Yes, I saw a young Kiwi female witness on three news, who said she was there in the supermarket, appeared to be of Indian descent, and said that the attacker wasn't interested in her, that he seemed to be (she paused to think about how to put it) specifically going after white people.
I was quite surprised they showed it.
Can't remember now if it was the night of the attack or the following night. She's the only witness I've seen saying that. And I don't know if she's accurate – but I've seen someone else report this witness's claim in an online news article or possibly on Kiwiblog too.
Might still be viewable on the on demand three news?
Not that I'm aware of. But few of us are privy to his thoughts and writings. Those that had dealings with him, including his family and friends, may know more.
He apparently wrote that if he was sent back to Sri Lanka he would seek out "Kiwi scums", whatever that means.
This lifted from last night's Daily Review, on a twitter thread:
"The spanish flu killed 1% of Europe. It also caused permanent chronic illnesses in tens of millions of people. Kidney disease, heart disease, developmental disabilities, stroke victims, etc"
We don't want to get Covid in any form. Anything the government does to keep it running rampant in our society is worth backing – and to hell with the economy!
Imho the longer we keep Covid out, the better off Kiwis and the NZ economy will be, so why not stick with the Covid elimination strategy until it's clear (as in NSW) that the team can't quell community outbreaks in NZ. Level Delta 2 tomorrow!
NZ is in the totally enviable position of having a genuine choice (elimination strategy vs freedums strategy); I'd rather we didn't surrender that choice willingly.
wishful thinking Tony, it will be near impossible to keep covid out forever
"Near impossible" is not, impossible.
Many experts say that achieving herd immunity is near impossible.
Which of course means, achieveing herd immunity is possible, (but difficult).
As John F. Kennedy said, "We don't do these things because they are easy, we do these things because they are hard".
So what would it take?
We don't know what level of the population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19, because it has never been done before.
But we do know that for measles, another highly transmissable disease, herd immunity is achieved when 95% of the population has been vaccinated.
Is 95% vaccination coverage our target?
Is that what we want?
If that is what we want, can we the team of 5 million pull it off?
Could 95% of us be vaccinated?
Do we have the sort of visionary leadership that could inspire the team of 5 million to achieve that level of vaccnation coverage?
Can 95% of us be inspired to go for it?
With determined leadership, with inspiring messaging appealing to national pride, I believe it is possible.
…..The percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity varies with each disease. For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a population to be vaccinated. The remaining 5% will be protected by the fact that measles will not spread among those who are vaccinated. For polio, the threshold is about 80%. The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known. This is an important area of research and will likely vary according to the community, the vaccine, the populations prioritized for vaccination, and other factors.
Achieving herd immunity with safe and effective vaccines makes diseases rarer and saves lives.
The government could recruit the Rugby Union and their outgoing sponsor AIG to the vaccination cause.
To spearhead the campaign, the National Team 'All Blacks', be renamed 'All Vax', for the period of the crisis.
."AIG has been a special partner not only because of their presence on the front of the treasured black jersey, but because they have been a leading voice on social issues that are dear to NZR and to our athletes," [New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson]
I highly recommend good Anti-Virus software because you don’t want to get hacked. The monthly software updates can be tedious and the unscheduled patches are frustrating, but shit happens and not everything gets caught in beta-testing stage.
You have to lick the shiny surface of the CD-ROM to properly install it. Make sure you do this anti-clockwise or you might get a DDoS Error, which is not good and you have to reinstall everything from scratch. After that, you restart the system and wear it as in the photo to complete the installation and make sure it is working properly. Never ever eat cookies before you lick on the disk!
Yeah, pretty slick operation with a positive friendly vibe all around.
I'd expect nothing less from secret conspiracists trying to hide the truth that they're all in thrall to shapeshifting reptilian alien overlords trying to control our minds.
With a Vacuum on the right it would be easy for any politician to make a mark how ever looking at Winston's ability to communicate has diminished and given its 2 years before another election .if he doesn't make the 5% threshold he will be useful in keeping National from the govt benches.His handbrake style of politics didn't go down well last time if National find a better leader Winston's protest vote will disappear .
Sanity is what this Government is doing. Insanity is "opening up" "living with the virus" before people are able to be vaccinated.
Look at Britain. Now losing a "jumbo jet load" of people every three days. All their systems strained or curtailed.
We are struggling to manage getting enough vaccine from producers and to get people to understand that each transmission means we may have a worse version to fight.
What is required is patience and a collective effort to reach full vaccination, coupled with health approaches to limit outbreaks and to minimise their effects.
Winston and NZ First: sanity? More like complete ignorance and incoherence. Here's the poor old fellow back in 2015 trying, and failing, to enunciate a position on a pressing matter…
MIHINGARANGI FORBES: Winston, should New Zealand recognize Palestine as an independent state? Currently around a hundred and thirty-five U.N. countries do; we don’t.
WINSTON PETERS: Well look this is a tinder-dry area and it’s extraordinarily, errr, ancestral in nature. Uh, there ARE people working on a long-term solution, errr, that wi- would be acceptable to both sides, but in the middle of it has come this event, for which none of us is seriously briefed, and, ahh, I’m not going to jump into an argument without knowing the details on both sides, but this will not be, would not resolve THIS matter. Ahh, there ARE people trying to get past the present impasse that’s gone on now for decades, and trying to bring it to a resolution, and that’s what we in New Zealand First and I believe, indeed, the Government supports.
Thanks for the links Morrissey. I guess what I was really saying is that the news outside the USA used to be full of Trump and now it isn't. It's certainly plausible that Trump would beat Biden next time around.
Reduced number of MPs as I recall. As long as they're socially distancing there needn't be a problem with that small group of participants described sharing a meal in a sizeable room.
Poor Collins. I'm not politically tribal. I reckon the mainstream media really are rather unfair how much more they seem to be cheerleading to get her dumped by National as leader than I recall them being with Andrew Little before he handed over to Ardern.
But Collins is her own worst enemy. Even when she's got decent political ammunition to work with, she's one of the worst, most awkward communcators I've seen or heard in interviews.
She gets flustered when ambushed & frequently burbles nonsense. I've even heard her recently saying the complete opposite to what she meant. She remained blissfully unaware of it.
Reti, by comparison, in that audio link is streets ahead of her as a communicator.
No, but he did bark at every passing car & was often vague about Labour's solutions when questioned. I never agreed with the Angry Andy label his opponents’ supporters sometimes used. He came across as humourless.
Collns by comparison tries too hard to be witty & often ends up just being gauche. She's hopeless responding to questions, vague, lacking detail & often inaccurate.
She criticised Press Gallery journos in a recent tv one interview for not "asking the hard questions" of Ardern and just asking "how she feels".
I've watched all Ardern's standups re Level 4. I know what Collins means. Several of the gallery journos give Ardern an easy ride, & are quite deferential, imo. But she DOES get asked tricky questions. And nobody has ever actually said "How do you feel?"
Half of them could and still have room for Mr Goodfellow and partner. 32 +16 +2.
Mr Muller is already isolated from caucus to make 32.
I wonder how many will be resigning before the next election? Nick Smith already gone. Who's next?
Brownlee? Collins after being rolled? Bridges after his machinations have failed? Bishop who might find that life begins at forty? Brown who discovers the same at thirty?
Bishop often comes acrosss well but he's never going to live down that abominable performance as spokesperson for Big Tobacco with the sadly late Greg Boyed on Q+A. That probably rules him out as a leader prospect. If not for that he might be in the running.
Six Palestinian prisoners escape Israeli jail through tunnel
Israeli authorities have launched a manhunt after six Palestinian prisoners escaped from one of the country's most secure jails overnight.
The men are believed to have dug a hole in the floor of their cell at Gilboa prison, then crawled through a cavity and tunnelled beneath the outer wall.
Al Jazeera tv news: Palestinians are gearing up for trouble as Israeli security forces look likely to be entering their territories in force & going hard out to find them.
Aljaz tv news update: At the same time, Palestinians in the occupied territories are shown celebrating this small "victory over the Israeli military machine", and in Gaza they're handing out sweets.
Israelis are concerned some of the escapees may be planning attacks.
Well, it was a voiceover by the AlJazeera reporter, with a quick comment by a middle-aged civilian car driver.
