We don't seem to hear much about Fiji on the news. How are their hospitals coping as they seem to have 150 new cases a day but I have never heard how many have had to be hospitalised.
"What we already know – and officials are saying – it's going to get worse, and the reason that they know that is because people who are turning up positive come from really crowded settlements and so there is this huge fear, and rightly so, that there's just so many more people who are infected," she said.
Targeted containment areas have been put in place in lieu of strict lockdown measures.
Dreaver said many of the medical authorities have been infected with Covid-19 and the hospital "is a Covid centre," with New Zealand and Australian teams deployed to provide aid.
"I am seriously worried about Fiji, as is everybody."
She added that while 45 per cent of the population have received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, both doses must be taken to be effective.
Dreaver called for stronger leadership, with Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama "missing in action", leaving Health Secretary Dr James Fong to front the crisis.
"I think the medical authorities there are fighting a losing battle and they're doing the best they can."
Yeah, but Fiji is bigger than just Suva – so the temperature controlled infrastructure may not be there for the Pfizer vaccine. Weren't there other candidate vaccines that were being distributed to neighbouring pacific islands? Targeting those to Fiji on a priority basis might achieve more than disrupting our own distribution organisation,
On Fiji, Bloomfield says it's not for him to say if Fiji will be able to get its Covid-19 outbreak under control.
"I think it will be a challenge for them and a big focus … is vaccination. We're working as fast as possible to ensure that our approval of AstraZeneca goes through and that we're expecting over the coming weeks, and we're able to then get deliveries of AstraZeneca into the country, and able to on-donate them to Fiji and other countries."
Hipkins says Australia is helping with vaccine supply for Fiji in the interim.
So why does NZ need to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine to on-donate it? If Fiji is willing to take the risk, then I'd say that's up to them. At least it only needs fridge temperature storage.
I'd be kinda queasy about the idea of donating stuff we hadn't yet approved as being good enough to use on our own population. To me, it would kinda feel like sending pet food to alleviate a famine.
ISTR several years ago the local hospital got rid of their old-style wooden crutches (the ones that go up to your armpits) because they cause nerve damage, and replaced them with the ones with the ring that goes around your upper arm and all the weight is on the handgrip.
Folks suggested we donate the old ones to developing nations. The DHB said they weren't going to dump harmful items onto developing nations, and trashed the old ones. Which seemed fair enough. "Here, have some nerve damage to salve my conscience" seems a bit odd.
Australians aged under 60 will no longer receive first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the rare risk of a serious blood clotting disorder among people aged 50 to 59.
The government has accepted the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), which recommends those aged under 60 now receive the Pfizer vaccine. It previously recommended Pfizer to those aged under 50.
The change is based on the advisory group’s assessment of the risks of the clotting disorder, called thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome or TTS, versus benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in protecting against COVID-19.
While the risk of TTS is still very low overall, it is more common in younger age groups. And younger people are less likely to die or become seriously ill from COVID-19.
Or else they should / could get the astra vaccines, or the johnson and johnson, both whom do not need to be stored at – 80 odd degrees.
Just because we in NZ have failed to certify these two vaccines does not mean that they can't be used, and should be used, after all the rest of the world does use them, inclusive Oz.
Hopefully soon they will certify a second or even third vaccines.
New Zealand could have another locally approved vaccine available by August, with MedSafe expected to make a decision on Johnson & Johnson's shot within a fortnight.
But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the Pfizer vaccine remained the predominant Covid-19 shot that Kiwis could expect to receive this year.
The compassionate part of me thought: right now, we have the pfizer, we have freezers, we have the generators and their need is far more urgent than ours.
Indonesia and South Africa (among others) face new Covid waves – meanwhile, Morning Report's Susie Ferguson refers to "chaos as the capital city tries to clear itself of mā te [?] corona".
"Chaos" people! Keep it together World, and keep it together Team of Five Million – Fiji has an outbreak; Sydney has an outbreak – Wellington has a potential outbreak.
If I was there and trying to get to work and plan my life, my life would be in chaos. NZ has been getting along comfortably, now worries, and the health authorities have to sharpen us up FTTT, and this variant is just the latest and greatest!
Chaos ("complete disorder and confusion") just sounds so alarmist, so over-the-top, at least to me. If chaos is an accurate/representative descriptor for what's occurring in Wellington now, then how best to describe what Peru (!), Belgium, Italy, the UK, USA, Brazil, India et al. have been through – extreme chaos?
Hear/use 'chaos' often enough and belief may make it so. This will sound very presumptuous, but I believe what most Wellingtonians are currently experiencing is not chaos, nor catastrophe, but rather a mild-to-moderate inconvenience associated with the precautionary move to Covid alert level 2; we've all been there.
Just my opinion, as always. I really hope that Wellington, Kapiti Coast and the Wairarapa get back to level 1 ASAP.
Okay, so Chris Hipkins is responsible – isn’t he a busy boy?
Hipkins told Newsroom the Government’s third Partnership plan had been developed before he took the open government portion of the portfolio from Clare Curran, and he felt the document could have been more ambitious.
So far, so good.
While the initiatives around the flow of information had generally gone well, there was more work to be done on participatory democracy.
“Open government isn't just about telling people what you're doing, it's also about actually being more inclusive and involving people more in the decision-making process.”
Yup, agree 100% with that.
The complications of Covid-19 and alert level restrictions had “accelerated massively” progress on digital inclusion, Hipkins said.
“Take Zoom: I don't think we would be using Zoom and video-conferencing as extensively in parliamentary proceedings now, had it not been for Covid-19 …
“It makes it more accessible to the public, because once upon a time, if you were hearing a bill and you wanted to make a submission, and you were in Tauranga, you might be lucky if the committee came to Auckland and you'd have to drive to Auckland to do it … whereas video-conferencing means that you can actually be there in person without having to leave your living room.”
While this is true, it has also shown the limitations of online meetings. Nothing yet replaces direct face-to-face contact of being in the same room at the same time and have a coffee or lunch break, to get to know each other.
Inclusion, be it digital or real-life, is a necessary but not sufficient step towards truly open government and we’re some way off still, obviously.
Please do better, Mr Hipkins, than pointing to pathetic things such as Zoom meetings.
Sounds good – now does it include politicians having done a short course in people management, project management, priorities in decision making and social anthropologyabout what human society is, and needs to have a healthy-minded civilisation. Perhaps Hipkins and others can concentragte on this while they are thinking about better government. And we could look at having a second house of citizens who have also done that course and done a test to show that they can make intelligent choices and devise ways to meet the needs of the country and improve conditions and make good choices putting practical first, and theoretical second, so that things chosen will be done in the most appropriate way for good outcomes. Whew. That's a lot of advancement for NZ. I don't think we are up to that yet, or will ever be.
"A draft of the IPCC report apparently from early this year was leaked to Agence France-Presse, which reported on its findings on Thursday. The draft warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible. It warns: “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems … humans cannot.”"
You wouldn't know it by the distinct lack of urgency being displayed anywhere
Yep – one of those rare alignments of the stars when our shallow player base produces a really good team (with a bit of help this time from the South African talent diaspora). It's happened before – the 1949 team to England, the 1985 team that crushed Australia at the Gabba, and again in 2021. A neat 36-year gap between each one.
Surely mainstream news outlets should use correct facts. Both these articles reference population projections for Wellington that were always at the top end of any projected range and have been modified when challenged
Again, who wants to have kids if you can't even afford to house them? But then, we can always import some cheap labour to man our hospitals, our old folk homes, wash our dishes, cook our food etc, while our young be economic migrants in England or so. The wheel keeps on turning.
Maybe the government should roll the cost of housing homeless over to the towns. I wonder how long it would take for the motels to be empty, the parks to be full and the nimby’s to be pooping their pants? Same of course counts for a great many places that are too good to be build up.
Around Wellington those excessive population projections plus Labour rolling out "one size fits all" transport plans demanding building around hubs have raised huge issues that go beyond nimbyism.
Unlikely that that amount of intensification will ever be needed but
The pipes won't take extra intensification except in four areas.
Earthquakes are a real hazard and some areas have ground that is too soft to intensify easily and/or the insurance premiums are going to be massive.
Plus with too dense a housing an earthquake would render even more people homeless than the 17000 or so that are currently in high rise.
The lack of existing green spaces would be even more of an issue.
demanding houses next to transport guts any discussion on retirement housing that is needed and doesn't have the same transport impact. The northern suburbs could be intensified for retirement and get people out of bigger houses.
What I really don't understand though is why labour are so keen on shooting themselves in the foot ( or is it the Greens they are targeting?) with the intensification over such narrow footprints in the existing city. Wellington is a high labour greens voting area and there have been a number of thoughtful contributions put forward by the various suburbs to increase housing supply and have workable transport.
If it had started with engaging locals with realistic population increases then we are likely to have less division and more solutions. Nor has labour done anything to push back at unused or lights out housing, overseas ownership or
As to awful rental housing – some of it at least demands health/ building inspection and the filing with the tenancy tribunal of any notices to upgrade. And here I think councils do have a role – it is the dwelling that needs fixing not the tenants being moved on.
but in saying that, if the towns had to via their rates to pay for the upkeep of the people they can't or won't house then maybe they could find alternatives that suits them.
Can someone tell me why the media outlets won't name the bastards responsible? Name them and shame them. It might stop others from doing it. If we didn't have so many gullible souls it wouldn't matter but unfortunately we do.
A small glossy flyer appeared in my (Palmerston North) letterbox about a week ago.
8 IMPORTANT COVID VACCINE FACTS you probably haven't heard
[unrepeatable rubbish] WILL YOU TAKE THE RISK?
[and, on the other side] Because we believe in backing up our claims…
LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COVID-19 VACCINE
The 'organisation' behind this flyer is the so-called 'Voices for Freedom', but I reckon this 'voice' about sums them up:
Absolute trash (which is where it's going now; only kept it in case others posted about similar misinformation – thanks Anne). The 'minds' behind such campaigns are intent on pushing NZers under the 'Covid bus' to get their way – in a word; disgusting.
Use in pregnancy and while breast feeding
Use in immunocompromised patients
Use in frail patients with co-morbidities (eg, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease [COPD], diabetes, chronic neurological disease,
cardiovascular disorders)
Use in patients with autoimmune or inflammatory disorders
Interaction with other vaccines
Long-term safety data
Rosemary, thanks for that list of potential risks – if I experience those or any other side-effects I'll post details here, unless the vaccine polishes me off first. At least I survived this year’s batch of influenza vaccine
As to the missing information, the reason I'm able to get the Pfizer vaccine now is because of my autoimmune disorders, so that's something to be thankful for.
