An interesting insight on how this cluster might have started – MIQ 20m from a vaccine centre with an exercise yard next to CRL, a large office block and a public walkway. Perfect.
Very interesting, not difficult to fix, but a worry if people in MIQ end up exercising in an enclosed box, presumably this increases chances of infection of people in hotel.
rather than heads rolling, I'd prefer the people in an already stressed and stressful set of systems to be given support to a) sort the issue out asap and b) review the systems that led to both the initial design decision (might have been reasonable at the time) and why it wasn't fixed once concerns were raised.
Rolling heads makes people more stressed and less able to function well. I'm mindful that while some of us have led relatively stress free covid lives for most of the past year, others have always been at the pointy end of the pandemic.
Pathetic weka, this lock down is costing Auckland over $100 million per day and disrupting many, many lives. If the outbreak is linked to the walkway, then heads should absolutely role.
Fuck off Alan and volunteer for helping with the response and find out exactly how stressful dealing with people with a condition that may kill you. I've had a gutsful of you smartarses.
Not that convinced that an economy based on soaring house prices could be called 'shiny happy'… although if you own a home or three already thats a pretty fair assessment on a personal level.
If that's the case then I would like to see the heads roll of all the business 'leaders' who agitated so vociferously for the seemingly unwise Trans-Tasman bubble. Let's slather the blame around fairly shall we, rather than act like entitled pricks and then blame the people at the sharp end of trying to deliver those imagined entitlements.
It always amazes me how quickly organisations like Heart of the City can come up with such figures so fast. Kudos.
Do you think they will be able to calculate the following with the same speed?
How many NZers require assistance (financial or otherwise) to get through the lockdown?
The demographic spread and cumulative financial cost model of letting the disease run rampant?
The direct and indirect health and financial costs to our under resourced health system for the same?
The return on investment for the taxpayer on propping up industries that are no longer beneficial?
The moral value of not insisting on more vaccine supplies when we had no community transmission, when we can see the ravages of the disease and the pressing need for vaccine in other countries that could not enact a controlled border policy even if they wanted to?
I said why heads shouldn't roll, all you've done is assert that heads should roll but not explained why.
You've also not explained why you think heads rolling would be helpful in solving the problems you mention, or why other responses would be worse. Or maybe you just want the punishment?
Appears to be well short of ideal. In my view MIQ should never have been located in urban centres – why governments have failed to act in this obvious respect is a bit of a mystery to me.
Would have been handy if we had an abandoned mining camp 30km out of Auckland or Christchurch. But we didn’t. Repurposed tourist hotels were all we had on hand at the time.
And the howls from the Alans and Davids of our society would have been deafening “too expensive, use private capacity etc etc” if Government had built a purpose built facility 6 – 12 months ago.
If the government had decided to build a purpose built facility 6-12 months ago I doubt construction would have even begun by now…..theres unlikely to be a suitable pre approved design lying around ready to used, nevermind any construction constraints.
And what people don't factor into this purpose built country quarantene, is where will the nurses live? Where will their kids go to school? Oh and the security guards who make sure people don't abscond?
Oh and how many houses that are getting built would be put at the back of the queue.
FFS people. NZs response has been outstanding.
If you don't think they are doing a good job, roll up your sleves and voluteer.
not going to be the last pandemic, and probably not the worst. Might be a good idea to be planning, and designing, for the long haul, not just assuming that covid will end at some point and then it's all over.
Perhaps, except that it helps to know what you are designing for….whos to say what form any future pandemic will take or the best location for any facility to address it….meanwhile this resource constrained country has numerous clearly identified challenges those resources could be applied to.
A purpose built quarantine centre is a logical thought. Then, when a tiny bit of logical thought is applied, all the questions arise.
Realistically, what sort of facility would have been needed for this pandemic? So far there have been 64,500 through MIQ.
Anker (below) refers to the infrastructure needed to keep things going. Ohakea was mentioned last year as a possibility. People fly in from overseas and are housed there. There are more than 4,000 in MIQ right now. A facility big enough to take that number? And housing the staff?
And when the stage arrives of it not being used by more than half a dozen people what happens?
In all the wondrous thinking the thing of actually designing a building, and constructing it? We don't have enough builders, any builders are up to their eyeballs, we aren't building any houses yet suddenly we could magic up a super quarantine centre.
The notion is good, realities something else. Of course at many moments it became a knee-jerk solution, a '"Why haven't they?" bash the government opportunity.
Chris Hipkins has just said on Checkpoint RNZ that there is another facility they can repurpose for quarantine facilities should Jet Park run out of capacity – he would not name it. Good planning judging by the Sydney community outbreak experience.
Jet Park is known, I suspect a floor in a hotel in Wellington or Christchurch would be used for active cases. This is good planning and hopefully another hotel in Auckland will not be required for active Covid cases.
Some of what stuck out for me was returning to Russia in 1906 because the working conditions in the US were worse than where she had come from, and being closely involved with an assassination attempt, and inspiring President McKinley’s assassin.
Thank you Michael Cullen for all you did in a long life of service for our country as a genuine man who lived his values. Lung cancer is not a good way to go. To all his friends and family so sorry for your loss. I look forward to reading his book.
From a visit to the supermarket and having a family members working there, and already hearing what work is like.There is some stress out there and in some cases the police required to attend unhelpful shoppers being disruptive. Remember to make it easy in all of us relax and keep your distance, and smile. Thoughts go out to all workers who have direct contact with customers dealing a full day with stress, we could have weeks of this yet.
A smile doesn't really show through a mask. Maybe a little lift of the eyebrows and a nod?
Last time we had level 4, the craziness died down after a few days and people realised there will be adequate food. I'm not sure what will drive me to go shopping first, running out of milk or running out of pizza. Either way, it's a few days away, thankfully.
open mike, what the hell:
There was one night years ago where a recently-removed punter was screaming in my face for several minutes straight because he'd gotten kicked out. After a while I started to zone out (same old noise and he was all air), and the guy's mates dragged him away to another bar because "he's about to thump you".
To this day I wonder if they were being smart using me as a foil to go somewhere else, or whether I have/had "resting violence face".
Strikes me as being exactly the same job, different medium.
Most of the time it was being nice until folk got the vibe of the place, or hoisting the occasional dickhead who wandered in. And if the tone of the place had slowly decayed over several weeks, kicking out the five worst offenders for the night got everyone back to a safe level.
I found the trick to never taking things personally was just viewing it as a game: they won if I backed down or overreacted, I won if everything went well and they stayed. Kicking them out for the night was a draw.
Hear hear Herodotus. And a shout out to the supermarket workers.
Of course the smile not seen under the mask, but its about the vibe. Be pleasant, be prompt and efficient with unloading groceries while at the check out. Wear your mask, sanitize, buy enough to last a while but don't stock pile.
A school board in Texas has added masks to their dress code – seemingly circumventing Governor Greg Abbott's ban on new COVID-19 restrictions. Face coverings are now part of the dress code for students in the the Paris Independent School District.
In a statement about its amended dress code, the school district board said it believes the "dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues, and therefore has amended the PISD dress code to protect our students and employees."
"The Texas Governor does not have the authority to usurp the Board of Trustees' exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of the public schools of the district," the statement reads. "Nothing in the Governor's Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the Board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with its statutory authority."
People who have been following more closely than I, is that an unusually long time between being infected and being tested? (assuming they had no symptoms when they were on the plane, and testing was the same day as hospitalisation, Monday, the day we were warned of potential community case I think)
The international Air New Zealand crew member, reported yesterday, has now been confirmed as a border-related case, and not linked to the Auckland outbreak, based on the results of whole genome sequencing.
Which would be expected – before we know the actual source, locations going back to the earliest possible infection date for each case is the prudent move.
The flipside is there being a gap of unknown contacts and locations if the source is identified via genome testing and the locations of interest didn't go back far enough.
While most patients recover in about a week, a significant minority of patients enter “a very nasty second wave” of illness, said Dr. Ilan Schwartz, assistant professor of infectious disease at the University of Alberta. “After the initial symptoms, things plateau and maybe even improve a little bit, and then there is a secondary worsening.”
While every patient is different, doctors say that days five through 10 of the illness are often the most worrisome time for respiratory complications of Covid-19, particularly for older patients and those with underlying conditions like high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes.
Quite possibly our own Ministry of Health has warned the Public about this particular aspect of the disease so all can be aware….?
No wish for NZ to become a nation of hyperchondriacs, but best to keep some record of all minor symptoms as insurance against them becoming sufficiently serious to seek advice from your GP etc. Common sense, especially now, imho.
For some reason the gentle defensive protection of "Don't Dream It's Over" (here on Colbert's Late Show today) is apposite to the Covid moment we are now in:
No, the people who should have booked an appointment have failed. Big time. There is such a thing as self responsibility. You can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make it drink.