Aljaz tv tends to be biased towards the Palestinian viewpoint, as am I. Pisses me off the US has done so much to defend the continual Israeli stealing of more & more Palestinian land & Trump made it even worse.
But I have little hope of an eventual successful resolution of what to me is now an intractable problem in Israel/Palestine, Morrissey.
Not while Hamas remains committed even in its 2017 Charter to completely extinguishing the Israeli state, which I don't think is appropriate, & it and Islamic Jihad are prepared to mount & encourage suicidal attacks among young Palestinians who now have no hope of their own sizeable state, & while Israel has got away with creating walled Palestinian territory bantustans, & making Gaza the biggest open-air concentration camp in the world, with Israel the uncontested & ruthless regional military & security superpower.
The Brits & the UN have a lot to answer for. But the situation is now what is & I can't see how it will improve.
Not while Hamas remains committed even in its 2017 Charter…
???? Have you ever expressed qualms about the United States Declaration of Independence, with its notorious racist ranting about "the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions"?
If not, why not? Why do you single out the language of the Hamas Charter?
Much of what you have written shows you to be a thoughtful and considered person; I would counsel you against being led by dodgy political commentators and right wing newspaper columnists into denouncing the democratically elected government of the Palestinian Territories.
The US DOI is a separate issue, Morrissey. In these more enlightened days (well, for some) it's obvious that the European settler migrants & their descendants decimated, marginalised, & stole the lands & cultures of the North American first peoples. They have a hard road getting such damage redressed in any fair & meaningful way.
My view is that the Brits & the UN had no moral right to give Palestinian land to Jewish settlers for the re-creation of a Jewish state, without the prior consent of the Palestinian Arabs. But it happened. Largely because of the holocaust, Imo. The lead up to it was bloody & there were atrocities & massacres on both sides. The Israelis adopted many British practices (like blowing up the houses of Arab resisters & treating them like shit).
The Israelis had the best (British) trained & experienced army officers, & following their declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel they creamed the Arab armies who were hopeless by comparison. And they continued to do it until the Arab countries gave up attacking them.
The bigger Arab countries these days pay lip service only to supporting the Palestinians – not counting those who've concluded peace treaties with Israel.
Hamas & Islamic Jihad both have the fundamentalist Islamist objective of wiping Israel out. (So does Iran.) So even though Hamas was democratically elected in Gaza (because Fatah was perceived as corrupt, compromised by Israel, & impotent – unable to stop Israeli illegal settlement building & secure the Palestinian right of return of their diaspora) they end up looking like muderous fanatics.
Palestinians have no hope of matching military might with Israel. So Hamas is forced to use tactics like unguided missiles, suicide missions, sending young Palestinians to protests & loosing incendiary balloons into Israel, while Israel gets away with murdering Palestinian innocents by the score in brutal military response as "collateral damage" (only the yanks could come up with such a term). And the world basically doesn't give a shit any more, so long as Israel eventually stops slaughtering them after each major clash when the clamour against it gets too loud.
Too many Israelis have been born in Israel now. They can't be seriously expected to be eventually exterminated as a state as Hamas wants. Israel/Palestine is the UN's greatest failure, in my opinion.
European settler migrants & their descendants decimated, marginalised, & stole the lands & cultures of the North American first peoples.
"Decimated"? They exterminated far more than one in ten.
Hamas & Islamic Jihad both have the fundamentalist Islamist objective of wiping Israel out. (So does Iran.)
Wrong in all three cases. You are simply repeating black propaganda.
…. eventually exterminated as a state as Hamas wants.
Again, you're repeating a ruthless lie. The only exterminationist ideology in that area of the world comes out of the outlaw regime in Tel Aviv, and its fanatical backers in the United States and Britain.
Listening 9 till noon Kathryn Ryan interviewing a research scientist about saliva testing for Covid .She is saying it is easier and just a accurate and that we need to be testing at higher rates around outbreaks and at borders once a week is not enough twice a week is much safer especially with the Delta variant.
She is saying that other opinions from renowned scientists was being shut out by the NZ health response this needs to be looked into by this govt urgently maybe some bone for Collins and Seymour to pick on that's real and not made up for a change.
when folks start saying scientists are "renowned", I start getting suspicious.
We do need more testing (mostly to boost the odds of detecting the index case in the wild, rather than a couple of transfers down the line), but it depends where the bottleneck is. If it's the number of swabs, fine. If it's the number of pcr machines, supplies, or accredited techs, switching tests won't improve anything.
Collins and rimmer will pick at antything. There's nothing with meat relating to the covid response, though – all the govt needs to do is point to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, that also applies to shit where improvement has been too slow: housing, for example.
Dr Anne Wyllie and her team of researchers at Yale University in the United States pioneered the SalivaDirect test, given the green light in the US last year, which attracted global attention.
However, last year is a long time ago in the field of SARS-Cov-2 research. There have been considerable developments in the past month which seem to be living up to the hype (and a seriously dope acronym – SHERLOCK = Specific High sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing)):
The diagnostic device, called Minimally Instrumented SHERLOCK (miSHERLOCK), is easy to use and provides results that can be read and verified by an accompanying smartphone app within one hour. It successfully distinguished between three different variants of SARS-CoV-2 in experiments, and can be rapidly reconfigured to detect additional variants like Delta. The device can be assembled using a 3D printer and commonly available components for about $15, and re-using the hardware brings the cost of individual assays down to $6 each.
The CRISPR tech involved is fascinating. But the important point is that the test is done in the unit, and does not need to be sent off to a PCR lab.
So the SalivaDirect team seem to have sent their resident kiwi in to flog their obsoleted product onto the NZ government while they still can. At least it's better than Shield.
What exactly is “a legitimate worry”, in your opinion?
Without any commentary or explanation, it is not “a legitimate comment”.
Why do you find it necessary or justified to needle another commenter, i.e., Ad, to be specific?
If you have an issue with Ad’s Posts and/or comments you need to address those in a proper and adequate way. You seem to be unable to do so, or just not willing to put in the mahi.
Why do you say that “[you] can't help it if it needles the anti all Russian brigade.” when you deliberately and intentionally wrote it in such a way that it would do exactly that?
Russia are the biggest hackers in the world who would know if this is true or not I would suspect not given Russia's c invasion of former Soviet states.The US would not want research falling into Russian hands.
There's this little leap your source has made, from biological to 'military biological', which they evidently cannot verify or they'd have raised it under the UN Biological Weapons Convention. Credulity r us.
“The Central Public Health Reference Laboratory was inaugurated in April 2011, and Andrew Weber, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs took part in the ceremony (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=23257). Washington allotted $100 million for its construction, according to unofficial information (http://civil.ge/rus/article.php?id=23744). US officials openly stated that the laboratory would participate in the analysis of strategic biological risks. “The US Army plans to place specialists there that will work on these issues alongside the Georgians,” US Ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland noted (http://nregion.com/pda/txt.php?id=44549
Georgian authorities have finally realized that Russia is irritated not by the type of scientific research being carried out at this laboratory, but by the very existence of a Georgian-US military facility in the post-Soviet space—which then-President Dmitry Medvedev famously referred to as Russia’s zone of “privileged interest”
So, rather than a 'legitimate worry' even your link confesses that this is merely Russian agitprop – not US aggression to take seriously, but Russia imposing its will on states unfortunate enough to have so belligerent a neighbour. Like the satirical boggies, hearts and minds play no part in Russian diplomacy:
any small, slow, and stupid beast that turned its back on a crowd of boggies was looking for a stomping. ~ Bored of the Rings
Us only interested in keeping shipping lanes open , women and girls protection, human rights, democracy , freedom of the press
They're the least militant nation on earth, never use sanctions as an economic weapon,
have only the well being of the planet and humanity in mind
Russians are bad, its their nature, they can't help it.They also have low home ownership rates, have been brainwashed and have bad teeth and awful hygiene habits
The Ukrainians opposition members complaining are secret Russian sympathisers
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners is urging the public to be smart about misinformation highlighting untested and unapproved treatments of COVID-19, such as Ivermectin.
Dr Bryan Betty, the College’s Medical Director says "The spread of misinformation is frustrating and can be highly dangerous, as recent media reports have shown.
"The use of Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 is being researched through clinical trials but it is very important to note that at this point there is no evidence that supports the use of this medicine in the treatment of COVID-19.
"Simply put, off-label* use of Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 is strongly not recommended," says Dr Betty.
