system restricting the rights of the unvaccinated. Consequently, vaccine related questions and concerns should have been front and centre in people’s minds. 

Around 3% chose each of options (a) and (b). Around 11% chose option (c) and nearly 80% chose option (d). i.e., all of the above. So, more than 95% of the respondents believed that the vaccines were more effective than they are and were trialled against highly stringent criteria. 

What is the reality? Only option (b) is correct! The trials, for instance, have nothing to say regarding whether the vaccines can prevent serious illness or death! An article from October 2020 by Peter Doshi in the BMJ quotes Tal Zaks, the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna which was another producer of mRNA vaccines (and Pfizer used the same set-up) had this to say: 

“…Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission…because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods and that is operationally untenable…Would I like to know that this prevents mortality? Sure, because I believe it does. I just don’t think it is feasible within the time-frame [of the trial] – too many people would die waiting for the results before we knew that. 

In fact, earlier in August 2020, the Editor-in-Chief of The BMJ commented: 

So instead we are heading for vaccines that reduce severity of illness rather than protect against infection, provide only short lived immunity, and will at best have been trialled by the manufacturer against placebo. As well as damaging public confidence and wasting global resources by distributing a poorly effective vaccine, this could change what we understand a vaccine to be. Instead of long term, effective disease prevention it could become a suboptimal chronic treatment. This would be good for business but bad for global public health. 

So, we knew all of this long before the imposition of vaccine mandates in New Zealand and the resulting deep social divisions.  

There is little point in blaming the public for their misperception. As Gibson points out, most people get their information from the media rather than medical journals. It is now widely recognized that in recent times large parts of New Zealand media, avid recipients of public interest journalism fund largesse from the government, have acted more as organs of the government rather than independent and objective arbiters of the truth.  

Unfortunately long after the details of the Covid-19 randomized trials became public knowledge and it was clear what those trials showed regarding vaccine efficacy, New Zealand journalists were writing articles making claims that were incorrect such as the vaccine “will prevent most if not all cases appearing and potentially prevent them from becoming infected at all” or that the vaccine was “about 95 per cent effective in preventing infection from the original Wuhan strain.”  

Gibson further notes that in addition to not correctly reporting the relevant scientific literature, the media promoted opinions from supposedly independent local academics even though those academics were merely regurgitating talking points about the vaccine provided to them by the government in a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign. Gibson notes ruefully that the  views of these commentators continue to be promoted uncritically without any mention of the potential conflicts of interest.  

In brief

• Not all of Trump administration’s demands on Harvard are unreasonable; some are in keeping with existing civil rights laws.
• The administration is overreaching in asking for external audit of “viewpoint diversity”. This goes to the heart of academic freedom and no university can submit to this without losing its soul.
• However, those outraged at Trump’s tactics should realise that viewpoint diversity is also missing in New Zealand universities.  
• Those decrying Trump are adopting similar tactics insisting on particular courses and course content, which are also violations of academic freedom.

Universities push back

Harvard university recently made news by refusing to bow down to the Trump administration’s demands in order to retain more than US $2 billion in federal grants and contracts. Harvard’s stance stands in contrast to the one adopted by Columbia earlier, where the latter agreed to most demands in order to keep about US $400 million of federal funds.

Not surprisingly, especially when Trump is involved, there have been howls of outrage all over.

But it is important to understand that not all of the Trump administration’s demands are outrageous.

Some will agree with Trump’s position

Those who have looked at the letter sent to Harvard will find parts of it unobjectionable.

Some of these relate to governance reforms, merit-based admissions and recruitment and ensuring faculty and students comply with relevant university policies. These are well in line with existing US laws including civil rights laws.

But Trump supporters are also mistaken in arguing that all the demands are reasonable.

The Trump administration is grossly overreaching when it asks for “viewpoint diversity” in student admissions and faculty recruitment or demands reformation of programs with “egregious record of antisemitism or other biases”.

No university can give in to these demands. Because while losing billions of federal funds may cause significant distress, giving in to these demands threatens the university’s very existence.

