I have deleted and re edited this comment many times, most version are not that complementary to our PM, government and enablers.
Try dealing with school kids losing it over exams and from my social circles and family who teach this is wider spread than a few isolated examplesDon’t tell high school students and parents to wait until Wednesday for some direction on our path. The emotional toll is mounting and I hope that any out there also utilise the help out there. I will leave it there before I embarrass someone 🤬
I was pretty unimpressed with todays speech from the podium. Being in Auckland, all I know for sure is we are still locked down at level 3.1 for the next two weeks at least. What is happening about schools? What does Auckland need to do to get out of this lockdown? No dates, no targets. Only future announcements where we might learn more.
I'll pass on your kind thoughts to those hairdressers, beauticians, shop keepers and other business people trying to keep people employed on wage subsidies and their businesses afloat after nearly 10 weeks of lock downs and no income I'm sure when they are re-mortgaging their houses they will think of your kind words "diddums".
There is a lot to consider on allowing students back to school. Those in year 11, 12 and 13 due to exams and NCEA levels.
Those in new entry to year 8 who are not eligible for vaccination are going to be exposed to a virus and take it home.
I think it will not be compulsory to send a student back to school. Levels of anxiety are going to be seen in schools and this will need to be managed. Some students may end up learning more at home.
The learning resources need to be made available to students who are being disadvantaged.
No one wants students to be deprived of receiving the best education that can be given. Or to expect teachers to be responsible for the welfare of their students when not knowing how Covid is going to impact the school community.
and yet here we are 18 month into a pandemic that is world wide, has caused havoc world wide, and we have no plan up and running in regards to anything, not even how to educate our children.
Hindsight is a wonderful things ain't it Sabine. We all knew from early 1920 that this is exactly where we would be in October 1923. So clever of us, so why didn't the government and the experts know? (sarc)
We have had 18 month of hindsight. The delta outbreak in India happened earlier this year. China welded the doors shut on apartment doors in January last year.
The US has agressively been vaccinating since Biden moved to the white house. Ditto France, Germany, Italy etc. All have seen several waves of Covid wash over their countries, and we should be able to learn from it.
At the very least we should have some plans in place for the education of our young ones. But we always seem to be one step behind.
If we dont' start having some hindsight by now, we never will, and how can we have then foresight to anticipate? Or is that something the governments risk analysts don't do?
Think you have missed my point. We as a nation of people had no more hindsight in early 2020 than the experts did so rabbiting on about a lack of hindsight by experts is a bit of an own goal.
As for plans for the future. Did you not hear the bit about:
Anyone heard anything more about packs of dogs supposedly running wild up north ?Doc spokespeople ive heard on the subject a couple of times say they,re a threat cause they might carry Rabies !.Im just supprized there havnt been more reports of dog attacks on stock although they could be living on possums i guess .
If NZ emerges from this pandemic with a per capita Covid death rate one tenth that of Aussie's, and less than one 300th that of the UK/USA, then at least some voters will cut our government a bit of slack, personal feelings of entitlement notwithstanding – I know I will.
A time of troubling division [16 Oct 2021] It does mean that when we need to come together to figure things out, we try to do so with enough respect and empathy that we give ourselves a chance of making it work.
Your sense of security and other warm fuzzies is being taken from the hides of Aucklanders suffering really fucking onerous removals of our actual rights. With our government failing to provide any kind of clarity on any substantial actions to get us out of the situation, just trying to make do with soothing meaningless noises about some kind of plan maybe sometime vaguely in the future.
Every person has the right to manifest that person's religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private. REMOVED
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. REMOVED
Freedom of association
Everyone has the right to freedom of association. REMOVED
Freedom of movement
(1)Everyone lawfully in New Zealand has the right to freedom of movement and residence in New Zealand. REMOVED
(2)Every New Zealand citizen has the right to enter New Zealand. REMOVED
I've done my responsibilities and got fully vaccinated at my first available opportunity. Have you?
At this point you shouldnt be angry at the unvaxxed as of weeks ago there should have been a vax passpot system and rapid testing up and running allowing a bunch of places like hairdressers for example to reopen. Thats a govt failure.
Govt I feel is happy for the unvaxxed to take the blame for the lack of freedoms as it deflects from the lack of a coherent strategy.
Its rapidly turning into a fucking joke… the mood was firstly relief that we wernt back to level 4 then anger… Aucklands starting to simmer…
Andre and Maurice we have had more freedoms than most all through this. Delta has been and is a different beast. Those who listen for one thing don't hear the other messages. I will be lambasted for this but really…
We are struggling to keep the r infection rate to a safe level. It could easily spiral away as happened in Melbourne and in Singapore. So yes Lock down.
Those asking for "Plans" are really saying "I don't like this plan so what else have you got?" because they don't want to wait for 90% of the eligible to get vaccinated. (remember that is really 75%)as 11 years down and some cannot be vaccinated yet.
The plan is to keep a lid on this to allow time for the young to get their first have 3 weeks get their second and have 2 more weeks.
When Delta is detected in all those suburbs of Auckland and in Hamilton, well we hunker down till our defences are in place otherwise we accept a daily death toll and high numbers of sick.
Every country has failed unless they have used draconian measures or have natural immunity in those left or vaccinated at speed after 4 or 5 waves.
Accusing the Health team and the Government of enjoying this is so silly it flies in the face of sane behaviour.
Use the channels available for help if you feel that upset and angry. Some here are being patient and this means surgery delays so yes sometimes we write about hopeful warm fuzzy things. They are the teddy bears in our window to get through.
We are anxious separated from loved ones and come here to discuss ideas and touch base. Nasty rants don’t change anything and often make things worse. Now I feel better even if you don’t.
Patricia, the very obvious problem here is the glacial pace of new first vaccinations.
This very obvious problem needs a plan to address it. Now.
There is zero evidence that the government has any urgency in developing and implementing a plan to lift those glacially slow first vaccination rates. Instead they appear to be just finding it easier to keep indefinitely extending Auckland's lockdown, while murmuring sweet nothings about how important vaccinating is.
By the time polls show Auckland's turn against the government for being continually shat on with ever-extending lockdowns with zero effort to bring the end closer, it will be too late. The minds and warmth and kudos for the previous good management will be lost, and will be very difficult to get back.
I don't know for sure whether I've gone past the point of no return on that, but it certainly feels like it right now. Lefties around the country gleefully advocating inflicting yet more level 4 on Auckland, while posting apologia and justifications and encouragement for the vaccine refusers, have certainly contributed to what I'm feeling right now.
Lefties around the country gleefully advocating inflicting yet more level 4 on Auckland, while posting apologia and justifications and encouragement for the vaccine refusers…
Disagree with "gleefully", and particularly with "encouragement for the vaccine refusers" (as would Goudie and King), but since you feel "continuously shat on" by our government's pandemic response you should definitely shift your vote to a party (National or ACT) that more closely matches your current hopes and dreams vis-à-vis COVID.
During this pandemic the team has enjoyed extended periods of some of the least stringent restrictions on day-to-day activities – this has likely contributed to resentment towards alert level 4/3/2 restrictions of the last 2 months.
I try not to lose sight of the purpose of these temporary restrictions, which is to limit the freedom of COVID-19 to spread and cause illness and death.
The COVID response remains a challenging balancing act for our govt. Some armchair critics grizzle and gripe about temporary alert level restrictionscurtailing freedoms, while others object to some of the relatively strong vaccine mandates that are being put in place – each of us knows what the government should do, because we each know what's best for ourselves.
Regarding your “smug sanctimony” jibe, my preference was and still is for NZ's pandemic response to prioritise health outcomes. This response may not be morally superior to others, but it has indisputably saved (or at least delayed the loss of) Kiwi lives – regrettably it’s no longer sustainable.
Almost as useful as those of us that had to suffer through 6 hours of indoctrination on how to deliver COVID injections as we had spare time during Level 4 lockdown despite decades of experience.
I will examine what I write carefully. I do not ever wish to rub salt in wounds.
About Jacinda Ardern, she at some point will separate from the Advisors as she is aware of the pain. I think she instructed Hipkins and Bloomfield to come up with milestones regarding vaccination. I believe she has asked for more support for Auckland businesses from Robertson to be presented on this Friday. We will see. We get it. It's all like a slow train wreck.