I gotta admit, I kinda get frustrated by the usual wording of "no evidence supports". It makes it sound like it's still a completely open unresearched question.
The actual situation with respect to ivermectin is that there have been two large scale well-designed, well conducted trials (Lopez-Medina in Colombia, and the Together trial by McMaster University) with significantly different dosage protocols, that both found negligible benefit over placebo.
To me, a better wording would be something like "the best evidence to date shows no benefit from using ivermectin".
"no evidence to support" is a phrase used in medicine, psychology etc and is well understood in those circles.
"The best evidence to date" could carry the implication that the evidence being spoken of is high quality. Very often, particularly in psychology evidence can be poor e.g. sample seletion biases, lack of randomized control, errors in methodology.
You would not want to imply that this is the "best evidence to date"……….its would suggest the evidence is high quality.
"no evidence to support" is indeed the common professional phrase almost universally used within the profession.
But when there is in fact strong evidence that something is ineffective, such as the evidence ivermectin is ineffective against covid, continuing to use that specific phrase rather than something stronger is misleading to non-professionals.
It also makes it easy for misinformation artists to misrepresent the true state of understanding.
Clinical trials are not designed to show that something is ineffective, as it would be unethical, for one. Demonstrating efficacy is not easy and often the P-value for so-called statistical significance is set at 0.05, which might be a wee bit too high. It means that there is a one-in-twenty chance that the ‘efficacy’ was caused by random noise in the data. Another way of putting is that if you were repeating the trial 20 times, one would show ‘efficacy’ when in reality there is none. This is better odds (happens more often) than throwing a specific number twice in row (e.g. two 6’s) with a dice (i.e. one-in-thirty six).
One of the ways you know you are being lied to is when professionals who know perfectly well that Ivermectin that has an impeccable 40yr record of use in both animals and humans – in the order of billions of doses with virtually zero harm – is now suddenly a dangerous drug that has to be avoided.
Right there is the red flag. These people are knowingly lying to you.
There are two camps in this crisis – one is saying COVID is not real or not serious and are concerned that it's being used as a fig-leaf for authoritarianism. The other group believes COVID is serious and everything is about public health. Both groups are wrong in my view.
COVID is of course real and dangerous but at the same time it's becoming clear that it's being used as an excuse to impose an unjustified removal of human rights and a creeping authoritarianism.
And one of the main tools of that authoritarianism is the shouting down and smearing of people who object to it. It's plain this is no longer a science discussion – it's become an obdurately ideological one.
If the strong trial evidence ivermectin doesn't work is unconvincing, and reason that antiviral concentrations are impossible to actually achieve in humans doesn't persuade people to not take ivermectin, maybe this will:
However, a recent report showed that 85% of all male patients treated in a particular centre with ivermectin in the recent past who went to the laboratory for routine tests were discovered to have developed various forms, grades and degrees of sperm dysfunctions including, low sperm counts, poor sperm morphologies (two heads, Tiny heads Double tails absence of tail’s, Albino sperm calls), azoospermia and poor sperm motility [6]. Several studies done on animals also showed similar findings [7, 8]. However, study on human on the effect of ivermectin therapy on male fertility is scanty. It is therefore the aim of this study to investigate the effect of ivermectin on the sperm functions of onchocerciasis patients.
I've commented on this before but it's worth saying again – while living in Tawa during the 00's my partner socially encountered two separate people who both contracted a serious illness while working at NZ's own CRC biolab in Porirua. In both cases management covered it up.
A booster dose of Sinovac Biotech's Covid-19 vaccine reversed a decline in antibody activities against the Delta variant, a study showed, easing some concerns about its longer-term immune response to the highly contagious strain of the virus.
The study comes amid concerns about the Chinese vaccine's efficacy against Delta, which has become the dominant variant globally and is driving a surge in new infections even in the most vaccinated countries.
_ Reuters
Because it is a Chinese vaccine some will wish to refute the study on political grounds.
Could someone with a bit more science savvy than me (not hard) explain how immunity can dwindle .I'd understood that once having encountered the Covid synthetic spike proteins, our immune systems have learnt how to fight the virus, and recognise and remember when they are exposed to the virus again
Does our immune system somehow forget?
I get that the original vaccines were developed to fight the existing strains around at the time and might not work so well for new variants, but how does a booster of the same vaccine help in that case?
It isn’t the vaccine that loses its efficacy, it is the multiple disease specific immune responses in the recipients of the vaccines.
All any vaccine does is to point out disease proteins and structures to the bodies immune system, and let it recognise that disease. The body manufactures its responses to defend against those intruders.
In a holistic sense what happens is that it costs the body quite a lot of to maintain a high level of immune alert, so over time without the presence of the disease, the bodies defences will slowly diminish to a watching brief. That can get overwhelmed if the body is exposed to a high viral load in the environment or if the bodies immune responses get diminished (for example when getting drunk too frequently or getting adult onset diabetes).
The reason why these vaccines are done in series is to keep the threat alive for the bodies defences which over a series of shots over time builds up a higher ‘priority’ and longer term defences. It is a way of ‘talking’ to the immune system to say over and over again – ‘watch out for this!’.
A very rough example of the process (ie the numbers are bogus but in the right kind of order for the current vaccinces) – you get a shot and it give you something like a 80% effectiveness. You get second shot 6 weeks later and you get 95% effectiveness. That slowly diminishes over 6 months to 85%. You get third shot then and it puts you up at 95% again – and it now takes 12 months to drop to 85%. Repeat as required.
Now you could probably make a one shot vaccine that triggers a 95% response immediately. But that would probably make a number of recipients quite sick.
You get a high immunity, but it also gives 4% chance of a adverse reaction rather than 0.04% chance. That is because your immune responses tend to be pretty dumb, and the often over-react to what look like severe infections and diseases.
Obviously then risk from the cure is worse than the disease from that treatment – so a more attenuated vaccine is used.
There should always be a strict statistical and careful analysis of any treatment, especially vaccines, because there are virtually no treatments that don’t have side effects. You need to figure out the risk/benefit profiles and balance them across whatever population you’re trying to treat.
Which is why using a parasitical treatment in horse sized doses for a completely different purpose is so bloody stupid. So far it appears to have no significiant benefits against covid-19, and in large quantities or to the wrong person it has some significiant risks. There aren’t the systematic studies to indicate what those risks and benefits are.
That is the gist of the logic behind all vaccines. Vaccines are way of getting peoples bodies a better chance at fighting off a specific disease. The extent to which they work really depends on just how responsive and individual’s immune system is. Which is why there are a list of conditions about who should not use each of them – based again on statistical risk/benefits.
It's not just the dose size, it's also the release profile once taken and whether the other contents of the pill are to us the equivalent of chocolate to dogs.
Like, I have been prescribed two types of dicolfenac: 12.5mg and 75mg (with a max of 150mg/day). Pharmacist pointed out that one 75mg isn't the same as half a dozen 12.5mg pills because they're quicker release for acute pain, rather than a treatment for chronic issues, and it's a great way to screw your kidneys or something.
Yes, a lot of the most common anti-inflammatories are nephrotoxic over time. My late wife's kindeys were destroyed by 30 years of them. She had a particularly painful & aggressive kind of arthritis in her major joints. Her last 9 years were spent on peritoneal dialysis.
Yeah, one of the reasons that medical trials for general release treatments are so large is because they're looking for the optimal dosing regimes as well.
Got my 2nd Covid 19 jab today. Only had a mildly sore upper arm the following day last time.
We were rather late getting the initial invites to apply as 65+ cohort in Wgtn. My invitation came by text the evening after Ardern had announced that afternoon that all in that cohort had now been sent invitations.
(Level 4 lockdown was announced as coming into effect the next day after I got home.)
I'm happy enuf. My lungs are pretty stuffed. If I get Covid 19 unvaccinated it's likely to be "all over Rover" for me.
My first jab is scheduled for Friday. That was the first date that I could get a couple of months ago within an easy cycling distance after the first age cohort under 65 was opened.
I'd have chased one earlier (I have a stent from a previous heart attack), but as a computer programmer with a limited interest in a social life, I live a reasonably constrained life anyway. As an ex-medic and a person with an interest in the history of epidemics, I am really cautious about infections. Plus we went straight into level 4.
Which is why using a parasitical treatment in horse sized doses for a completely different purpose is so bloody stupid.
