Daily review 14/01/2022

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, January 14th, 2022 - 39 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

39 comments on “Daily review 14/01/2022 ”

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  1. weka 1
    14 January 2022 at 5:37 pm

    this could be any sustained crisis (quake, climate, pandemic, GFC). Covid could be our practice run if we let it.

    https://twitter.com/thatsferntastic/status/1481728238619860992

    https://twitter.com/thatsferntastic/status/1481781749684523008

    • alwyn 1.1
      14 January 2022 at 8:14 pm

      One of the comments in the Twitter stream certainly shows the difference between the Labour Party in Australia and our lot.

      Anthony Albanese

      "Rapid tests should be free and available to everyone.

      Why does our Government prevent us even paying for them if we want one? Why are they banned?

      • weka 1.1.1
        14 January 2022 at 8:33 pm

        Are you really wanting NZ to be like Australia in terms of the pandemic alwyn?

        My guess about the RATs is that the government wants people getting PCR tests at this time because they're more accurate and better for containing delta. If someone buys a RAT privately, gets a false negative result but thinks they are covid free and then goes out partying (eg at a major NY music fest), you can see why this is a problem.

        NZ govt are buying up RATs for when omicron arrives afaik.

        • alwyn 1.1.1.1
          14 January 2022 at 9:00 pm

          I have a rather different view. I think that the Government is preventing people buying, or using, the tests because they won't necessarily find out what the results were and won't have a detailed oversight of everyone's health.

          That makes very good sense if you think that people may find out that they do have Covid 19, but aren't showing anything much in the way of symptoms and don't tell the authorities and don't isolate.

          I don't think it has anything to do with the accuracy of the tests.

          By the way, the gentleman who made the comment is the leader of the Labour Party. I don't think the Federal Labour Party deserve much blame for the Pandemic, although the State Labour Parties deserve to cop the flack.

          • Blazer 1.1.1.1.1
            15 January 2022 at 8:15 am

            alwyn,I say alwyn,if your theory is correct,how will the Govt 'have a detailed oversight of everyone's health'….by depriving them of testing?

            If they didn't test themselves were asymptomatic,didn't think they had covid,they're still not going to register…regardless.

            • alwyn 1.1.1.1.1.1
              15 January 2022 at 9:32 am

              They aren't depriving them of testing. The full, rather invasive test is available and they certainly see the results of those.

              It would be tests that people could do in private and self performed that may never get reported although the people would know their status as being infected.

      • Koff 1.1.2
        14 January 2022 at 9:27 pm

        The reason why RATs are needed in Australia is because there are so many people who are developing Covid symptoms, or who have been close contacts of those with Covid, that the PCR testing regime cannot cope. There aren't enough RATs available even though they are mostly being sold on the private market. Price gouging, which is an inevitable result of allowing private enteprise to control such an important public health item, albeit the RATs being not terribly accurate, means that there is added inequity in availablity. There are certainly lessons to be learned in NZ from the Australian experience (and that in many other places around the world where Omicron is wreaking merry havoc) and if the NZ government isn't watching and planning right now, it will be definitely be judged for its failure to do so when Omicron breaks through the MIQ barrier. NZ's current Delta caseload doesn't merit using RATs instead of PCR yet (20-30 cases / day compared to 20,000 / day in Queensland with similar population.)

  2. Bill 2
    14 January 2022 at 5:38 pm

    Quite the mea-cupla from Danish mainstream press. (Translated via google). There ought to be many more headlines in this vein on the way.

    We Failed

    Under headline photo The messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired

    For ALMOST two years, we – the press and the population – have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities' daily coronatal.

    WE HAVE STARED at the oscillations of the number pendulum when it came to infected, hospitalized and died with corona. And we've got the meaning of the pendulum's smallest movements laid out by experts, politicians and authorities, who have constantly warned us about the dormant corona monster under our beds. A monster just waiting for us to fall asleep so it can strike in the gloom and darkness of the night.

    THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we – the press – must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed.

    WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now.

    OF COURSE, it is first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The figures for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed.

    IN ALL, the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore they lie as they have ridden when parts of the population lose confidence in them.

    ANOTHER example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our 'superweapon'. And our hospitals are called 'super hospitals'. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries.