But this is rather like being on the Titanic, having the knowledge of the coming iceberg. Knowing you can't completely miss it and frantically planning implementing communicating and fighting off the loud entitled who insist we can't sink and the ball in the ballroom has to go ahead as planned or there will be panic.
Our Titanic is Delta, and our iceberg is the number of alternative thinkers out there who are endangering themselves and threaten to wreck our systems.
Our Doctor just this morning said 3+ Doctors are being assessed by the Medical Council for promoting alternative views and discouraging vaccination. Some areas also have poor Leadership around vaccination from Church Leaders and the Anti-Vax supporters as well. This is a lifeboat with a hole in it.
It is really hard, keep the faith, this Government wishes to do their best for us. Thanks for your thoughtful reply, keep feeling you can express your anger.. that is a healthy reaction actually.
Just observing that the team has managed to achieve some pretty good Covid health outcomes to date – not without considerable sacrifice and suffering of course, and some will have struggled more than others.
Going by the 'f**k count', feelings are running pretty high. So if having a go at my supposed "sense of security and other warm fuzzies" [?] helps then have at it.
Yes, some always suffer more then others, and sadly they the same that have suffered before the pandemic. And yeah, next year there will be another trickle down increase in their benefit rates that will at the same time be removed from a side benefits, but it will make us all feel so fuzzy and warm and good about our self. Trickle trickle trickle. And if it is not enough and you can't pay rent and eat, here be housed in a unsued motel somewhere with no cooking or laundry facilities. Don't you feel so warm and fuzzy now?
But hey, i hear someone is getting married. Now that is good news.
From the luxury of the position we are in we are free to philosophise, pontificate and ponder.
It's as if we watched a big tsunami heading our way, wiping out lots of places on its way to get us. We got in a such a position though it didn't get us past bits around the edges.
We say, "Thank God for that, that was close, we're been spared. Thank you for those who led us to here?"
No. We say, "Why did you got that way, why didn't you do this instead? Why didn't you think about this, why didn't you consider that? You did this wrong, you stuffed that up. You are incompetent. We would have done it so much better." And on and on.
Early on it was "We should be doing what Australia's doing." A week later, "We should be copying Singapore." A week on, "Why aren't we copying Sweden?"
And we've been to Finland and Japan and back to Australia several times, or just some states of our neighbours. And to Taiwan and just about everywhere except the US.
We had more scientific experts per capita than anywhere in the world, all qualified overnight. Fancy that, we got the real advice from the real scientists not the local internet ones.
Tonight I see from Maori TV via the Herald: "Murupara kaumātua says he and other local Māori don't want the Pfizer vaccine and are waiting for other vaccines they think will be more effective."
I see "Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 1000 surgeries cancelled every week."
The tsunami didn't get us but waves like that are smashing us. Idiots like Brian Tamaki are smashing us. I don't mind them having a death wish. I don't mind the non-vaxxers worrying about the microchips carried in the vaccine or the fact that the vaccine as the lunatic American doctor claimed, will magnetise their bodies.
I don't like the idea though that they threaten my family, my friends and me. And for the information of that mad cow American, metal won't stick to my brow because of the magnetism in the vaccine.
I dont' know where anyone here lives, and i don't live in Auckland, but frankly these guys have had three month now on Home D. Maybe a bit of kindness is on order now? Just a wee bit. Specially from those that are not currently locked up at home without an end in sight.
I'm just so so proud of all you posting and commenting standardistas on the restraint and decorum displayed re the news that HDPA is expecting a son. I read this blog assiduously and I thought, oh no the sarcy comments are going to flow. Indeed I thought of a few myself. Well done guys, having a child is special.
Pandemic modeller for research centre Te Punaha Matatini Shaun Hendy told Stuff on Monday that “relaxation at the moment would be very dangerous”.
Public health professor and epidemiologist Michael Baker said . “We’ve got only a small benefit coming from rising vaccine coverage, also the move into summer – I don’t think that will be enough to balance the effects of much more exponential rise,” he said. “With a [case number] doubling time of two weeks, where will that put us in that pre-Christmas period? Will we be in danger of overwhelming the health system?”
I've actually spent a lot of time with some vaccine hesitants getting them actual accurate information, and talking them through how routine vaccination is just a normal part of life for the large majority of the population.
I'm pretty sure I was mostly responsible for one success, and it feels close for a second.
But I'm utterly fucking disgusted with those that are encouraging the conditions that will contribute to that death and disability by posting apologia and encouragement for vaccine hesitancy.
Honestly that should never be asked from someone who obviously has been in lockdown now for almost 3 month. Not needed.
We all do what we can. I don't think anyone is trying to get covid or spread it. We all try to live with it as much as we can. But we can not ask for some to be under constant home D without accepting that people will lose it. That would be downright cruel and / or foolish. We can also not demand that people stay in lockdown and watch their lifes and their lifelyhood disappear down the drain, no matter if that is a hair dresser or a restaurant or just a retail business.
the government had 18 month now of information on how this plague works, we have seen it in China, Italy, France, Germany, USA, South America, UK, India etc. And here we are, getting a daily update on numbers and nothing else.
No plan on how to educate our kids other then what was set up last year, which is inadequite and does not work for all – re connectivity and hardware. Need a doctor or surgery, well that is a no. Can't enter the country, can't leave the country. ETC etc etc.
At some stage they need to serve up something better then this lukewarm warmed up re-iteration of 'be kind – to us specially, and use up your savings if you are running out of money, cause hey ……Grant likes to underspent his budgets.
And fwiw, the whole of the North Island is struggling. Maybe the South Island is so remote taht if the north island implodes it can go chugging along – growing their own kale and milking the last few cows that are allowed, but here in the North Island Auckland is needed and Aucklanders are part of our whanau. If that is still something that we consider of worth. .
So what are we going to do after the 90% vaccination rate? Keep the country closed until we are back to 0 cases? what if that does not happen? Seriously, this discussion needs to be had.
Honestly that should never be asked from someone who obviously has been in lockdown now for almost 3 month. Not needed.
It was a rhetorical question that Andre doesn't need to answer any more than Baker and Hendy need to answer for raising vax rates.
I agree the bigger conversation needs to be had. I've been trying to have it the whole time. Only I don't think there's a BAU to return to. Andre's stress and frustration is totally understandable. I've been there before covid, as have plenty of others. Only the limiting factors were being disabled and having a government and society that basically didn't give a shit. So my perspective on it is different. Having sometimes severe limitations on one's life isn't new to many of us.
I also think that covid is the starter and climate/eco crises are going to hit us way harder than this. Best we get on with adaptation and mitigation of both covid and climate change. If kids can't go to school, then society can adapt to homeschool. If people are bored walking in their neighbourhood, then make the neighbourhood a great place to be. If L4 is unbearable, then let's do the mahi of changing that so that it becomes tolerable.
No-one is talking about this because most people thing it's soon going to be over and hey presto all the businesses will be open again and NZers will vote in neoliberal governments and go back to ignoring poor and disabled people and the eco crises.
I am very doubtful that it will be over soon. I think it's possible NZ hasn't had the hardest pandemic year yet, but that that will be 2022 as we have to learn to live with covid in the community and people dying and then how to manage long covid.
Yes, lockdown is fucking hard. Haven't seen too many conversations on TS about the people that are going to have their lives destroyed by long covid and having to be WINZ clients. This isn't to diss people losing it under lockdown, it's to say either way was always going to be really hard. As you know it just hits people differently.
All that shit that the hippies were talking about, we should be stepping up now. Local food, local economy, build strong communities, help each other, plant a shit load of trees, shift values and priorities. It doesn't have to be this bad.
and you know, you can imagine what it's like for someone in my situation to hear a centre leftie saying they're going to vote National. National who destroyed so many of our lives and who would have made covid into an utter disaster instead of the half disaster that it is now.
I posited last year at the beginning of L4 that this plague will take several years, that we will have rolling lockdowns, with all the assorted misery that living under a siege brings with it.
I personally am not too affected by staying at home, i am not a very outgoing person (don't cope well in large settings), and i can understand how those that live with disability have more of a nuanced way of looking at lockdowns due to their own diminished reality of moving about, but we can not overlook the fact that we are the minority and that humans are social beings and like to gather. We can not overlook the fact that not everyone will cope well, and we are seeing this now.
And yet, here we are, and it seems that some of us are quite happy to lock up AKL indefinitely if it keeps them in their supposed 'safe' bubble. Never mind that safe does not exist anymore.