And yes, it's regrettable that long-term safety data is necessarily missing, but frankly some countries just couldn't wait.
With 2.8 billion doses administered so far, I reckon there'll be a big dataset of side effects, and I'm happy to contribute to that data set – no pussyfooting around for this lad.
Anyone hesitant about the Covid-19 vaccine may choose not to get vaccinated – but don't worry, someone else will be lining up for your doses.
Why am I choosing to be given COMIRNATY?
COMIRNATY is a vaccine given to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in adults and adolescents from 12 years of age and older. COMIRNATY contains the active ingredient BNT162b2 [mRNA].
COMIRNATY works by triggering/training your immune system to produce antibodies and blood cells that work against the virus, to protect against COVID-19 disease.
Average risk of death from COVID-19 infection without vaccination: 2%. Your choice.
I don’t like the approach they have taken. Completely inappropriate and confusing..that said..
I don't want to aggravate anyone but the evidence for Ivermectin is not going away at this point, and has been available since around Aug/Sept 2020. Unless you focus on studies that have been deliberately designed to make it look ineffective (eg by waiting until just before death to dose someone with it, they die and therefore the conclusion is that Ivermectin is useless) there is no reason not to approve this drug for Covid treatment. If proper public debate were permitted perhaps medical doctors that agree Ivermectin works and is safe could have made their point logically, the way science used to be done.
Ivermectin can be taken at home therefore saving hospital costs and risks of transmission. It would be well worth the MoH's time to conduct a proper look at Ivermecting which they either haven't done, or they only looked at studies guiding them to a specific outcome.
This NZ Doctor speaks about Ivermectin, thus putting his career on the line because he has assessed the information and has a medical opinion that is contrary to the government line, I guess with the intention that things could change and lives would be saved by the use of this drug (approved in NZ for human use, just not for Covid btw) https://odysee.com/@NZDSOS:2/Dr-Shelton:5
Instead of treating doctors not following the status quo we seek to punish for speaking out when really they are stating a medical opinion, a right they earned when they completed training and began practicing medicine. Where is the respect? And does anyone honestly think NZ can afford to loose all the doctors and nurses who signed the open letter critising NZ's response? It's madness.
There is a larger study including Ivermectin happening in the UK, that should help resolve the question of its efficacy. It makes sense that while testing one proposed treatment against a control group, you may as well test other treatments against the same control. At least it's safer than synthetic quinine.
Led by the University of Oxford, PRINCIPLE is investigating treatments for people at more risk of serious illness from COVID-19 which can speed up recovery, reduce the severity of symptoms and prevent the need for hospital admission. The study has so far recruited more than 5,000 volunteers from across the UK…
Following a screening questionnaire to confirm eligibility, participants enrolled in the study will be randomly assigned to receive a three-day course of oral ivermectin treatment. They will be followed-up for 28 days and will be compared with participants who have been assigned to receive the usual standard of NHS care only. People aged 18 to 64 with certain underlying health conditions or shortness of breath from COVID-19, or aged over 65, are eligible to join the trial within the first 14 days of experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or receiving a positive test.
Of the six other drugs in the Principle study of Covid treatments to be taken at home, only one – inhaled steroid budesonide – has so far proved effective.
Although, sister project the Recovery trial, of treatments for hospital patients, also discovered another steroid, dexamethasone, could treat Covid, which has been credited with saving more than 20,000 lives in the UK.
I hardly think that dexamethasone has just been discovered as an effective treatment. It's been used for yonks as an anti-inflammatory medication for a myriad of conditions from asthma to brain inflammation.
Approved for treatment of COVID19 in UK hospitals, rather than discovered as a new substance, Brigid. Likewise; Ivermectin, is widely used to treat lice and other parasites, but not as yet reached the evidential threshold for domestic mild COVID19 treatment. People do need to feel they are doing something though, so it is used fairly frequently for that purpose in places where there are no other options. The results from those ad-hoc uncontrolled experiments have been mixed.
Hmm.. Its taken long enough, I wonder why they're only doing this study now when there have been reports for a year or more that there was success with this drug, (see the FLCCC Alliance for example).
"Deliberately undermine.., does make no sense." – Maui @9:31 PM
Maui, the 'Voices for Freedom' flyer that I read is unquestionably aimed at deliberately undermining the vaccine roll out in NZ.
Imho, 'Voices for Freedom' is acting much like a fifth column in NZ's fight against Covid-19. They are traitors to their country and their fellow citizens – their aim is to sabotage the public health vaccination programme by undermining public confidence in the most effective long-term 'weapon' NZ has for combatting the spread and severity of symptoms of Covid-19, including long-Covid.
Whether 'Voices for Freedom' and their ilk are sincere in their beliefs makes no difference – their contemptible actions condemn them.
Otago Faculty of Law Professor Andrew Geddis, who researches constitutional and public law, said that while “people do have a right to believe and say manifestly wrong things – it shouldn’t be illegal to go around telling everyone that the world is flat, for instance… the difference here is that if these anti-vax messages get currency, they could undermine our vaccination effort and this will hurt us all collectively in a way that some people believing the earth is flat will not.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Deeks
Imho the only redeeming feature of the proselytising anti-vax brigade is that, by not getting vaccinated themselves, they will free up much-needed vaccine doses for others. If they develop a serious vaccine-preventable Covid-related illness, they will of course be entitled to the best treatment our excellent but highly stressed universal public health system can provide. Such selfish and thoughtless behaviour is reprehensible and indefensible, and should be called out at every opportunity.
I've also read the flyer, and though I probably wouldnt agree with the wording of it. They back up each claim with references, some of the references are from experienced people in the field too. You have written them off as conspiracy theorists, and I think that's wrong as some, but maybe not all of their concerns are valid.
Bee said Voices for Freedom has "many doctors, nurses and medical professionals reaching out to us".
"We also are in contact with scientists, epidemiologists, virologists, molecular biologists, psychiatrists, and legal teams from within New Zealand and around the world. We see these voices and opinions as just as valid as those that regularly appear in NZ news stories."
Liar.
They remind me of the Climate Deniers. They used to make similar claims about their supporters. 97% of Climate Scientists and Meteorologists around the world advocated urgent action against CC for decades. Only 3% were against – for ideological and religious reasons – yet the deniers made grossly exaggerated claims they had lots of scientists on their side.
Neither the Science Educator or the Vaccinologist "experts" in your link directly address the concerns and research raised by the group. But that is hardly surprising.. they're too busy giving their own opinion.
Huh? They debunk every single claim and you deny that!? You sound desperate to defend them. You have a forum here at your disposal to debate any concerns you have and state your arguments. So far, only hand waving.
Experts give their expert opinion and put their credentials and professional trust on the line in MSM. That’s how it works: argument vs. counter-argument, claim vs. debunk.
We may have different ideas about what debunking means… For instance from the Newshub article let's take, "Claim #6: "It is unknown if the vaccine will cause cancer, sterility or mutate cells.""
The response byDr Petousis-Harris is that no previous vaccine has caused these harms before.. therefore we are to believe that this one is fine too even though it's a completely different tech to older vaccines.
Followed by a strange statement about fairies in the garden, that seems to indicate that they can't guarantee what future effects a vaccine might have.
Now after all that.. would you say Claim #6 really is debunked??
“Deliberately misleading,” said Dr Campbell. “Because the mRNA in the vaccine can’t enter the nucleus, let alone integrate with DNA, then changes in DNA (i.e. mutation) can’t happen.”
…
Dr Campbell said on the other hand, there is evidence the SARS-CoV-2 virus – which causes COVID-19 – can affect male fertility.
So, yes, Claim #6 has been debunked as “[d]eliberately misleading”.
'Voices for Freedom' is a 5th column group deliberately undermining confidence in public health vaccination strategies designed to protect all NZers, imho.
I will feel (a lot) safer once I've been vaccinated. Only 4 more days until my first dose of the Comirnaty vaccine – super excited.
Against my better judgement, I followed the link to evidence purporting to support VfF ‘fact’ 1: “Deaths and cases of serious injury are being reported around the world at an alarming rate!”
Children's Health Defense is an American activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine activities and has been identified as one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines. It was founded and is chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Established under the name World Mercury Project in 2016, it has been campaigning against various public health programs, such as vaccination and fluoridation of drinking water. The group has been contributing to vaccine hesitancy in the United States, encouraging citizens and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation. Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
…
On May 8, 2019, while some areas in the United States were struggling with a resurgence of measles due to low vaccination rates, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy and Maeve Kennedy McKean publicly stated that while their relative Robert has championed many admirable causes, he "has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines."
VfF are anti-vaxxers par-excellence; Andrew Wakefield would be proud.
The Herculean efforts of so many researchers during COVID-19 have been marred by a few individuals going well beyond their areas of expertise and endorsing outlandish hypotheses.
Conflating anti-vaxxers with people who have legitimate concerns about this particular new mRNA technology, in the novel context we are using it in – is a dirty trick.
Personally I've got a little yellow booklet with my vax record full up to the wazoo – but that doesn't mean I have to turn my critical faculties off and line up like a good little sheep for my dose without asking some crucial questions.
And good luck with your shot. Personally where I work I watched two healthy individuals take many days of work very sick afterwards. Well past any 'normal' reaction.
…people who have legitimate concerns about this particular new mRNA technology, in the novel context we are using it in…”
What are some of the “legitimate concerns” of these people?
And good luck with your shot. Personally where I work I watched two healthy individuals take many days of work very sick afterwards. Well past any 'normal' reaction.
Thanks for those kind words of comfort RL – great bedside manner. Will report back on Thursday, if I can rise from my deathbed
22.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 2.8 billion doses have been administered globally, and 41.2 million are now administered each day.
Only 0.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
The primary reason for the bewildering antithesis towards Ivermectin (and other existing drugs) is that the Emergency Use Authorisation under which the novel Covid 19 vaccines are allowed to be used in the US is dependent on there being No Alternatives.
Sadly, and for reasons I cannot explain, most of the world seems to follow the USA in these matters.
I would provide links to some very sound research and meta analyses of research and studies that point to the very safe and widely used Ivermectin as being a potential preventative as well as a treatment for Covid 19 and its variants, but I won't because the usual mob will indulge in another 'you're just a dirty anti-vaxxer' pile on.
The fight back against any treatment for Covid has been rabid from day one…and I find it peculiar that so many people have bought into the "a vaccine is our only hope!!!" narrative.
Meanwhile, therapies other than an antiparasitic are being rolled out.
REGEN-COV is available for free from the U.S. government to treat patients aged 12 years or older with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.
