Coronavirus: Quarantine policy shift is 'racist', critics say

Friday, 14 August 2020

The Covid-19 testing centre in Wiri, south Auckland, was overrun with people wanting to be swabbed on the day Auckland went back into level 3.

The Government has been accused of a “patronising” and “racist” policy for moving Covid-19 positive people into quarantine.

After community transmission of the virus re-emerged in New Zealand this week, Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced all detected cases would be required to move in to quarantine facilities. In the previous outbreak, positive cases were only required to self-isolate in their own home.

The latest outbreak is centred in South Auckland, and has disproportionately affected Māori and Pasifika people.

On Friday, an expert advisory group set up in response to the pandemic Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, criticised the shift.

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Professor Dr Papaarangi Mary-Jane Reid, National Māori Pandemic Group co-leader says high vaccination rates for non-Māori is an indicator of white privilege, enabling better protection for Pākehā (file photo).

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The group’s co-leader Professor Papaarangi Reid said it was punitive instead of mana-enhancing.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield wants people who contract coronavirus in the community to go into quarantine at the Jet Park Hotel in Mangere, Auckland.

“It’s racist on a number of levels,” said Reid. “It’s racist because it’s patronising. It’s racist on its stereotyping. It’s racist on its assumption we don’t have the skills and the decision-making power to make good decisions.”

Reid is concerned the policy will increase mistrust of health authorities amongst Māori and Pacific people particularly as conspiracy theories start to take hold.

She said Te Urutā agrees isolation of infected people is an essential component of managing the virus but they’re asking the government to re-think it’s strategy of making it compulsory.

“Covid-19 is a public health issue and if we are to truly get this pandemic under control, it requires a robust and positive public health response, rather than a punitive one,” Reid said.

“We insist on partnership and reject paternalism.”

Quarantine has long been a requirement for any cases found at the border, but was not previously required for people who contracted it in the community.

“One does wonder whether the change is in relation to current cases being predominantly from Māori and Pacific communities,” Reid said.

“This did not happen when most of the Covid cases were Pākehā.”

Dr Rawiri Taonui, an independent researcher, said it was mainly Pākehā returning from overseas who carried the virus in the first wave of infection.

“They didn't get locked down in quarantine,” Taonui said.

The pop up testing station in Otara, South Auckland, has been busy.

“This has impacted Māori and Pacific people more, and all of a sudden we’re expected to quarantine. They don’t trust us. It hints at racism.”

Taonui has been tracking the virus since it first arrived in the country. He said in the second wave to date, the majority of the community cases were Māori and Pacific people.

During the influenza pandemic in the early 1900s, racist attitudes towards Māori were prevalent in public health policy, said Taonui. He doesn’t want the government to head back down that path again.

On Friday, when asked about Te Uruta’s concern over mandatory quarantine, Bloomfield said it was a point well made.

There was some flexibility for people and families infected through community transmission.

“The final directive I’ve signed and sent out to the Medical Officers of Health is not saying that people have to be sent to the Jet Park in Auckland,” Bloomfield said.

“It is saying that they have to be in a suitable quarantine arrangement the Medical Officer of Health is happy with.”

Two people in Tokoroa who tested positive on Friday are from a wider family of 20 to 30 people. They’ve all been tested and are in isolation. The family has been working with the Waikato District Health Board and local iwi to establish an arrangement that is agreed with the family, Bloomfield said.

“The idea here is to protect that transmission of the virus within the household,” he said.

“That’s where most of the infections happen as well as any inadvertent transmission on to the family and to provide that support.

“The quarantine facilities are set up to do that and that’s the purpose of it.”

But Reid said the updated regime was stereotyping all Māori and Pacific families as unable to determine for themselves how they will manage the infection and isolation.

“The fact they’re stereotyping brown families will be multigenerational, poor, over-crowded and impoverished - that is racism,” Reid said.

“We have demonstrated the ability and commitment of Māori and Pacific communities to stand up and do what is needed to protect ourselves from Covid-19. In the earliest days of Covid-19 in Aotearoa, our communities led the on-the-ground responses while the government was still floundering.

“Our whānau want to protect our households and our communities. No-one is more committed to keeping our whānau safe than us. But we want to be involved in those decisions – we don’t want to put others at risk, but we want to ensure other whānau members, especially children and kaumātua are well-supported.”