I think that the govt did pretty much everything correct with regards to containing the virus initially, i think that the wage subsidy was simply just a triage mechanism to prevent a million people at once hitting the unemployment queues, and was wasted in many cases, it would have been better to allow businesses to go bust without dragging the owners into bankruptcies, i think that our children should be first priority and that if we can’t educate them we are cutting off our noses.
But here we are 18 month in, and we seem to not have added anything new to what we do.
And it gets tedious, even for those that don't live in AKL. Covid is an utter disaster, even if we managed to feel very smug in our wee island far far away from everywhere for a while.
The brother of a friend of mine killed himself last week. He hang himself in the garage, long haul Covid. He got it last year with his mum. She did fine, he did not. And in the end he killed himself because his body was slowly but surely rotting away – and there was nothing anyone could do.
We need to have this discussion now, because the vaccination are not the great opening to life. Vaccine, permanent mask wearing, keeping social distancing, no contact business to very low contact business, rapid saliva testing, is what will be.
In Germany kids go to school. They wear masks, and have three tests a week. Rapid saliva tests. Essentially they live by the three G's.
Getested – get tested
Geimpft – get jabbed
Genessen – recover from disease
Can we at least demand some quick delivery of rapid saliva tests from the government before someone doo doos us demanding human beings for not being grateful enough for US keeping US safe while we are locking us up in our houses with no end in sight?
I feel that if we don't get really honest real fast, you will see that getting people to have booster shots will be even harder then getting them to get the double jabs now.
Sabine yes, we have to lay out the hard truths. His sad death should be noted in the effects of covid.
I think the Government needs to mandate vaccines to assist businesses to achieve this, also mandate mask wearing and social distancing.
Shopping is difficult, as is education, as we need air filtering in every public place before next year. As we learn of helpful methods they should be mandated.
When I was a child chewing tobacco was a thing. Spittoons were in each train carriage. That was to stop people spitting on the floor because of tuberculosis. A sign promised a ten pound fine for expectorating .
Yes I agree Weka. I think you are so rational in the face of pain and a long wait for surgery, as are friends and our son. I feel for Andre, some situations are more triggering than others. I became a bit depressed at one stage he is angry, i think it is actually a form of grief.
I agree. I think one of the most urgent things we need to be doing is teaching resiliency skills (and probably grieving). To do that we'd have to acknowledge the long term nature of the crisis and that some things have been lost.
Rational, maybe, born of long experience of restrictions and learning how to cope. Mindfulness has helped a lot.
There's an edge between compassion for people having a really hard time, and this being a political blog.
Here here.Please, folk out there stay the coarse,I'm down south but am truely grateful for all the people up north trying their best.As Peter Gabriel sings "hold the line".
Surely it is not just about the vaccination rate. I had not thought it was a 'one shot wonder' from the Govt. Ha ha sorry not funny perhaps
How has this been boiled down to this one thing. I know the current focus has been on vaccination. This is not the only part of the plan to open up NZ that is being worked on.
The item that many of us have been watching in the Akl situation is the number of cases that cannot be linked. This is despite not now assigning the results to sub clusters.
When I last looked over the weekend there was a tail of around 114? to be linked.
With my degree in MB epidemiology to my way of thinking this signals that perhaps there are carriers. pockets, people with Delta that are still passing it on. Again with my degree in psychology I would suggest that these are unlikely to be vaccinated.
So I don't think it is a single task and once this is done Akl opens.
What with employers in essential industries not mandating the vaccine for their public facing employees ie border crossing truckies are still allowed despite no vaccination and we now have a rest home in Remuera with a single vaccinated person with Covid. If this is a worker then both employer/ee have left it very late to get started on the vaccination process. How can an employer be happy with a worker with only one part of a two part vaccination working?
A missing part of the equation should also be an expectation that employers will do their bit. I am not getting this feeling that this is happening widely though with MSM who knows?
I have friends in Auckland and they have said that the single thing that has kept them going is the 40 min walk they do every single day. If they need it they do another walk. They start each day with a to do list. One works from home. They have taken advantage of the picnic idea to catch up with another bubble. Not really their thing they say but it is the only one on offer.
Is there a person you can talk to. It is not unusual to be feeling these things but perhaps better to not suffer in silence of there is a trained person you can talk to? The last two paras are written with kindness. .
Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (National Maori Pandemic Group) co-leader Dr Rawiri Jansen said
The case numbers should give everybody pause. They are, either frankly, sobering or scary. The region would have to stay at alert level 4 for weeks. This is so hard. I get that it's hard. But honestly, we're facing a ‘this-is hard’ or this is deaths. That's just such a difficult thing.”
Immunologist and Associate Dean (Pacific) at the University of Otago (Wellington)Dr Dianne Sika-Paotonu
We desperately need to buy more time to drive vaccination rates up even further as quickly as possible, and to give more time for our hospitals to be ready for what’s coming.
Dr Dion O’Neale, principal investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini, said
it doesn’t look like we’re on a trajectory we want to be on
To change the subject to another very important matter, has anyone seen that Stuff have started a detailed investigation into the biodiversity crisis in New Zealand and the world? Has anyone seen it?
The first episode looks at seabirds. Looks like some excellent work by Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor.
From the article, some startling facts :
1. We are ranked 89th in the world for conversion of natural habitat.
2. In New Zealand, there are more than 4000 indigenous species at risk.
3. We are ranked 13th in the world for the use of fertiliser.
4. We are ranked the worst in the world, for the proportion of threatened species we have.
It will make you consider whether you should be eating tuna.
If I have time, I'll put a more detailed report tomorrow.
If too many consumers are contributing to the biodiversity crisis in New Zealand and the world declining fertility should mitigate it. Not a short term fix though.
Our treatment of the NZ environment; flora and fauna is IMO worse than how we deal with CO2, and in my disappointment feel bad giving TG a vote. There is no international distain to be expressed and embarrass our govt into action. Any pressure on the govt is by a small group of kiwis with their efforts going unseen in restoring parts on NZ to its former glory.
This has some short comings yet still worth the time to watch, especially under the current conditions that covid lockdown has allowed. It is currently available on Netflix, and I know of a few families that now will not eat fish.
The environment is my nice place, given the rant above. Last year I considered not voting as all the options IMO were crap. The only reason was my base line the environment. 67% of the voting family voted Green. Next election it appears it will be 33%.
Global warming has the entire world working to pressure leaders in saving it, NZ has only kiwis to pressure our leaders, and that is why IMO NZ needs all effort in save our flora and fauna and TG need to be leading this, instead of saving the world.
Wouldnt it be logical to solve the biggest problems first herodotus ?ie climate change and the threat that poses to all species /? If you are one of the people who thought James Shaw shoudnt go to COPs cause flying is bad then were off to a great start arnt we ! My own personal opinion based on observation of fanatics is that bird watching turns some peoples brains to mush !
To assist in climate change there are some who have purchased large areas of land and are planting it with pine to capture the co2. How does that help to protect and enhance our unique wildlife and their habitats ? By protecting the habitats we are assisting by allowing nzers to see 1st hand the direct benefits eg native bush/forests/coastal areas and secondary doing our bit to rebalance the gases in the atmosphere.
I honestly don't get this. If we get another Labour majority and less or no Green MPs, do you think that we will see more action on biodiversity or less?
As a Labour member, I don't want a Labour majority government, I want a Labour-Green coalition (I joined Labour in part to try to push in that direction).
Its about time some hard questions get asked tbh… we've had alot of time to prepare for this point in our resposne yet govt still hasnt got rapid testing organized, salivia testing is a mess and the vax passport other countries started and finished with it we'restill flailing about developing it.. surely we should have had businesses like hairdressers open by now with a vax passport instead its kicked down the road another two weeks. People are pretty pissed.
Thats my issue we're still mucking about try to organize this stuff and seeminly doing it on the fly
We've had plenty of time to watch what other countries have done well, got to work and had alot of this stuff ready to roll when the inevitable happened.
Auckland should have had a functioning vax passport system 2-3 weeks ago when we went to level 3.9 so small businesses like hairdressers for example could open… its really disheartening because so many people are going to the wall with this lockdown… and they're the little guys hospo staff, retail staff, hairdressers small business manicure shops those little chinese massage places in the malls etc etc wage subsidy doesnt touch the sides in Auckland. Company I work for burnt through 150k during level 4 keeping everyone at 80 percent and covering all the fixed outgoings we can operate at almost breakeven in level 3 which means at least we all have jobs… which makes us lucky.
internal elimination (PCR testing and contact tracing and wastewater testing) and border bubble (maybe with Oz at some point) – Level 1 economy
vaccination, then open up and use rapid testing at workplaces/schools etc and "passports".
