{"id":37940,"date":"2021-10-12T14:12:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T05:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/oct\/12\/new-zealand-governments-pivot-from-covid-elimination-surprised-top-health-experts"},"modified":"2021-10-12T14:12:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T05:12:17","slug":"new-zealand-governments-pivot-from-covid-elimination-surprised-top-health-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=37940","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand government\u2019s pivot from Covid elimination \u2018surprised\u2019 top health experts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Baker said lack of discussion with independent experts was a \u2018stark contrast\u2019 to earlier pandemic decisions<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A number of epidemiologists and public health experts who have been central to helping chart and communicate New Zealand\u2019s Covid response thus far say they were taken by surprise by its new direction, and not consulted by the government as it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/oct\/04\/new-zealand-covid-strategy-in-transition-ardern-says-as-auckland-awaits-lockdown-decision\">pivoted away from elimination<\/a> and outlined a controversial set of \u201csteps\u201d out of level 3 restrictions last week.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement was a shift in tack for New Zealand\u2019s government, which has spent most of the pandemic in close to lock-step with public health professionals.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/oct\/12\/new-zealand-governments-pivot-from-covid-elimination-surprised-top-health-experts\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Baker said lack of discussion with independent experts was a \u2018stark contrast\u2019 to earlier pandemic decisionsSee all our coronavirus coverageA number of epidemiologists and public health experts who have been central to helping chart and communic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1066,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37941,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37940\/revisions\/37941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}