    IN OTHER WORDS, there is something here that does not deserve the term 'super'. Whether it's the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man's bid. But at least the authorities' communication to the population in no way deserves the term 'super'. On the contrary.

    https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/lederen/vi-fejlede/9072013

    • RedLogix 2.1
      14 January 2022 at 6:32 pm

      This morning I dropped into see one of our tradies. Looks up from his phone and says "First time in medical history that the failure of a treatment was blamed on those who didn't take it". He knows.

      Everyone I meet is saying one thing privately and another publicly. And watching the sheer vindictiveness play out over the Djokovic affair is but a taste of what is to come.

      • Bill 2.1.1
        14 January 2022 at 9:11 pm

        I'm finding much the same tbh. My neighbour (a nurse) is out at booster time, and apparently many within the hospital are asking one another if they will do the booster. My guess is many people are testing the waters because they literally can't afford to say no, and so need the strength in numbers. (Remember unions?)

        Also, yet another young person known to a friend hit the hospital with myocarditis.

        Which reminds me. Since the rate is around 1 in 2000 to 1 in 3000 depending on age band, according to studies in Norway, Israel, the US and Japan, what's so different about the biology of young people in New Zealand that it's 'rare' in these parts?

        • Shanreagh 2.1.1.1
          14 January 2022 at 11:20 pm

          Goodness my nurse flatmate had her booster in early-mid December. Very few turned it down, she didn't know of any herself but thought over the whole big ward there would have been some gone, on the law of averages. She works in a big surgical ward at Wgtn Hospital. The Unions won't help, they have said so.

          My flatmate has a view that at the beginning of her nursing training that they were injected with a huge range of vaccines for illnesses that were not common here at all and some pretty terrifying. They have to keep on top of these where necessary but in a big hospital setting their HR department schedules reminders.

          She thinks it is odd that people are drawing the line at the Covid vaccination when some of the others they had earlier, at the beginning of their training, were far more instrusive in the way of side effects. Now with Astra Zeneca that is an option if you don't want a Pfizer booster.

          Travelling with the vaccine passport (a requirement for entry to some countries and returning to NZ if you had been to some countries) had vaccinations against these illnesses

          https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/medicines/v/vaccines-international-travel/

          I don't recall any moaning about them. If you wanted to travel you had to have them, end of. I guess if you want to work you have them.

          Presumably your neighbour has had the first two and has a flu vaccine each year……something odd with the logic I am finding with these stories.

          Be that as it may, they have made the decision and know the consequences, so far be for any of us to query even if we find it odd. The group of non vaccinated is getting smaller and smaller by the day.

          • Bill 2.1.1.1.1
            15 January 2022 at 12:07 am

            Hmm. So vaccines so you don't contract something have…well, what have they got to do with mandating m-RNA injections that don't stop you contracting anything?

            There's no difference there? No?

            Anyway. Many people who are injected are against mandated injections. Injected or not injected has got nothing to do with it.

            • Shanreagh 2.1.1.1.1.1
              15 January 2022 at 10:21 pm

              You have missed my point…..

              The vaccines that my flatmate had to have at the beginning of her nursing training were mandated ie no vaccines, no training…you could not start your training until you had these vaccines. Same with any updates, you get a reminder…….

              That is why my flatmate is puzzled, so it is ok to have to have a vaccine/s at the beginning of training to be a nurse and keep them up to date but not ok now. If it is mRNA that is the problem then Astra Zeneca is available.

              Hope fully you understand now…..it speaks directly to the mandates issue.

              • Bill …
                16 January 2022 at 12:43 pm

                Don't think I missed the point – if vaccinations are administered in order that a viral infection is not contracted, or failing that, is then not spread, then there are cases where that would make sense.

                But if a medicine touted as a vaccine is administered for those same reasons, but fails to stop both infection and spread, then there's no point to it.

      • Bill 2.1.2
        14 January 2022 at 9:32 pm

        the sheer vindictiveness play out over the Djokovic affair is but a taste of what is to come

        Oh, a good number of people I talk to who will be on the receiving end of future vindictiveness have been aware for a wee while that there may well be a race between sanity and burnings.

      • Blazer 2.1.3
        14 January 2022 at 9:38 pm

        Scomo thinks there are…votes in it.