Viewpoint diversity is lacking – but not fixable by fiat

It is indeed true that there is a serious lack of viewpoint diversity in academia, both in the US and elsewhere.

But this is not easily corrected by government fiat. If for no other reason than the fact the “viewpoint diversity” is a meaningless standard. Who decides how much diversity is enough? What is the appropriate balance? Similarly, what exactly is the definition of “antisemitism and other biases”. What other biases? Who decides when the line has been crossed?

The administration is asking for an external audit of these matters. This is out of the question because these matters go to the heart of academic freedom and no university can accede to these demands without losing its soul.

And any university that does give in will find it very difficult to recruit talented staff and students in short order.

The attempts to coerce universities is not going to stop with the Ivy League institutions. They will likely filter down to lower-level institutions and therein lies the tragedy.

A large part of US prosperity is the direct result of its excellent university system, which attracts the best and the brightest from around the world. This is, in fact, why China has not managed to achieve similar levels of creativity and innovation. Even now the best minds around the world try to get to the US and not to China. (However, after a recent trip to China, I am keenly aware that this too is changing. China is making massive investments in its tertiary education sector and beginning to attract international talent. How far they can go while maintaining a one-party dictatorship remains to be seen. But, for now, the supremacy of the US remains unchallenged.)

Destroying the universities will mean the loss of this primary driver of US success and high standards of living.

In going after these universities, Trump is playing to particular sections of his vote base even though the long-term consequences are bound to be dire.

New Zealand should pay attention

But those in other countries including New Zealand who are disdainful of the Trumpian approach will do well to pay attention to what is happening in our own institutions.

Around the world, activists have forced universities to make changes to their mission and their curriculum to advance social justice causes, even where these changes are fundamentally opposed to academic freedom.

These range from favouring particular courses and course content to providing university approval for certain political positions while disfavouring others.

The viewpoint diversity that people desire is as absent in New Zealand as it is in the US.

The rise of Donald Trump can be traced back, not entirely but to an extent to a system that has persistently elevated one particular set of views, often referred to as “woke” for the want of a better word.

The problem is not that some espouse “woke” values. The problem lies with an educational system that provides a position of pre-eminence to this worldview to the exclusion of everything else. As with any other school of thought, many aspects of “wokeism” are tribal, narrow-minded and militate against enlightenment values.

People should bear these nuances in mind when decrying Donald Trump’s attempts at coercing universities to do his bidding. Often those opposed to Trump are doing the same, just from a different perspective and using different tactics.

Donald Trump has announced sweeping new tariffs with 10 percent tariff on all trading partners with many facing much higher rates such as 34 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods, 20 percent tariff on imports from the European Union, 24 percent tariffs on Japan and 26 percent on India.

Economists at the Cato Institute, that champions free trade and free markets commented: “With today’s announcement, U.S. tariffs will approach levels not seen since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which incited a global trade war and deepened the Great Depression.”

This is a significant escalation with the proposed rates much higher than anticipated. According to the World Trade Organization, in 2023, the trade-weighted average tariff rate (trade-weighted means considering the volume of trade, large or small, in the good that is being taxed), varied between 2 and 4 percent for the USA, the European Union, Canada and China.

Trump raised a whole host of matters including currency manipulation by countries which is not entirely relevant. But even when it comes to tariffs specifically, Trump is comparing apples and oranges. It is not the case that China has 25 percent on US automobiles and Trump is hitting back with a similar tariff on Chinese automobiles. Countries have different tariffs on different goods. Imports are often taxed at a higher rate for a good that a country produces and wants to protect, while tariffs are lower on goods that a country does not produce and is happy to import.

Back in February 2025, I wrote that that Trump’s tariffs will likely cause a global recession. Multiple agencies around the world such as CBS and Sky News are reporting that stocks have begun to tumble in anticipation of these tariffs. But the bigger fear now is that the negative impact on supply chains will lead to stagflation, falling incomes and outputs coupled with rising prices.  