BRUSSELS, June 3 (Reuters) – The European Union has secured about 55,000 doses of a potential treatment for COVID-19 based on a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies developed by U.S. drugmaker Regeneron (REGN.O) and Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche (ROG.S), an EU spokesman said.
At AIG Hospitals in Hyderabad, 50 patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 were, in the last three weeks, given a dose of Regen-Cov, a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies designed by American biotech firm Regeneron. Symptoms in all the patients subsided within 24 to 48 hours of being administered the therapy.
Budesonide & dexamethasone have been demonstrated to be non-vaccine treatments for mild COVID, and were approved after rigorous trials. Ivermectin has some mixed results thus far (positive and negative) so is undergoing further testing before any definitive conclusion can be reached. But it's cheap and; if not exactly risk-free, better than drinking bleach. Vitamin D is a better placebo to my mind, because it might do you some good for other things while it's doing nothing about the virus.
But the most important thing is that treatments, even if effective (in mild cases), only treat symptoms. Vaccines not only prevent you (well okay – probably not you; RMcD) from developing symptoms requiring treatment in the first place, they also prevent you from infecting others.
As of 14 June, there have been 73 deaths in England of people who were confirmed as having the Delta variant and who died within 28 days of a positive test, and of these:
34 (47%) were unvaccinated
10 (14%) were more than 21 days after their first dose of vaccine
26 (36%) were more than 14 days after their second dose
Vaccines are not the magic bullet. They are just one tool in the toolbox.
Of 806 people infected with the Delta variant who ended up hospital in England between 1 February and 14 June 2021:
527 (65%) people were unvaccinated
135 (17%) were more than 21 days after their first dose of vaccine
84 (10%) were more than 14 days after their second dose
But the Delta variant does seem to be more resistant to the Astrazeneca vaccine that was developed against the Alpha (or prior) variant. The UK vaccination program means that more people are now vaccinated than not, yet the unvaccinated disproportionately lead the death statistics, if not so disproportionately as hospital admissions:
So far, more than 43 million people have had a first vaccine dose – about 80% of the adult population – and over 31 million have had a second…
Public Health England has estimated that 14,000 deaths have been averted in people aged 60 years or older in England up to 30 May 2021, as a direct effect of being vaccinated.
I'm kinda curious how many of the vaccinated that ended up getting covid and were hospitalised, were immunocompromised in some way.
For the US, the rough numbers I've seen are that about 10 million, or 3% of the population, are expected to be sufficiently immunocompromised that the vaccine is unlikely to do them much good. It seems likely UK numbers are similar.
Those highish numbers of immunocompromised, coupled with the known lower efficacy of the AZ vaccine, make it at least plausible that what could be happening is a substantial portion of those hospitalised and dying are immunocompromised people paying the entirely predictable horrific price of antisocial anti-vax arseholes refusing to to be reasonable and responsible members of the community and do their bit to try to get to herd immunity.
Those highish numbers of immunocompromised, coupled with the known lower efficacy of the AZ vaccine, make it at least plausible that what could be happening is a substantial portion of those hospitalised and dying are immunocompromised people paying the entirely predictable horrific price of antisocial anti-vax arseholes refusing to to be reasonable and responsible members of the community and do their bit to try to get to herd immunity.
Right on cue, and everso predicable. Andre theorizes, guesses, surmises and opines with no attempt to provide links to research or actual medical advice.
The slurs Andre casts say more about him than the people he is accusing of causing the deaths of the fully vaccinated.
Rosemary, if anyone chooses not to be vaccinated, that's entirely up to them – NZers can't be forced to protect their health, and the health of others, by choosing to get vaccinated.
The proselytising activities of anti-vax groups, such as 'Voices of Freedom', aim to deliberately undermine public health initiatives, and during an on-going global pandemic that just makes no sense to me – it's nonsense. But then I’m naturally risk-adverse.
Deliberately undermine.., does make no sense. Perhaps a group like Voices for Freedom would go to all that effort because… they think they have an alternative and an alternate viewpoint that is worthy of being shared?
Interesting that the medical facists out there find this so threatening.
Mashing all those numbers together, looks to me like unvaccinated folk are hospitalised at 18 times the rate and die at almost 4 times the rate as folk who have received both jabs.
It has been very interesting watching how Science has been done since Te Virus hit. How Science is presented in and by MSM, and how history seems to have simply ceased to exist.
There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.
The very basic approach to the use of IVM consists in its distribution to entire communities through annual or biannual mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns provided its excellent safety profile [4], whose only significant severe adverse reaction has been determined by its use in Loa loa infected individuals due to the life-threatening adverse events in this group [5].
Although the broad-spectrum anti-parasitic effects of the avermectin derivative ivermectin are well documented, its anti-inflammatory activity has only recently been demonstrated. For over 25 years, ivermectin has been used to treat parasitic infections in mammals, with a good safety profile that may be attributed to its high affinity to invertebrate neuronal ion channels and its inability to cross the blood-brain barrier in humans and other mammals. Numerous studies report low rates of adverse events, as an oral treatment for parasitic infections, scabies and head lice. Ivermectin has been used off-label to treat diseases associated with Demodex mites, such as blepharitis and demodicidosis. New evidence has linked Demodex mites to rosacea, a chronic inflammatory disease. Ivermectin has recently received FDA and EU approval for the treatment of adult patients with inflammatory lesions of rosacea, a disease in which this agent has been shown to be well tolerated. After more than 25 years of use, ivermectin continues to provide a high margin of safety for a growing number of indications based on its anti-parasitic and anti-inflammatory activities.
There's more…and many only accessible though downloading the pdf.
I would suggest hopping into the Time Machine and reading some papers from before Ivermectin became politicised. There's even a 2016 paper from our friends at the WHO who were seriously considering a mass roll out of Ivermectin to help prevent malaria…again mentions the very good safety profile.
FFS. And sorry to shout, but I'm kind of over this assumption that I am "anti-vax". I'm not, but I am most definitely hesitant about these very rushed, experimental and poorly tested mRNA jabs.
The source of this hesitancy is the fact that from just about day one of the pandemic being declared, the official narrative has been that there is no treatment for those seriously affected by Covid 19. The only hope was a vaccine.
And the only hope for these vaccines to gain that vital EUA from the FDA is that there were no alternate treatments.
And when Youtube and Facebook are busy removing posts and sometimes entire pages that dare to discuss treatments or prophylaxis for Covid or goddess forbid they discuss some of the scarier side effects of the vaccines… my 'there's shit going on here' radar goes off.
KJT's comment on the (very recent) safety report for Ivermectin is a case in point.
Ivermectin has a very good safety profile…or it did until doctors started using it to treat Covid. With some success.
Then, all of a sudden, this drug used by millions with a very high degree of safety over four decades, " has much worse potential side effects rates than a vaccine. "
Pointing this out to others, and providing links to a couple of papers who may be interested in facts, does not make me anti-vaccine.
Rosemary, can you pinpoint why my reply gave you the impression that I assume you're "anti-vax"? It's true that some of your past comments gave me that impression, but no longer.
The source of this hesitancy is the fact that from just about day one of the pandemic being declared, the official narrative has been that there is no treatment for those seriously affected by Covid 19. The only hope was a vaccine.
The fact is that from just about day one of the pandemic being declared, there has been a MASSIVE amount of research focussed on identifying any effective treatment and strategy to combat the spread of COVID-19 and to treat the life-threatening symptoms of infection.
The expert medical consensus is that (mass) vaccination offers the most efficient and effective means of minimising the spread and severity of COVID-19 infections – when you think about it, that's not surprising. As for the rush to use effective vaccines, there's a good reason:
You have your reasons to mistrust expert medical consensus on the pandemic and public health initiatives, but I don't (genuinely, I just don't), and that's why I'm plumping for te vaccine. Just 5 days and counting – excited!
Ivermectin and Covid-19: how a cheap antiparasitic became political [19April 2021]
The drug’s manufacturer, pharma giant MSD, also warned that its analysis of ivermectin identified “no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against Covid-19 from pre-clinical studies”, “no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with Covid-19 disease” and “a concerning lack of safety data” in most studies.
Individuals aged 18 to 64 years with some underlying health conditions or shortness of breath from Covid-19, or those aged above 65 years, can participate in the trial.
The trial will enrol subjects within the initial 14 days of Covid-19 symptoms or a positive test.
However, individuals with severe liver disease who are taking the blood-thinning drug warfarin, or other therapies known to interact with ivermectin, will not be eligible.
Ivermectin is the seventh therapy to be evaluated in the PRINCIPLE study, along with the influenza antiviral favipiravir.
I started looking at the journal articles for "alternative" treatments when friends, some of which are of the woo persuasion, starting advocating for them.
Just about everyone they cited as an authority, have no idea how vaccines work, how statistical probability works and how the adverse effects reporting systems work. If they weren't verifiably, lying. So don't expect me to take them seriously.
Ivermectin’s margin of safety is way below that of the Pfizer vaccine.
Which has now been administered safely to millions. After being tested on 43 000 volunteers. Many times the number that tested ivermectin, and indeed most other medications. 800 or even less is a more normal trial number. The idea that covid vaccines have been "rushed and poorly tested" is totally false.
Vaccines effects and side effects, even for new types, are well understood.
We have been using them for a long time now.
If the people who go on about vaccines being dangerous were correct, we would be hiding tens of millions of vaccine damaged people worldwide. Secret hospitals full of vaccine injuries on the desert road? Hell they couldn't even hide the effects of thalidomide for too long, when things were much less rigorous. The variants of the polio vaccine that did have a greater rate of side effects, were figured out by medical statisticians in the 50's.
The reason behind preferring vaccines is that they have been our most effective agent against virus since Jenner 1796 and earlier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner
You are correct that ivermectin has a known and good safety profile. However, this only applies to the approved indications such as parasitic infections in mammals. It does not necessarily follow from this that it also has a good safety profile in Covid-19 patients who may also receive other concomitant treatments. Only safety trials can test this in the appropriate patient population.
The second point is efficacy. There is very little point, in fact it is unethical, in giving Covid-19 patients ivermectin if it has not treatment benefits.
Ivermectin is a well-known medicine that is
approved as an antiparasitic by the World Health
Organization and the US Food and Drug Administra-
tion. It is widely used in low- and middle-income
countries (LMICs) to treat worm infections. 2,3 Also
used for the treatment of scabies and lice, it is one of
the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines. 4
With total doses of ivermectin distributed apparently
equaling one-third of the present world population, 5
ivermectin at the usual doses (0.2–0.4 mg/kg) is con-
sidered extremely safe for use in humans. 6,7 In addi-
tion to its antiparasitic activity, it has been noted to
have antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties.
