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.
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
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 ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
He’s Got The Moxie: Only Willie Jackson possesses the credentials to meld together a new Labour message that is, at one and the same moment, staunchly working-class, union-friendly, and which speaks to the hundreds-of-thousands of urban Māori untethered to the neo-tribal capitalist elites of the Iwi Leaders Forum.IT’S ONE OF THE ...
Tree-huggers may well accuse the Government of giving them the fingers, after Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced new measures to protect powerlines from trees, rather than measures to protect trees from powerlines. It can be no coincidence, surely, that this has been announced at the same as Fisheries Minister Shane Jones ...
Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper who could take over the Labour ...
Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.AUT ...
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be ...
Brian Eastonwrites – The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am ...
The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed Gantz out into the open. ...
On Thursday 17 May, the Mayoral Proposal for Auckland’s Long Term Plan 2024-2034 was passed by Auckland Council, 20 to 1. It is set to be formally adopted by the Governing Body at its June 27th meeting. The entire process took 8 hours, with the vast majority of that time ...
Pakanga o muaTukua, ka ngaroPuritia taku ringaNgaro ana te ara ki pae rauThere's a battle aheadMany battles are lostBut you'll never see the end of the roadWhile you're travelling with meLate yesterday morning I headed to Wynyard Quarter to see Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick give their pre-budget State of ...
Maybe the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister expected the worst, so they mounted a stout defence of the Budget tax cuts to their party faithful at a party conference over the weekend. In turn, they were greeted with applause, which, though it may have been less than wildly enthusiastic, ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 12, 2024 thru Sat, May 18, 2024. Story of the week “The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and ...
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
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. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
The Coalition Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which will improve tenancy laws and help increase the supply of rental properties, has passed its first reading in Parliament says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The Bill proposes much-needed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that will remove barriers to increasing private ...
Standing here in Cassino War Cemetery, among the graves looking up at the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation left behind by the battles which ended here in May 1944. Hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs of every description left nothing but piled ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
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“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
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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