Oh ffs. are these the same "women with penises" that were supposedly waving them around in a California Locker Room. Can't we have a day off, or create your own post on anti Trans articles so we can choose to not go there. (*at the risk of being told off by moderators)
No debate? This has been debated on here for months, and if you want a genuine debate, knock it off with the "chicks with dicks" meme. Show some respect to the Trans Community while you're trying to debate about excluding them, or create another Womans Space post to discuss it ad infinitum, without offending people who support the Trans Community.
How about not referring to Trans people wandering around with penises. People I know who have transitioned or are transitioning, their penis is the last thing they necessarily want to be associated with. Whatever, I'm no expert, say want you want, but expect blowback when offence is taken.
No. I didn't read the article and don't intend to. Last time an article was presented here with the women with penises line it turned out to be utter bullshit. If the invitation to read something was less offensive maybe I would.
OK, That seemed apparent, yet you felt the need to shut Gabby down, so her callout is justified. You could have ignored it OR read it before commenting. and yet you did neither.
The Wii Spa incident that you refer to "as re these the same "women with penises" that were supposedly waving them around in a California Locker Room." has indeed been discussed here many times without resolution. Despite cries of falsehood, it seems likely that the initial report was true – a male bodied person was in the space reserved for women and girls. Resolving this – and similar situations – is why discussions are necessary.
FWIW, the article was about a lesbian request for exemption from the discrimination act to hold a festival for biological females. In the past this would have allowed them to refuse biological males, but this process now includes gender identity and so has been denied.
I don't know if you are aware of how some active trans activists have targeted the lesbian community, and disrupted their gatherings because lesbians insist on same-sex attraction for their definition, rather than same gender.
How do we resolve these issues, when it is the activists only having a voice?
(I don't think they speak for the whole trans community BTW, but they have promoted a No Debate stance that has been disturbingly picked up on anything to do with gender, as you yourself demonstrate).
Also, I have come across the “chicks with dicks” meme most often on trans activists sites as a concept to be embraced, not on lesbian or feminist sites, and rarely here on TS by those making genuine attempts to engage.
I used the chicks with dicks line as a crude version of the the women with penises line (to highlight its offensiveness), I have never been to a Trans Activists site and despite your slur about me wishing there to be No Debate I would just like the debate to be non offensive to the majority of the Trans Community who I presume don't appreciate the Women with Penises tag line.
There was no 'slur' regarding No Debate – you provided an example and both Francesca and I identified it accurately.
"… I would just like the debate to be non offensive to the majority of the Trans Community who I presume don't appreciate the Women with Penises tag line."
The only one on this thread fixated on this tagline, who introduces it, repeats it, and comprises the whole discussion around it – is you.
Despite that seemingly circular conversation, can we try to find a way forward ?
What are your thoughts on the Tasmanian ruling?
Should lesbians be considered transphobic when they insist on same sex attraction?
Apologies. Completely missed Francesca's line at the end of the original post.
Understand your reaction now, but reiterate I have seen the term embraced and promulgated from within the trans community online. I don't know where we go from here since neither the trans community or women on here are a hive mind.
Perhaps agree not to use the term if we wish for meaningful engagement. unless it has relevance and can't be avoided?
Thanks Molly, I do understand the desire for everyone to have a clear policy so everyone feels safe in their own communities. For the record from someone with "no skin in the game" I think a Trans Woman (regardless of their level of transition) if they consider themselves Lesbian should be welcomed in a Lesbian Group. Men in Frocks should be kicked out on their arse. To tell the difference will be a situation by situation basis. I'm not sure blanket bans will help. I hope they find a solution.
I'm pretty sure many simply don't understand sexual attraction…especially same sex attraction. Do we have to go into pheromones and the like to make it more scientific?
Simply and crudely put…much of sexual attraction is based on smell. Men smell different to women…regardless of gender identity. Not only do biological men not turn lesbians on, they can often spoil the mood for others. Big inconsistency with some transwomen is that by demanding access to lesbian spaces they are proving they are not women enough to understand this.
Thanks for continuing this discussion, despite my error and the discord arising from certain phrases ("women in frocks" seems contentious to me, but just serves to illustrate how salted this minefield we are stepping into is!)
We disagree on the ability for privately run groups to restrict membership or attendance. Apart from the lesbian group in discussion, cancer support groups, rape support networks etc. Particularly spaces where lived experiences etc are to be shared.
This group defines itself as same sex attracted for intimate relationship purposes. As a group that has often been persecuted and maligned, they want to congregate together with others that share that lived experience. As a heterosexual woman, I have no interest in attending, because I understand their wish for privacy and collective understanding – which I do not possess.
"I think a Trans Woman (regardless of their level of transition) if they consider themselves Lesbian should be welcomed in a Lesbian Group"
Perhaps some groups do. Lesbians are not a hive mind, any more than trans women are. But I don't think they should be compelled by law.
" Men in Frocks should be kicked out on their arse."
This ruling means that any group that attempts to do so will be liable for breaching the Discrimination Act – and now we have arrived at the crux of the matter.
Perhaps it's my turn to offer apologies. The men in frocks was a poor attempt to differentiate between men and Trans Women. None of the Trans people I know identify as same sex attracted but my understanding is some do, and to ban them seems harsh to me. I just think if someone (I assume rarely) attends a group and makes people uncomfortable, any number of reasons could be used to discourage their attendance. I'm sure as a gay male they could exclude me for being an insufferable bore. I agree no organisation should be compelled to accept everyone but I think there are genuinely Trans Women who just want to fit in and a blanket exclusion wouldn't help. From what is said here it sounds like Trans Activists are doing the Trans Community a disservice as well. I'll leave the discussion now but thanks and I'll try not to get "triggered" again. Too woke for my own good. 🤞👍
And now that you have cherry picked low-hanging fruit for a school yard giggle, do you want to join the grown-ups in trying to have a respectful conversation?
(The choice is yours. The phrase "low-hanging fruit" was deliberately chosen, so you have material to work with if that's your level of input.)
I was actually half serious. I don't understand why these cis lesbians can't just give people the sniff test and move on. Surely all lesbians aren't attracted to all lesbians anyway?
"I don't understand why these cis lesbians can't just give people the sniff test and move on. Surely all lesbians aren't attracted to all lesbians anyway?"
OK. I'll repeat:
"This group defines itself as same sex attracted for intimate relationship purposes. As a group that has often been persecuted and maligned, they want to congregate together with others that share that lived experience. As a heterosexual woman, I have no interest in attending, because I understand their wish for privacy and collective understanding – which I do not possess."
This does not exclude sexual interaction, but does appreciate that their common lived experiences and ability to share them, is an attraction in itself. Not everything to do with same sex attraction is about the sex act.
'Cis' is a label recently created and liberally imposed without permission, and often used disdainfully.
You may want to check whether that's how you intend to be heard.
I'm pretty sure many simply don't understand sexual attraction…especially same sex attraction. Do we have to go into pheromones and the like to make it more scientific?
Simply and crudely put…much of sexual attraction is based on smell. Men smell different to women…regardless of gender identity. Not only do biological men not turn lesbians on, they can often spoil the mood for others. Big inconsistency with some transwomen is that by demanding access to lesbian spaces they are proving they are not women enough to understand this.
If that is not what it is about then take it up with her.
Cis is just an adjective not a noun. There is nothing disdainful about it. I am a cis man.
Thanks for that. The shortcomings of online discussion are really obvious in these discussions. We don't employ language in agreed ways, we may mistake intended clarity for arrogance, attempts at humour as belittling. Face to face we have nuances of tone and body language to guide us, often with knowledge of past histories with those we are sitting beside. But at least we can try.
Heading out to the garden now, but will share this totally irrelevant song with you for no particular reason (perhaps, use it to build a picture in your mind of me.)
Melancholy and simple, but sometimes melancholy is where I'm at…I'll avoid commentary on the simple…
I was responding to you on the same issue. Do you have an inability to walk and chew gum at the same time?
Your focus is off tangent to the discussion about a discrimination ruling. While attempting to masticate, head back that way,
"Cis is just an adjective not a noun. There is nothing disdainful about it. I am a cis man."
Fair enough that you wish to descibe yourself that way.
Disrespectful is an adjective too.
If you cannot see how those who have railed against sexual based stereotypes are now labelled with an adjective that assumes adherence to those same gender stereotypes, you might want to add that adjective to your noun.
I am a woman, who rejects that the use of that adjective is benign.
The term cis in no way assumes an adherence to gender stereotypes. I am a cis man who is a sole parent (by choice) with long hair who loves gardening and hates thugby. Don't talk twaddle and we might move forward.
"Cis is short for cisgender, which refers to when a person's gender identity corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth…"
How do you define a gender identity consistent with biological sex without resorting to stereotypes?
"…Cisgender is the opposite of transgender."
Does that mean you as a somewhat non-conforming male, and me as a decidedly unfeminine woman are not 'cis'?
Are we really trans gender? But then, if gender stereotypes are truly abandoned, isn't everyone?