Developing new medications can take years; there-
fore, identifying existing drugs that can be repurposed
against COVID-19 that already have an established
safety profile through decades of use could play a crit-
ical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV-
2 pandemic. Using repurposed medications may be
especially important because it could take months,
possibly years, for much of the world’s population to
get vaccinated, particularly among LMIC populations.
Currently, ivermectin is commercially available and
affordable in many countries globally. 6 A 2018 appli-
cation for ivermectin use for scabies gives a direct cost
of $2.90 for 100 12-mg tablets. 22 A recent estimate from
Bangladesh 23 reports a cost of US$0.60—US$1.80 for a
5-day course of ivermectin. For these reasons, the
exploration of ivermectin’s potential effectiveness
against SARS-CoV-2 may be of particular importance in setting with limited resources.
27 pages of fine print, lots of graphs and charts and references for Africa… Fill your booties.
Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.
Fair enough Rosemary, and even hotter off the 'press':
Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 2
"This basically shows that without those two studies, the analysis demonstrates no benefit for ivermectin at all compared to placebo, with a confidence interval that includes everything from a big benefit to a large harm from the drug. Interestingly, the between-study heterogeneity also reduces when you do this from about 50% to 6.6%, which is lower than the value the authors give in their sensitivity analysis in the paper.
What this means is that, if you exclude some of the low-quality research on ivermectin, the paper goes from showing a massive benefit to no benefit at all. On top of this, there’s an interesting point — even if you don’t agree with these assessments, taking the only three studies that the authors of the meta-analysis considered to be at a “low risk of bias” (i.e. high-quality), you find that these high-quality studies have failed to find any benefit for ivermectin."
This is, of course, what those of us who’ve questioned whether ivermectin works for COVID-19 have been saying all along. The few existing higher quality clinical trials testing ivermectin against the disease uniformly have failed to find a positive result. It’s only the smaller, lower-quality trials that have been positive. This is a good indication that the drug probably doesn’t work.
Tbh, I doubt any amount of evidence will convince believers that ivermectin isn't the latest wonder drug in the fight against COVID-19. I for one will be very pleased if evidence from high-quality clinical trials, such as the Oxford University PRINCIPLE trial for Covid-19, demonstrates ivermectin's efficacy.
In the meantime, however, a higher effective preventative treatment is being made available in NZ – marvellous.
I took the time to read that article you quoted. It's pretty typical of this sort of 'debunking' effort – looks impressive until you look for something past the handwaving and smearing.
Basically it relies on two dead on arrival arguments. One is that the proven effectiveness of Ivermectin in the petri dish was done with dose rates unachievable in live humans. It's one of those handwaving tricks that depends on people not understanding that the pharmokinetics of the two cases – lab vs live – are almost certainly going to be totally different.
Secondly it makes the old claim that the only valid means to progress medical science is the large double blind RCT study. Which of course is a nonsense as almost all progress in medicine originates from observation and clinical trial. Insisting that RCT's that cost a minimum of many tens of millions of dollars to run are the only valid form of evidence of course hands the entire field over to either governments or big pharma – who can readily tilt matters to suit their interests and the outcomes they want.
Then there is all the twitter quotes – again typical – and I just treat them as red flags and ignore them. But that's just me and my obdurate refusal to engage with anything from twitter at all.
Respect your opinion RL – let's agree to disagree, OK?
Again, I concede that it is possible that ivermectin has clinically relevant in vivo antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Based on current evidence, however, it seems unlikely that it does, when pharmacokinetics considerations are taken into account. As I routinely used to say when discussing hydroxychloroquine, I’d be happy to change my mind if compelling scientific evidence for ivermectin were published. It’s just that neither of these reviews qualify, nor do any of the clinical trials I’ve seen thus far. That’s why I agree that ivermectin shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19 outside of the context of a well-designed clinical trial with a strong scientific rationale. [David Gorski (PhD, MD, and Rosemary's "at best a fuckwit")]
Consider the possibilty that Gorski has a bit more hands-on experience of applied pharmacokinetics than either of us.
Thanks again Rosemary for your mahi around being wary of the vaccines.
It takes courage to maintain a view, despite the column inches, ad campaigns etc to not be persuaded because TINA!, and not bite at the 'anti-vax' baits that are put out.
I am confident there are many reading these exchanges with interest.
Appreciate the shot in the arm, gsays. I check, recheck and check again references and articles that I come across. Hanging around here has taught me that so many folk simply don't do that. If it's in the MSM on on a govenrnment website it must be true. I would have thought a bunch of political commentators would be more inquiring.
I did follow DMK's link… even though I had already read it. Very unfortunate that in the minds of some of the 'experts' Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine seem to be in the same stable.
Hydroxychloroquine shall forever be associated with Trump…sadly… but to use this association to bolster a derisory piece about another drug is just plain gutter stuff. It is not research…its opinion.
And someone who begins a piece about Ivermectin with referencing it as a ‘veterinary wormer’ (as if it has not been safely prescribed to literally millions of humans for over thirty years) is at best a fuckwit. At worst its appalling dishonest.
Indeed, an opinion based on knowledge, expertise, and evidence in hand, with well-laid out arguments and counter-arguments.
Again, I concede that it is possible that ivermectin has clinically relevant in vivo antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Based on current evidence, however, it seems unlikely that it does, when pharmacokinetics considerations are taken into account. As I routinely used to say when discussing hydroxychloroquine, I’d be happy to change my mind if compelling scientific evidence for ivermectin were published. It’s just that neither of these reviews qualify, nor do any of the clinical trials I’ve seen thus far. That’s why I agree that ivermectin shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19 outside of the context of a well-designed clinical trial with a strong scientific rationale.
Certainly, the conspiracy mongering by Bret Weinstein, Pierre Kory, and their fans are not leading me to reconsider that opinion.
You seem to have missed, or ignored, the similarities between the advocacy, or faith rather, for ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
I don’t see why you feel the need to bolster any links with Trump; he’s mentioned only once in the linked piece, which is quite long, may I add. A red herring and a strawman, IMO, to suit your narrative, no doubt.
For over 25 years, ivermectin has been used to treat parasitic infections in mammals, with a good safety profile that may be attributed to its high affinity to invertebrate neuronal ion channels and its inability to cross the blood-brain barrier in humans and other mammals.
I thought you were open-minded and keen to discuss this in good faith, but obviously you’re neither 🙁
Frankly, I cannot take seriously any longer your selective quoting (AKA lying by omission) and character assassinations to make your points. Of course, you will continue peddling your misguided opinions just like Historian Pete does.
In the meantime:
Can hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin be used to treat COVID-19?
Medsafe has not received any applications for approval of these medicines for treatment of COVID-19. Refer to the medicine’s data sheet for the approved indications.
We're all entitled to our opinions, although I'd hazard a guess that if I declared someone commenting on The Standard to be "at best a fuckwit", then I might cop a bit of flak – and rightly so, imho. Let's have a read of what the "fuckwit" wrote – remember, Rosemary's already read this:
Again, I concede that it is possible that ivermectin has clinically relevant in vivo antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Based on current evidence, however, it seems unlikely that it does, when pharmacokinetics considerations are taken into account. As I routinely used to say when discussing hydroxychloroquine, I’d be happy to change my mind if compelling scientific evidence for ivermectin were published. It’s just that neither of these reviews qualify, nor do any of the clinical trials I’ve seen thus far. That’s why I agree that ivermectin shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19 outside of the context of a well-designed clinical trial with a strong scientific rationale.
Once again, fear and the need for control. They're afraid of the vaccine. They're afraid of the virus, whether they admit it or not. They HAVE to believe that their health is under their own control, and that people who die of COVID are just too weak, stupid or deluded to do the "right things."
Eat the right foods, take the right vitamins, take the right magic pill that Big Pharma and the other conspiracies don't want you to know about, and bam! COVID is nothing to be afraid of.
It's wrong, it's harmful, and it's downright cruel to the people who suffer and die while trying to be healthy.
Andy Kessler’s excellent “Follow Michael Crichton’s Rule” (Inside View, Nov. 4) on the dumbing down of “science, the data and the studies” brings to mind the great Nobel physicist Richard Feynman’s 1974 Caltech commencement address entitled “Cargo Cult Science.” Feynman’s instructive words to the students (many of them future scientists) echoes strongly today: “For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they’ve been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. . . . In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution [theory]; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”
It is unfortunate that most research, even research that the public has paid for, is published in pay walled journals. A whole another issue.
Which members of the general public cannot easily access, making them reliant on “science” and other “Journalists” who often have an incomplete understanding of the science they are reporting.
Even worse when “Journalists” these days seem to consider that “the news” is their own opinion.
I would provide links to some very sound research and meta analyses of research and studies that point to the very safe and widely used Ivermectin as being a potential preventative as well as a treatment for Covid 19 and its variants
I stumbled across the Xmas Senate Hearing on Youtube shortly after the title had been 'edited' to the one I've linked to. Kory was suitably apoplectic after being labeled thus by crusty old guy. I watched because I had heard about ivermectin being on the list of possible therapeutics mid last year. And of course who (and WHO) hasn't heard about it's exemplary efficacy and safety?
I get that folks are scared about the virus, and I kinda get that they'll cling to what they have decided is the safe and true. And many here think the sun rises and sets on the Current Incumbents. (No surprises that I have little faith in Governments and even less trust in our Ministry of Health.) What concerns me a little is that Later, when the dust has settled and the critical faculties have be restored, we're all supposed to get along again. Going to require a big dose of grace and forgiveness to get past the slurs and the name calling and the derision and the cheerfully spoken desire to see those not willing to be guinea pigs (or worse, allowing their children to be test subjects) cast into the dark margins. Losing jobs and access to healthcare and education….
I don't care about the pile on crowd – so far they've proven wrong at every point.
In your opinion?
Don't really care about chloroquine, vitamin D and ivermectin snake oil merchants, or the anti-vax humbugs – they've been wrong at every point, imho.
Clinical Trials Ivermectin As a COVID-19 Therapy I think that WHO page does a solid job of evaluating the literature to that point, and overall, the better the quality of the evidence, the more it tends to show little or no effect of ivermectin. [Derek Lowe (PhD)]
Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 2
This is, of course, what those of us who’ve questioned whether ivermectin works for COVID-19 have been saying all along. The few existing higher quality clinical trials testing ivermectin against the disease uniformly have failed to find a positive result. It’s only the smaller, lower-quality trials that have been positive. This is a good indication that the drug probably doesn’t work.
