Sponsor's Message

We're told that by ramping up our acceptance and participation in the KE, New Zealand can overcome the tyranny of distance that frequently adds a hefty freight charge to our conventional exports.

Teleworking (or telecommuting) offers the promise of reducing the nation's annual fuel bill, cutting pollution, traffic congestion and hiking our productivity.

These all sound like compelling reasons to adopt both strategies -- but I fear that an even more compelling reason is just around the corner.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

Right now, scientists around the world are deeply concerned that we're on the verge of a massive flu pandemic that would almost certainly kill tens or hundreds of millions of people world-wide.

Some of the estimates being quoted, suggest that the death-toll in New Zealand would likely exceed 5,000 people in the first month alone.

The catalyst for this pandemic would be a mutation of the bird virus currently causing problems in Asia into a form that was able to pass from human to human.

If/when this mutation occurs, one of the strategies being mooted to protect New Zealand is to close the nation's borders, effectively quarantining us against the chance of infection from overseas travellers.

Although this might at first glance appear to be a ridiculous option, it's one that might well be justified, if it were actually a practical method of saving all those lives that might otherwise be lost.

The other day I asked a doctor friend what use it would be to close the borders and suggested that as soon as we reopened them, the infection would enter the country anyway. He pointed out the fact that by that time a vaccination would likely have been developed against this killer-strain and thus mass-inoculation could protect our population.

He was also very skeptical about the merits of all the anti-viral drugs that the government is presently stockpiling in anticipation of this pandemic, suggesting that it shortened the duration of an infection by about the same amount of time it would take to go to the chemist to fill the script.

Perhaps this looming pandemic and the option of closing our borders while a vaccine is formulated is behind the government's moves to force oil companies to carry reserves sufficient to last the country at least 90 days?

Naturally such a move would massively disrupt our ability to trade in an international economy -- but this disruption would be a whole lot less if we were focusing more heavily on intangible knowledge-based products rather than primary produce.

Imagine the hassles involved in loading overseas ships with logs, dairy and meat products when you're trying to keep something as small and undetectable as a virus out. Much easier to transfer software or other IP over the Net isn't it?

And even if the virus did make it to NZ, wouldn't those who teleworked be less likely to catch it -- since they would not be forced to commute to areas of high people-density each and every day.

So it seems that a knowledge based economy has more benefits than we'd originally thought.

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!