Using the wrong dose of anything is completely stupid, and on that basis you can discredit all therapeutic treatments – even the vaccines themselves. All you're attempting there is smear by association.
And of course there are many drugs that turn out to have multiple actions and a diverse range of uses. The term 'off label" doesn't mean useless – it just means that clinicians find broader uses for a drug beyond the original official approvals. This has been common practice for decades.
And finally the one aspect of this whole discussion that totally irks me is the notion that the entire human immune system consists of vaccine induced anti-bodies and nothing else. Again we've known for decades that it's a much more complex system than this and that when it comes to virus's the antibody component of the system is relatively unimportant. Virus's are nothing more than bits of RNA that enter cells and hijack them from the inside – while antibodies are very large molecules that are outside the cell. The two actually don't meet each other directly.
If you recall the AIDs epidemic you should remember that what is actually important in destroying virus infected cells are a completely different part of your immune system, the T-cells. The dangerous aspect of HIV was that it defeated the T-cell system and opened up the body to opportunistic attack from other virus's. The point to bear in mind here is that T-cell lymphocytes and B-cell antibodies are different aspects of the immune system and that measuring antibody response only captures one aspect it.
The reason why the immune system is so complex is because there are so many classes of threat – bacteria, virus's, parasites and fungi are the main four. As a result we've evolved a complex immune system that has many components each working in tandem – and in the case of virus attack the lead actor are the T-cell lymphocytes (white blood cells) that recognise and kill virus infected cells. The B-cell antibodies are best thought of as the clean up crew. This NIH article is a good description:
All six previously known coronaviruses spark production of both antibodies and memory T cells. In addition, studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-1 have shown that T cells stick around for many years longer than acquired antibodies. So, Bertoletti’s team set out to gain a better understanding of T cell immunity against the novel coronavirus.
The researchers gathered blood samples from 36 people who’d recently recovered from mild to severe COVID-19. They focused their attention on T cells (including CD4 helper and CD8 cytotoxic, both of which can function as memory T cells). They identified T cells that respond to the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid, which is a structural protein inside the virus. They also detected T cell responses to two non-structural proteins that SARS-CoV-2 needs to make additional copies of its genome and spread. The team found that all those recently recovered from COVID-19 produced T cells that recognize multiple parts of SARS-CoV-2.
Next, they looked at blood samples from 23 people who’d survived SARS. Their studies showed that those individuals still had lasting memory T cells today, 17 years after the outbreak. Those memory T cells, acquired in response to SARS-CoV-1, also recognized parts of SARS-CoV-2.
Finally, Bertoletti’s team looked for such T cells in blood samples from 37 healthy individuals with no history of either COVID-19 or SARS. To their surprise, more than half had T cells that recognize one or more of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins under study here. It’s still not clear if this acquired immunity stems from previous infection with coronaviruses that cause the common cold or perhaps from exposure to other as-yet unknown coronaviruses.
In the context of COVID the presence of B-cell antibodies is a good measure of whether or not you have been infected or vaccinated recently – but probably doesn't say anything much about the ability of your immune system as a whole to defeat another exposure.
All you're attempting there is smear by association.
Read it again. In particular the paragraph preceding your quoted section where I said…
There should always be a strict statistical and careful analysis of any treatment, especially vaccines, because there are virtually no treatments that don’t have side effects. You need to figure out the risk/benefit profiles and balance them across whatever population you’re trying to treat.
That is the crucial step in determining if a treatment should be used – because in the end there is simply no other effective way at present to determine the risk profiles and benefits of a treatment.
With invermectin, so far what small and largely anecdotal studies have been done (once you exclude the bullshit study that got withdrawn because analysis showed that the numbers were largely made up) the statistics don't appear to show any significiant benefit even as a Hail Mary treatment in reducing mortality. There is now however considerable anecdotal evidence that taking horse sized doses on invermectin is dangerous to all sorts of systems on humans – which is presumably why clinical studies on that kind of dose haven't happened..
And finally the one aspect of this whole discussion that totally irks me is the notion that the entire human immune system consists of vaccine induced anti-bodies and nothing else.
Which is why I tend to say immune system rather than anti-bodies or t-cells or anything else. There are a lot of systems involved from the auto-destruct genes that fail when the cell itself perceives damages inside cells through to the bone marrow immune cell manufacturing sites.
Immunity levels vary based on the bodies assessment of threat levels. On differing times scales – sure. But if you grab any multi-cellular and drop them into a sterile environment for a while, then the whole set of defence responses drops. If the organism doesn't need something them it pushes resources into something else..
It seems it's a conundrum not yet fully understood.
"Yet no one knows precisely how VLPs prod the immune system to make LLPCs. Schiller points to the work of Nobel Prize winner Rolf Zinkernagel of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and his then–graduate student Martin Bachmann. They reported 25 years ago that dense, highly repetitive proteins on the surfaces of viruses trigger the strongest antibody responses. A VLP is just such a structure. In theory, that allows the viral antigens to "cross-link" to many receptors on the surface of B cells. That, in turn, triggers a cascade of signals in immune cells that lead to strong, durable antibodies. How? "That's the million-dollar question," Slifka says."
“Researchers are ramping up efforts to figure out why some vaccines protect for mere weeks but others work for life.We simply dont know what the rules are to inducing long-lasting immunity,says Plotkin, who began to research vaccines in 1957. For years, we were making vaccines without a really deep knowledge of immunology. Everything of course depends on immunologic memory, and we have not systematically measured it.”
Slifka has also done work on the diptheria and tetanus boosters for adults, finding them unnecessary if all shots were received in childhood
" because the cells that do the remembering can die off over time."
Not really correct. In some cases the T cells, which are replicating continually, pass the relevant information on to the next generation and when prompted to provide immunity do so for a considerable time.
In some cases this doesn't happen particularly effectively. If it was known why and this could be mitigated, somebody could get immensely rich
There’s a rather thick wrap-around blanket service for each and every ICU patient that is expensive, but it takes more than just (!) money to run and expand.
New Zealand trained ICU nurses are already some of the best trained in the world.
They just need to be paid more. Along with the attendant "… physiotherapists, pharmacists, speech and language therapists … dieticians, healthcare assistants, orderlies, all the people who increase the functioning of an organisation."
“In terms of the training we provide, unfortunately for us, if you train in New Zealand in ICU you’re in high demand in the rest of the world.
“Particularly for nurses, who are leaving to work in Australia for30 percent more salary.”
It takes about 2 years experience to be well trained just on ventilators and the myriad other very special bits of equipment in the units, lots to look out for, lots to do and that is on top of all the other ICU/HDU skills and protocols required.
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 ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
I’ve just seen someone say that the LynnMall attacker targeted white people. Have I missed something? Is there evidence of this?
Yes, I saw a young Kiwi female witness on three news, who said she was there in the supermarket, appeared to be of Indian descent, and said that the attacker wasn't interested in her, that he seemed to be (she paused to think about how to put it) specifically going after white people.
I was quite surprised they showed it.
Can't remember now if it was the night of the attack or the following night. She's the only witness I've seen saying that. And I don't know if she's accurate – but I've seen someone else report this witness's claim in an online news article or possibly on Kiwiblog too.
Might still be viewable on the on demand three news?
Not that I'm aware of. But few of us are privy to his thoughts and writings. Those that had dealings with him, including his family and friends, may know more.
He apparently wrote that if he was sent back to Sri Lanka he would seek out "Kiwi scums", whatever that means.
Yes I saw the interview Gezza mentions and she said he seemed to target white people and ignored her.
This lifted from last night's Daily Review, on a twitter thread:
We don't want to get Covid in any form. Anything the government does to keep it running rampant in our society is worth backing – and to hell with the economy!
Think you might need a from in there Tony
I agree
wishful thinking Tony, it will be near impossible to keep covid out forever
Imho the longer we keep Covid out, the better off Kiwis and the NZ economy will be, so why not stick with the Covid elimination strategy until it's clear (as in NSW) that the team can't quell community outbreaks in NZ. Level Delta 2 tomorrow!
NZ is in the totally enviable position of having a genuine choice (elimination strategy vs freedums strategy); I'd rather we didn't surrender that choice willingly.
Unite against COVID-19
https://covid19.govt.nz
Letters in the SMH say that NSW has greatly reduced testing-this is why it appears Covid cases have reached a plateau.