…
Again, I concede that it is possible that ivermectin has clinically relevant in vivo antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Based on current evidence, however, it seems unlikely that it does, when pharmacokinetics considerations are taken into account. As I routinely used to say when discussing hydroxychloroquine, I’d be happy to change my mind if compelling scientific evidence for ivermectin were published. It’s just that neither of these reviews qualify, nor do any of the clinical trials I’ve seen thus far. That’s why I agree that ivermectin shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19 outside of the context of a well-designed clinical trial with a strong scientific rationale. [David Gorski (PhD, MD, and Rosemary's "at best a fuckwit")]
RL, I don't understand (really, I don't) why intelligent people who clearly have much valuable expertise across a wide range of areas are so confident that the considered consensus of medical and academic experts on a range of treatments for COVID-19 must be wrong. I wouldn't second guess my surgeon on the safest way to achieve the best outcome of an operation, or, for that matter, my excellent anaesthetist on what and how much anaesthetic to use – I trust them.
Nor would I challenge an oncologist on the most appropriate treatments and dosing regimes to shrink and inoperable tumour, although if I was really frightened I might seek a second opinion.
And yet, when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the best ways to minimise its tragic impact on human health, suddenly expert medical consensus counts for squat. Doesn't that seem bizarre to you? I just don't get it.
(Some seriously nasty experiences in the healthcare system led me to that particular site some years ago. Very disturbing to read that our very distressing near death experiences were at the low end of the shit-gets-real spectrum. Peter didn't die.)
You and Peter have my sympathies Rosemary – when our healthcare system makes a mistake, the consequences can be dire.
No healthcare system will ever be perfect, and yet with (very) few exceptions NZ healthcare staff do their best for us all. Maybe I've been unusually lucky in regard to my six general anaesthetic procedures in NZ (starting with a tonsillectomy, and including a life-saving operation) spread over 60 years.
And thanks for the link, but at first glance it looks like a catalogue of woe. I believe that a positive pre-operative attitude helps to reduce post-operative pain, so won't be delving any further. Not the best pre-op approach for everyone, of course, but sometimes ignorance really can be bliss.
I think part of what is being described "…I don't understand (really, I don't) why intelligent people who clearly have much valuable expertise across a wide range of areas are so confident that the considered consensus of medical and academic experts on a range of treatments for COVID-19 must be wrong."
It isn't so much they are wrong, more that they can be slow to see that someone is also right, for different reasons.
Most of the experts we are talking about are conservative by nature. By conservative I mean resistant to change and are not comfortable outside of the consensus. After all they have degrees and masters which reinforces how correct they must be.
None of this is to denigrate said experts, just to point out they are not the sole keepers of truth.
Yes, experts "are not the sole keepers of truth", but don't outcomes (and logic) suggest that they tend to be right about matters relating to their area(s) of expertise more often than non-experts? Various expert consensuses on COVID have developed and continue to evolve rapidly.
COVID-19 genome sequencing and epidemiological analyses, development and evaluation of vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19, advising on strategies to limit virus transmission and how best to communicate these strategies, etc. etc. All just common sense?
None of this is to denigrate the essential role of the general public in combatting this pandemic, just to point out that good pandemic outcomes are heavily dependent on expertise – it’s a partnership.
The idea of being (overly) reliant on (pushy, know-it-all) experts will generate some psychological pushback, akin to concerns that your car mechanic might be ripping you off. Are we all COVID experts now?
What I would point out is commerce underpins and funds most experts and that touches on one of the points Rosemary is making; Ivermectin endorsements are frowned upon because it would bring into doubt TINA, "…the only hope for these vaccines to gain that vital EUA from the FDA is that there were no alternate treatments."
"I wouldn't second guess my surgeon on the safest way to achieve the best outcome of an operation, or, for that matter, my excellent anaesthetist on what and how much anaesthetic to use – I trust them.
Nor would I challenge an oncologist on the most appropriate treatments and dosing regimes to shrink and inoperable tumour, although if I was really frightened I might seek a second opinion."
You are in a comfortable position. Good for you.
Now, try to encompass the idea that others in the same system have had direct experience of harm and lies, and acknowledge they are justifiably critical and no longer take the word of every health practitioner at face value.
Molly, don't know about "comfortable" (good for me!), but thanks anyway.
Having encompassed the idea that negative personal experiences due to mistakes can colour perceptions of NZ's health services, I'd hope this wouldn't lead to an impression that causing harm and lying are commonplace – healthcare workers are under enough stress as it is. We depend on them, and they are there for us – to the best to their abilities.
There is a difference between colouring perceptions, and actually realising there are some harmful aspects to our health system.
Health practitioners have egos and biases and institutional conditioning just like anyone else. If the health system does not focus on the patient – like ours – these human aspects can, and do, cause harm.
Consider yourself privileged that you have not be on the receiving end, but try not to dismiss others knowledge and experience as perception. There have been many reports of the failures of our health system. Criticism and cynicism is often valid.
Health practitioners have egos and biases and institutional conditioning just like anyone else.
I guess "just like anyone else" is where I'm coming from Molly. The people who we depend on to make the health system work (or not work) for us are only human.
You say/think 'privileged', I say/think 'lucky' (there but for the grace of God…) – either way NZers are, on average, better off thanks to the efforts of nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals. Naturally, it may be difficult to some who have personally experienced a serious failure of our healthcare system to acknowledge the truth that for every failure there might be – what? – five successes, 10, 20?
If not the aspirational "first do no harm", then at least "do more good than harm". Each year in NZ tens of thousands of people die while under the care of nurses and doctors – only some of those deaths are due to medical misadventure/negligence, and even fewer are down to deliberate harm, imho.
There have been many reports of the failures of our health system. Criticism and cynicism is often valid.
Indeed, “failures of our health system” are reported much more often than its successes. Valid criticism is usually helpful, as is having realistic expectations. Not sure about ‘valid cynicism’ – maybe useful as a coping mechanism?
A Scoping Review of Research into the Origins of Cynicism Among Medical Trainees [June 2021] From Kopelman’s perspective, the presence of cynicism verifies that students’ ideals are still alive because they recognize that things could be better and are disappointed that they are not; cynicism may be preferable to despair. This review revealed that trainees have not suffered a death of their ideals, but a burial. Corrective action may be able to excavate what was lost—an idealistic approach to medical training.
I knew that Westpac (are they still the government bank? or whatever the jargon is) were looking at moving out of Aotearoa. But the coincident timing of this announcement alongside the apparently sudden resignation of McLean suggests that there is a bigger story under the surface here.
It was hardly sudden, or a surprise. It was actually announced about two months ago after all.
It is quite normal to appoint an acting CEO and look outside the organisation for possible people even if you then go ahead and appoint someone from inside the company when you need a new CEO.
There aren't a bunch of people sitting around doing nothing until the CEO quits and they can replace him/her.
I wouldn't bet against Simon Power getting the job permanently. He has been in the running for the job for a while after all.
Westpac where going to float the NZ business on the stock exchange weren't they/ Yes I do wonder what changed their mind. Too much profit from New Zealand no doubt? IMHO though it's high time the reserve bank attached a whole host of service conditions to a banking licence – before we wind up with services available only to the favoured few high net profit people.
"Westpac where going to float the NZ business on the stock exchange weren't they/Yes …/".
Perhaps you can provide a link to where they said they were going to do that? I have never seen anything as definitive as the claim you make.
The strongest statement I ever saw was back in March when they advised the Stock Exchange that
“Westpac is also assessing the appropriate structure for its New Zealand business and whether a demerger would be in the best interests of shareholders. Westpac is in the very early stage of this assessment and no decisions have been made"
Westpac are required to tell the Stock Exchange, and the investing public anything like this that could have an effect on the value of the firm. They were considering it, along with the entire structure of the Bank and its activities outside Australia. That is a vastly different thing from saying they were going to actually do it.
The / was meant to be a ?, as I was uncertain whether Westpac was looking at a stock market listing or whether it was someone else's suggestion. Happy to be advised by you of course.
Incognito:A few thoughts in my final post in the standard. I feel I am casting pearls before swine anyway- so my banning is timely!
Between 1967-1970 I was involved in the struggle with the neo-fascist right in New Zealand , along with others on the left, to bring about free speech . Many of us were arrested, some jailed, and beaten by Police. But we were successful. Now 50 years later all we achieved has been destroyed by the woke left. Like you see on the standard. Left blog sites are exclusive rather than inclusive .Moderators who are like Political Commissars from the Soviet Union, act like political high priests , pontificating on what is considered a heresy .Freedom of speech is no longer with us, nor does it appear on TV, radio, or web sites such as Twitter, Facebook,, Utube. All enabled by our woke left in Western countries. And for the benefit of Giant corporations owned and controlled by the 1% Oligarchic Right .In effect the destruction of Democracy.
The upside is that those responsible, like yourself, will soon be exterminated by the Covid vaccines .The Spike Protein will destroy your innate immunity that you are born with and you will be open to attack by any toxic virus or bacteria and you will die. A great pity about the completely innocent people who will be extinguished by the actions of the Oligarchic Right and their Woke enablers.
You will have 2-3 years to live according to the latest Scientific Prognosis.[ After you have received your jab.] So , as you get ready in the near future to climb into your pine box , fully understand that your timely demise is because of your arrogance and stupidity. Huzzah!!!
[I’m fully supportive of freedom of expression, so I’ll let this through, unedited, so that others can marvel as well – Incognito]
Why do you claim this particular vaxxine is so bad for us compared to all the 'invasive' cures that we have had since World War 2, including those for Smallpox, Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and all the rest?
You are more than welcome to be non-pc on my posts, so long as you bring cited facts.
I am not against those vaccines. I am against this jab because It is not a vaccine. It is experimental. It has been manufactured in haste at the behest of Big Pharma, most of whom have convictions for fraud from previous manufactured products. The regulatory authorities have not scrutinized these so called "vaccines" with a normal tested scrutiny. The side effects , that are frankly horrific, are hidden and buried by our authorities. NZ does not publish toxic side effects, we are not allowed to know. Strangely this is not the case in the US,UK, and Australia. In previous articles I have itemized the efforts of authorities in the Canada to threaten medical staff with termination if they whistle blow .I have a close confidant who has an intimate knowledge of a care facility. in NZ where similar is happening. Serious side effects ending in hospitalisation are happening but never reported. Expert medical staff like Dr Robert Malone,who invented the m RNA have stated the covid jabs are lethally toxic . How much more do you want?
[Still not a single decent link, just hot air and utter bollocks.
A “close confidant who has an intimate knowledge of a care facility”? Yeah, right!