(An analogy that comes to mind, is that you are assigning me to Gryffindor house when I'm not enrolled at Hogwarts…and I’m pretty sure Hogwarts doesn’t exist, so only refer to me as ‘cis’ when you are prepared to define what that means in regards to me as an individual.)
I thought about this overnight. It's a difficult situation. Women need to be able to talk about the issues that affect them. And I agree there needs to be a line on that for debate to remain robust but still meaningful and not a shit show.
I don't know where the line is on this particular phrase. For trans women with gender dysphoria, I can see that the phrase would be problematic. For many trans women online, it's apparently not only not an issue, but is something they talk about a lot (being a TW with a penis).
Franscesca could simply have said trans woman.
For me the problem with the Tasmania ruling exists irrespective of the issue of medical surgery or not, but equally obviously, TW (or any male, thanks self-ID) with a penis going to lesbian gatherings is a problem that I hope I don't have to explain. It's hard to see how the word penis can be avoided being used.
No, what lesbians were objecting to was that under the self ID legislation, an unreconstructed male bodied person with penis still attached would be able to attend lesbian events and lesbians would not be able to bar them without fear of prosecutions . The lesbians were not talking about fully transitioned transwomen .
That is the entire point around the self id legislation
I want to exclude people with penises, because being a lesbian is about same-sex attraction. It’s not about same-gendered attraction … There are many events that cater for the trans community in Tasmania that are all-inclusive
But then the article goes on to talk about transwomen without the distinction of full transition , so yes
Either way, there are hotheads on all sides , and some lesbians have been accused of being bigots for not fancying transwomen , penises or otherwise
"The lesbians were not talking about fully transitioned transwomen . "
I think the article is unclear on this. Re-reading it, my take was the same as weka's. Either way, I think they should retain the ability to restrict attendance. As I would also support trans women holding events exclusively for themselves.
"That is the entire point around the self id legislation"
The self-id process is fraught with impacts on the wider community.
One major problem is that the process is not limited to trans people, it will be available to all, and most likely abused by the unscrupulous since no screening or gatekeeping process remains. This is detrimental for the trans community long term.
Do we actually have enough doses currently in the country to vaccinate everyone who wants to?
Is Group 4 already eligible to book an appointment?
Can we keep up with vaccinations when we move medical personal to testing stations?
The best we can do atm is to get everyone jabbed who has booked an appointment and shows up. As fast as we can, and hope honestly hope that our luck has not run its course this time.
But we are not yet anywhere near the idiocy that is texas and its governor. Nor are our hospitals staff as overworked and burned out as their comrades in texas. Not yet at least.
But when we get to maybe April next year and the vaccination curve starts to go flat at around 60% vaccinated (if we're unlucky) or maybe 85% vaccinated (if we're very lucky), there's going to be an awful lot of pressure to significantly relax border restrictions, and there won't be much appetite for any kind of lockdown either to protect the unvaccinated.
Neither figure is close to high enough for community immunity. So we're going to get a significant amount of covid going through our communities sometime next year.
Or if our current government is willing to commit political suicide by pandering to antisocial arsehole antivaxxers and keep the borders locked down and do internal level 4 lockdowns when the inevitable outbreaks happen, then the mass outbreaks might get delayed until late 2023/early 2024. When the incoming Nat government lets it all loose.
I have stopped thinking in terms of years, at the moment we have no idea what will happen in the next week :).
so for now, it is important to get jabs to those that show up, firstly, secondly there is no use to cry about those that won't get a jab, when many can't even yet book an appointment.
As for elections, a lot of water will flow down the waikato until it is election day. And again, we can't even make any decisions atm that are further away then a week.
So honestly, i don't bother myself with that future fear mongering, we have enough currently on the plate.
Ministry of Health/Covid website answers most of your questions Sabine, and is kept up to date. By September 1st, everybody including those aged 12 and over, will be able to book an appointment.
These are not 'my' question. I posed these questions because frankly this blaming of anti vax or vax hesistant people as an immediate danger is out of bounds.
half the country will not get vaccinated in the next few weeks, and we only really really got started 3 weeks ago with the larger public (before that it was Group1 / 2), or is 28July really already last year for so many here, cause that was when the 'shipment' of vaccines arrived that we are currently using.
I don't care much about people who don't want to vaccinate either, but atm they are not an issue, the issue is that vaccines world wide are in short supply, and will be in an even shorter supply once the 'booster' shots that are advertised and considered will be purchased by the UK/US/EU and other wealthy nations, much to the detriment of anyone else who can not afford to pay surge pricing.
So really our problem here is that currently not enough are vaccinated, hopefully we have enough shots here to vaccinated us out of a full pandemic outbreak, and that lastly we can control the current outbreak. The anti vaxx people will have something to answer for once we have vaccines over and they then still refuse. But not a day earlier.
We've been here before…last year…right at the start of this shit show.
Uncle Ashley and his 'making the hard decisions' and 'prioritising', and the jewel in the pile when he told us that paramedics would not be resuscitating folks who crash because of risk of spraying around Te Virus.
Don't you worry Andre, some of us have already got the message that some lives are worth saving, and others not so much. Some of us already have a realistic zero expectation of our public health service at the best of times. Before any of us had heard of Covid.
You might want to make a special shout out to Maori who have the lowest vaccination rate of all of us…as Foreign Waka referenced up the page.
I bet the threat of their needs not being met in our health system will be just what it takes to get them rolling up their sleeves. /sarc if it wasn't already obvious.
The only thing paramedics won't do as far as i know is mouth to mouth breathing, for obvious reasons, however they will still do chest compressions, get the victim on an oxygen bottle and other life saving measures.
And i think we can agree that mouth to mouth breathing is maybe a risk to far. This at least applies to firefighters.
Or should volunteer personal expect to catch te fucking virus and take one for the team?
I guess it won't be an issue if those whose expectations of the medical system are so low that they refuse to get vaccinated, then choose to deal with the covid they end up getting by staying outside of the medical system as well.
But that kind of integrity might be a bit much to expect.
This 'order' as it is an order to medical staff and firefighters has nothing to do with vaccine hesistancy, no one will have mouth to mouth breathing done if they were in that type of situation, as vaccination actually does not prevent you from getting or transmitting the virus.
2.Quite a few in NZ Can NOT get the vaccine as of now as they are either booked in with a firm date and thus have to wait for their turn, or they can't book an appointment as they are not in the correct Group /Age Group.
So frankly what ever her reasons are to not get vaccinated as of today it makes no difference, her slot will b e taken up by someone else and thus the same number of people will be vaccinated.
I don't even think we have enough vaccine in the country at the moment to even attempt to vaccinate everyone.
I don't give a shit about Rosemary. She's gonna do her thang no matter what anyone else might say or do.
It's about others that might genuinely weighing up whether to be vaccinated or not. There's a whole lot of factors that should go into that decision more than just the purely selfish consideration of whether someone feels the vaccine is "safe enough" for them to get it.
Not least of which is it’s not vaccine risk in isolation that’s important, it’s vaccine risk compared to the risk of actual covid and the other potential fallout from getting covid while unvaccinated.
Well, then i suggest that you write a letter to government and ask that a. 'antivax' speech be made hate speech – it seems all the vigor atm to ban speech we don't approve of, and b. that vaccinations are mandatory for everyone irrespective.
And non of that still chances the fact that we don't have enough vaccine in the country atm to vaccinate all those that are WANTING a vaccination.
Which is roughly only enough to fully vaccinate groups 1,2, and 3.
Good thing there's hundreds of thousands more doses arriving every week, so our army of vaccinators (absolute legends) really aren't likely to run out.
Gonna be interesting to see if it turns out that that was a good strategy for the UK to follow. It'll be quite a while before the data is complete enough for sensible conclusions to come out of any analysis on that, tho. If ever.
I'm kinda looking more at factors like people in the UK that have got their first dose is pretty much flatlined now and has been for the last month, at just under 70%. So now really almost all the vaccinations going into arms right now are willing people getting their second dose 12 weeks after their first., and the number of people with their second dose is about 60%.
But there's quite a covid infection spike going on now. Looks to me like maybe the circumstances are such it would be appropriate to get those second doses into arms right now, for the substantial-but-not-quite-maximum extra protection of the second dose to kick in sooner against the infection spike going on right now. Rather than waiting out the optimum twelve week gap.
Actual doses going into arms right now is way down on their peak, so it's unlikely they've got a shortage of vaccines or vaccinators.
Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna are two-jabbers, and were approved December-January. Janssen is the only one-jabber approved in the UK, and that didn't happen until May, and apparently it has yet to be deployed.
Absolutely Andre, plus we need enough ultra low temperature freezers to store the doses. Another part of vaccine rollout logistics that I am sure our highly qualified Covid team have taken into account.
Have you taken the time to read, in full, Florence Kerr's piece? You know, the one that highlights (again) the issue of the low, low rates of Covid vaccination in Maori and Pasifika communities?
