The low-down on the lockdown educational TV channels, which launch tomorrow. We’re still in lockdown, but term two begins this week. What’s the story with the new TV channels? This week sees the launch of two new television channels dedicated to broadcasting educational programmes for school students during the Covid-19 lockdown. The first is Home … Read more
A range of scenarios has been released by Treasury, modelling the potential impact of Covid-19 on the economy. How bad could the damage be? Here’s a cheat sheet. What is the starting point for these scenarios? Treasury has looked at several different scenarios for how lockdown measures to fight Covid-19 will affect the economy, and … Read more
Even in normal times, loneliness takes a terrible toll on society’s most vulnerable. Now with New Zealand under lockdown, we need to be even more mindful of the risks. These are disorienting times. The benchmark for what’s “normal” is shifting so rapidly it’s dizzying to remember what we were all doing just a few weeks … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Questions over how environmentally friendly Covid-19 recovery will be, consistent daily updates of new cases, and repatriation flights from India organised. There has been an increasing amount of commentary about the state of the environment during and after the pandemic. Air quality in cities has improved dramatically, … Read more
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The Spinoff Members here. On … Read more
The public health response to Covid-19 showed New Zealand at its best. What will the economic response reveal? Iain White, a professor of environmental planning, on the risks ahead. Crises reveal. They bring the nature of societies to light. From the differing attitude to experts between countries, to who really are the essential workers, to the … Read more
The latest in our series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall. David Garcia also helped create today’s charts. This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff Members These posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates … Read more
The director general of health hosted a Facebook live event this afternoon. It got a little sketchy at times. “I’m not as practised at this as the prime minister,” said Ashley Bloomfield at the start of a Facebook live event, wherein he traded out the press gallery for some moderately screened questions from the public. … Read more
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The Spinoff Members here. Today’s … Read more
It is critical to ensure our houses are in order with skilled staff and strong procedures, but the valuable ‘lessons learned’ from true-life emergency events are never that cut and dried, writes former public health worker Richard Simpson. There are different breeds of emergency manager. At one extreme there are the Abraham Lincoln types who, … Read more
The greatest of cities is rapidly becoming the most afflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Tess McClure, a New Zealand journalist based in New York, writes. March 12 – 95 cases in NYC At the start of today – Thursday – we still thought we’d be going to work. The first emails had come through that … Read more
In an ideal world the physical lives we build would speak to the past, but the truth is New Zealanders silence it, building their social and industrial histories literally on top of Māori. Read more Lockdown letters here. “The past is a foreign country,” goes the famous opening line from The Go-Between, but for tangata … Read more
The nature of this coronavirus means that we need to steel ourselves for more tough news in the coming weeks. That should only firm our resolve, writes Siouxsie Wiles. Illustrations by Toby Morris. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is only possible because of the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff … Read more
With many of us forced to adapt to get through Covid-19 and the lockdown, the constant juggling act of freelancers should be a source of inspiration. Waiting for pay, waiting for work. Taking what you can get in between. For many people, such an austere scenario sounds like a scene from a grey and dusty … Read more
A new national survey shows overwhelming backing for the government’s Covid-19 response – and a clear majority willing to submit to location tracking, should it be introduced. Stickybeak’s David Brain breaks down the data. An exclusive new survey from Stickybeak for The Spinoff shows an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders approve of the government’s response … Read more
The latest in our series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall. David Garcia also helped create today’s charts. This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff Members These posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates … Read more
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The Spinoff Members here. On … Read more
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall. This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff Members These posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early afternoon, which describe … Read more
As the UK records its deadliest day so far, with 980 deaths in 24 hours surpassing the worst seen by Italy and Spain, a New Zealand doctor reports from the frontline of a London hospital. It took eight painstaking months before I was allowed to work as a doctor in the UK. I became a … Read more
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The Spinoff Members here. On … Read more
The second week of lockdown mobility data reveals NZ remains compliant with lockdown measures. Google mobility data covering most of the second week of lockdown shows New Zealand continuing to comply with the rules imposed by the level four lockdown. Compared with week one, the country is near identical in the six categories reported on … Read more
China’s culture of catchy slogans has been vital to its Covid-19 recovery efforts. Shanghai resident Asen Velinov explains the rich history behind some of the bizarre slogans seen on social media. “Pick where you will be resting – on your couch, in jail, in hospital or in an early grave.” “Take a walk today and … Read more
With each new day, it is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot and should not return to the normality we have come to know in health, writes ICU doctor David Galler. Over the past few weeks, our lives have been turned upside down and inside out in ways we could never have anticipated. Many of … Read more
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The Spinoff Members here. 6.15pm: … Read more
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall. This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff Members These posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early afternoon, which describe … Read more
Today New Zealand begins two desolate days without updates from Ashley Bloomfield. Here’s something to soften the blow. The daily briefings from Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the director general of health, have become a staple in many people’s lives, especially under lockdown. He’s hardly missed a day, but this Easter weekend is having an astonishing two … Read more
The government yesterday announced it would step up its arrivals policy to mandate hotel quarantine or ‘managed self-isolation’ for all returning New Zealanders – people like Andrew Todd, who describes what it’s like to live in a Covid-19 quarantine zone. Four weeks ago, I was living in Canada, earning a meagre but stable income as … Read more
Responding to sudden, shocking change requires a double lens. Read more from the Lockdown letters here. My granddaughter has been making a newspaper. The Daily Chirp. It’s very small, as befits a newspaper designed for birds, but it contains news (a worrying rise in Tweet-19), “Adds” for birdseed medicine (Fight the Tweet-19 virus!), and a … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Pat MacFie from Manaaki. This week we have another special podcast highlighting some of the support and services … Read more