You are an ignorant incorrect conspiracy nutbar, as far as I can see, and my parsnip agrees:
HPete, I haven't read that much bile since, since ….this morning on tdb. Another crusty old bastard spewing out venom and bullshit, probably because you don't like all this quite minor change, really. No wonder the moderator gives you stick. It's offensive. The old rednecks in this country are slowly being reined in and oh shit do they complain and cry like little babies. But much louder. Left leaning blogsites like TS are very tolerant towards old crusties like me having a go at old crusties like you, but isn't that the freedom of speech that you want? TS is not the CPP.
When I am called shit for brains by one poster, and hysterical Pete and nut job by the moderator, and then my post is expunged in its entirety, my feminine gentle side disappears, and I go feral !
Between 1967-1970 I was involved in the struggle with the neo-fascist right in New Zealand.
What a load of old crock. The neo fascist movement didn't exist back then. It wasn't until well into the 1980s before neo Nazism started to rear its ugly head. Ok there might have been a few tiny pockets of left-over Nazis around in the 60s but they had no power or sway.
As an historian you are certainly a lousy example. Good riddance and… don't slam the door as you exit!
Edit: Ok, so you fought the National Front Party which had its earliest manifestation around the late 1960s. About 10 of them I think. Wow, what a mighty brave fella you were.
I see. So you print my main article to let your pathetic sycophants have a go at me and then expunge my responses. That is the kind of dirty pool/ slimy tactics I would expect from a second rate woke tosspot.
[Excuse me? Do Moderators have to be at your beck and call 24/7? We are volunteers with jobs and other commitments.
You were told a couple of days ago that you are in Pre-Moderation until you lift your game – I’m still waiting and the signs are not good.
Not a single comment of yours has been “expunged” today, so an apology might be in place, don’t you think? – Incognito]
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 6 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Fair enough to worry about ourselves, but the Fiji outbreak is now 150 a day and climbing.
We don't seem to hear much about Fiji on the news. How are their hospitals coping as they seem to have 150 new cases a day but I have never heard how many have had to be hospitalised.
from today:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/covid-outbreak-has-fijis-infrastructure-brink-collapse
I'd be in favour of NZ sending some of our vaccines to Fiji. They have a pretty serious need over there.
Yeah, but Fiji is bigger than just Suva – so the temperature controlled infrastructure may not be there for the Pfizer vaccine. Weren't there other candidate vaccines that were being distributed to neighbouring pacific islands? Targeting those to Fiji on a priority basis might achieve more than disrupting our own distribution organisation,
All true.
I just reckon that if it's practical to do, I wouldn't be opposed to NZ making the offer. Shoot, we're ahead of schedule anyway.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445439/covid-19-no-cases-in-the-community-after-nearly-7000-tests-chris-hipkins
So why does NZ need to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine to on-donate it? If Fiji is willing to take the risk, then I'd say that's up to them. At least it only needs fridge temperature storage.
I'd be kinda queasy about the idea of donating stuff we hadn't yet approved as being good enough to use on our own population. To me, it would kinda feel like sending pet food to alleviate a famine.
ISTR several years ago the local hospital got rid of their old-style wooden crutches (the ones that go up to your armpits) because they cause nerve damage, and replaced them with the ones with the ring that goes around your upper arm and all the weight is on the handgrip.
Folks suggested we donate the old ones to developing nations. The DHB said they weren't going to dump harmful items onto developing nations, and trashed the old ones. Which seemed fair enough. "Here, have some nerve damage to salve my conscience" seems a bit odd.
According to the Aussies, Astra Zeneca vaccine for over 60s only.
Australians aged under 60 will no longer receive first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the rare risk of a serious blood clotting disorder among people aged 50 to 59.
The government has accepted the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), which recommends those aged under 60 now receive the Pfizer vaccine. It previously recommended Pfizer to those aged under 50.
The change is based on the advisory group’s assessment of the risks of the clotting disorder, called thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome or TTS, versus benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in protecting against COVID-19.
While the risk of TTS is still very low overall, it is more common in younger age groups. And younger people are less likely to die or become seriously ill from COVID-19.
Surely the infrastructure (freezers) needed for the virus can be transported with a decent generator…
Or else they should / could get the astra vaccines, or the johnson and johnson, both whom do not need to be stored at – 80 odd degrees.
Just because we in NZ have failed to certify these two vaccines does not mean that they can't be used, and should be used, after all the rest of the world does use them, inclusive Oz.
Hopefully soon they will certify a second or even third vaccines.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-medsafe-could-approve-second-vaccine-within-fortnight/A6WWPUUTPM4TUPKER7ZBHVIBFA/
True that.
The compassionate part of me thought: right now, we have the pfizer, we have freezers, we have the generators and their need is far more urgent than ours.
as for having the Pfizer…not so fast Jose!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-nz-extends-new-south-wales-travel-halt-some-wellington-flyers-not-welcome-in-cook-islands/2KEMG2P4DS4A2PZ7SDSJM5LXDA/
Tucked in at the very end of the long article:
When we tell Maori health providers to slow down vaccinating we might really don't have enough to send anywhere.
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/publications/media/2021/comirnaty-storage-conditions.asp
might be a bit costly as these are quite special it seems.
https://www.labcompare.com/General-Laboratory-Equipment/141-minus-80-Freezer-86-Freezer/
thinks to himself
"Resist the overwhelming urge to make a comparison between the freezers and a woman's heart…"
We first have to have vaccines to send, do you not think?
We have our delivery schedule for millions of people. We can on-ship a couple of deliveries.
Daily new cases in the UK are at their highest level in four months.
Indonesia and South Africa (among others) face new Covid waves – meanwhile, Morning Report's Susie Ferguson refers to "chaos as the capital city tries to clear itself of mā te [?] corona".
"Chaos" people! Keep it together World, and keep it together Team of Five Million – Fiji has an outbreak; Sydney has an outbreak – Wellington has a potential outbreak.
If I was there and trying to get to work and plan my life, my life would be in chaos. NZ has been getting along comfortably, now worries, and the health authorities have to sharpen us up FTTT, and this variant is just the latest and greatest!
Chaos ("complete disorder and confusion") just sounds so alarmist, so over-the-top, at least to me. If chaos is an accurate/representative descriptor for what's occurring in Wellington now, then how best to describe what Peru (!), Belgium, Italy, the UK, USA, Brazil, India et al. have been through – extreme chaos?
Hear/use 'chaos' often enough and belief may make it so. This will sound very presumptuous, but I believe what most Wellingtonians are currently experiencing is not chaos, nor catastrophe, but rather a mild-to-moderate inconvenience associated with the precautionary move to Covid alert level 2; we've all been there.
Just my opinion, as always. I really hope that Wellington, Kapiti Coast and the Wairarapa get back to level 1 ASAP.
Too much chaos and you may end up devastated.
Okay, so Chris Hipkins is responsible – isn’t he a busy boy?
So far, so good.
Yup, agree 100% with that.
While this is true, it has also shown the limitations of online meetings. Nothing yet replaces direct face-to-face contact of being in the same room at the same time and have a coffee or lunch break, to get to know each other.
Inclusion, be it digital or real-life, is a necessary but not sufficient step towards truly open government and we’re some way off still, obviously.
Please do better, Mr Hipkins, than pointing to pathetic things such as Zoom meetings.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/openness-fundamental-to-democracy
Sounds good – now does it include politicians having done a short course in people management, project management, priorities in decision making and social anthropologyabout what human society is, and needs to have a healthy-minded civilisation. Perhaps Hipkins and others can concentragte on this while they are thinking about better government. And we could look at having a second house of citizens who have also done that course and done a test to show that they can make intelligent choices and devise ways to meet the needs of the country and improve conditions and make good choices putting practical first, and theoretical second, so that things chosen will be done in the most appropriate way for good outcomes. Whew. That's a lot of advancement for NZ. I don't think we are up to that yet, or will ever be.
"A draft of the IPCC report apparently from early this year was leaked to Agence France-Presse, which reported on its findings on Thursday. The draft warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible. It warns: “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems … humans cannot.”"
You wouldn't know it by the distinct lack of urgency being displayed anywhere
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/climate-change-dangerous-thresholds-un-report
Best Cricket team we've ever had.
Yep – one of those rare alignments of the stars when our shallow player base produces a really good team (with a bit of help this time from the South African talent diaspora). It's happened before – the 1949 team to England, the 1985 team that crushed Australia at the Gabba, and again in 2021. A neat 36-year gap between each one.
Surely mainstream news outlets should use correct facts. Both these articles reference population projections for Wellington that were always at the top end of any projected range and have been modified when challenged
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-06-2021/wellington-city-councillors-need-to-ask-themselves-who-are-you-really-serving/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/125471532/wellington-a-city-divided-as-spatial-plan-thriller-plays-out-beneath-bureaucracys-lights
All these population growth projections and yet our fertility rate is below replacement level…….go figure.
Again, who wants to have kids if you can't even afford to house them? But then, we can always import some cheap labour to man our hospitals, our old folk homes, wash our dishes, cook our food etc, while our young be economic migrants in England or so. The wheel keeps on turning.
Maybe the government should roll the cost of housing homeless over to the towns. I wonder how long it would take for the motels to be empty, the parks to be full and the nimby’s to be pooping their pants? Same of course counts for a great many places that are too good to be build up.
Around Wellington those excessive population projections plus Labour rolling out "one size fits all" transport plans demanding building around hubs have raised huge issues that go beyond nimbyism.
Unlikely that that amount of intensification will ever be needed but
The pipes won't take extra intensification except in four areas.
Earthquakes are a real hazard and some areas have ground that is too soft to intensify easily and/or the insurance premiums are going to be massive.
Plus with too dense a housing an earthquake would render even more people homeless than the 17000 or so that are currently in high rise.
The lack of existing green spaces would be even more of an issue.
demanding houses next to transport guts any discussion on retirement housing that is needed and doesn't have the same transport impact. The northern suburbs could be intensified for retirement and get people out of bigger houses.
What I really don't understand though is why labour are so keen on shooting themselves in the foot ( or is it the Greens they are targeting?) with the intensification over such narrow footprints in the existing city. Wellington is a high labour greens voting area and there have been a number of thoughtful contributions put forward by the various suburbs to increase housing supply and have workable transport.
If it had started with engaging locals with realistic population increases then we are likely to have less division and more solutions. Nor has labour done anything to push back at unused or lights out housing, overseas ownership or
As to awful rental housing – some of it at least demands health/ building inspection and the filing with the tenancy tribunal of any notices to upgrade. And here I think councils do have a role – it is the dwelling that needs fixing not the tenants being moved on.