Despite repeated calls for direct interventions being made to get these vulnerable people vaccinated?
Probably not. I really don't know how many times it needs to be said…berating, deriding, shaming, insulting, judging, criticising and now threatening vaccine hesitant people is completely the wrong way to go about capturing the minds and hearts of groups who have suffered at the shitty end of the stick in the health system.
My impression is that it was a complete whinefest that the Ministry of Health weren't magically coming into their community with exactly the right pandering for them. It was quite devoid of actually useful suggestions for how to do things differently, and it was quite devoid of substance hinting at anyone within that community stepping up to leadership roles in getting more vaccination happening in ways that works for their community.
The extremely poor response to the mass vaccination in Manukau suggests to me the problem isn't within the Ministry of Health, they're making a good faith effort to get vaccines to that community in an accessible way for them. Indeed, a large part of that community were put into Group 2 for very early vaccination.
Looks to me like the issue is within that community, and it's community leaders within that community that have the mana and power to make a difference, not the Ministry of Health. And it looks to me like there's a lack of community leaders stepping up.
edit: notably, the young immigrant workers where I’ve been working the last few months have all gone and got vaccinated as walk-ins in South Auckland. Because there’s regularly spare capacity there, unlike at other vaccination sites they tried in Auckland that were all flat out with no spare capacity.
I have some difficulty with this notion that Pasifika are not being vaccinated either by choice or lack of opportunity.
The current level of one dose is 33% across the country….by Florence Kerrs numbers the Pasifika rate is 32% (95,000 of 295,000) and is confirmed by the Newsroom covid rollout reporting.
Anecdotally, at least one of the vaccination providers in Northland has been making a special effort to try to vaccinate entire family groups whenever they can get one of the family group to get vaccinated. Do the whole whanau at once. They've been doing it almost since the start of the rollout.
But there's only so much time and effort the medical teams can put in to trying to get people to get vaccinated. They were well overstretched even before covid came on the scene. That's where a bit of community leadership initiative from within those communities would make a big difference, but it's not happening.
Northland appear to be one of the better performing DHBs (against plan) and the PMs announcement today that youth can vaccinate with caregivers now may assist in raising uptake….and at 300,000 plus vaccines a week we will find out soon enough what the level of hesitancy is.
If making a mass vaccination event some kind of street party with music and free food is what's needed to make vaccinations happen, I don't have a problem with our government spending the money and providing other resources to make it happen. Actually, more than don’t have a problem, I would actively support it.
But I think it's wildly unreasonable to expect the Ministry of Health to work out that that specific approach (out of the myriad other possible approaches) is the one that will work within that specific community, and totally make it happen from outside that community.
In fact, I suspect that even if it is what indeed works, but it's totally an outside organisation doing it, it still wouldn't be successful. That's where leaders within the community need to step up with their knowledge of what works in their community, and lend their mana and power and credibility to get the buy-in from their communities. Sadly, that is a factor that appears to be lacking.
"Uncle Ashley and his 'making the hard decisions' and 'prioritising', and the jewel in the pile when he told us that paramedics would not be resuscitating folks who crash because of risk of spraying around Te Virus."
He said no such fucking thing.
If the there was no intention of treating those who crash why are the vaccinated asked to hang around for 20 minutes after getting jabbed? So that when they do crash all medical staff can observe and take notes?
I'd say they're more interested in the patient leaving under their own steam rather than having to deal with dead bodies
Last year, right when this kicked off. (Way before the vaccines were even a thing). I am pretty sure I made mention of it here on TS. Along with him saying vulnerable disabled people being supported in their own homes did not require PPE for them or their caregivers unless one or the other was symptomatic.
And I had a conversation with a former ambo a few months later who was absolutely fucking ropeable that Bloomfield had said that about not doing CPR on suspected 'cases' because of virus being expelled during chest compressions. Laughable, and disrespectful as paramedics (being on the front line )are dealing with all manner of conditions and are quite capable of taking precautions without denying patients usual interventions.
The offending statements seem to be at about 19m10s in the video briefing. If folks can be bothered making their own call on whether Rosemary summed it up fairly.
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Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
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A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
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The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
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The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
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An interesting insight on how this cluster might have started – MIQ 20m from a vaccine centre with an exercise yard next to CRL, a large office block and a public walkway. Perfect.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/public-walkway-rubs-shoulders-with-miq
Very interesting, not difficult to fix, but a worry if people in MIQ end up exercising in an enclosed box, presumably this increases chances of infection of people in hotel.
Hmmm….that wasn't well thought out.
Hmmm… if this speculation pans out, then should ‘heads roll’?
The team of 5 million (Aucklanders especially) has a hard slog ahead. Kia kaha, be kind.
Unite against COVID-19
https://covid19.govt.nz/
rather than heads rolling, I'd prefer the people in an already stressed and stressful set of systems to be given support to a) sort the issue out asap and b) review the systems that led to both the initial design decision (might have been reasonable at the time) and why it wasn't fixed once concerns were raised.
Rolling heads makes people more stressed and less able to function well. I'm mindful that while some of us have led relatively stress free covid lives for most of the past year, others have always been at the pointy end of the pandemic.
Well said weka – that sounds like a sensible response/approach to me.
Pathetic weka, this lock down is costing Auckland over $100 million per day and disrupting many, many lives. If the outbreak is linked to the walkway, then heads should absolutely role.
Fuck off Alan and volunteer for helping with the response and find out exactly how stressful dealing with people with a condition that may kill you. I've had a gutsful of you smartarses.
very well said adrian. sideline experts are quick to find fault, but very slow to find empathy.
and a cherry good morning to you, how grossly incompetent does someone need to be before they cop a bit of blame in you world Adrian?
"Pathetic" Alan? "A cherry [sic] good morning to you", and, until “the outbreak is linked to the walkway“, be kind eh
There's probably a famous saying about those who can do the best job being at home on the end of keyboards.
I was amazed last year how quickly we found about a million epidemiologists, microbiologists and other scientists.
People make mistakes, people do dumb things, people are, well, human.
It's not even a particularly dumb thing to do.
It's a wall. The distance is up and over, not through.
Probably needs to be reviewed with regards to delta or any delta+, though.
Maybe there was a tiny little wormhole in the wall and a virus tunnelled through it at warp speed, boldly going were no virus had gone before?
Ah, the tachyon variant: the most dangerous variant of all.
Auckland is losing money… who is Auckland?
We recovered from the last lockdown with a shiny happy economy and citizenry mostly intact. Much to the horror of the naysaying suits.
Auckland is 1.65 million people, I doubt a handful of them even care what you think.
Not that convinced that an economy based on soaring house prices could be called 'shiny happy'… although if you own a home or three already thats a pretty fair assessment on a personal level.
Shiny happy bubble – but bubble's a bit over-used lately hehe.
Shh, The Jacinda & Ashley Show's starting.
if we fired everyone that made a medium to large mistake the country would stop functioning.
Happens every three years almost bang on my birthday? Country keeps operating?
What?
Way too polite, IMHO
If that's the case then I would like to see the heads roll of all the business 'leaders' who agitated so vociferously for the seemingly unwise Trans-Tasman bubble. Let's slather the blame around fairly shall we, rather than act like entitled pricks and then blame the people at the sharp end of trying to deliver those imagined entitlements.
This has nothing to do with the Trans-Tasman bubble. The bubble went as planned and shut down with the NSW outbreaks. This was a failure at MIQ.
It always amazes me how quickly organisations like Heart of the City can come up with such figures so fast. Kudos.
Do you think they will be able to calculate the following with the same speed?
Hang on… Heart of the City and numbers are not a good team…
"It always amazes me how quickly organisations like Heart of the City can come up with such figures so fast. ".
Perhaps they simply quoted what Grant Robertson has claimed. Although I'm not sure I would rely on his numbers to that degree.
"Robertson said the cost of a week-long lockdown was up to $1.5 billion. "Overall this is still the best economic response.""
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/nzs-five-new-delta-covid-cases-all-linked
I guess you missed my inference that there are other calculations that are important to include.
I'll be more specific.
There are other calculations that are important to include.
I hate to use this as a response, but it does seem called for with Alan.
To be polite I will reframe it……….what is your prefered country (where Covid is managed better and the economy is doing better) to f..k off to Alan?
I said why heads shouldn't roll, all you've done is assert that heads should roll but not explained why.
You've also not explained why you think heads rolling would be helpful in solving the problems you mention, or why other responses would be worse. Or maybe you just want the punishment?
It would be good if you could explain.
A doll’s role is to roll on the dole, but not as a moll with a mole, that wouldn’t be droll.
Appears to be well short of ideal. In my view MIQ should never have been located in urban centres – why governments have failed to act in this obvious respect is a bit of a mystery to me.