Rumour has it that ScoMo's mate Boris ordered the same approach in the UK.
"Near impossible" is not, impossible.
Many experts say that achieving herd immunity is near impossible.
Which of course means, achieveing herd immunity is possible, (but difficult).
As John F. Kennedy said, "We don't do these things because they are easy, we do these things because they are hard".
So what would it take?
We don't know what level of the population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19, because it has never been done before.
But we do know that for measles, another highly transmissable disease, herd immunity is achieved when 95% of the population has been vaccinated.
Is 95% vaccination coverage our target?
Is that what we want?
If that is what we want, can we the team of 5 million pull it off?
Could 95% of us be vaccinated?
Do we have the sort of visionary leadership that could inspire the team of 5 million to achieve that level of vaccnation coverage?
Can 95% of us be inspired to go for it?
With determined leadership, with inspiring messaging appealing to national pride, I believe it is possible.
"Let's do this!"
Appealing to national pride. I’m backing, the world beating, New Zealand, 'All Vax'
🙂
All Vax vs Wallabies?
The government could recruit the Rugby Union and their outgoing sponsor AIG to the vaccination cause.
To spearhead the campaign, the National Team 'All Blacks', be renamed 'All Vax', for the period of the crisis.
Can we please get Winston and NZ First back into Government and get some Sanity back into the Asylum in Wellington.
In a queue of 100 for my first jab at a stadium, I'm not even sure what sanity would now look like.
How'd it go?
Got mine this arvo at the old Appliance Shed building. Just a couple minutes wait inside, no queues at all.
Quickest jab ever. I swear, she nailed me with that harpoon and delivered the payload before the swab even hit the rubbish bin.
Only side effect so far is I kinda stuck hard to the door frame getting in the car to leave. Wasn't expecting the magnet effect to be so strong.
I highly recommend good Anti-Virus software because you don’t want to get hacked. The monthly software updates can be tedious and the unscheduled patches are frustrating, but shit happens and not everything gets caught in beta-testing stage.
Do you install it like this?
No, no, no!
You have to lick the shiny surface of the CD-ROM to properly install it. Make sure you do this anti-clockwise or you might get a DDoS Error, which is not good and you have to reinstall everything from scratch. After that, you restart the system and wear it as in the photo to complete the installation and make sure it is working properly. Never ever eat cookies before you lick on the disk!
Just had a CIA MIB knock on the door warning me about Pfizer's Ukraine testing lab.
Seriously, Te Wanau Waipereira had 30 cars lined up by 8am for the 8.30am kickoff..
Tonnes of polite staff, from traffic to parking to registation to jabs to aftercare.
Having previously been registered for the now-defunct Elliot Street one, I was very happy with the service.
Yeah, pretty slick operation with a positive friendly vibe all around.
I'd expect nothing less from secret conspiracists trying to hide the truth that they're all in thrall to shapeshifting reptilian alien overlords trying to control our minds.
With a Vacuum on the right it would be easy for any politician to make a mark how ever looking at Winston's ability to communicate has diminished and given its 2 years before another election .if he doesn't make the 5% threshold he will be useful in keeping National from the govt benches.His handbrake style of politics didn't go down well last time if National find a better leader Winston's protest vote will disappear .
If more people agreed with you, he would be.
But they don't
Sanity is what this Government is doing. Insanity is "opening up" "living with the virus" before people are able to be vaccinated.
Look at Britain. Now losing a "jumbo jet load" of people every three days. All their systems strained or curtailed.
We are struggling to manage getting enough vaccine from producers and to get people to understand that each transmission means we may have a worse version to fight.
What is required is patience and a collective effort to reach full vaccination, coupled with health approaches to limit outbreaks and to minimise their effects.
Well said Patricia. Insanity is the rest of the world right now, NZ is sane.
Agree Patricia…but don 't you mean "dying with the virus"
Winston and NZ First: sanity? More like complete ignorance and incoherence. Here's the poor old fellow back in 2015 trying, and failing, to enunciate a position on a pressing matter…
That's brilliant for reminding us why we don't need Winston, Morrissey.
Talking of polis that have disappeared, isn't it wonderful that nobody talks about Trump any more.
… isn't it wonderful that nobody talks about Trump any more.
Unfortunately, my friend, people are not only talking about him, they're talking him up, bigtime….
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/05/politics/melania-trump-out-of-the-public-eye-2024/index.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/07/trump-campaign-operation-2024-510013
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/07/trump-run-president-2024-sean-spicer
If they must bring back an ex-President, I would suggest President Bush….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLuALBnolM
Love the Black Tony Blair.
Thanks for the links Morrissey. I guess what I was really saying is that the news outside the USA used to be full of Trump and now it isn't. It's certainly plausible that Trump would beat Biden next time around.
What are the arrangements for politician to be at parliament at level 3?
Dr Shane Reti on RNZ this morning mentioned sharing dinner with Judith and several Nat MPs last night. How many bubbles did that burst?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018811287/reti-not-sure-how-movement-around-ak-will-work-with-levels
He mentioned it in response to a question about an attempted "spill". Was he naming Judith's supporters?
Reduced number of MPs as I recall. As long as they're socially distancing there needn't be a problem with that small group of participants described sharing a meal in a sizeable room.
Poor Collins. I'm not politically tribal. I reckon the mainstream media really are rather unfair how much more they seem to be cheerleading to get her dumped by National as leader than I recall them being with Andrew Little before he handed over to Ardern.
But Collins is her own worst enemy. Even when she's got decent political ammunition to work with, she's one of the worst, most awkward communcators I've seen or heard in interviews.
She gets flustered when ambushed & frequently burbles nonsense. I've even heard her recently saying the complete opposite to what she meant. She remained blissfully unaware of it.
Reti, by comparison, in that audio link is streets ahead of her as a communicator.
Well Little tended not to go at their throats like a pitbull with the scent of postie in its nostrils, which might explain it. Paw Judy.
No, but he did bark at every passing car & was often vague about Labour's solutions when questioned. I never agreed with the Angry Andy label his opponents’ supporters sometimes used. He came across as humourless.
Collns by comparison tries too hard to be witty & often ends up just being gauche. She's hopeless responding to questions, vague, lacking detail & often inaccurate.
She criticised Press Gallery journos in a recent tv one interview for not "asking the hard questions" of Ardern and just asking "how she feels".
I've watched all Ardern's standups re Level 4. I know what Collins means. Several of the gallery journos give Ardern an easy ride, & are quite deferential, imo. But she DOES get asked tricky questions. And nobody has ever actually said "How do you feel?"
Collins is too vague & flippant for her own good.
Level 2 restrictions of 50 in a room won't affect National's caucus, then…………
Heh, shit they could just about all take there partners to .
Half of them could and still have room for Mr Goodfellow and partner. 32 +16 +2.
Mr Muller is already isolated from caucus to make 32.
I wonder how many will be resigning before the next election? Nick Smith already gone. Who's next?
Brownlee? Collins after being rolled? Bridges after his machinations have failed? Bishop who might find that life begins at forty? Brown who discovers the same at thirty?
Bishop often comes acrosss well but he's never going to live down that abominable performance as spokesperson for Big Tobacco with the sadly late Greg Boyed on Q+A. That probably rules him out as a leader prospect. If not for that he might be in the running.
Six Palestinian prisoners escape Israeli jail through tunnel
Israeli authorities have launched a manhunt after six Palestinian prisoners escaped from one of the country's most secure jails overnight.
The men are believed to have dug a hole in the floor of their cell at Gilboa prison, then crawled through a cavity and tunnelled beneath the outer wall.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58460702
Yes, it's headlining on Al Jazeera tv.
Al Jazeera tv news: Palestinians are gearing up for trouble as Israeli security forces look likely to be entering their territories in force & going hard out to find them.
Aljaz tv news update: At the same time, Palestinians in the occupied territories are shown celebrating this small "victory over the Israeli military machine", and in Gaza they're handing out sweets.
Israelis are concerned some of the escapees may be planning attacks.
Israelis are concerned some of the escapees may be planning attacks.
??? You mean Israeli politicians and their media megaphones are claiming that. In the rational world, protests against the outlaw state continue…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/184514933@N07/albums/72157719788588076
https://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk/events/
Well, it was a voiceover by the AlJazeera reporter, with a quick comment by a middle-aged civilian car driver.