Next time i will add a s/ tag. I forgot. My bad.
but in saying that, if the towns had to via their rates to pay for the upkeep of the people they can't or won't house then maybe they could find alternatives that suits them.
This infuriates me. Not only because it is crap but it is so dangerous if taken internally.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hanmer-springs-healthcare-clinic-handing-out-anti-vaccine-material/GTTI3EY7ZILUARV5T5RC2ILQOM/
Can someone tell me why the media outlets won't name the bastards responsible? Name them and shame them. It might stop others from doing it. If we didn't have so many gullible souls it wouldn't matter but unfortunately we do.
A small glossy flyer appeared in my (Palmerston North) letterbox about a week ago.
The 'organisation' behind this flyer is the so-called 'Voices for Freedom', but I reckon this 'voice' about sums them up:
Absolute trash (which is where it's going now; only kept it in case others posted about similar misinformation – thanks Anne). The 'minds' behind such campaigns are intent on pushing NZers under the 'Covid bus' to get their way – in a word; disgusting.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/444644/deeply-misleading-covid-19-leaflets-cause-distress-to-at-risk-resident
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths
And a few more facts about the Pfizer vaccine can be found here. Its a pdf so just click on the Risk Management Plan link.
All information contained therein is Medsafe approved. Including…
Important identified risks
Anaphylaxis
Important potential risks
Vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED) including vaccine-
associated enhanced respiratory disease (VAERD)
Missing information
Use in pregnancy and while breast feeding
Use in immunocompromised patients
Use in frail patients with co-morbidities (eg, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease [COPD], diabetes, chronic neurological disease,
cardiovascular disorders)
Use in patients with autoimmune or inflammatory disorders
Interaction with other vaccines
Long-term safety data
Rosemary, thanks for that list of potential risks – if I experience those or any other side-effects I'll post details here, unless the vaccine polishes me off first. At least I survived this year’s batch of influenza vaccine
As to the missing information, the reason I'm able to get the Pfizer vaccine now is because of my autoimmune disorders, so that's something to be thankful for.
And yes, it's regrettable that long-term safety data is necessarily missing, but frankly some countries just couldn't wait.
Coronavirus Cases: 180,370,780
Deaths: 3,907,592
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
With 2.8 billion doses administered so far, I reckon there'll be a big dataset of side effects, and I'm happy to contribute to that data set – no pussyfooting around for this lad.
Anyone hesitant about the Covid-19 vaccine may choose not to get vaccinated – but don't worry, someone else will be lining up for your doses.
Average risk of death from COVID-19 infection without vaccination: 2%. Your choice.
I don’t like the approach they have taken. Completely inappropriate and confusing..that said..
I don't want to aggravate anyone but the evidence for Ivermectin is not going away at this point, and has been available since around Aug/Sept 2020. Unless you focus on studies that have been deliberately designed to make it look ineffective (eg by waiting until just before death to dose someone with it, they die and therefore the conclusion is that Ivermectin is useless) there is no reason not to approve this drug for Covid treatment. If proper public debate were permitted perhaps medical doctors that agree Ivermectin works and is safe could have made their point logically, the way science used to be done.
Ivermectin can be taken at home therefore saving hospital costs and risks of transmission. It would be well worth the MoH's time to conduct a proper look at Ivermecting which they either haven't done, or they only looked at studies guiding them to a specific outcome.
This NZ Doctor speaks about Ivermectin, thus putting his career on the line because he has assessed the information and has a medical opinion that is contrary to the government line, I guess with the intention that things could change and lives would be saved by the use of this drug (approved in NZ for human use, just not for Covid btw) https://odysee.com/@NZDSOS:2/Dr-Shelton:5
Instead of treating doctors not following the status quo we seek to punish for speaking out when really they are stating a medical opinion, a right they earned when they completed training and began practicing medicine. Where is the respect? And does anyone honestly think NZ can afford to loose all the doctors and nurses who signed the open letter critising NZ's response? It's madness.
There is a larger study including Ivermectin happening in the UK, that should help resolve the question of its efficacy. It makes sense that while testing one proposed treatment against a control group, you may as well test other treatments against the same control. At least it's safer than synthetic quinine.
https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/undoctored/ivermectin-be-investigated-adults-aged-18-possible-treatment-covid-19-principle
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57570377
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S2213-2600(21)00160-0/fulltext
I hardly think that dexamethasone has just been discovered as an effective treatment. It's been used for yonks as an anti-inflammatory medication for a myriad of conditions from asthma to brain inflammation.
Approved for treatment of COVID19 in UK hospitals, rather than discovered as a new substance, Brigid. Likewise; Ivermectin, is widely used to treat lice and other parasites, but not as yet reached the evidential threshold for domestic mild COVID19 treatment. People do need to feel they are doing something though, so it is used fairly frequently for that purpose in places where there are no other options. The results from those ad-hoc uncontrolled experiments have been mixed.
Hmm.. Its taken long enough, I wonder why they're only doing this study now when there have been reports for a year or more that there was success with this drug, (see the FLCCC Alliance for example).
Maui, the 'Voices for Freedom' flyer that I read is unquestionably aimed at deliberately undermining the vaccine roll out in NZ.
Imho, 'Voices for Freedom' is acting much like a fifth column in NZ's fight against Covid-19. They are traitors to their country and their fellow citizens – their aim is to sabotage the public health vaccination programme by undermining public confidence in the most effective long-term 'weapon' NZ has for combatting the spread and severity of symptoms of Covid-19, including long-Covid.
Whether 'Voices for Freedom' and their ilk are sincere in their beliefs makes no difference – their contemptible actions condemn them.
Imho the only redeeming feature of the proselytising anti-vax brigade is that, by not getting vaccinated themselves, they will free up much-needed vaccine doses for others. If they develop a serious vaccine-preventable Covid-related illness, they will of course be entitled to the best treatment our excellent but highly stressed universal public health system can provide. Such selfish and thoughtless behaviour is reprehensible and indefensible, and should be called out at every opportunity.
I've also read the flyer, and though I probably wouldnt agree with the wording of it. They back up each claim with references, some of the references are from experienced people in the field too. You have written them off as conspiracy theorists, and I think that's wrong as some, but maybe not all of their concerns are valid.
Yeah, nah.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/04/coronavirus-every-claim-about-covid-19-made-by-anti-lockdown-group-voices-for-freedom-debunked-by-scientists.html
From the link:
Liar.
They remind me of the Climate Deniers. They used to make similar claims about their supporters. 97% of Climate Scientists and Meteorologists around the world advocated urgent action against CC for decades. Only 3% were against – for ideological and religious reasons – yet the deniers made grossly exaggerated claims they had lots of scientists on their side.
Neither the Science Educator or the Vaccinologist "experts" in your link directly address the concerns and research raised by the group. But that is hardly surprising.. they're too busy giving their own opinion.
Huh? They debunk every single claim and you deny that!? You sound desperate to defend them. You have a forum here at your disposal to debate any concerns you have and state your arguments. So far, only hand waving.
Experts give their expert opinion and put their credentials and professional trust on the line in MSM. That’s how it works: argument vs. counter-argument, claim vs. debunk.
We may have different ideas about what debunking means… For instance from the Newshub article let's take, "Claim #6: "It is unknown if the vaccine will cause cancer, sterility or mutate cells.""
The response by Dr Petousis-Harris is that no previous vaccine has caused these harms before.. therefore we are to believe that this one is fine too even though it's a completely different tech to older vaccines.
Followed by a strange statement about fairies in the garden, that seems to indicate that they can't guarantee what future effects a vaccine might have.
Now after all that.. would you say Claim #6 really is debunked??
I see what you did there 🙁
So, yes, Claim #6 has been debunked as “[d]eliberately misleading”.
You’re grasping at straws.
Next.
When the inventor of mRNA vaccines expresses his reservations – maybe it's not all tin-foil hattery after all.
But by now everyone has formed up into neat little tribes and the science be damned.
'Voices for Freedom' is a 5th column group deliberately undermining confidence in public health vaccination strategies designed to protect all NZers, imho.
https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/medicines/c/comirnaty-covid-19-vaccine/
I will feel (a lot) safer once I've been vaccinated. Only 4 more days until my first dose of the Comirnaty vaccine – super excited.
Against my better judgement, I followed the link to evidence purporting to support VfF ‘fact’ 1: “Deaths and cases of serious injury are being reported around the world at an alarming rate!”
That link took me to an article on the Children's Health Defense website.
VfF are anti-vaxxers par-excellence; Andrew Wakefield would be proud.
Conflating anti-vaxxers with people who have legitimate concerns about this particular new mRNA technology, in the novel context we are using it in – is a dirty trick.
Personally I've got a little yellow booklet with my vax record full up to the wazoo – but that doesn't mean I have to turn my critical faculties off and line up like a good little sheep for my dose without asking some crucial questions.
And good luck with your shot. Personally where I work I watched two healthy individuals take many days of work very sick afterwards. Well past any 'normal' reaction.
What are some of the “legitimate concerns” of these people?
Thanks for those kind words of comfort RL – great bedside manner. Will report back on Thursday, if I can rise from my deathbed
https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines/
The primary reason for the bewildering antithesis towards Ivermectin (and other existing drugs) is that the Emergency Use Authorisation under which the novel Covid 19 vaccines are allowed to be used in the US is dependent on there being No Alternatives.
Sadly, and for reasons I cannot explain, most of the world seems to follow the USA in these matters.
I would provide links to some very sound research and meta analyses of research and studies that point to the very safe and widely used Ivermectin as being a potential preventative as well as a treatment for Covid 19 and its variants, but I won't because the usual mob will indulge in another 'you're just a dirty anti-vaxxer' pile on.
The fight back against any treatment for Covid has been rabid from day one…and I find it peculiar that so many people have bought into the "a vaccine is our only hope!!!" narrative.
Meanwhile, therapies other than an antiparasitic are being rolled out.
REGEN-COV is available for free from the U.S. government to treat patients aged 12 years or older with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.
https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210607/fda-authorizes-lower-dose-of-regeneron-antibody-cocktail-for-covid19
BRUSSELS, June 3 (Reuters) – The European Union has secured about 55,000 doses of a potential treatment for COVID-19 based on a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies developed by U.S. drugmaker Regeneron (REGN.O) and Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche (ROG.S), an EU spokesman said.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/europe-secures-55000-doses-roche-regeneron-covid-drug-hope-2021-06-03/
At AIG Hospitals in Hyderabad, 50 patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 were, in the last three weeks, given a dose of Regen-Cov, a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies designed by American biotech firm Regeneron. Symptoms in all the patients subsided within 24 to 48 hours of being administered the therapy.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/antibody-cocktail-treatment-held-up-as-potential-game-changer-in-indias-fight
Budesonide & dexamethasone have been demonstrated to be non-vaccine treatments for mild COVID, and were approved after rigorous trials. Ivermectin has some mixed results thus far (positive and negative) so is undergoing further testing before any definitive conclusion can be reached. But it's cheap and; if not exactly risk-free, better than drinking bleach. Vitamin D is a better placebo to my mind, because it might do you some good for other things while it's doing nothing about the virus.
