Latest news with #TePūnahaMatatini
NZ Herald
13-05-2025
- Science
- NZ Herald
Shaun Hendy's warning: The Covid lessons we're still to learn
Scientists, eh? Where would we be without them. They're not gods, just human beings who might make mistakes but have useful information to tell us. Hendy's information, now and for the last few years, has been extremely useful. He kept a diary through those years and The Covid Response is the result: a compulsively readable page-turner, meticulously annotated and full of insights and provocations about the pandemic and his role in it. Off the bat, let me say I'm chairing a session with Hendy in the Auckland Writers Festival this Sunday. We'll be joined by Kimiora Raerino and Lavinia McGee-Repia, editor and contributor, respectively, to Toutū Ngā Marae, a new collection of beautiful and sometimes challenging stories about the way marae all over Tāmaki Makaurau responded to the pandemic. Hendy is a physicist, not a microbiologist like Siouxsie Wiles or a public-health specialist like Michael Baker. So how did he even fit in? 'In my job as a lecturer at the University of Auckland,' he writes, 'I taught a short course every year on the mathematics of networks ... I had become interested in applying the mathematics that physicists use to other types of problems.' That led him into economics, social science and even efforts to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis from our livestock. 'Pandemics were now my kind of problem.' In 2013 he founded the research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini. It does modelling. Hendy's thing is numbers. Not everyone, you may remember, was impressed by Covid modelling. 'Predictions' that tens of thousands of us would die from this or that outbreak strained credulity for some people. Hendy reports Mike Hosking on NewstalkZB told Chris Hipkins, then the Minister of Health: 'How about you give me one million [dollars], I'll model for you.' But Hendy has a weather analogy to respond to this, involving not shoes but umbrellas. 'If you take your umbrella, the sun will shine,' he writes. 'If you leave it behind, it will rain. It's funny because we all know it's not really true, but imagine the plight of a weather forecaster if they were asked to predict not just the weather but how many people would get wet. Forecast some rain, the umbrellas come out and, hey presto – no one gets soaked.' The job of Hendy's team was to show what would probably happen if everyone had an umbrella. That is, if we stayed home. He makes the point many times that modellers don't produce 'predictions'. They analyse 'scenarios': what might happen if we do A instead of B? New Zealand's pandemic successes were not evidence the modellers were wrong. They suggest they were right: the lockdowns and other measures worked. Who can forget what happened in Italy and New York, where the disease was upon them before effective public health measures were in place? Bodies piled into refrigerator trucks outside hospitals. Science is a form of organised scepticism, said the philosopher of science Robert Merton. Hendy quotes him approvingly. And scientists aren't oracles who reveal 'the truth'. But they do know, or are supposed to know, how to think about information. Some of them, like Hendy, Wiles and Baker, know how to talk about it too. Hendy did a thousand media interviews in the pandemic's first 18 months. It got to him, as it got to everyone. After the first lockdown, he writes, the first time we eliminated the virus, 'I cried quietly with relief. Jacinda Ardern's 'Team of Five Million' had done it.' Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Professor Shaun Hendy, via audio-visual link, give a Covid-19 update at Parliament on September 23, 2021. Photo / Mark Mitchell As we know, not everything went so well. Science might be organised scepticism, but politics can be organised failure. By late 2020, new variants were arriving and lockdowns were back, but it was clear vaccines would be available. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield recommended to Cabinet that Māori and Pasifika aged 50 and over should be at the head of the queue. He also wanted lockdown restrictions not to be lifted until 90% of Māori were vaccinated. Others, including the Māori Council, were saying the same. The reason was simple enough. While pandemic deaths in the general population were more common among the elderly, Covid was killing Māori and Pasifika at much higher rates than others and that was largely because the age curve started younger. But Cabinet, 'worried about a racist reaction from the wider public', as Hendy puts it, rejected Bloomfield's advice. Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote to the Māori Council, telling them that setting vaccination targets for Māori before relaxing restrictions could create 'a perception amongst some, that that group is preventing the country from opening up more quickly'. 'This fear of a racist backlash had real consequences,' writes Hendy. He quotes research suggesting that if Māori vaccination rates had been the same as Pākehā rates in the 18 months from January 2021, 'between 30 and 80 Māori lives would have been saved and 500 to 1000 hospitalisations avoided'. It's a bitter irony that the last and longest lockdown in 2021 could have been shorter if Bloomfield's advice had been accepted and, therefore, vaccination rates were much higher in South Auckland. Hendy is proud of what we got right. 