Aljaz tv tends to be biased towards the Palestinian viewpoint, as am I. Pisses me off the US has done so much to defend the continual Israeli stealing of more & more Palestinian land & Trump made it even worse.
But I have little hope of an eventual successful resolution of what to me is now an intractable problem in Israel/Palestine, Morrissey.
Not while Hamas remains committed even in its 2017 Charter to completely extinguishing the Israeli state, which I don't think is appropriate, & it and Islamic Jihad are prepared to mount & encourage suicidal attacks among young Palestinians who now have no hope of their own sizeable state, & while Israel has got away with creating walled Palestinian territory bantustans, & making Gaza the biggest open-air concentration camp in the world, with Israel the uncontested & ruthless regional military & security superpower.
The Brits & the UN have a lot to answer for. But the situation is now what is & I can't see how it will improve.
Not while Hamas remains committed even in its 2017 Charter…
???? Have you ever expressed qualms about the United States Declaration of Independence, with its notorious racist ranting about "the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions"?
If not, why not? Why do you single out the language of the Hamas Charter?
Much of what you have written shows you to be a thoughtful and considered person; I would counsel you against being led by dodgy political commentators and right wing newspaper columnists into denouncing the democratically elected government of the Palestinian Territories.
The US DOI is a separate issue, Morrissey. In these more enlightened days (well, for some) it's obvious that the European settler migrants & their descendants decimated, marginalised, & stole the lands & cultures of the North American first peoples. They have a hard road getting such damage redressed in any fair & meaningful way.
My view is that the Brits & the UN had no moral right to give Palestinian land to Jewish settlers for the re-creation of a Jewish state, without the prior consent of the Palestinian Arabs. But it happened. Largely because of the holocaust, Imo. The lead up to it was bloody & there were atrocities & massacres on both sides. The Israelis adopted many British practices (like blowing up the houses of Arab resisters & treating them like shit).
The Israelis had the best (British) trained & experienced army officers, & following their declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel they creamed the Arab armies who were hopeless by comparison. And they continued to do it until the Arab countries gave up attacking them.
The bigger Arab countries these days pay lip service only to supporting the Palestinians – not counting those who've concluded peace treaties with Israel.
Hamas & Islamic Jihad both have the fundamentalist Islamist objective of wiping Israel out. (So does Iran.) So even though Hamas was democratically elected in Gaza (because Fatah was perceived as corrupt, compromised by Israel, & impotent – unable to stop Israeli illegal settlement building & secure the Palestinian right of return of their diaspora) they end up looking like muderous fanatics.
Palestinians have no hope of matching military might with Israel. So Hamas is forced to use tactics like unguided missiles, suicide missions, sending young Palestinians to protests & loosing incendiary balloons into Israel, while Israel gets away with murdering Palestinian innocents by the score in brutal military response as "collateral damage" (only the yanks could come up with such a term). And the world basically doesn't give a shit any more, so long as Israel eventually stops slaughtering them after each major clash when the clamour against it gets too loud.
Too many Israelis have been born in Israel now. They can't be seriously expected to be eventually exterminated as a state as Hamas wants. Israel/Palestine is the UN's greatest failure, in my opinion.
European settler migrants & their descendants decimated, marginalised, & stole the lands & cultures of the North American first peoples.
"Decimated"? They exterminated far more than one in ten.
Hamas & Islamic Jihad both have the fundamentalist Islamist objective of wiping Israel out. (So does Iran.)
Wrong in all three cases. You are simply repeating black propaganda.
…. eventually exterminated as a state as Hamas wants.
Again, you're repeating a ruthless lie. The only exterminationist ideology in that area of the world comes out of the outlaw regime in Tel Aviv, and its fanatical backers in the United States and Britain.
FGS. I didn't use "decimated"in the strictly Roman army sense. They were basically wiped out. Few I know would think otherwise.
Re Hamas, no I'm not. I don't believe most of what I hear from the Israel / US propaganda machine. And I don't believe them on this.
I've done my own extensive research over months into Hamas & its Charter or Covenant. Happy to agree to disagree.
Colditz! Or at least Stalag Luft III.
Listening 9 till noon Kathryn Ryan interviewing a research scientist about saliva testing for Covid .She is saying it is easier and just a accurate and that we need to be testing at higher rates around outbreaks and at borders once a week is not enough twice a week is much safer especially with the Delta variant.
She is saying that other opinions from renowned scientists was being shut out by the NZ health response this needs to be looked into by this govt urgently maybe some bone for Collins and Seymour to pick on that's real and not made up for a change.
when folks start saying scientists are "renowned", I start getting suspicious.
We do need more testing (mostly to boost the odds of detecting the index case in the wild, rather than a couple of transfers down the line), but it depends where the bottleneck is. If it's the number of swabs, fine. If it's the number of pcr machines, supplies, or accredited techs, switching tests won't improve anything.
Collins and rimmer will pick at antything. There's nothing with meat relating to the covid response, though – all the govt needs to do is point to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, that also applies to shit where improvement has been too slow: housing, for example.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.tvnz.co.nz/news/story/JTJGY29udGVudCUyRnR2bnolMkZvbmVuZXdzJTJGc3RvcnklMkYyMDIxJTJGMDklMkYwNiUyRnNhbGl2YS10ZXN0
However, last year is a long time ago in the field of SARS-Cov-2 research. There have been considerable developments in the past month which seem to be living up to the hype (and a seriously dope acronym – SHERLOCK = Specific High sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing)):
https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/a-test-that-detects-covid-19-variants-in-your-spit/
The CRISPR tech involved is fascinating. But the important point is that the test is done in the unit, and does not need to be sent off to a PCR lab.
So the SalivaDirect team seem to have sent their resident kiwi in to flog their obsoleted product onto the NZ government while they still can. At least it's better than Shield.
She was talking about one specific test wasn't she. What do we know about its price and availability?
https://sptnkne.ws/HjYA
Legitimate worry.
Standby for predictable reply from Ad.
Have you enough independent thought of your own to give us a brief tl;dr in your own words?
Y'know, a few hints as to the topic etc. Rather than just dropping a (frankly seriously dodgy-looking propaganda) link as a bit of flame-bait?
So, you post a non-intelligible link just so that you can needle someone else here?
It is a legitimate worry, so it's a legitimate comment. I can't help it if it needles the anti all Russian brigade.
What exactly is “a legitimate worry”, in your opinion?
Without any commentary or explanation, it is not “a legitimate comment”.
Why do you find it necessary or justified to needle another commenter, i.e., Ad, to be specific?
If you have an issue with Ad’s Posts and/or comments you need to address those in a proper and adequate way. You seem to be unable to do so, or just not willing to put in the mahi.
Why do you say that “[you] can't help it if it needles the anti all Russian brigade.” when you deliberately and intentionally wrote it in such a way that it would do exactly that?
Why are you playing the victim?
Why are you being disingenuous?
Russia are the biggest hackers in the world who would know if this is true or not I would suspect not given Russia's c invasion of former Soviet states.The US would not want research falling into Russian hands.
There's this little leap your source has made, from biological to 'military biological', which they evidently cannot verify or they'd have raised it under the UN Biological Weapons Convention. Credulity r us.
Not much of a leap as it happens
“The Central Public Health Reference Laboratory was inaugurated in April 2011, and Andrew Weber, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs took part in the ceremony (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=23257). Washington allotted $100 million for its construction, according to unofficial information (http://civil.ge/rus/article.php?id=23744). US officials openly stated that the laboratory would participate in the analysis of strategic biological risks. “The US Army plans to place specialists there that will work on these issues alongside the Georgians,” US Ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland noted (http://nregion.com/pda/txt.php?id=44549
https://jamestown.org/program/georgian-authorities-take-over-joint-us-georgian-biological-research-facility-under-russian-pressure/
from your link
Georgian authorities have finally realized that Russia is irritated not by the type of scientific research being carried out at this laboratory, but by the very existence of a Georgian-US military facility in the post-Soviet space—which then-President Dmitry Medvedev famously referred to as Russia’s zone of “privileged interest”
So, rather than a 'legitimate worry' even your link confesses that this is merely Russian agitprop – not US aggression to take seriously, but Russia imposing its will on states unfortunate enough to have so belligerent a neighbour. Like the satirical boggies, hearts and minds play no part in Russian diplomacy:
any small, slow, and stupid beast that turned its back on a crowd of boggies was looking for a stomping. ~ Bored of the Rings
You were disputing the military involvement , calling it a little leap
I don't recall using the term "a legitimate worry"
No, that was your fellow traveler Bydonz – your link debunked his thesis, such as it was.