Will these tariffs serve the interests of US consumers and businesses?  Could Trump be right that the tariffs will inflict short-term pain (higher prices at the till for US consumers) for a longer-term gain by  bringing manufacturing back to the United States?  

Unlikely given how current global supply chains work. Most goods are no longer produced entirely within a country. Bangladesh, a leader in the readymade garment business, imports cotton from India, USA, Pakistan and Australia.

Tesla’s production is concentrated in the US. Yet, Tesla is still critically dependent on getting semi-conductors from Taiwan and South Korea. To start producing cars entirely within the US, Tesla will have to base its operations there. But currently a large part of Tesla assembly happens in one of its factories in Shanghai. This reduces Tesla’s shipping costs, which would otherwise be much higher.

Trump’s view of the world is dated and harks back to a time when the only rich nations of the world were in the industrialized West. But currently out of 7 billion people in the world, 4 billion live in Asia. Yes, many of those countries are still poor on average but they still contain a huge chunk of rich people. India has 1.4 billion people. If even ten percent are well-off (and the actual proportion is higher) then this amounts to 140 million people, twice the size of UK.

So, even if Trump did force some manufacturers to bring manufacturing back to the US, many of them will not be able to compete on costs with Chinese producers.

What Trump should really be doing is to use US leverage (or, God forbid, work with the World Trade Organization) to get reduction in tariffs across the board.

The US still leads the world in inventions and innovations thanks mostly due to its superb universities that attract the best talents from the globe. But increasingly these advances rely crucially on technological breakthroughs in other countries.

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, recently wrote that he just saw “the future and it was not in America.” He goes on to talk about the huge campus consisting of more than 100 individually designed buildings built by Huawei in Shanghai following sanctions imposed on that company by the US amid national security concerns.

Among other things, Huawei has produced the  world’s first triple-folding smartphone and created its own mobile operating system, Hongmeng, to compete with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Friedman quotes a US citizen doing business in China for decades. “There was a time when people came to America to see the future,” he said. “Now they come here.”

The US is no longer the economic superpower that it used to be. These tariffs will be ruinous even for US consumers and businesses. The only silver lining is that it is highly unlikely much of this will come to pass as US lobby groups and politicians clamour for carve-outs and exemptions.

But, by that time, Trump would have moved on to another pet peeve.

By Isabella Glassman, New York Times, September 24, 2024

When I pictured myself in college, I envisioned potluck picnics and late nights listening to Taylor Swift, overanalyzing class crushes. Maybe even joining a Quidditch team.

I never daydreamed about hiding in the library bathroom, crying because I had just been rejected from an undergraduate law journal.

The recently publicized tensions on college campuses, particularly those in the heavily scrutinized Ivy League, are among many forces at play for students today. But there’s another that has not yet captivated the news cycle.

It’s called pre-professional pressure: a prevailing culture that convinces many of us that only careers in fields such as computer programming, finance and consulting, preferably at blue-chip firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey or big tech companies, can secure us worthwhile futures. It is an inescapable part of the current college experience, like tailgating or surviving on stale dining hall food. It not only steers our life choices; it also permeates daily life and negatively affects our mental health.

This pressure is hardly exclusive to Ivy League students. In the 2022-23 academic year, 112,270 students majored in computer science, more than double the number nine years earlier. In the 2021-22 academic year, undergraduate institutions handed out 375,400 business degrees. Unsurprisingly, the number of students pursuing humanities has declined dramatically.

Last year, 315,126 undergraduates applied for the 2,700 available undergraduate intern positions at Goldman Sachs.

Beyond the right major, the not-so-secret formula for the perfect résumé demands participation in a relevant extracurricular activity, which explains the competitive process at some selective schools to join pre-professional clubs.

The interview process for Cornell’s Undergraduate Asia Business Society includes entering a pitch-black lecture hall, having a projector light shone in one’s face and yelling responses to questions. Getting into Yale isn’t enough: Its investing club turned away 236 applicants in 2022.