'We had designed and deployed lockdowns, becoming one of the few countries in the world to eliminate Sars-Cov-2. We had built a state-of-the-art genomic surveillance system that allowed us to hunt down chains of infection with a precision that other countries could only dream of. We had developed a vaccination system that could deliver millions of doses a month across the country.' All of which produced 'one of the lowest health burdens, one of the highest vaccine coverages, and one of the most favourable economic outcomes for any advanced economy'. And a rate of excess deaths 10 times lower than Britain and the US. After the first three years, Britain had recorded 223,778 Covid deaths: a rate of 3.2 per thousand. In America 1,135,343 people had died of Covid: 3.4 in every thousand. If we'd had the same rate here, we'd have had 17,000 to 18,000 Covid deaths. The actual number at the same three-year mark was 2662, or 0.5 deaths per thousand people. One way to read this is that Britain under Boris Johnson, the jovial charmer who toured here in December, recorded 200,000 needless deaths. The lessons? Hendy thinks the courage to go hard has to be matched by the courage to be flexible. 'Mandates,' he says, 'gave the appearance of certainty in what remained a highly uncertain environment, but once Omicron arrived they immediately lost a good deal of their effectiveness.' He wants a New Zealand Centre for Disease Control, to coordinate forward planning and responses. He thinks there's 'no doubt that some funding should have been devolved to Māori experts or providers', not only in healthcare – as did eventually happen during the vaccine rollout – but also in science. 'When Māori communities were empowered during the pandemic, the results were impressive. [The Royal Commision] found that 'more iwi and Māori involvement in the early phases of the Covid-19 response would have resulted in better outcomes for Māori'.' And, Hendy says, there's the lack of funding. Te Pūnaha Matatini won the Prime Minister's Science Prize in 2020, but the work it was doing then is 'currently not being maintained for the next pandemic'. It barely was even then. 'When I first briefed the Prime Minister in June 2021 on how [the Covid strain] Delta was going to affect New Zealand's exit from elimination, I had to finish by begging for an extension of our funding, which had run out several weeks earlier.' There's another challenge. 'A good rule of thumb for decision makers in the next pandemic,' Hendy writes, 'is that the narrower and more targeted the measure, the less likely it will be effective when deployed in an uncertain environment.' All very well, but what will we do if the next pandemic arrives and there is no social licence for a lockdown? Is that where we are now?
Scoop
28-04-2025
- Health
- Scoop
A Scientist's Account Of New Zealand's Pandemic And What Comes Next
Press Release – Bridget Williams Books In The Covid Response, physicist and science communicator Shaun Hendy offers a personal, behind-the-scenes account of how science shaped New Zealands pandemic strategy. When Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand in March 2020, panic buying began and the future was deeply uncertain. Three years later, the country recorded one of the world's lowest pandemic death rates – despite lighter restrictions on average than most OECD nations. Had it followed the path of the US or UK, more than 17,000 lives might have been lost. This new book asks: How was such an outcome possible – and at what cost? In The Covid Response, physicist and science communicator Shaun Hendy offers a personal, behind-the-scenes account of how science shaped New Zealand's pandemic strategy. As part of the Te Pūnaha Matatini team, he helped inform the government's response – modelling the virus's spread, assessing risk and supporting decision-makers under pressure. Hendy guides readers through pivotal moments, unpacking the science behind key decisions and the challenges of navigating a fast-moving, uncertain crisis. 'In the middle of the crisis, our job as scientists wasn't just to run the numbers – it was to make sense of uncertainty. It was a responsibility none of us took lightly,' Hendy explains. 'Science helped save lives, but it also taught us how much we still have to learn about preparing for the next big threat.' The Covid Response explains the tools of pandemic science, from modelling to genomic sequencing, and refl ects on the complex relationship between science and policy. Hendy also looks to the future, asking how we can be better prepared next time. ' The vast majority of us made sacrifi ces to keep our people safe.' Hendy writes, 'If there is one thing that I would hope for in the next pandemic, it is that we can recapture some of the spirit that got us through those years, while striving to ensure that the costs and benefi ts are shared more equitably next time. And if there is one lesson we should take from Covid-19, it is that a resilient society must be an equitable one.' As the world monitors the spread of avian influenza (H5N1), Hendy warns that our readiness may already be compromised – notably in the United States, where the Trump administration has withdrawn from the World Health Organization and weakened key public health institutions. In Aotearoa, much of the capability built during the pandemic is at risk of fading. Hendy calls for renewed investment in science and stronger regional partnerships, especially with Australia, to ensure we are ready for whatever comes next.