Yah boo sucks!
Sputnik say no more
Lying Russians
Us only interested in keeping shipping lanes open , women and girls protection, human rights, democracy , freedom of the press
They're the least militant nation on earth, never use sanctions as an economic weapon,
have only the well being of the planet and humanity in mind
Russians are bad, its their nature, they can't help it.They also have low home ownership rates, have been brainwashed and have bad teeth and awful hygiene habits
The Ukrainians opposition members complaining are secret Russian sympathisers
Need I go on ?
And need I add the sarc tag?
You forgot the vodka.
Too obvious, unsubtle.oh ..sorry
That satirical spray sounds exactly like Rachel "Russia Russia Russia" Maddow when she's pretending to be serious.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/518586-glenn-greenwald-tells-megyn-kelly-he-has-been-formally-banned-from-msnbc
https://rnzcgp.org.nz/RNZCGP/News/College_news/2021/College_of_GPs_comes_out_against_Ivermectin_for_COVID-19_treatment.aspx
In simple terms, until new data comes in and until further notice, stay away from it.
I gotta admit, I kinda get frustrated by the usual wording of "no evidence supports". It makes it sound like it's still a completely open unresearched question.
The actual situation with respect to ivermectin is that there have been two large scale well-designed, well conducted trials (Lopez-Medina in Colombia, and the Together trial by McMaster University) with significantly different dosage protocols, that both found negligible benefit over placebo.
To me, a better wording would be something like "the best evidence to date shows no benefit from using ivermectin".
"no evidence to support" is a phrase used in medicine, psychology etc and is well understood in those circles.
"The best evidence to date" could carry the implication that the evidence being spoken of is high quality. Very often, particularly in psychology evidence can be poor e.g. sample seletion biases, lack of randomized control, errors in methodology.
You would not want to imply that this is the "best evidence to date"……….its would suggest the evidence is high quality.
"no evidence to support" is indeed the common professional phrase almost universally used within the profession.
But when there is in fact strong evidence that something is ineffective, such as the evidence ivermectin is ineffective against covid, continuing to use that specific phrase rather than something stronger is misleading to non-professionals.
It also makes it easy for misinformation artists to misrepresent the true state of understanding.
It sounds like you know better than those whose work involves accessing evidence Andre.
A bit like the "evolution is just a 'theory'" line.
Clinical trials are not designed to show that something is ineffective, as it would be unethical, for one. Demonstrating efficacy is not easy and often the P-value for so-called statistical significance is set at 0.05, which might be a wee bit too high. It means that there is a one-in-twenty chance that the ‘efficacy’ was caused by random noise in the data. Another way of putting is that if you were repeating the trial 20 times, one would show ‘efficacy’ when in reality there is none. This is better odds (happens more often) than throwing a specific number twice in row (e.g. two 6’s) with a dice (i.e. one-in-thirty six).
One of the ways you know you are being lied to is when professionals who know perfectly well that Ivermectin that has an impeccable 40yr record of use in both animals and humans – in the order of billions of doses with virtually zero harm – is now suddenly a dangerous drug that has to be avoided.
Right there is the red flag. These people are knowingly lying to you.
There are two camps in this crisis – one is saying COVID is not real or not serious and are concerned that it's being used as a fig-leaf for authoritarianism. The other group believes COVID is serious and everything is about public health. Both groups are wrong in my view.
COVID is of course real and dangerous but at the same time it's becoming clear that it's being used as an excuse to impose an unjustified removal of human rights and a creeping authoritarianism.
And one of the main tools of that authoritarianism is the shouting down and smearing of people who object to it. It's plain this is no longer a science discussion – it's become an obdurately ideological one.
Oh my.
If the strong trial evidence ivermectin doesn't work is unconvincing, and reason that antiviral concentrations are impossible to actually achieve in humans doesn't persuade people to not take ivermectin, maybe this will:
A brief squiz with google suggests this actually is legit research and not just a wind-up someone just hokied up.
(h/t polecat at DailyKos)
So it might not treat covid, but could be a plausible "male pill"…
Not a very effective one, but yeah.
Every sperm is
scaredsacred [my dyslexia is flaring up under stress].The lamentable safety history of biolabs in the US
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/28/biolabs-pathogens-location-incidents/26587505/
Russian propaganda from USAToday?
Imagine how more lax would be the standards in the ex Soviet countries
The labs may be perfectly innocent in their intent, but safety?
I wonder
And I wonder how well the US would tolerate Russian founded similar laboratories close to their borders
Good comment, and we know what the US military regime's reaction would be to your last paragraph.
I've commented on this before but it's worth saying again – while living in Tawa during the 00's my partner socially encountered two separate people who both contracted a serious illness while working at NZ's own CRC biolab in Porirua. In both cases management covered it up.
These places leak like sieves.
This is interesting. From RNZ live:
Because it is a Chinese vaccine some will wish to refute the study on political grounds.
Could someone with a bit more science savvy than me (not hard) explain how immunity can dwindle .I'd understood that once having encountered the Covid synthetic spike proteins, our immune systems have learnt how to fight the virus, and recognise and remember when they are exposed to the virus again
Does our immune system somehow forget?
I get that the original vaccines were developed to fight the existing strains around at the time and might not work so well for new variants, but how does a booster of the same vaccine help in that case?
It seems that the current vaccines are effective against the new variants.
You might find this interesting
https://starship.org.nz/health-professionals/starship-update/?fbclid=IwAR3hiKcz9-fTNRgUo-oh8SPqXT7YQI-zvnKvhE_MgA8XVkvemmaOLyeskMk
As for why vaccines loose their efficacy, I don't know. I'll see what I can find
Thanks Brigid
It isn’t the vaccine that loses its efficacy, it is the multiple disease specific immune responses in the recipients of the vaccines.
All any vaccine does is to point out disease proteins and structures to the bodies immune system, and let it recognise that disease. The body manufactures its responses to defend against those intruders.
In a holistic sense what happens is that it costs the body quite a lot of to maintain a high level of immune alert, so over time without the presence of the disease, the bodies defences will slowly diminish to a watching brief. That can get overwhelmed if the body is exposed to a high viral load in the environment or if the bodies immune responses get diminished (for example when getting drunk too frequently or getting adult onset diabetes).
The reason why these vaccines are done in series is to keep the threat alive for the bodies defences which over a series of shots over time builds up a higher ‘priority’ and longer term defences. It is a way of ‘talking’ to the immune system to say over and over again – ‘watch out for this!’.
A very rough example of the process (ie the numbers are bogus but in the right kind of order for the current vaccinces) – you get a shot and it give you something like a 80% effectiveness. You get second shot 6 weeks later and you get 95% effectiveness. That slowly diminishes over 6 months to 85%. You get third shot then and it puts you up at 95% again – and it now takes 12 months to drop to 85%. Repeat as required.
Now you could probably make a one shot vaccine that triggers a 95% response immediately. But that would probably make a number of recipients quite sick.
You get a high immunity, but it also gives 4% chance of a adverse reaction rather than 0.04% chance. That is because your immune responses tend to be pretty dumb, and the often over-react to what look like severe infections and diseases.
Obviously then risk from the cure is worse than the disease from that treatment – so a more attenuated vaccine is used.
There should always be a strict statistical and careful analysis of any treatment, especially vaccines, because there are virtually no treatments that don’t have side effects. You need to figure out the risk/benefit profiles and balance them across whatever population you’re trying to treat.
Which is why using a parasitical treatment in horse sized doses for a completely different purpose is so bloody stupid. So far it appears to have no significiant benefits against covid-19, and in large quantities or to the wrong person it has some significiant risks. There aren’t the systematic studies to indicate what those risks and benefits are.
That is the gist of the logic behind all vaccines. Vaccines are way of getting peoples bodies a better chance at fighting off a specific disease. The extent to which they work really depends on just how responsive and individual’s immune system is. Which is why there are a list of conditions about who should not use each of them – based again on statistical risk/benefits.
If only Ivermectin cured brainworms as well as bodily parasites.