The relative success of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-24/howard-springs-covid-quarantine-time-warp/100320392" rel="nofollow ugc">Howard Springs</a> in NT clearly points to a better alternative.
Would have been handy if we had an abandoned mining camp 30km out of Auckland or Christchurch. But we didn’t. Repurposed tourist hotels were all we had on hand at the time.
And the howls from the Alans and Davids of our society would have been deafening “too expensive, use private capacity etc etc” if Government had built a purpose built facility 6 – 12 months ago.
Need to get on with it.
If the government had decided to build a purpose built facility 6-12 months ago I doubt construction would have even begun by now…..theres unlikely to be a suitable pre approved design lying around ready to used, nevermind any construction constraints.
And what people don't factor into this purpose built country quarantene, is where will the nurses live? Where will their kids go to school? Oh and the security guards who make sure people don't abscond?
Oh and how many houses that are getting built would be put at the back of the queue.
FFS people. NZs response has been outstanding.
If you don't think they are doing a good job, roll up your sleves and voluteer.
Thank you Jacinda and the government.
not going to be the last pandemic, and probably not the worst. Might be a good idea to be planning, and designing, for the long haul, not just assuming that covid will end at some point and then it's all over.
Perhaps, except that it helps to know what you are designing for….whos to say what form any future pandemic will take or the best location for any facility to address it….meanwhile this resource constrained country has numerous clearly identified challenges those resources could be applied to.
MBIE looked into it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/446339/mbie-found-dedicated-miq-facilities-an-unfeasible-option
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-changing-face-of-miq
A purpose built quarantine centre is a logical thought. Then, when a tiny bit of logical thought is applied, all the questions arise.
Realistically, what sort of facility would have been needed for this pandemic? So far there have been 64,500 through MIQ.
Anker (below) refers to the infrastructure needed to keep things going. Ohakea was mentioned last year as a possibility. People fly in from overseas and are housed there. There are more than 4,000 in MIQ right now. A facility big enough to take that number? And housing the staff?
And when the stage arrives of it not being used by more than half a dozen people what happens?
In all the wondrous thinking the thing of actually designing a building, and constructing it? We don't have enough builders, any builders are up to their eyeballs, we aren't building any houses yet suddenly we could magic up a super quarantine centre.
The notion is good, realities something else. Of course at many moments it became a knee-jerk solution, a '"Why haven't they?" bash the government opportunity.
we could use all of the useless convention centres currently being built .
So where would you put them bearing in mind the possible need for emergency treatment?
Having a quarantine facility such as Jet Park in an urban area is a red flag.
Is there more than one quarantine facility equal to Jet Park in the country?
How far away from an urban area would you put MIQ or a quarantine facility with positive Covid cases?
Chris Hipkins has just said on Checkpoint RNZ that there is another facility they can repurpose for quarantine facilities should Jet Park run out of capacity – he would not name it. Good planning judging by the Sydney community outbreak experience.
Jet Park is known, I suspect a floor in a hotel in Wellington or Christchurch would be used for active cases. This is good planning and hopefully another hotel in Auckland will not be required for active Covid cases.
With spare inside time on my hands I have listened to a few articles about Emma Goldman.
She was a Lithuanian born reformer, educator, feminist, anarchist, organiser and midwife.
A brief biography is here: https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/biographies/goldman-emma
In a very eventful life she published The Mother Earth News. This is a link to a pdf of the first issue.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldman-mother-earth-first-volume/
Some of what stuck out for me was returning to Russia in 1906 because the working conditions in the US were worse than where she had come from, and being closely involved with an assassination attempt, and inspiring President McKinley’s assassin.
That looks really interesting, thanks.
(Mother Earth. Mother Earth News is a different publication from a different era, I got a bit confused there for a moment).
An innovation that is popular with my Mum.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/126119918/first-drivethru-vaccination-clinic-starts-up-in-feilding
She went yesty for her 2nd jab and had nothing but high praise for the staff, the efficiency and convenience now that mobility is becoming an issue.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/08/former-deputy-prime-minister-sir-michael-cullen-dies-aged-76.html
One of the truly greats.
He was droll. Not a Greens' fan though 🙂
.
Thank you Michael Cullen for all you did in a long life of service for our country as a genuine man who lived his values. Lung cancer is not a good way to go. To all his friends and family so sorry for your loss. I look forward to reading his book.
From a visit to the supermarket and having a family members working there, and already hearing what work is like.There is some stress out there and in some cases the police required to attend unhelpful shoppers being disruptive. Remember to make it easy in all of us relax and keep your distance, and smile. Thoughts go out to all workers who have direct contact with customers dealing a full day with stress, we could have weeks of this yet.
A smile doesn't really show through a mask. Maybe a little lift of the eyebrows and a nod?
Last time we had level 4, the craziness died down after a few days and people realised there will be adequate food. I'm not sure what will drive me to go shopping first, running out of milk or running out of pizza. Either way, it's a few days away, thankfully.
After years in hospo, I have managed to smile with my eyes.
lol
open mike, what the hell:
There was one night years ago where a recently-removed punter was screaming in my face for several minutes straight because he'd gotten kicked out. After a while I started to zone out (same old noise and he was all air), and the guy's mates dragged him away to another bar because "he's about to thump you".
To this day I wonder if they were being smart using me as a foil to go somewhere else, or whether I have/had "resting violence face".
Bouncers and Moderators have something in common.
Strikes me as being exactly the same job, different medium.
Most of the time it was being nice until folk got the vibe of the place, or hoisting the occasional dickhead who wandered in. And if the tone of the place had slowly decayed over several weeks, kicking out the five worst offenders for the night got everyone back to a safe level.
I found the trick to never taking things personally was just viewing it as a game: they won if I backed down or overreacted, I won if everything went well and they stayed. Kicking them out for the night was a draw.
Hmmm, that sounds familiar
Hear hear Herodotus. And a shout out to the supermarket workers.
Of course the smile not seen under the mask, but its about the vibe. Be pleasant, be prompt and efficient with unloading groceries while at the check out. Wear your mask, sanitize, buy enough to last a while but don't stock pile.
Sorry if this sounds a bit preachy.
Some Covid-19 positive cases have been reported in Wellington on RNZ – seems reasonably credible.
Also a friend of a friend has tested positive in Christchurch after travelling from Auckland – grapevine standard of reliability at this stage.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/449587/positive-covid-19-cases-confirmed-in-wellington-rnz-understands
Consternation here among folk who went out on the town after Saturday's AB game and flew home Sunday.
A school that has its priorities right.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-school-district-had-an-opt-out-policy-for-masks-but-not-the-dress-code-one-mom-fought-back/
Meanwhile…
A school board in Texas has added masks to their dress code – seemingly circumventing Governor Greg Abbott's ban on new COVID-19 restrictions. Face coverings are now part of the dress code for students in the the Paris Independent School District.
In a statement about its amended dress code, the school district board said it believes the "dress code can be used to mitigate communicable health issues, and therefore has amended the PISD dress code to protect our students and employees."
"The Texas Governor does not have the authority to usurp the Board of Trustees' exclusive power and duty to govern and oversee the management of the public schools of the district," the statement reads. "Nothing in the Governor's Executive Order 38 states he has suspended Chapter 11 of the Texas Education Code, and therefore the Board has elected to amend its dress code consistent with its statutory authority."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-school-mask-dress-code-abbott-ban/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/449587/positive-covid-19-cases-confirmed-in-wellington-rnz-understands
People who have been following more closely than I, is that an unusually long time between being infected and being tested? (assuming they had no symptoms when they were on the plane, and testing was the same day as hospitalisation, Monday, the day we were warned of potential community case I think)
My understanding is that they tested positive on day 1, were moved to Jet Park and then taken to hospital when they got more ill a few days later.
Link
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/449503/covid-19-outbreak-linked-to-case-which-came-from-australia
Does that mean the pre 7 August dates on the location list relate to the Air NZ case?
So we have two clusters under investigation?
from todays update
from here
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300387024/covid19-live-covid-cases-reported-in-wellington-alert-level-decision-ahead
So, that must mean the pre-entry date of the suspected index case locations of interest are just to cover the chance they are not the only one.
Which would be expected – before we know the actual source, locations going back to the earliest possible infection date for each case is the prudent move.
The flipside is there being a gap of unknown contacts and locations if the source is identified via genome testing and the locations of interest didn't go back far enough.
Overseas it has been reported that for some people who have Te Virus there can be a 'second wave' where symptoms suddenly and rapidly get worse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/well/live/coronavirus-days-5-through-10.html
While most patients recover in about a week, a significant minority of patients enter “a very nasty second wave” of illness, said Dr. Ilan Schwartz, assistant professor of infectious disease at the University of Alberta. “After the initial symptoms, things plateau and maybe even improve a little bit, and then there is a secondary worsening.”
While every patient is different, doctors say that days five through 10 of the illness are often the most worrisome time for respiratory complications of Covid-19, particularly for older patients and those with underlying conditions like high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes.