Sure if they had planned for a delta outbreak they could not eliminate – then they might have had easier saliva testing and also rapid testing in place to help manage it, and also vax ID for use at Level 3 lite.
As it is, this got going in recent weeks as they realised elimination might fail or would require another month at Level 4. Those businesses in Auckland that got Level 3 and Level 3 lite benefited from that decision.
Yes in Auckland, it's getting financially very ugly for alot of people especially in the service industry. Think hairdressers, the nail salons, massage all sorts of little businesses really. Having a passport ready would have allowed them to at least start making some income.
people can still transmit covid when fully vaxxed, although the risk is much lower*. Are you saying that Auckland should abandon containment and come out of L3+?
One of the big risks we are about to face is if people think double vax makes other measures unnecessary.
*in reality, I don't think we know yet what the risk is. I really wish we would be more honest about this.
Auckland couldnstill be ring fenced all im saying is if we had some tools ready like vaccine passports and rapid tests more businesses in Auckland could open which would act as a pressure release valve.
We cant stay in an endless level 3.9 lockdown cycle there are other massive costs besides the obvious financial ones, on a personal level my daughter is really starting to struggle with the social isolation now, one of her friends has become completely withdrawn and tbh online school is pretty grim.
The govt just seems so unprepared and we've had time to be ready to deal with this stuff.
the point of L3+ is to get as many people vaxxed as possible while at the same time trying to contain and limit spread of covid as much as possible. No-one is suggesting that it be endless (although I'm sure it feels like that).
I can't see how hairdressers and massage therapists could operate currently while trying to limit spread.
Afaik the government has plans for both rapid testing and vax passports.
Yes I know they have 'plans' I think they should be already devloped and in use…
If we did that for fully vaxed people it will perhaps encourage a few more accross the line to access said freedoms and it might well actually help level 3.9 hold.
It gets busier everyday here, Mt Eden was packed sunday morning with people getting coffee etc chatting on the footpath sitting at tables that have reappeared on the footpaths… basically the longer this goes on the more disobedient people will get and that's going to lead to worse outcomes.
Vaxing is in fact irrelevant the determining factor is does a person have transmissible infection or not. The present testing system only tells us the status 15 hours to three days ago – nothing prevents infectious viral loading after test and before result.
This is where rapid testing of high reliability is so needed – the viral loading status NOW is known right on the spot. This even negates the 'Vax Passprot' … which only shows probable less susceptibility to personal health effects NOT infection and Transmissibility.
I would rather KNOW that infection was not present rather than if someone (or myself) had been jabbed – probably some considerable time ago.
As long as we have a Privacy Act and people who will be quite annoyed about data breaches, developing a vax passport app based on realtime connection to the Covid-19 register is going to be slow going no matter who does it. Also, if we are going to mandate denial of service/entry based on this app, best make sure it's accurate.
As pointed out by the DG and others, rapid antigen testing is not nearly as accurate as other testing, so was actively unhelpful while we could reasonably test and deliver results at pace. Useful in an outbreak, not much use otherwise. Saliva testing uses the same lab infrastructure as nasal swabs, so the main improvement is comfort (and in earlier days, a loss of accuracy), not anything else (that's a worthy improvement, but it's not like it's a serious difference in terms of the Covid response).
Most of the issues are simply that we thought we had the time to pick out the best parts of Covid responses elsewhere, and then Delta arrived early.
It's notable that when elimination resulted in Level 1 freedom, lock downs to get this result were well supported.
But when lock downs are only to hold down the rate of spread, as originally intended last year to keep the health system safe, they begin to seem onerous to "freedom". Which might explain the USA and UK opposition to lock downs because of some "flu". And in those places that opposition to any "pandemic regime" has extended to opposition to vaccination itself and also to vaccination "passports".
The current Auckland lock down has been shorter than in Sydney – and Melbourne has had the longest total period of lock downs in the world.
It retrospect we were lucky to arrive at elimination, because the society division that would have occurred (racial disharmony and inequality exacerbated – working class deaths) would have been terrible.
We'll only get a taste of that in the year ahead with greater freedoms and more deaths – including among the vaccinated.
Wouldnt it be logical to solve the biggest problems first herodotus ?ie climate change and the threat that poses to all species /? If you are one of the people who thought James Shaw shoudnt go to COPs cause flying is bad then were off to a great start arnt we ! My own personal opinion based on observation of fanatics is that bird watching turns some peoples brains to mush !
Possibly, I do hope they start talking about actual benefits in terms of outcome compared to actually catching covid in that age cohort… so far its just it triggers a good immune response… if there isnt a demonstable drop in hospitalisation/serious outcomes why give it?
Males 12-15 and those 5-12 are not advantaged by vaccination – but presumably the rest of us are (because of break through infections in older people).
Yeah I struggle with that reasoning in terms of giving a vacc to that younger age cohort I read a stuff article saying similar, to me thats not a good enough reason personally better be ready to go with booster shots for those that need them which based on our rollout will be fairly soon.
Any precedent, apart from being Japanese in America after Pearl Harbour or Moslem after 9/11? After all this is paranoia that others are not in the same team right?
We'll need 500 ICU like beds (not 250 + 100 staffed by surgical nurses under supervision – surgical nurses being spare because of reduced surgeries).
Which means getting in vaxxed migrant ICU pandemic experienced nurses – and place them here via airbnb.
We have over 3.5M vaccinated people and 1% of them might need hospitalisation if infected (and by the end of 2022 a lot will have been) and 500,000 unvaxxed (going down to 400,000) of whom 10% might need hospitalisation (which is not ICU care).
While a lot of the hospitalisations will not need ICU care, just monitoring and treatments it will be tight at 500 for mine.
We're lucky there will be the Merck anti-viral treatment for the vaxxed and unvaxxed alike and the monoclonal antibody treatment for the unvaxxed used in the USA.
What the government should also do is bring in the Astra Zeneca Cov2 anti-body cocktail – this is effective prior to and post infection as an alternative to vaccination. This should reduce the risk on the health system.
Well that's great but I need my nails cut and my hair styled now, not in 2 or 3 or who knows how many weeks. This whole thing is a shambles! Signed…..Judith.
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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I have deleted and re edited this comment many times, most version are not that complementary to our PM, government and enablers.
Try dealing with school kids losing it over exams and from my social circles and family who teach this is wider spread than a few isolated examplesDon’t tell high school students and parents to wait until Wednesday for some direction on our path. The emotional toll is mounting and I hope that any out there also utilise the help out there. I will leave it there before I embarrass someone 🤬
Yeah, today's performance was totally fucking unsatisfactory.
What is the target Auckland needs to get to, to get out of level 3?
Jacinda might grace us with the magic number on Friday. Maybe.
She hasn't promised a plan for how to get to whatever that magic number might be.
I was pretty unimpressed with todays speech from the podium. Being in Auckland, all I know for sure is we are still locked down at level 3.1 for the next two weeks at least. What is happening about schools? What does Auckland need to do to get out of this lockdown? No dates, no targets. Only future announcements where we might learn more.
Well, as HC would have said … … "diddums".
I'll pass on your kind thoughts to those hairdressers, beauticians, shop keepers and other business people trying to keep people employed on wage subsidies and their businesses afloat after nearly 10 weeks of lock downs and no income I'm sure when they are re-mortgaging their houses they will think of your kind words "diddums".
There is a lot to consider on allowing students back to school. Those in year 11, 12 and 13 due to exams and NCEA levels.
Those in new entry to year 8 who are not eligible for vaccination are going to be exposed to a virus and take it home.
I think it will not be compulsory to send a student back to school. Levels of anxiety are going to be seen in schools and this will need to be managed. Some students may end up learning more at home.
The learning resources need to be made available to students who are being disadvantaged.
No one wants students to be deprived of receiving the best education that can be given. Or to expect teachers to be responsible for the welfare of their students when not knowing how Covid is going to impact the school community.
and yet here we are 18 month into a pandemic that is world wide, has caused havoc world wide, and we have no plan up and running in regards to anything, not even how to educate our children.