Once one snags a spot in a club, it’s straight to LinkedIn. Nearly 20 percent of people on the site are between the ages of 18 to 24, making the platform an incubator of young adult FOMO. There, we stress over whether our headshots look too high school (at the age of 18) and race to the coveted over-500-connections designation.

When I doom-scrolled LinkedIn, I wished I was like my classmates, posting about their prestigious internships and gathering validating likes and comments. Unfortunately, I knew my state government internship was a scarlet letter of inadequacy. My classmates seemed to think the world comprised investment bankers, management consultants — and everyone else.

When I first got to the University of Pennsylvania in August of 2019, it felt like a daily pop quiz, one where I was graded on a language I still struggle to speak.

I heard students say things like: I think I want to work in mergers and acquisitions. Do you have any interest in that? It’s very competitive, just so you know. And: Unless it’s Goldman or J.P. Morgan, who cares?

I wondered how I missed the memo that I needed to take microeconomics. This fall at Penn there are 672 seats in the course; as of Monday, only four had not been taken. Does everyone like economics that much?

I later learned that according to student lore, if you do well in microeconomics and macroeconomics, then get accepted into one of the selective finance clubs, you have a chance of internally transferring to Penn’s Wharton School, the most prestigious undergraduate business school in the country. A Wharton degree, popular superstition had it, was akin to buying a home in the Hamptons and sending your kids to one of the Phillips academies.

Responding to the pressure, I took microeconomics. When I did well on my first midterm, I realized that I could perhaps earn some respect from my peers by winning one of the few transfer spots into Wharton. Then I remembered I had no interest in business.

I wanted to go to law school, so I applied to Penn’s Undergraduate Law Journal. During my callback interview, however, I failed to prepare questions for my interviewer, wrongly believing questions would be a nuisance. When I got a rejection email, I was crushed. I felt like law school was now an impossibility.

It sounds silly — in hindsight, it was — but that is how I felt when I was surrounded by thousands of intelligent classmates competing for the same handful of results. I’d wake up at 3:30 a.m. from the recurring nightmare that I didn’t land an internship my junior year summer. I heard people, maybe friends, endlessly discussing the “only way” to be successful. I consoled a sobbing roommate after she failed to land the job her parents expected her to get.

There is some economic reality behind the madness.

Real wages have remained moribund since the 1970s, a hard pill to swallow in the face of the last several years of inflation. Today’s young adults feel worse off than their parents because their salaries no longer buy a suburban starter home with a picket fence. House prices have outpaced inflation, making homeownership a bigger challenge. Gen Z-ers have more student loans than millennials, and big, corporate salaries seemingly promise a salve for all one’s financial worries.

But what is missing in this race to perceived economic safety is the emotional toll. The number of young adults ages 18 to 25 who have had at least one depressive episode has doubled from 2010 to 2020. Almost two-thirds of college students have reported feeling “overwhelming anxiety” within a given year, and experts have pointed to the cocktail of coursework, pressure to participate in extracurricular activities and concerns over choosing a career as causes.

Naturally, when thousands of students rush into the same handful of majors and professions, supply cannot possibly meet demand. That’s particularly true now, as openings for postgraduate tech industry jobs advertised on the student job board Handshake decreased about 30 percent this spring from the prior year. Job openings in the financial sector are similarly declining. Consulting firms have cut numbers of new hires and delayed start dates for undergraduates with offers.

Selective colleges and universities can fix this by overhauling their on-campus recruiting systems to prevent finance and consulting firms from pushing students to commit earlier and earlier. No student should have to determine her first career path before junior year begins.

Then there are the parents, who have enormous influence on their children’s career choices. Take a deep breath. A kid’s first word doesn’t need to be “revenue” or his first language Java. It’s hard to not want the best for your children — and not to define it as them starting the next Amazon. But stop and think about what actually makes them happy and keeps them sane, not what you think will keep them safe.

As for me, I was wrong: My failure to get admitted to the law journal in college didn’t prevent me from getting into law school. I’m now a second-year law student and a member of my school’s law review, and still cannot confidently define management consulting.

But as soon as this essay is published, feel free to check out my LinkedIn post about it.