Quite possibly our own Ministry of Health has warned the Public about this particular aspect of the disease so all can be aware….?
Report first published 2020/04/30. Has "days five through 10" been updated for Delta?
https://covid19.govt.nz/health-and-wellbeing/about-covid-19/covid-19-symptoms/
No wish for NZ to become a nation of hyperchondriacs, but best to keep some record of all minor symptoms as insurance against them becoming sufficiently serious to seek advice from your GP etc. Common sense, especially now, imho.
MOH 1 pm release still waiting,does it have to be signed off from the ministry of truth ?
no press conference at 1 pm only a statement from MoH, i think a press conference is scheduled for later this arvo.
updates here
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300387024/covid19-live-covid-cases-reported-in-wellington-alert-level-decision-ahead
"The Ministry of Truth", or perhaps for 'Integrity', sounds like a good idea – question is, would it survive a change of government?
The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED)
We hear the numbers and quite rightfully are concerned.
The state of Alabama's population is just under 5 million.
They added 4,400 new cases yesterday. To go to 646,00 cases in total.
Their 40 new deaths yesterday means that terrible stat is 11,870 deaths.
Bloody Aussies. I wonder how Queensland and WA think about this.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/300387538/we-cant-eliminate-covid19-warns-australias-federal-treasurer
For some reason the gentle defensive protection of "Don't Dream It's Over" (here on Colbert's Late Show today) is apposite to the Covid moment we are now in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VY1scFwQro
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300386818/health-experts-say-the-government-has-failed-to-protect-mori-and-pasifika-from-the-latest-outbreak-calling-it-our-worst-nightmare
No, the people who should have booked an appointment have failed. Big time. There is such a thing as self responsibility. You can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make it drink.
lol
are you Graphical User Interface designer? I think I've deleted some of your software.
Are things getting a bit nutty out there?
https://twitter.com/alliancelgb/status/1416292515041484802?lang=en
Lesbians in Tasmania may be prosecuted for barring "women with penises" aka biological males from lesbian social gatherings.
Full article?
Thanks Molly
Oh ffs. are these the same "women with penises" that were supposedly waving them around in a California Locker Room. Can't we have a day off, or create your own post on anti Trans articles so we can choose to not go there. (*at the risk of being told off by moderators)
No Debate # oh red blooded one?
No debate? This has been debated on here for months, and if you want a genuine debate, knock it off with the "chicks with dicks" meme. Show some respect to the Trans Community while you're trying to debate about excluding them, or create another Womans Space post to discuss it ad infinitum, without offending people who support the Trans Community.
How do you think that we should talk about the Tasmanian ruling?
How about not referring to Trans people wandering around with penises. People I know who have transitioned or are transitioning, their penis is the last thing they necessarily want to be associated with. Whatever, I'm no expert, say want you want, but expect blowback when offence is taken.
Did you read the article before commenting? Because it seems apparent you did not.
No. I didn't read the article and don't intend to. Last time an article was presented here with the women with penises line it turned out to be utter bullshit. If the invitation to read something was less offensive maybe I would.
OK, That seemed apparent, yet you felt the need to shut Gabby down, so her callout is justified. You could have ignored it OR read it before commenting. and yet you did neither.
The Wii Spa incident that you refer to "as re these the same "women with penises" that were supposedly waving them around in a California Locker Room." has indeed been discussed here many times without resolution. Despite cries of falsehood, it seems likely that the initial report was true – a male bodied person was in the space reserved for women and girls. Resolving this – and similar situations – is why discussions are necessary.
FWIW, the article was about a lesbian request for exemption from the discrimination act to hold a festival for biological females. In the past this would have allowed them to refuse biological males, but this process now includes gender identity and so has been denied.
I don't know if you are aware of how some active trans activists have targeted the lesbian community, and disrupted their gatherings because lesbians insist on same-sex attraction for their definition, rather than same gender.
How do we resolve these issues, when it is the activists only having a voice?
(I don't think they speak for the whole trans community BTW, but they have promoted a No Debate stance that has been disturbingly picked up on anything to do with gender, as you yourself demonstrate).
Also, I have come across the “chicks with dicks” meme most often on trans activists sites as a concept to be embraced, not on lesbian or feminist sites, and rarely here on TS by those making genuine attempts to engage.
I used the chicks with dicks line as a crude version of the the women with penises line (to highlight its offensiveness), I have never been to a Trans Activists site and despite your slur about me wishing there to be No Debate I would just like the debate to be non offensive to the majority of the Trans Community who I presume don't appreciate the Women with Penises tag line.
There was no 'slur' regarding No Debate – you provided an example and both Francesca and I identified it accurately.
"… I would just like the debate to be non offensive to the majority of the Trans Community who I presume don't appreciate the Women with Penises tag line."
The only one on this thread fixated on this tagline, who introduces it, repeats it, and comprises the whole discussion around it – is you.
Despite that seemingly circular conversation, can we try to find a way forward ?
What are your thoughts on the Tasmanian ruling?
Should lesbians be considered transphobic when they insist on same sex attraction?
Apologies. Completely missed Francesca's line at the end of the original post.
Understand your reaction now, but reiterate I have seen the term embraced and promulgated from within the trans community online. I don't know where we go from here since neither the trans community or women on here are a hive mind.
Perhaps agree not to use the term if we wish for meaningful engagement. unless it has relevance and can't be avoided?
Thanks Molly, I do understand the desire for everyone to have a clear policy so everyone feels safe in their own communities. For the record from someone with "no skin in the game" I think a Trans Woman (regardless of their level of transition) if they consider themselves Lesbian should be welcomed in a Lesbian Group. Men in Frocks should be kicked out on their arse. To tell the difference will be a situation by situation basis. I'm not sure blanket bans will help. I hope they find a solution.
I'm pretty sure many simply don't understand sexual attraction…especially same sex attraction. Do we have to go into pheromones and the like to make it more scientific?
Simply and crudely put…much of sexual attraction is based on smell. Men smell different to women…regardless of gender identity. Not only do biological men not turn lesbians on, they can often spoil the mood for others. Big inconsistency with some transwomen is that by demanding access to lesbian spaces they are proving they are not women enough to understand this.
@ Red Blooded One.
Thanks for continuing this discussion, despite my error and the discord arising from certain phrases ("women in frocks" seems contentious to me, but just serves to illustrate how salted this minefield we are stepping into is!)
We disagree on the ability for privately run groups to restrict membership or attendance. Apart from the lesbian group in discussion, cancer support groups, rape support networks etc. Particularly spaces where lived experiences etc are to be shared.
This group defines itself as same sex attracted for intimate relationship purposes. As a group that has often been persecuted and maligned, they want to congregate together with others that share that lived experience. As a heterosexual woman, I have no interest in attending, because I understand their wish for privacy and collective understanding – which I do not possess.
"I think a Trans Woman (regardless of their level of transition) if they consider themselves Lesbian should be welcomed in a Lesbian Group"
Perhaps some groups do. Lesbians are not a hive mind, any more than trans women are. But I don't think they should be compelled by law.
" Men in Frocks should be kicked out on their arse."
This ruling means that any group that attempts to do so will be liable for breaching the Discrimination Act – and now we have arrived at the crux of the matter.
Perhaps it's my turn to offer apologies. The men in frocks was a poor attempt to differentiate between men and Trans Women. None of the Trans people I know identify as same sex attracted but my understanding is some do, and to ban them seems harsh to me. I just think if someone (I assume rarely) attends a group and makes people uncomfortable, any number of reasons could be used to discourage their attendance. I'm sure as a gay male they could exclude me for being an insufferable bore. I agree no organisation should be compelled to accept everyone but I think there are genuinely Trans Women who just want to fit in and a blanket exclusion wouldn't help. From what is said here it sounds like Trans Activists are doing the Trans Community a disservice as well. I'll leave the discussion now but thanks and I'll try not to get "triggered" again. Too woke for my own good. 🤞👍
Not only do biological men not turn lesbians on, they can often spoil the mood for others.
Obviously i have never been to a lesbian social event, are they orgies?
@solkta, a la Morrisey, …hurr, hurr, hurr.
And now that you have cherry picked low-hanging fruit for a school yard giggle, do you want to join the grown-ups in trying to have a respectful conversation?
(The choice is yours. The phrase "low-hanging fruit" was deliberately chosen, so you have material to work with if that's your level of input.)
I was actually half serious. I don't understand why these cis lesbians can't just give people the sniff test and move on. Surely all lesbians aren't attracted to all lesbians anyway?
@solkta.
"I don't understand why these cis lesbians can't just give people the sniff test and move on. Surely all lesbians aren't attracted to all lesbians anyway?"
OK. I'll repeat:
"This group defines itself as same sex attracted for intimate relationship purposes. As a group that has often been persecuted and maligned, they want to congregate together with others that share that lived experience. As a heterosexual woman, I have no interest in attending, because I understand their wish for privacy and collective understanding – which I do not possess."