Hindsight is a wonderful things ain't it Sabine. We all knew from early 1920 that this is exactly where we would be in October 1923. So clever of us, so why didn't the government and the experts know? (sarc)
We have had 18 month of hindsight. The delta outbreak in India happened earlier this year. China welded the doors shut on apartment doors in January last year.
The US has agressively been vaccinating since Biden moved to the white house. Ditto France, Germany, Italy etc. All have seen several waves of Covid wash over their countries, and we should be able to learn from it.
At the very least we should have some plans in place for the education of our young ones. But we always seem to be one step behind.
If we dont' start having some hindsight by now, we never will, and how can we have then foresight to anticipate? Or is that something the governments risk analysts don't do?
Think you have missed my point. We as a nation of people had no more hindsight in early 2020 than the experts did so rabbiting on about a lack of hindsight by experts is a bit of an own goal.
As for plans for the future. Did you not hear the bit about:
1) Plan for Maori community. Today I think.
2) Plan for Educational sector. Tomorrow
3) Big plan for whole country. Friday.
Preserving life has been the plan. A plan needs to deliver a good outcome. If it does not then it has failed. Same for having no plan.
Anyone heard anything more about packs of dogs supposedly running wild up north ?Doc spokespeople ive heard on the subject a couple of times say they,re a threat cause they might carry Rabies !.Im just supprized there havnt been more reports of dog attacks on stock although they could be living on possums i guess .
There are big problems with stock, quite alot of articles 100s of stock killed or mauled, apparently a risk to people as well just one of many below.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/451643/feral-dog-fitted-with-gps-collar-to-track-movements-of-pack-attacking-stock
Thanks crickle interesting
If NZ emerges from this pandemic with a per capita Covid death rate one tenth that of Aussie's, and less than one 300th that of the UK/USA, then at least some voters will cut our government a bit of slack, personal feelings of entitlement notwithstanding – I know I will.
Unite against COVID-19
https://covid19.govt.nz
Your sense of security and other warm fuzzies is being taken from the hides of Aucklanders suffering really fucking onerous removals of our actual rights. With our government failing to provide any kind of clarity on any substantial actions to get us out of the situation, just trying to make do with soothing meaningless noises about some kind of plan maybe sometime vaguely in the future.
Your actual rights? And what are they pray tell.? What about your responsibilities? Who do you think you are?
Well said, RosieLee.
As citizens, we have responsibilities to others.
Bill of Rights Act:
Manifestation of religion and belief
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Freedom of association
Freedom of movement
(2)Every New Zealand citizen has the right to enter New Zealand. REMOVED
I've done my responsibilities and got fully vaccinated at my first available opportunity. Have you?
Who the fuck do you think you are?
At this point you shouldnt be angry at the unvaxxed as of weeks ago there should have been a vax passpot system and rapid testing up and running allowing a bunch of places like hairdressers for example to reopen. Thats a govt failure.
Govt I feel is happy for the unvaxxed to take the blame for the lack of freedoms as it deflects from the lack of a coherent strategy.
Its rapidly turning into a fucking joke… the mood was firstly relief that we wernt back to level 4 then anger… Aucklands starting to simmer…
Still beats being dead or so severely stricken with disease that most of those rights are unable to be realised.
Almost as if it is not about "vaccination" but rather addiction to control?
Roll me over – Jab me again!
Andre and Maurice we have had more freedoms than most all through this. Delta has been and is a different beast. Those who listen for one thing don't hear the other messages. I will be lambasted for this but really…
We are struggling to keep the r infection rate to a safe level. It could easily spiral away as happened in Melbourne and in Singapore. So yes Lock down.
Those asking for "Plans" are really saying "I don't like this plan so what else have you got?" because they don't want to wait for 90% of the eligible to get vaccinated. (remember that is really 75%)as 11 years down and some cannot be vaccinated yet.
The plan is to keep a lid on this to allow time for the young to get their first have 3 weeks get their second and have 2 more weeks.
When Delta is detected in all those suburbs of Auckland and in Hamilton, well we hunker down till our defences are in place otherwise we accept a daily death toll and high numbers of sick.
Every country has failed unless they have used draconian measures or have natural immunity in those left or vaccinated at speed after 4 or 5 waves.
Accusing the Health team and the Government of enjoying this is so silly it flies in the face of sane behaviour.
Use the channels available for help if you feel that upset and angry. Some here are being patient and this means surgery delays so yes sometimes we write about hopeful warm fuzzy things. They are the teddy bears in our window to get through.
We are anxious separated from loved ones and come here to discuss ideas and touch base. Nasty rants don’t change anything and often make things worse. Now I feel better even if you don’t.
Patricia, the very obvious problem here is the glacial pace of new first vaccinations.
This very obvious problem needs a plan to address it. Now.
There is zero evidence that the government has any urgency in developing and implementing a plan to lift those glacially slow first vaccination rates. Instead they appear to be just finding it easier to keep indefinitely extending Auckland's lockdown, while murmuring sweet nothings about how important vaccinating is.
By the time polls show Auckland's turn against the government for being continually shat on with ever-extending lockdowns with zero effort to bring the end closer, it will be too late. The minds and warmth and kudos for the previous good management will be lost, and will be very difficult to get back.
I don't know for sure whether I've gone past the point of no return on that, but it certainly feels like it right now. Lefties around the country gleefully advocating inflicting yet more level 4 on Auckland, while posting apologia and justifications and encouragement for the vaccine refusers, have certainly contributed to what I'm feeling right now.
Disagree with "gleefully", and particularly with "encouragement for the vaccine refusers" (as would Goudie and King), but since you feel "continuously shat on" by our government's pandemic response you should definitely shift your vote to a party (National or ACT) that more closely matches your current hopes and dreams vis-à-vis COVID.
During this pandemic the team has enjoyed extended periods of some of the least stringent restrictions on day-to-day activities – this has likely contributed to resentment towards alert level 4/3/2 restrictions of the last 2 months.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-stringency-index?tab=chart&country=IND~NZL~AUS~SWE~GBR~USA~IRL
I try not to lose sight of the purpose of these temporary restrictions, which is to limit the freedom of COVID-19 to spread and cause illness and death.
The COVID response remains a challenging balancing act for our govt. Some armchair critics grizzle and gripe about temporary alert level restrictions curtailing freedoms, while others object to some of the relatively strong vaccine mandates that are being put in place – each of us knows what the government should do, because we each know what's best for ourselves.
Spare me the smug sanctimony.
Regarding your “smug sanctimony” jibe, my preference was and still is for NZ's pandemic response to prioritise health outcomes. This response may not be morally superior to others, but it has indisputably saved (or at least delayed the loss of) Kiwi lives – regrettably it’s no longer sustainable.
While NZ did well in that comparison it's more useful to look deeper into the data.
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?QueryName=350
.. and undoubtedly it'll be more useful to look at relative performance of health and economic outcomes in a few years time.
Undoubtedly; if only our govt had access to that 'outcome data' now.
Does what is best for ourselves include the following
A slow vaccine rollout.
A very low percentage of ICU beds per head of population and little to no remediation of this during the past 18 months.
Blocking the entry of healthcare professionals to NZ over the last 12 months.
Incoherent mumblings from the podium which appear to change on a daily basis.
…asking for a friend.
This advice from a commenter here tickled my fancy – enjoy
Unite against COVID-19
https://covid19.govt.nz/
Thanks that's really useful.
Almost as useful as those of us that had to suffer through 6 hours of indoctrination on how to deliver COVID injections as we had spare time during Level 4 lockdown despite decades of experience.
Thanks for the aspiration.
I will examine what I write carefully. I do not ever wish to rub salt in wounds.
About Jacinda Ardern, she at some point will separate from the Advisors as she is aware of the pain. I think she instructed Hipkins and Bloomfield to come up with milestones regarding vaccination. I believe she has asked for more support for Auckland businesses from Robertson to be presented on this Friday. We will see. We get it. It's all like a slow train wreck.
But this is rather like being on the Titanic, having the knowledge of the coming iceberg. Knowing you can't completely miss it and frantically planning implementing communicating and fighting off the loud entitled who insist we can't sink and the ball in the ballroom has to go ahead as planned or there will be panic.
Our Titanic is Delta, and our iceberg is the number of alternative thinkers out there who are endangering themselves and threaten to wreck our systems.