        • Graeme 2.1.3.1
          14 January 2022 at 10:47 pm

          Well everyone's talking about Djokovic rather than the fuckup Scomo's made letting Omicrom loose

      • Shanreagh 2.1.4
        14 January 2022 at 11:27 pm

        And watching the sheer vindictiveness play out over the Djokovic affair is but a taste of what is to come

        Actually I have not encountered this vindictiveness, most think he is a bit of a wally anyway (long standing belief) and seeing pictures of him with children while infectious with nary a mask to be seen just seemed to reinforce a bit of the 'wally-ness.'

        My view is that he seems a little confused about where he has been, the timeline and his Covid journey…….

        Though take the point about the wider Scomo issues.

        • woodart 2.1.4.1
          15 January 2022 at 1:22 am

          I see novax is falling back to the trump excuse, " my lacky didnt fill in the paperwork correctly". when all else fails, and you are in danger of being shown up as the arsehole you are, blame an underling.

          • mary_a 2.1.4.1.1
            15 January 2022 at 2:28 pm

            @ woodart (2.1.4.1) … no doubt the performing (tennis) court clown signed the paperwork which had been completed by a member of his staff. That makes him responsible. No way of getting out of it, by blaming someone else.

  3. Dennis Frank 3
    14 January 2022 at 6:50 pm

    One useful framing of the relative influence of beliefs is narrative vs metanarrative. For instance, govts framing the pandemic as a threat to all, requiring state intervention in the lives of all is the current prevalent narrative.

    Those who feel threatened by this take refuge in the metanarrative of nature. Immune systems being allowed to do their natural thing. Christians refer to this personal sovereignty view as the will of God. The social contract reserves sovereignty to the state, in contrast.

    Although postmodernism is rarely precisely defined, it is diametrically opposed to much of the thinking of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, modernism and humanism—with respect to rationality, essentialism, objectivity, sovereignty, the reasoning process, human nature and the human capacity to discover interconnected universal truths.

    Postmodernist practitioners claim that there are an infinite number of equally valid ways to interpret the world and they reject the idea of human universals. They argue that human behaviour, discourse and social linguistic patterns are wholly motivated and determined by people’s desire for power over others, and vulnerable to manipulation in the service of that goal.

    You can see a correlative framing here: diversity of belief vs truth. When the media promotes a scientific view as truth, humanity tends to dissent & produce alternatives. Climate change, covid, you name it.

    Today, postmodernism has taken over western academia, especially in the liberal arts. One way to understand this phenomenon is to analyse it using the framework described by Jean-François Lyotard, in his 1979 work, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.

    As Lyotard puts it, postmodernism boils down to an attitude of incredulity towards all meta-narratives. (A meta-narrative is any account of human knowledge or history that explains it in terms of a single conceptual framework or looks at it through a single conceptual lens—for example, through the lens of Darwin’s theory of evolution.)

    https://areomagazine.com/2021/11/23/postmodernism-heal-thyself/

    To identify a meta-narrative, postmodernists look for repeated themes, tropes, truth claims and patterns in how people talk about ideas—and note whether they support a particular all-encompassing explanation of human nature and society, the truth of which is widely taken for granted.

    A deep dive into the social science and humanities disciplines reveals that there is indeed a dominant meta-narrative. It is critical social justice theory—which, ironically, was engendered and facilitated by postmodernists. The critical social justice meta-narrative holds that western societies are nothing but tyrannical social organizations, which benefit only one group of people by virtue of a powerful discourse that has over-valued certain immutable phenotypic characteristics of human beings. This meta-narrative is being especially strongly propagated by certain relatively new academic departments dedicated to critical social justice areas of study.

    It has seeped out beyond those departments, however, and begun to establish itself as the only acceptable academic narrative. It is shaping every curriculum, research project and theory—as well as the attitudes of students. And it is accepted with the same degree of credulity, intransigent allegiance and obsessive attention that has prompted postmodernists to call other meta-narratives dangerous. In consequence, western universities are becoming increasingly controlled by this single meta-narrative.

    Mimetics explains why this shit happens. Mental contagion. End result: capture of the entire social ecosystem. Monoculture. But never totally – always you seem to be able to find pockets of dissent where nonconformists seek refuge to regroup. Eventually the tide of rebels at the margins floods inward over the power-centers of the ruling belief-system, barbarians storm the gates of the citadel.

