Only 26% of New Zealanders "Totally Trust" Government Covd-19 Response

In the preface to his 1852 book Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusion and the Madness of Crowds Charles Mackay said 

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Despite an intense PR campaign which has seen some of the most misleading and unbalanced media coverage of any issue in recent times, New Zealanders are clearing their fog and are recovering "their senses, slowly, one by one". A recent study has indicated that the government and media narrative, which has centred on fear (rather than the facts) of the Covid-19 virus, is starting to collapse. The July results show only 26% of those surveyed "totally trust" the governments handling of the Covid-19 crisis, down from 39% in April with a further 38% "mostly" trusting the government response, down from 40% in April. Overall the trust level in these two categories has slipped 15% from 79% to 64%.  

It is likely this collapse of support is now greater. The survey was conducted before the High Court found that what was one of the world's harshest lockdowns, imposed in late March, was illegal. New Zealanders are also now realising that, contrary to what the government has been telling people for over five months, the Covid-19 virus is not dangerous for most people. 

Nearly 300,000 people are expecting to lose their jobs and there has been untold damage to the well-being of young people, along with a myriad of other consequences of the government's panicked reaction. New Zealanders can now see that the government response to Covid-19 has been catastrophic, and is surely one of the worst own goals seen in New Zealand politics in living memory.

If the government had been up to the mark, the strong evidence which was available in late March that strongly indicating Covid-19 was no more dangerous than influenza would have dictated a very different response. New Zealanders now realise that Sweden, initially heavily criticised in the media for not locking down, had a far more rational response. The media have now gone silent on Sweden. 

New Zealand's political and health leadership are rightly being excoriated because, instead of changing their response when the evidence changes, the government has doubled down on the disaster by reimposing lockdowns in New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. Because four people in one family tested positive. 

The problem for Labour is they have invested so much political capital in the fear-myth of the Covid-19 virus, they cannot politically change direction so close to an election. Once people realise the disastrous path Labour have led New Zealand down, they will be unelectable for a decade.