Our Doctor just this morning said 3+ Doctors are being assessed by the Medical Council for promoting alternative views and discouraging vaccination. Some areas also have poor Leadership around vaccination from Church Leaders and the Anti-Vax supporters as well. This is a lifeboat with a hole in it.
It is really hard, keep the faith, this Government wishes to do their best for us. Thanks for your thoughtful reply, keep feeling you can express your anger.. that is a healthy reaction actually.
Just observing that the team has managed to achieve some pretty good Covid health outcomes to date – not without considerable sacrifice and suffering of course, and some will have struggled more than others.
Going by the 'f**k count', feelings are running pretty high. So if having a go at my supposed "sense of security and other warm fuzzies" [?] helps then have at it.
Yes, some always suffer more then others, and sadly they the same that have suffered before the pandemic. And yeah, next year there will be another trickle down increase in their benefit rates that will at the same time be removed from a side benefits, but it will make us all feel so fuzzy and warm and good about our self. Trickle trickle trickle. And if it is not enough and you can't pay rent and eat, here be housed in a unsued motel somewhere with no cooking or laundry facilities. Don't you feel so warm and fuzzy now?
But hey, i hear someone is getting married. Now that is good news.
Leave the PM's private life out of it. She is not flaunting that. Granny Herald is getting muck from Slater. Read "The Hollow Men"
From the luxury of the position we are in we are free to philosophise, pontificate and ponder.
It's as if we watched a big tsunami heading our way, wiping out lots of places on its way to get us. We got in a such a position though it didn't get us past bits around the edges.
We say, "Thank God for that, that was close, we're been spared. Thank you for those who led us to here?"
No. We say, "Why did you got that way, why didn't you do this instead? Why didn't you think about this, why didn't you consider that? You did this wrong, you stuffed that up. You are incompetent. We would have done it so much better." And on and on.
Early on it was "We should be doing what Australia's doing." A week later, "We should be copying Singapore." A week on, "Why aren't we copying Sweden?"
And we've been to Finland and Japan and back to Australia several times, or just some states of our neighbours. And to Taiwan and just about everywhere except the US.
We had more scientific experts per capita than anywhere in the world, all qualified overnight. Fancy that, we got the real advice from the real scientists not the local internet ones.
Tonight I see from Maori TV via the Herald: "Murupara kaumātua says he and other local Māori don't want the Pfizer vaccine and are waiting for other vaccines they think will be more effective."
I see "Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 1000 surgeries cancelled every week."
The tsunami didn't get us but waves like that are smashing us. Idiots like Brian Tamaki are smashing us. I don't mind them having a death wish. I don't mind the non-vaxxers worrying about the microchips carried in the vaccine or the fact that the vaccine as the lunatic American doctor claimed, will magnetise their bodies.
I don't like the idea though that they threaten my family, my friends and me. And for the information of that mad cow American, metal won't stick to my brow because of the magnetism in the vaccine.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/covid-19-delta-outbreak-murupara-doesnt-want-pfizer-vaccine-kaumatua-says/Q6AG522GP3HNNTTP7NXQNIQJ3E/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-1000-surgeries-cancelled-every-week/UWGKLTITX5AW77V4XQMIZLYWO4/
Pete, Yes we have the luxury to moan groan and "What if"
Agreed Drowsy.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
... personal feelings of entitlement notwithstanding – "
That is the message coming through to me too.
I dont' know where anyone here lives, and i don't live in Auckland, but frankly these guys have had three month now on Home D. Maybe a bit of kindness is on order now? Just a wee bit. Specially from those that are not currently locked up at home without an end in sight.
I'm just so so proud of all you posting and commenting standardistas on the restraint and decorum displayed re the news that HDPA is expecting a son. I read this blog assiduously and I thought, oh no the sarcy comments are going to flow. Indeed I thought of a few myself. Well done guys, having a child is special.
Interesting article in the Guardian just out.
Especially what the experts are saying.
What are these experts proposing to do to lift our vaccination rate?
What are you doing to help prepare NZ mentally for lots of deaths and disability?
Pretty easy to point the finger.
I've actually spent a lot of time with some vaccine hesitants getting them actual accurate information, and talking them through how routine vaccination is just a normal part of life for the large majority of the population.
I'm pretty sure I was mostly responsible for one success, and it feels close for a second.
But I'm utterly fucking disgusted with those that are encouraging the conditions that will contribute to that death and disability by posting apologia and encouragement for vaccine hesitancy.
that's great Andre, I think as many of us doing the vaccine outreach as possible is a big part of it.
Honestly that should never be asked from someone who obviously has been in lockdown now for almost 3 month. Not needed.
We all do what we can. I don't think anyone is trying to get covid or spread it. We all try to live with it as much as we can. But we can not ask for some to be under constant home D without accepting that people will lose it. That would be downright cruel and / or foolish. We can also not demand that people stay in lockdown and watch their lifes and their lifelyhood disappear down the drain, no matter if that is a hair dresser or a restaurant or just a retail business.
the government had 18 month now of information on how this plague works, we have seen it in China, Italy, France, Germany, USA, South America, UK, India etc. And here we are, getting a daily update on numbers and nothing else.
No plan on how to educate our kids other then what was set up last year, which is inadequite and does not work for all – re connectivity and hardware. Need a doctor or surgery, well that is a no. Can't enter the country, can't leave the country. ETC etc etc.
At some stage they need to serve up something better then this lukewarm warmed up re-iteration of 'be kind – to us specially, and use up your savings if you are running out of money, cause hey ……Grant likes to underspent his budgets.
And fwiw, the whole of the North Island is struggling. Maybe the South Island is so remote taht if the north island implodes it can go chugging along – growing their own kale and milking the last few cows that are allowed, but here in the North Island Auckland is needed and Aucklanders are part of our whanau. If that is still something that we consider of worth. .
So what are we going to do after the 90% vaccination rate? Keep the country closed until we are back to 0 cases? what if that does not happen? Seriously, this discussion needs to be had.
It was a rhetorical question that Andre doesn't need to answer any more than Baker and Hendy need to answer for raising vax rates.
I agree the bigger conversation needs to be had. I've been trying to have it the whole time. Only I don't think there's a BAU to return to. Andre's stress and frustration is totally understandable. I've been there before covid, as have plenty of others. Only the limiting factors were being disabled and having a government and society that basically didn't give a shit. So my perspective on it is different. Having sometimes severe limitations on one's life isn't new to many of us.
I also think that covid is the starter and climate/eco crises are going to hit us way harder than this. Best we get on with adaptation and mitigation of both covid and climate change. If kids can't go to school, then society can adapt to homeschool. If people are bored walking in their neighbourhood, then make the neighbourhood a great place to be. If L4 is unbearable, then let's do the mahi of changing that so that it becomes tolerable.
No-one is talking about this because most people thing it's soon going to be over and hey presto all the businesses will be open again and NZers will vote in neoliberal governments and go back to ignoring poor and disabled people and the eco crises.
I am very doubtful that it will be over soon. I think it's possible NZ hasn't had the hardest pandemic year yet, but that that will be 2022 as we have to learn to live with covid in the community and people dying and then how to manage long covid.
Yes, lockdown is fucking hard. Haven't seen too many conversations on TS about the people that are going to have their lives destroyed by long covid and having to be WINZ clients. This isn't to diss people losing it under lockdown, it's to say either way was always going to be really hard. As you know it just hits people differently.
All that shit that the hippies were talking about, we should be stepping up now. Local food, local economy, build strong communities, help each other, plant a shit load of trees, shift values and priorities. It doesn't have to be this bad.
and you know, you can imagine what it's like for someone in my situation to hear a centre leftie saying they're going to vote National. National who destroyed so many of our lives and who would have made covid into an utter disaster instead of the half disaster that it is now.
I posited last year at the beginning of L4 that this plague will take several years, that we will have rolling lockdowns, with all the assorted misery that living under a siege brings with it.
I personally am not too affected by staying at home, i am not a very outgoing person (don't cope well in large settings), and i can understand how those that live with disability have more of a nuanced way of looking at lockdowns due to their own diminished reality of moving about, but we can not overlook the fact that we are the minority and that humans are social beings and like to gather. We can not overlook the fact that not everyone will cope well, and we are seeing this now.
And yet, here we are, and it seems that some of us are quite happy to lock up AKL indefinitely if it keeps them in their supposed 'safe' bubble. Never mind that safe does not exist anymore.