Scoop
28-04-2025
- Health
- Scoop
A Scientist's Account Of New Zealand's Pandemic And What Comes Next
When Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand in March 2020, panic buying began and the future was deeply uncertain. Three years later, the country recorded one of the world's lowest pandemic death rates – despite lighter restrictions on average than most OECD nations. Had it followed the path of the US or UK, more than 17,000 lives might have been lost. This new book asks: How was such an outcome possible – and at what cost? In The Covid Response, physicist and science communicator Shaun Hendy offers a personal, behind-the-scenes account of how science shaped New Zealand's pandemic strategy. As part of the Te Pūnaha Matatini team, he helped inform the government's response – modelling the virus's spread, assessing risk and supporting decision-makers under pressure. Hendy guides readers through pivotal moments, unpacking the science behind key decisions and the challenges of navigating a fast-moving, uncertain crisis. Advertisement - scroll to continue reading 'In the middle of the crisis, our job as scientists wasn't just to run the numbers – it was to make sense of uncertainty. It was a responsibility none of us took lightly,' Hendy explains. 'Science helped save lives, but it also taught us how much we still have to learn about preparing for the next big threat.' The Covid Response explains the tools of pandemic science, from modelling to genomic sequencing, and refl ects on the complex relationship between science and policy. Hendy also looks to the future, asking how we can be better prepared next time. ' The vast majority of us made sacrifi ces to keep our people safe.' Hendy writes, 'If there is one thing that I would hope for in the next pandemic, it is that we can recapture some of the spirit that got us through those years, while striving to ensure that the costs and benefi ts are shared more equitably next time. And if there is one lesson we should take from Covid-19, it is that a resilient society must be an equitable one.' As the world monitors the spread of avian influenza (H5N1), Hendy warns that our readiness may already be compromised – notably in the United States, where the Trump administration has withdrawn from the World Health Organization and weakened key public health institutions. In Aotearoa, much of the capability built during the pandemic is at risk of fading. Hendy calls for renewed investment in science and stronger regional partnerships, especially with Australia, to ensure we are ready for whatever comes next.
1News
27-04-2025
- Health
- 1News
Shaun Hendy: NZ should collaborate with Aus to prepare for next pandemic
As the chances of another pandemic increase by the year, New Zealand should collaborate more closely with Australia to prepare, according to a Covid-19 modeller. Physicist Professor Shaun Hendy and his team at Te Pūnaha Matatini modelled Covid-19 scenarios for the Government during the height of infections. These models were instrumental in shaping decisions about lockdowns, border controls, and vaccination. In his new book, A Covid Response, Hendy said climate change, industrial agriculture, and the displacement of natural habitats 'seem to be increasing our exposure rate to novel viruses by about 5% each year'. While New Zealand was better prepared for the inevitable pandemic after Covid-19, Hendy told Q+A there was only so much a small country could do. "There are only so many scientific experts that we have to call on. By partnering with Australia, we can call on some of that expertise. "That might have been really useful for us in dealing with that emergency versus crisis phase. "It might have been useful for them as well at times when they were dealing with large outbreaks, asking us to help out there," he said. In his book, Hendy said while there was some collaboration with Australia during Covid-19, these were largely ad hoc. He wrote future areas of joint investment could focus on the two countries' capacity to manufacture vaccines and anti-viral medicines. 'In New Zealand's research funding environment, it is often a challenge to maintain a critical mass of skilled people in a single team, let alone in two teams. "Again, partnering with Australia is a more realistic option, but that too would require a sustained funding commitment from the New Zealand government.' Hendy told Q+A the case for this sort of trans-Tasman integration to deal with infectious diseases was only strengthened as the US "kind of dismantles its public health at the moment". "It really is quite alarming and people won't be aware of the extent to which we relied on the US scientifically. "A lot of the best science was done in the US, has been developed in the US for dealing with infectious disease. We are looking potentially to the future where that capability doesn't exist anymore." Under US President Donald Trump, budgets and thousands of staff had been cut across public health agencies. Reflecting on the Covid-19 response overall, Hendy said New Zealand did relatively well but there were things it could have done better — for example, the MIQ system. "It took us a long time to really get those systems working and, even then, it wasn't perfect even after we've been running it for a year," Hendy said. "But I have a lot of sympathy for the people who had to put that together, something that had never been tried before, really, in New Zealand. "We had massive expectations on those folks to build a system from scratch with very little preparation." Hendy also said the first phase of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry made a "fair observation" that the country had not pivoted fast enough after its initial crisis response. "There are a lot of things we could be reflecting on and I'm not sure if that's going on enough. A lot of us want to forget and move on." But the only way New Zealand could do better next time was through preparation, he said. "The better the preparation, the better you'll be able to deliver a pandemic strategy in coming pandemics. "We will have another one, unfortunately." Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of NZ On Air.