This does not exclude sexual interaction, but does appreciate that their common lived experiences and ability to share them, is an attraction in itself. Not everything to do with same sex attraction is about the sex act.
'Cis' is a label recently created and liberally imposed without permission, and often used disdainfully.
You may want to check whether that's how you intend to be heard.
I was responding to Rosemary:
If that is not what it is about then take it up with her.
Cis is just an adjective not a noun. There is nothing disdainful about it. I am a cis man.
@ Red Blooded One.
Thanks for that. The shortcomings of online discussion are really obvious in these discussions. We don't employ language in agreed ways, we may mistake intended clarity for arrogance, attempts at humour as belittling. Face to face we have nuances of tone and body language to guide us, often with knowledge of past histories with those we are sitting beside. But at least we can try.
Heading out to the garden now, but will share this totally irrelevant song with you for no particular reason (perhaps, use it to build a picture in your mind of me.)
Melancholy and simple, but sometimes melancholy is where I'm at…I'll avoid commentary on the simple…
https://youtu.be/a4QQ7HYYdWw
@solkta.
I was responding to you on the same issue. Do you have an inability to walk and chew gum at the same time?
Your focus is off tangent to the discussion about a discrimination ruling. While attempting to masticate, head back that way,
"Cis is just an adjective not a noun. There is nothing disdainful about it. I am a cis man."
Fair enough that you wish to descibe yourself that way.
Disrespectful is an adjective too.
If you cannot see how those who have railed against sexual based stereotypes are now labelled with an adjective that assumes adherence to those same gender stereotypes, you might want to add that adjective to your noun.
I am a woman, who rejects that the use of that adjective is benign.
The term cis in no way assumes an adherence to gender stereotypes. I am a cis man who is a sole parent (by choice) with long hair who loves gardening and hates thugby. Don't talk twaddle and we might move forward.
@ solkta
"The term cis in no way assumes an adherence to gender stereotypes."
Then this definition is wrong?
"Cis is short for cisgender, which refers to when a person's gender identity corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth…"
How do you define a gender identity consistent with biological sex without resorting to stereotypes?
"…Cisgender is the opposite of transgender."
Does that mean you as a somewhat non-conforming male, and me as a decidedly unfeminine woman are not 'cis'?
Are we really trans gender? But then, if gender stereotypes are truly abandoned, isn't everyone?
(An analogy that comes to mind, is that you are assigning me to Gryffindor house when I'm not enrolled at Hogwarts…and I’m pretty sure Hogwarts doesn’t exist, so only refer to me as ‘cis’ when you are prepared to define what that means in regards to me as an individual.)
I thought about this overnight. It's a difficult situation. Women need to be able to talk about the issues that affect them. And I agree there needs to be a line on that for debate to remain robust but still meaningful and not a shit show.
I don't know where the line is on this particular phrase. For trans women with gender dysphoria, I can see that the phrase would be problematic. For many trans women online, it's apparently not only not an issue, but is something they talk about a lot (being a TW with a penis).
Franscesca could simply have said trans woman.
For me the problem with the Tasmania ruling exists irrespective of the issue of medical surgery or not, but equally obviously, TW (or any male, thanks self-ID) with a penis going to lesbian gatherings is a problem that I hope I don't have to explain. It's hard to see how the word penis can be avoided being used.
No, what lesbians were objecting to was that under the self ID legislation, an unreconstructed male bodied person with penis still attached would be able to attend lesbian events and lesbians would not be able to bar them without fear of prosecutions . The lesbians were not talking about fully transitioned transwomen .
That is the entire point around the self id legislation
My reading is that even fully transitioned TW would be excluded from the lesbian events.
from the article
But then the article goes on to talk about transwomen without the distinction of full transition , so yes
Either way, there are hotheads on all sides , and some lesbians have been accused of being bigots for not fancying transwomen , penises or otherwise
I just think that's ridiculous
"The lesbians were not talking about fully transitioned transwomen . "
I think the article is unclear on this. Re-reading it, my take was the same as weka's. Either way, I think they should retain the ability to restrict attendance. As I would also support trans women holding events exclusively for themselves.
"That is the entire point around the self id legislation"
The self-id process is fraught with impacts on the wider community.
One major problem is that the process is not limited to trans people, it will be available to all, and most likely abused by the unscrupulous since no screening or gatekeeping process remains. This is detrimental for the trans community long term.
‘Tis Open Mike.
Conversations are starting around including vaccination status as a factor in triaging decisions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/08/19/vaccination-status-may-be-considered-to-get-icu-beds-at-dallas-area-hospitals-if-covid-spread-worsens/?sh=14340a3a1620
If we're really lucky, we'll get our vaccination rates high enough here we won't get close to the point of considering this. But I'm not hopeful.
Do we actually have enough doses currently in the country to vaccinate everyone who wants to?
Is Group 4 already eligible to book an appointment?
Can we keep up with vaccinations when we move medical personal to testing stations?
The best we can do atm is to get everyone jabbed who has booked an appointment and shows up. As fast as we can, and hope honestly hope that our luck has not run its course this time.
But we are not yet anywhere near the idiocy that is texas and its governor. Nor are our hospitals staff as overworked and burned out as their comrades in texas. Not yet at least.
For now, it's a non-issue here in NZ.
But when we get to maybe April next year and the vaccination curve starts to go flat at around 60% vaccinated (if we're unlucky) or maybe 85% vaccinated (if we're very lucky), there's going to be an awful lot of pressure to significantly relax border restrictions, and there won't be much appetite for any kind of lockdown either to protect the unvaccinated.
Neither figure is close to high enough for community immunity. So we're going to get a significant amount of covid going through our communities sometime next year.
Or if our current government is willing to commit political suicide by pandering to antisocial arsehole antivaxxers and keep the borders locked down and do internal level 4 lockdowns when the inevitable outbreaks happen, then the mass outbreaks might get delayed until late 2023/early 2024. When the incoming Nat government lets it all loose.
I have stopped thinking in terms of years, at the moment we have no idea what will happen in the next week :).
so for now, it is important to get jabs to those that show up, firstly, secondly there is no use to cry about those that won't get a jab, when many can't even yet book an appointment.
As for elections, a lot of water will flow down the waikato until it is election day. And again, we can't even make any decisions atm that are further away then a week.
So honestly, i don't bother myself with that future fear mongering, we have enough currently on the plate.
Ministry of Health/Covid website answers most of your questions Sabine, and is kept up to date. By September 1st, everybody including those aged 12 and over, will be able to book an appointment.
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-vaccine-data
These are not 'my' question. I posed these questions because frankly this blaming of anti vax or vax hesistant people as an immediate danger is out of bounds.
half the country will not get vaccinated in the next few weeks, and we only really really got started 3 weeks ago with the larger public (before that it was Group1 / 2), or is 28July really already last year for so many here, cause that was when the 'shipment' of vaccines arrived that we are currently using.
I don't care much about people who don't want to vaccinate either, but atm they are not an issue, the issue is that vaccines world wide are in short supply, and will be in an even shorter supply once the 'booster' shots that are advertised and considered will be purchased by the UK/US/EU and other wealthy nations, much to the detriment of anyone else who can not afford to pay surge pricing.
So really our problem here is that currently not enough are vaccinated, hopefully we have enough shots here to vaccinated us out of a full pandemic outbreak, and that lastly we can control the current outbreak. The anti vaxx people will have something to answer for once we have vaccines over and they then still refuse. But not a day earlier.
We've been here before…last year…right at the start of this shit show.
Uncle Ashley and his 'making the hard decisions' and 'prioritising', and the jewel in the pile when he told us that paramedics would not be resuscitating folks who crash because of risk of spraying around Te Virus.
Don't you worry Andre, some of us have already got the message that some lives are worth saving, and others not so much. Some of us already have a realistic zero expectation of our public health service at the best of times. Before any of us had heard of Covid.
You might want to make a special shout out to Maori who have the lowest vaccination rate of all of us…as Foreign Waka referenced up the page.
I bet the threat of their needs not being met in our health system will be just what it takes to get them rolling up their sleeves. /sarc if it wasn't already obvious.
The only thing paramedics won't do as far as i know is mouth to mouth breathing, for obvious reasons, however they will still do chest compressions, get the victim on an oxygen bottle and other life saving measures.
And i think we can agree that mouth to mouth breathing is maybe a risk to far. This at least applies to firefighters.
Or should volunteer personal expect to catch te fucking virus and take one for the team?
I guess it won't be an issue if those whose expectations of the medical system are so low that they refuse to get vaccinated, then choose to deal with the covid they end up getting by staying outside of the medical system as well.
But that kind of integrity might be a bit much to expect.
1.
This 'order' as it is an order to medical staff and firefighters has nothing to do with vaccine hesistancy, no one will have mouth to mouth breathing done if they were in that type of situation, as vaccination actually does not prevent you from getting or transmitting the virus.