I think that the govt did pretty much everything correct with regards to containing the virus initially, i think that the wage subsidy was simply just a triage mechanism to prevent a million people at once hitting the unemployment queues, and was wasted in many cases, it would have been better to allow businesses to go bust without dragging the owners into bankruptcies, i think that our children should be first priority and that if we can’t educate them we are cutting off our noses.
But here we are 18 month in, and we seem to not have added anything new to what we do.
And it gets tedious, even for those that don't live in AKL. Covid is an utter disaster, even if we managed to feel very smug in our wee island far far away from everywhere for a while.
The brother of a friend of mine killed himself last week. He hang himself in the garage, long haul Covid. He got it last year with his mum. She did fine, he did not. And in the end he killed himself because his body was slowly but surely rotting away – and there was nothing anyone could do.
We need to have this discussion now, because the vaccination are not the great opening to life. Vaccine, permanent mask wearing, keeping social distancing, no contact business to very low contact business, rapid saliva testing, is what will be.
In Germany kids go to school. They wear masks, and have three tests a week. Rapid saliva tests. Essentially they live by the three G's.
Getested – get tested
Geimpft – get jabbed
Genessen – recover from disease
Can we at least demand some quick delivery of rapid saliva tests from the government before someone doo doos us demanding human beings for not being grateful enough for US keeping US safe while we are locking us up in our houses with no end in sight?
I feel that if we don't get really honest real fast, you will see that getting people to have booster shots will be even harder then getting them to get the double jabs now.
Thanks, Sabine.
As you often do, you have taken some of my concerns and written them down coherently.
Sabine yes, we have to lay out the hard truths. His sad death should be noted in the effects of covid.
I think the Government needs to mandate vaccines to assist businesses to achieve this, also mandate mask wearing and social distancing.
Shopping is difficult, as is education, as we need air filtering in every public place before next year. As we learn of helpful methods they should be mandated.
When I was a child chewing tobacco was a thing. Spittoons were in each train carriage. That was to stop people spitting on the floor because of tuberculosis. A sign promised a ten pound fine for expectorating .
Yes I agree Weka. I think you are so rational in the face of pain and a long wait for surgery, as are friends and our son. I feel for Andre, some situations are more triggering than others. I became a bit depressed at one stage he is angry, i think it is actually a form of grief.
I agree. I think one of the most urgent things we need to be doing is teaching resiliency skills (and probably grieving). To do that we'd have to acknowledge the long term nature of the crisis and that some things have been lost.
Rational, maybe, born of long experience of restrictions and learning how to cope. Mindfulness has helped a lot.
There's an edge between compassion for people having a really hard time, and this being a political blog.
Here here.Please, folk out there stay the coarse,I'm down south but am truely grateful for all the people up north trying their best.As Peter Gabriel sings "hold the line".
Surely it is not just about the vaccination rate. I had not thought it was a 'one shot wonder' from the Govt. Ha ha sorry not funny perhaps
How has this been boiled down to this one thing. I know the current focus has been on vaccination. This is not the only part of the plan to open up NZ that is being worked on.
The item that many of us have been watching in the Akl situation is the number of cases that cannot be linked. This is despite not now assigning the results to sub clusters.
When I last looked over the weekend there was a tail of around 114? to be linked.
With my degree in MB epidemiology to my way of thinking this signals that perhaps there are carriers. pockets, people with Delta that are still passing it on. Again with my degree in psychology I would suggest that these are unlikely to be vaccinated.
So I don't think it is a single task and once this is done Akl opens.
What with employers in essential industries not mandating the vaccine for their public facing employees ie border crossing truckies are still allowed despite no vaccination and we now have a rest home in Remuera with a single vaccinated person with Covid. If this is a worker then both employer/ee have left it very late to get started on the vaccination process. How can an employer be happy with a worker with only one part of a two part vaccination working?
A missing part of the equation should also be an expectation that employers will do their bit. I am not getting this feeling that this is happening widely though with MSM who knows?
I have friends in Auckland and they have said that the single thing that has kept them going is the 40 min walk they do every single day. If they need it they do another walk. They start each day with a to do list. One works from home. They have taken advantage of the picnic idea to catch up with another bubble. Not really their thing they say but it is the only one on offer.
Is there a person you can talk to. It is not unusual to be feeling these things but perhaps better to not suffer in silence of there is a trained person you can talk to? The last two paras are written with kindness. .
More health experts have shared their thoughts.
Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (National Maori Pandemic Group) co-leader Dr Rawiri Jansen said
Immunologist and Associate Dean (Pacific) at the University of Otago (Wellington)Dr Dianne Sika-Paotonu
Dr Dion O’Neale, principal investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini, said
To change the subject to another very important matter, has anyone seen that Stuff have started a detailed investigation into the biodiversity crisis in New Zealand and the world? Has anyone seen it?
The first episode looks at seabirds. Looks like some excellent work by Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor.
From the article, some startling facts :
1. We are ranked 89th in the world for conversion of natural habitat.
2. In New Zealand, there are more than 4000 indigenous species at risk.
3. We are ranked 13th in the world for the use of fertiliser.
4. We are ranked the worst in the world, for the proportion of threatened species we have.
It will make you consider whether you should be eating tuna.
If I have time, I'll put a more detailed report tomorrow.
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2021/this-is-how-it-ends-extinction-documentary/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/300424903/this-is-how-it-ends-natures-dangerous-decline-is-accelerating-why-its-us
If too many consumers are contributing to the biodiversity crisis in New Zealand and the world declining fertility should mitigate it. Not a short term fix though.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/421284/fertility-rate-jaw-dropping-global-crash-in-children-being-born
Our treatment of the NZ environment; flora and fauna is IMO worse than how we deal with CO2, and in my disappointment feel bad giving TG a vote. There is no international distain to be expressed and embarrass our govt into action. Any pressure on the govt is by a small group of kiwis with their efforts going unseen in restoring parts on NZ to its former glory.
This has some short comings yet still worth the time to watch, especially under the current conditions that covid lockdown has allowed. It is currently available on Netflix, and I know of a few families that now will not eat fish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy
Less Green MPs and it would be worse.
The environment is my nice place, given the rant above. Last year I considered not voting as all the options IMO were crap. The only reason was my base line the environment. 67% of the voting family voted Green. Next election it appears it will be 33%.
Global warming has the entire world working to pressure leaders in saving it, NZ has only kiwis to pressure our leaders, and that is why IMO NZ needs all effort in save our flora and fauna and TG need to be leading this, instead of saving the world.
Wouldnt it be logical to solve the biggest problems first herodotus ?ie climate change and the threat that poses to all species /? If you are one of the people who thought James Shaw shoudnt go to COPs cause flying is bad then were off to a great start arnt we ! My own personal opinion based on observation of fanatics is that bird watching turns some peoples brains to mush !
To assist in climate change there are some who have purchased large areas of land and are planting it with pine to capture the co2. How does that help to protect and enhance our unique wildlife and their habitats ? By protecting the habitats we are assisting by allowing nzers to see 1st hand the direct benefits eg native bush/forests/coastal areas and secondary doing our bit to rebalance the gases in the atmosphere.
my summary what many sequent co2 short term can have detrimental adverse effects elsewhere, a rubrics cube scenario.
And weka love your devotion to the party keep it up even though I may disagree
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/399192/green-rush-will-pines-really-save-the-planet
I honestly don't get this. If we get another Labour majority and less or no Green MPs, do you think that we will see more action on biodiversity or less?
As a Labour member, I don't want a Labour majority government, I want a Labour-Green coalition (I joined Labour in part to try to push in that direction).
It would be about the same.
Yep. Sweet fuck-all.
Exactly Andre, and it's because they are a bunch of fucking Neolibs.
Thanks for the recommendation. I shall watch this film this weekend.
May I recommend another film about the unsustainable economy we operate in New Zealand. The film is coming out at the time of the film festival.
Wellington
https://www.nziff.co.nz/2021/wellington/milked/
Tauranga
https://www.nziff.co.nz/2021/tauranga/milked/
Milked exposes the whitewash of New Zealand’s multi-billion-dollar dairy industry.
Do they get Fonterra to comment on this?
Its about time some hard questions get asked tbh… we've had alot of time to prepare for this point in our resposne yet govt still hasnt got rapid testing organized, salivia testing is a mess and the vax passport other countries started and finished with it we'restill flailing about developing it.. surely we should have had businesses like hairdressers open by now with a vax passport instead its kicked down the road another two weeks. People are pretty pissed.