    So don't let paranoia get to you – even when a belief or paradigm threatens to achieve total control, this too shall pass…

    • Shanreagh 3.1
      14 January 2022 at 11:39 pm

      'This too shall pass'……is a very reassuring phrase to me anyway. It has been useful in times of personal uncertainty and if I needed it during what is happening with Covid I would find it reassuring too.

      I think the concept of rebels at the margins flooding inwards is time bound. And with the contagion not being fully developed we usually find the contagion lifts before the we get so tired of it we flood into the centre of it (time bound).

      But it is fascinating.

  4. weka 4
    14 January 2022 at 6:53 pm

    so if the ferry company were regulated to provide a set service, this apparent shortage of jobs would result in increasing wages and improved work conditions. I’m guessing also there would be a shift from less desirable jobs to those in the ferry.

    https://twitter.com/jmnicholls/status/1481739007021436928?s=21

    • Dennis Frank 4.1
      14 January 2022 at 7:05 pm

      So laziness has become extremely contagious! Kiwi unemployed too lazy to work, and/or kiwi employers too lazy to employ them.

      I see the printed report has the usual deviant focus on difficulty of importing foreigners to fill these jobs that are apparently unable to be filled by our unemployed. The usual organised whining by employers somehow fails to get connected to all the lay-offs that the pandemic has caused.

      It's almost as if the pandemic has curdled the brains of the journos. The difficulty in connecting cause and effect in the report is obvious when you read between the lines.

      Training was normal in our industries not too long ago. Everyone knew it was a normal cost of doing business. This is now also too difficult for journos to even think of.

      • alwyn 4.1.1
        14 January 2022 at 8:18 pm

        No. We have to import people to do important jobs. We need more DJs. We don't need people to do trivial things like providing the Public Transport.

      • Blazer 4.1.2
        14 January 2022 at 9:45 pm

        Heard a radio report tonight that orchards need 10,000 foreign workers….otherwise produce will be left to…rot.

        Scales Corp NZ's biggest apple agribusiness has had record earnings AFAIK.

        • woodart 4.1.2.1
          15 January 2022 at 1:27 am

          this bollocks was given way too much oxygen last year, with the same threats. talking to a relie who is engineer for biggest packhouse in hawkes bay, no problems getting staff last year and this year. their secret… provide GOOD accomodation.two biggest packhouses there have good modern accomodation. staff not a problem.

    • Bill 4.2
      14 January 2022 at 9:21 pm

      From Fuller's page – While there is no vaccine pass mandate in place for public transport, we have opted to put these additional measures in place to create the safest possible operating environment for our passengers and crew.

      &

      After a period of consultation, Fullers360 mandated all employees to have at least one vaccination dose by 20 December and be fully vaccinated by 10 January 2022.

      I'm sure there are those who will insist there is probably no correlation between the mandating and shortages.

      • weka 4.2.1
        14 January 2022 at 9:36 pm

        really? I haven't seen people saying that the mandates don't cause staffing issues.

        I'm sure there are those who will claim (or imply) that the staffing issues are caused by the mandates, without having any evidence of such.

        Meanwhile, I'm more interested in the whole picture (including but not limited to mandates).

      • woodart 4.2.2
        15 January 2022 at 1:29 am

        so those disaffected fullers staff can go and get a job at ????.think you are adding one plus one and getting eleven bill.

      • KJT 4.2.3
        15 January 2022 at 4:25 am

        As marine staffing issues existed well before the vaccine mandates, you are talking bollocks.

        The cost of living in Auckland, and the amounts Fullers pay for being responsible for 100 plus passengers!

        Plus the fact that the NZ maritime industry has relied on immigration to provide trained people, for decades.

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    14 January 2022 at 7:56 pm

    "A prose sentence which touches like a branding iron is good. A sentence which keeps its feet clean from beginning to end is good. A sentence which, travelling, looks out of portholes as far as horizons and beyond is good. A sentence which goes to sleep is good, if the season is winter; bad, if it is early spring. A sentence which stumbles on useless objects instead of on buried treasure is bad, and worse if it illuminates useless objects with artificial light, but good if it casts a unique radiance upon them."

    ~ Janet Frame (living in the Maniatoto)"

  6. joe90 6
    14 January 2022 at 9:09 pm

    Rogan struggles with facts but the legacy media is the problem.

    /

    https://twitter.com/FullContactMTWF/status/1481638689415462916