2.Quite a few in NZ Can NOT get the vaccine as of now as they are either booked in with a firm date and thus have to wait for their turn, or they can't book an appointment as they are not in the correct Group /Age Group.
So frankly what ever her reasons are to not get vaccinated as of today it makes no difference, her slot will b e taken up by someone else and thus the same number of people will be vaccinated.
I don't even think we have enough vaccine in the country at the moment to even attempt to vaccinate everyone.
Next year considerations, Sabine, after everyone that wants vaccination has had reasonable chance to get it. Not today considerations.
exactly. So why don't we let Rosemary be Rosemary then.
I don't give a shit about Rosemary. She's gonna do her thang no matter what anyone else might say or do.
It's about others that might genuinely weighing up whether to be vaccinated or not. There's a whole lot of factors that should go into that decision more than just the purely selfish consideration of whether someone feels the vaccine is "safe enough" for them to get it.
Not least of which is it’s not vaccine risk in isolation that’s important, it’s vaccine risk compared to the risk of actual covid and the other potential fallout from getting covid while unvaccinated.
Well, then i suggest that you write a letter to government and ask that a. 'antivax' speech be made hate speech – it seems all the vigor atm to ban speech we don't approve of, and b. that vaccinations are mandatory for everyone irrespective.
And non of that still chances the fact that we don't have enough vaccine in the country atm to vaccinate all those that are WANTING a vaccination.
Sounds like you need someone to send you a box of Roses.
Nah, honey you can keep them, I am not the one coming across as aggro and angry. So maybe a Snickers?
But then i was not kidding, write to the government, and maybe they listen.
Cumulative stock received: 3,563,820 doses.
Which is roughly only enough to fully vaccinate groups 1,2, and 3.
Good thing there's hundreds of thousands more doses arriving every week, so our army of vaccinators (absolute legends) really aren't likely to run out.
Increasing the spacing between 1st and 2nd dose will help giving more people some level of protection.
Gonna be interesting to see if it turns out that that was a good strategy for the UK to follow. It'll be quite a while before the data is complete enough for sensible conclusions to come out of any analysis on that, tho. If ever.
IIRC, the 3-week gap came from the clinical trials. It depends on the aims what might be best and one size doesn’t fit all. See also Lprent’s comment here: https://thestandard.org.nz/the-antidote-page-for-all-those-chickens/#comment-1809998. Sometimes, he does know what he’s talking about
I'm kinda looking more at factors like people in the UK that have got their first dose is pretty much flatlined now and has been for the last month, at just under 70%. So now really almost all the vaccinations going into arms right now are willing people getting their second dose 12 weeks after their first., and the number of people with their second dose is about 60%.
But there's quite a covid infection spike going on now. Looks to me like maybe the circumstances are such it would be appropriate to get those second doses into arms right now, for the substantial-but-not-quite-maximum extra protection of the second dose to kick in sooner against the infection spike going on right now. Rather than waiting out the optimum twelve week gap.
Actual doses going into arms right now is way down on their peak, so it's unlikely they've got a shortage of vaccines or vaccinators.
Not all vaccines require 2 shots.
Yes, above a certain level, it will be the Law of Diminishing Returns to get the remainder vaccinated.
Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna are two-jabbers, and were approved December-January. Janssen is the only one-jabber approved in the UK, and that didn't happen until May, and apparently it has yet to be deployed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_the_United_Kingdom
I vaguely recall seeing something that said actual deployment in the UK was something like 2/3 AZ, 1/3 Pfizer.
I stand corrected, thanks.
Absolutely Andre, plus we need enough ultra low temperature freezers to store the doses. Another part of vaccine rollout logistics that I am sure our highly qualified Covid team have taken into account.
Have you taken the time to read, in full, Florence Kerr's piece? You know, the one that highlights (again) the issue of the low, low rates of Covid vaccination in Maori and Pasifika communities?
Despite repeated calls for direct interventions being made to get these vulnerable people vaccinated?
Probably not. I really don't know how many times it needs to be said…berating, deriding, shaming, insulting, judging, criticising and now threatening vaccine hesitant people is completely the wrong way to go about capturing the minds and hearts of groups who have suffered at the shitty end of the stick in the health system.
I have.
My impression is that it was a complete whinefest that the Ministry of Health weren't magically coming into their community with exactly the right pandering for them. It was quite devoid of actually useful suggestions for how to do things differently, and it was quite devoid of substance hinting at anyone within that community stepping up to leadership roles in getting more vaccination happening in ways that works for their community.
The extremely poor response to the mass vaccination in Manukau suggests to me the problem isn't within the Ministry of Health, they're making a good faith effort to get vaccines to that community in an accessible way for them. Indeed, a large part of that community were put into Group 2 for very early vaccination.
Looks to me like the issue is within that community, and it's community leaders within that community that have the mana and power to make a difference, not the Ministry of Health. And it looks to me like there's a lack of community leaders stepping up.
edit: notably, the young immigrant workers where I’ve been working the last few months have all gone and got vaccinated as walk-ins in South Auckland. Because there’s regularly spare capacity there, unlike at other vaccination sites they tried in Auckland that were all flat out with no spare capacity.
I have some difficulty with this notion that Pasifika are not being vaccinated either by choice or lack of opportunity.
The current level of one dose is 33% across the country….by Florence Kerrs numbers the Pasifika rate is 32% (95,000 of 295,000) and is confirmed by the Newsroom covid rollout reporting.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/charting-new-zealands-vaccine-rollout
The Maori vaccination rate is well down, tho.
Yes it is, though why is not known….demographics perhaps? a higher proportion of young who currently cant book.
Dunno about the rest of the country, but Northland was very early in opening up booking and vaccination to younger age groups.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/125009738/covid19-priority-northland-residents-cant-book-vaccine-as-more-people-offered-jabs
Anecdotally, at least one of the vaccination providers in Northland has been making a special effort to try to vaccinate entire family groups whenever they can get one of the family group to get vaccinated. Do the whole whanau at once. They've been doing it almost since the start of the rollout.
But there's only so much time and effort the medical teams can put in to trying to get people to get vaccinated. They were well overstretched even before covid came on the scene. That's where a bit of community leadership initiative from within those communities would make a big difference, but it's not happening.
Northland appear to be one of the better performing DHBs (against plan) and the PMs announcement today that youth can vaccinate with caregivers now may assist in raising uptake….and at 300,000 plus vaccines a week we will find out soon enough what the level of hesitancy is.
Exactly, there was at one point suggested that there is a need of some music benue and free food. In other words a bribe is needed. Go figure.
If making a mass vaccination event some kind of street party with music and free food is what's needed to make vaccinations happen, I don't have a problem with our government spending the money and providing other resources to make it happen. Actually, more than don’t have a problem, I would actively support it.
But I think it's wildly unreasonable to expect the Ministry of Health to work out that that specific approach (out of the myriad other possible approaches) is the one that will work within that specific community, and totally make it happen from outside that community.
In fact, I suspect that even if it is what indeed works, but it's totally an outside organisation doing it, it still wouldn't be successful. That's where leaders within the community need to step up with their knowledge of what works in their community, and lend their mana and power and credibility to get the buy-in from their communities. Sadly, that is a factor that appears to be lacking.
"Uncle Ashley and his 'making the hard decisions' and 'prioritising', and the jewel in the pile when he told us that paramedics would not be resuscitating folks who crash because of risk of spraying around Te Virus."
He said no such fucking thing.
If the there was no intention of treating those who crash why are the vaccinated asked to hang around for 20 minutes after getting jabbed? So that when they do crash all medical staff can observe and take notes?
I'd say they're more interested in the patient leaving under their own steam rather than having to deal with dead bodies
He said no such fucking thing.
Actually, he fucking did.
Last year, right when this kicked off. (Way before the vaccines were even a thing). I am pretty sure I made mention of it here on TS. Along with him saying vulnerable disabled people being supported in their own homes did not require PPE for them or their caregivers unless one or the other was symptomatic.
And I had a conversation with a former ambo a few months later who was absolutely fucking ropeable that Bloomfield had said that about not doing CPR on suspected 'cases' because of virus being expelled during chest compressions. Laughable, and disrespectful as paramedics (being on the front line )are dealing with all manner of conditions and are quite capable of taking precautions without denying patients usual interventions.
Let me help you: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120797659/coronavirus-st-john-wont-perform-cpr-on-patients-with-covid19-unless-primary-cardiac-arrest.
Thanks….I should have provided that link myself. Tardy of me.
Stay sharp, Rosemary, we need you to be on the top of your game
Stay safe and well, Peter and you.
The offending statements seem to be at about 19m10s in the video briefing. If folks can be bothered making their own call on whether Rosemary summed it up fairly.
Ta
They've left Afghanistan, finally. Now when the hell will they leave Somalia?
https://www.leftvoice.org/joe-biden-is-bombing-somalia/