They have made moves to import the rapid testing for workplaces – it should up and going by the end of the month or early November.
This would have informed their thinking on holding at Level 3 lite till then.
Thats my issue we're still mucking about try to organize this stuff and seeminly doing it on the fly
We've had plenty of time to watch what other countries have done well, got to work and had alot of this stuff ready to roll when the inevitable happened.
Auckland should have had a functioning vax passport system 2-3 weeks ago when we went to level 3.9 so small businesses like hairdressers for example could open… its really disheartening because so many people are going to the wall with this lockdown… and they're the little guys hospo staff, retail staff, hairdressers small business manicure shops those little chinese massage places in the malls etc etc wage subsidy doesnt touch the sides in Auckland. Company I work for burnt through 150k during level 4 keeping everyone at 80 percent and covering all the fixed outgoings we can operate at almost breakeven in level 3 which means at least we all have jobs… which makes us lucky.
Their plan has been
Sure if they had planned for a delta outbreak they could not eliminate – then they might have had easier saliva testing and also rapid testing in place to help manage it, and also vax ID for use at Level 3 lite.
As it is, this got going in recent weeks as they realised elimination might fail or would require another month at Level 4. Those businesses in Auckland that got Level 3 and Level 3 lite benefited from that decision.
In Auckland?
Yes in Auckland, it's getting financially very ugly for alot of people especially in the service industry. Think hairdressers, the nail salons, massage all sorts of little businesses really. Having a passport ready would have allowed them to at least start making some income.
people can still transmit covid when fully vaxxed, although the risk is much lower*. Are you saying that Auckland should abandon containment and come out of L3+?
One of the big risks we are about to face is if people think double vax makes other measures unnecessary.
*in reality, I don't think we know yet what the risk is. I really wish we would be more honest about this.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/new-data-on-covid-19-transmission-by-vaccinated-individuals
Auckland couldnstill be ring fenced all im saying is if we had some tools ready like vaccine passports and rapid tests more businesses in Auckland could open which would act as a pressure release valve.
We cant stay in an endless level 3.9 lockdown cycle there are other massive costs besides the obvious financial ones, on a personal level my daughter is really starting to struggle with the social isolation now, one of her friends has become completely withdrawn and tbh online school is pretty grim.
The govt just seems so unprepared and we've had time to be ready to deal with this stuff.
the point of L3+ is to get as many people vaxxed as possible while at the same time trying to contain and limit spread of covid as much as possible. No-one is suggesting that it be endless (although I'm sure it feels like that).
I can't see how hairdressers and massage therapists could operate currently while trying to limit spread.
Afaik the government has plans for both rapid testing and vax passports.
Yes I know they have 'plans' I think they should be already devloped and in use…
If we did that for fully vaxed people it will perhaps encourage a few more accross the line to access said freedoms and it might well actually help level 3.9 hold.
It gets busier everyday here, Mt Eden was packed sunday morning with people getting coffee etc chatting on the footpath sitting at tables that have reappeared on the footpaths… basically the longer this goes on the more disobedient people will get and that's going to lead to worse outcomes.
Vaxing is in fact irrelevant the determining factor is does a person have transmissible infection or not. The present testing system only tells us the status 15 hours to three days ago – nothing prevents infectious viral loading after test and before result.
This is where rapid testing of high reliability is so needed – the viral loading status NOW is known right on the spot. This even negates the 'Vax Passprot' … which only shows probable less susceptibility to personal health effects NOT infection and Transmissibility.
I would rather KNOW that infection was not present rather than if someone (or myself) had been jabbed – probably some considerable time ago.
As long as we have a Privacy Act and people who will be quite annoyed about data breaches, developing a vax passport app based on realtime connection to the Covid-19 register is going to be slow going no matter who does it. Also, if we are going to mandate denial of service/entry based on this app, best make sure it's accurate.
As pointed out by the DG and others, rapid antigen testing is not nearly as accurate as other testing, so was actively unhelpful while we could reasonably test and deliver results at pace. Useful in an outbreak, not much use otherwise. Saliva testing uses the same lab infrastructure as nasal swabs, so the main improvement is comfort (and in earlier days, a loss of accuracy), not anything else (that's a worthy improvement, but it's not like it's a serious difference in terms of the Covid response).
Most of the issues are simply that we thought we had the time to pick out the best parts of Covid responses elsewhere, and then Delta arrived early.
I'm waiting for Federated Farmers to step up and ask all their members to get vaccinated.
They did it over a month ago, press release from 6/9/21
https://www.fedfarm.org.nz/FFPublic/Media-Releases/2021/Farmers_urged_to_enable_staff_to_get_vaccinations.aspx?WebsiteKey=00ff782d-8ff5-4a81-ae69-785972132c32
From what I've seen rural uptake has been high, but the general uptake in Otago is very high, Dunedin and Queenstown are both over 90%
Southland, Northland, Taranaki and East Cape.
Otago is one of the safest CVID-prepared populations around.
It's notable that when elimination resulted in Level 1 freedom, lock downs to get this result were well supported.
But when lock downs are only to hold down the rate of spread, as originally intended last year to keep the health system safe, they begin to seem onerous to "freedom". Which might explain the USA and UK opposition to lock downs because of some "flu". And in those places that opposition to any "pandemic regime" has extended to opposition to vaccination itself and also to vaccination "passports".
The current Auckland lock down has been shorter than in Sydney – and Melbourne has had the longest total period of lock downs in the world.
It retrospect we were lucky to arrive at elimination, because the society division that would have occurred (racial disharmony and inequality exacerbated – working class deaths) would have been terrible.
We'll only get a taste of that in the year ahead with greater freedoms and more deaths – including among the vaccinated.
Just watch Melbourne, the rate in two weeks will be stratospheric. Do you want that here?
Wouldnt it be logical to solve the biggest problems first herodotus ?ie climate change and the threat that poses to all species /? If you are one of the people who thought James Shaw shoudnt go to COPs cause flying is bad then were off to a great start arnt we ! My own personal opinion based on observation of fanatics is that bird watching turns some peoples brains to mush !
And this is a bit of a worry.
Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 1000 surgeries cancelled every week – NZ Herald
Time for the unvaccianted to get criminal nuisance charges.
Going to charge everyone under 12 as well?
Minors aren't generally charged in our justice system.
It'll be full vaccine for 5-and-up very soon.
Possibly, I do hope they start talking about actual benefits in terms of outcome compared to actually catching covid in that age cohort… so far its just it triggers a good immune response… if there isnt a demonstable drop in hospitalisation/serious outcomes why give it?
Males 12-15 and those 5-12 are not advantaged by vaccination – but presumably the rest of us are (because of break through infections in older people).
Yeah I struggle with that reasoning in terms of giving a vacc to that younger age cohort I read a stuff article saying similar, to me thats not a good enough reason personally better be ready to go with booster shots for those that need them which based on our rollout will be fairly soon.
Yup esp some of the old and health compromised vaxxed pre June 30 prior to the Dec/Jan family gathering times.
Youngsters are pretty "disadvantaged" if their parents or grandparents die of covid.
And. If Covid is still around as they get older, which seems likely. Immunity is advantageous.
Any precedent, apart from being Japanese in America after Pearl Harbour or Moslem after 9/11? After all this is paranoia that others are not in the same team right?
We'll need 500 ICU like beds (not 250 + 100 staffed by surgical nurses under supervision – surgical nurses being spare because of reduced surgeries).
Which means getting in vaxxed migrant ICU pandemic experienced nurses – and place them here via airbnb.
We have over 3.5M vaccinated people and 1% of them might need hospitalisation if infected (and by the end of 2022 a lot will have been) and 500,000 unvaxxed (going down to 400,000) of whom 10% might need hospitalisation (which is not ICU care).
While a lot of the hospitalisations will not need ICU care, just monitoring and treatments it will be tight at 500 for mine.
We're lucky there will be the Merck anti-viral treatment for the vaxxed and unvaxxed alike and the monoclonal antibody treatment for the unvaxxed used in the USA.
What the government should also do is bring in the Astra Zeneca Cov2 anti-body cocktail – this is effective prior to and post infection as an alternative to vaccination. This should reduce the risk on the health system.
Well that's great but I need my nails cut and my hair styled now, not in 2 or 3 or who knows how many weeks. This whole thing is a shambles! Signed…..Judith.
..Too much info