It's not just the dose size, it's also the release profile once taken and whether the other contents of the pill are to us the equivalent of chocolate to dogs.
Like, I have been prescribed two types of dicolfenac: 12.5mg and 75mg (with a max of 150mg/day). Pharmacist pointed out that one 75mg isn't the same as half a dozen 12.5mg pills because they're quicker release for acute pain, rather than a treatment for chronic issues, and it's a great way to screw your kidneys or something.
Yes, a lot of the most common anti-inflammatories are nephrotoxic over time. My late wife's kindeys were destroyed by 30 years of them. She had a particularly painful & aggressive kind of arthritis in her major joints. Her last 9 years were spent on peritoneal dialysis.
Yeah, one of the reasons that medical trials for general release treatments are so large is because they're looking for the optimal dosing regimes as well.
Got my 2nd Covid 19 jab today. Only had a mildly sore upper arm the following day last time.
We were rather late getting the initial invites to apply as 65+ cohort in Wgtn. My invitation came by text the evening after Ardern had announced that afternoon that all in that cohort had now been sent invitations.
(Level 4 lockdown was announced as coming into effect the next day after I got home.)
I'm happy enuf. My lungs are pretty stuffed. If I get Covid 19 unvaccinated it's likely to be "all over Rover" for me.
My first jab is scheduled for Friday. That was the first date that I could get a couple of months ago within an easy cycling distance after the first age cohort under 65 was opened.
I'd have chased one earlier (I have a stent from a previous heart attack), but as a computer programmer with a limited interest in a social life, I live a reasonably constrained life anyway. As an ex-medic and a person with an interest in the history of epidemics, I am really cautious about infections. Plus we went straight into level 4.
Which is why using a parasitical treatment in horse sized doses for a completely different purpose is so bloody stupid.
Using the wrong dose of anything is completely stupid, and on that basis you can discredit all therapeutic treatments – even the vaccines themselves. All you're attempting there is smear by association.
And of course there are many drugs that turn out to have multiple actions and a diverse range of uses. The term 'off label" doesn't mean useless – it just means that clinicians find broader uses for a drug beyond the original official approvals. This has been common practice for decades.
And finally the one aspect of this whole discussion that totally irks me is the notion that the entire human immune system consists of vaccine induced anti-bodies and nothing else. Again we've known for decades that it's a much more complex system than this and that when it comes to virus's the antibody component of the system is relatively unimportant. Virus's are nothing more than bits of RNA that enter cells and hijack them from the inside – while antibodies are very large molecules that are outside the cell. The two actually don't meet each other directly.
If you recall the AIDs epidemic you should remember that what is actually important in destroying virus infected cells are a completely different part of your immune system, the T-cells. The dangerous aspect of HIV was that it defeated the T-cell system and opened up the body to opportunistic attack from other virus's. The point to bear in mind here is that T-cell lymphocytes and B-cell antibodies are different aspects of the immune system and that measuring antibody response only captures one aspect it.
The reason why the immune system is so complex is because there are so many classes of threat – bacteria, virus's, parasites and fungi are the main four. As a result we've evolved a complex immune system that has many components each working in tandem – and in the case of virus attack the lead actor are the T-cell lymphocytes (white blood cells) that recognise and kill virus infected cells. The B-cell antibodies are best thought of as the clean up crew. This NIH article is a good description:
In the context of COVID the presence of B-cell antibodies is a good measure of whether or not you have been infected or vaccinated recently – but probably doesn't say anything much about the ability of your immune system as a whole to defeat another exposure.
Read it again. In particular the paragraph preceding your quoted section where I said…
That is the crucial step in determining if a treatment should be used – because in the end there is simply no other effective way at present to determine the risk profiles and benefits of a treatment.
With invermectin, so far what small and largely anecdotal studies have been done (once you exclude the bullshit study that got withdrawn because analysis showed that the numbers were largely made up) the statistics don't appear to show any significiant benefit even as a Hail Mary treatment in reducing mortality. There is now however considerable anecdotal evidence that taking horse sized doses on invermectin is dangerous to all sorts of systems on humans – which is presumably why clinical studies on that kind of dose haven't happened..
Which is why I tend to say immune system rather than anti-bodies or t-cells or anything else. There are a lot of systems involved from the auto-destruct genes that fail when the cell itself perceives damages inside cells through to the bone marrow immune cell manufacturing sites.
Immunity levels vary based on the bodies assessment of threat levels. On differing times scales – sure. But if you grab any multi-cellular and drop them into a sterile environment for a while, then the whole set of defence responses drops. If the organism doesn't need something them it pushes resources into something else..
It seems it's a conundrum not yet fully understood.
"Yet no one knows precisely how VLPs prod the immune system to make LLPCs. Schiller points to the work of Nobel Prize winner Rolf Zinkernagel of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and his then–graduate student Martin Bachmann. They reported 25 years ago that dense, highly repetitive proteins on the surfaces of viruses trigger the strongest antibody responses. A VLP is just such a structure. In theory, that allows the viral antigens to "cross-link" to many receptors on the surface of B cells. That, in turn, triggers a cascade of signals in immune cells that lead to strong, durable antibodies. How? "That's the million-dollar question," Slifka says."
https://www.science.org/news/2019/04/how-long-do-vaccines-last-surprising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer
Thanks Brigid
Thats a very good link
“Researchers are ramping up efforts to figure out why some vaccines protect for mere weeks but others work for life.We simply dont know what the rules are to inducing long-lasting immunity,says Plotkin, who began to research vaccines in 1957. For years, we were making vaccines without a really deep knowledge of immunology. Everything of course depends on immunologic memory, and we have not systematically measured it.”
Slifka has also done work on the diptheria and tetanus boosters for adults, finding them unnecessary if all shots were received in childhood
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200225075120.htm
Francesca covid is a flu like virus like the flu its continually mutating outsmarting our defence mechanisms.
I think she knows that. If you read the link I offered you'll better understand what it is she's asking
This article does a pretty good job of explaining it in a relatively plain language way – What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/waning-immunity-not-crisis-right-now/619965/
“Does our immune system somehow forget?”
Essentially yes, because the cells that do the remembering can die off over time.
So this would be in the case of viruses rather than bacteria for instance?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200225075120.htm
We need a resident immunologist to answer all these questions.
Every blog should have one.
Good link, explained well
The benefit of boosters are still not clear.
I'd want more info before a third jab., not that the first 2 were any hassle at all, but some countries haven't nearly enough supplies as it is
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/31/biden-booster-plan-fda-508149
FDA getting a bit pissed off with Biden's rush to roll out the booster this month before they've had the time to study the benefits.
" because the cells that do the remembering can die off over time."
Not really correct. In some cases the T cells, which are replicating continually, pass the relevant information on to the next generation and when prompted to provide immunity do so for a considerable time.
In some cases this doesn't happen particularly effectively. If it was known why and this could be mitigated, somebody could get immensely rich
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/auckland-cycle-bridge-missing-from-government-s-24-billion-transport-funding-package.html
Hopefully there will be a quiet announcement in the coming weeks that this silly idea has been dumped.
Of course the cycle bridge will never go ahead. Even 70+% of Labour voters think its a dumb idea.
There’s a rather thick wrap-around blanket service for each and every ICU patient that is expensive, but it takes more than just (!) money to run and expand.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018811173/increasing-icu-bed-numbers-is-not-that-simple
I think it is simple.
New Zealand trained ICU nurses are already some of the best trained in the world.
They just need to be paid more. Along with the attendant "… physiotherapists, pharmacists, speech and language therapists … dieticians, healthcare assistants, orderlies, all the people who increase the functioning of an organisation."
“In terms of the training we provide, unfortunately for us, if you train in New Zealand in ICU you’re in high demand in the rest of the world.
“Particularly for nurses, who are leaving to work in Australia for 30 percent more salary.”
I doubt if any ICU nurses want to head into NSW any time soon.Given there is no travel either.
‘kay
Remember the very recent nursing strikes? What was that all about then?
It takes about 2 years experience to be well trained just on ventilators and the myriad other very special bits of equipment in the units, lots to look out for, lots to do and that is on top of all the other ICU/HDU skills and protocols required.
Is it just me, or is Nick Leggat a whiny little [wood pigeon] who loves the sound of his own voice?
😳 Hard to tell from the limited information provided. 😕
Irony not your strong suit?