But the most important thing is that treatments, even if effective (in mild cases), only treat symptoms. Vaccines not only prevent you (well okay – probably not you; RMcD) from developing symptoms requiring treatment in the first place, they also prevent you from infecting others.
Vaccines not only prevent you … from developing symptoms requiring treatment in the first place,
Err…that's not exactly true…https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57525891
As of 14 June, there have been 73 deaths in England of people who were confirmed as having the Delta variant and who died within 28 days of a positive test, and of these:
Vaccines are not the magic bullet. They are just one tool in the toolbox.
The text preceding your quote:
But the Delta variant does seem to be more resistant to the Astrazeneca vaccine that was developed against the Alpha (or prior) variant. The UK vaccination program means that more people are now vaccinated than not, yet the unvaccinated disproportionately lead the death statistics, if not so disproportionately as hospital admissions:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833
I'm kinda curious how many of the vaccinated that ended up getting covid and were hospitalised, were immunocompromised in some way.
For the US, the rough numbers I've seen are that about 10 million, or 3% of the population, are expected to be sufficiently immunocompromised that the vaccine is unlikely to do them much good. It seems likely UK numbers are similar.
Those highish numbers of immunocompromised, coupled with the known lower efficacy of the AZ vaccine, make it at least plausible that what could be happening is a substantial portion of those hospitalised and dying are immunocompromised people paying the entirely predictable horrific price of antisocial anti-vax arseholes refusing to to be reasonable and responsible members of the community and do their bit to try to get to herd immunity.
Those highish numbers of immunocompromised, coupled with the known lower efficacy of the AZ vaccine, make it at least plausible that what could be happening is a substantial portion of those hospitalised and dying are immunocompromised people paying the entirely predictable horrific price of antisocial anti-vax arseholes refusing to to be reasonable and responsible members of the community and do their bit to try to get to herd immunity.
Right on cue, and everso predicable. Andre theorizes, guesses, surmises and opines with no attempt to provide links to research or actual medical advice.
The slurs Andre casts say more about him than the people he is accusing of causing the deaths of the fully vaccinated.
We have addressed the issue of the immunocompromised and work is being done already.
I guess if such a person died from Norovirus it would be the fault of a sociopathic anti- vaxxer?
Vaccines are not a magic bullet for all ills. I don't know how many times this needs to be said.
I guess its much easier, simpler, to blame "antisocial anti-vax arseholes".
Rosemary, if anyone chooses not to be vaccinated, that's entirely up to them – NZers can't be forced to protect their health, and the health of others, by choosing to get vaccinated.
The proselytising activities of anti-vax groups, such as 'Voices of Freedom', aim to deliberately undermine public health initiatives, and during an on-going global pandemic that just makes no sense to me – it's nonsense. But then I’m naturally risk-adverse.
Deliberately undermine.., does make no sense. Perhaps a group like Voices for Freedom would go to all that effort because… they think they have an alternative and an alternate viewpoint that is worthy of being shared?
Interesting that the medical facists out there find this so threatening.
Obviously they think that.
A bit like Ender's Game, where (spoilers) the kid thought it was a simulation and he wasn't actually killing millions.
Oops – risk-averse!
Mashing all those numbers together, looks to me like unvaccinated folk are hospitalised at 18 times the rate and die at almost 4 times the rate as folk who have received both jabs.
yup.
I would provide a link to some sound research, but i won't because it's bollocks.
Thanks for the belly laugh.
People against vaccines want to use Ivermecton.
Which has much worse potential side effects rates than a vaccine.
https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ivermectin-side-effects.html
Noting that it has been used on much less people than any vaccine.
?????
Not to mention all those “natural” remedies.
There is always bleach, I suppose. Chlorine occurs “Naturally”.
It has been very interesting watching how Science has been done since Te Virus hit. How Science is presented in and by MSM, and how history seems to have simply ceased to exist.
In the Beforetimes…Ivermectin was described as a Wonderdrug.
That paper is from 2011.
There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.
and another…https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0006020#pntd.0006020.ref005
The very basic approach to the use of IVM consists in its distribution to entire communities through annual or biannual mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns provided its excellent safety profile [4], whose only significant severe adverse reaction has been determined by its use in Loa loa infected individuals due to the life-threatening adverse events in this group [5].
and another…https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26954318/
Although the broad-spectrum anti-parasitic effects of the avermectin derivative ivermectin are well documented, its anti-inflammatory activity has only recently been demonstrated. For over 25 years, ivermectin has been used to treat parasitic infections in mammals, with a good safety profile that may be attributed to its high affinity to invertebrate neuronal ion channels and its inability to cross the blood-brain barrier in humans and other mammals. Numerous studies report low rates of adverse events, as an oral treatment for parasitic infections, scabies and head lice. Ivermectin has been used off-label to treat diseases associated with Demodex mites, such as blepharitis and demodicidosis. New evidence has linked Demodex mites to rosacea, a chronic inflammatory disease. Ivermectin has recently received FDA and EU approval for the treatment of adult patients with inflammatory lesions of rosacea, a disease in which this agent has been shown to be well tolerated. After more than 25 years of use, ivermectin continues to provide a high margin of safety for a growing number of indications based on its anti-parasitic and anti-inflammatory activities.
There's more…and many only accessible though downloading the pdf.
I would suggest hopping into the Time Machine and reading some papers from before Ivermectin became politicised. There's even a 2016 paper from our friends at the WHO who were seriously considering a mass roll out of Ivermectin to help prevent malaria…again mentions the very good safety profile.
Rosemary, if you're concerned that you and yours may fall victim to the next outbreak of COVID-19, then maybe consider purchasing Ivermectin tablets?
Not for everyone though – I'm plumping for te vaccine; only 5 days to go!
https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines
FFS. And sorry to shout, but I'm kind of over this assumption that I am "anti-vax". I'm not, but I am most definitely hesitant about these very rushed, experimental and poorly tested mRNA jabs.
The source of this hesitancy is the fact that from just about day one of the pandemic being declared, the official narrative has been that there is no treatment for those seriously affected by Covid 19. The only hope was a vaccine.
And the only hope for these vaccines to gain that vital EUA from the FDA is that there were no alternate treatments.
And when Youtube and Facebook are busy removing posts and sometimes entire pages that dare to discuss treatments or prophylaxis for Covid or goddess forbid they discuss some of the scarier side effects of the vaccines… my 'there's shit going on here' radar goes off.
KJT's comment on the (very recent) safety report for Ivermectin is a case in point.
Ivermectin has a very good safety profile…or it did until doctors started using it to treat Covid. With some success.
Then, all of a sudden, this drug used by millions with a very high degree of safety over four decades, " has much worse potential side effects rates than a vaccine. "
Pointing this out to others, and providing links to a couple of papers who may be interested in facts, does not make me anti-vaccine.
Rosemary, can you pinpoint why my reply gave you the impression that I assume you're "anti-vax"? It's true that some of your past comments gave me that impression, but no longer.
The fact is that from just about day one of the pandemic being declared, there has been a MASSIVE amount of research focussed on identifying any effective treatment and strategy to combat the spread of COVID-19 and to treat the life-threatening symptoms of infection.
The expert medical consensus is that (mass) vaccination offers the most efficient and effective means of minimising the spread and severity of COVID-19 infections – when you think about it, that's not surprising. As for the rush to use effective vaccines, there's a good reason:
You have your reasons to mistrust expert medical consensus on the pandemic and public health initiatives, but I don't (genuinely, I just don't), and that's why I'm plumping for te vaccine. Just 5 days and counting – excited!
"high margin of safety" NOT, absolute safety.
I started looking at the journal articles for "alternative" treatments when friends, some of which are of the woo persuasion, starting advocating for them.
Just about everyone they cited as an authority, have no idea how vaccines work, how statistical probability works and how the adverse effects reporting systems work. If they weren't verifiably, lying. So don't expect me to take them seriously.
Ivermectin’s margin of safety is way below that of the Pfizer vaccine.
Which has now been administered safely to millions. After being tested on 43 000 volunteers. Many times the number that tested ivermectin, and indeed most other medications. 800 or even less is a more normal trial number. The idea that covid vaccines have been "rushed and poorly tested" is totally false.
Vaccines effects and side effects, even for new types, are well understood.
We have been using them for a long time now.
If the people who go on about vaccines being dangerous were correct, we would be hiding tens of millions of vaccine damaged people worldwide. Secret hospitals full of vaccine injuries on the desert road? Hell they couldn't even hide the effects of thalidomide for too long, when things were much less rigorous. The variants of the polio vaccine that did have a greater rate of side effects, were figured out by medical statisticians in the 50's.
Ten reasons we got Covid-19 vaccines so quickly without 'cutting corners' | Adam Finn | The Guardian
Pretty much agrees with the research papers.
The reason behind preferring vaccines is that they have been our most effective agent against virus since Jenner 1796 and earlier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner
Hi Rosemary,
You are correct that ivermectin has a known and good safety profile. However, this only applies to the approved indications such as parasitic infections in mammals. It does not necessarily follow from this that it also has a good safety profile in Covid-19 patients who may also receive other concomitant treatments. Only safety trials can test this in the appropriate patient population.
The second point is efficacy. There is very little point, in fact it is unethical, in giving Covid-19 patients ivermectin if it has not treatment benefits.
HTH
There is very little point, in fact it is unethical, in giving Covid-19 patients ivermectin if it has not treatment benefits.
Hot off the press.
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Abstract/9000/Ivermectin_for_Prevention_and_Treatment_of.98040.aspx
Ivermectin is a well-known medicine that is
approved as an antiparasitic by the World Health
Organization and the US Food and Drug Administra-
tion. It is widely used in low- and middle-income
countries (LMICs) to treat worm infections. 2,3 Also
used for the treatment of scabies and lice, it is one of
the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines. 4
With total doses of ivermectin distributed apparently
equaling one-third of the present world population, 5
ivermectin at the usual doses (0.2–0.4 mg/kg) is con-
sidered extremely safe for use in humans. 6,7 In addi-
tion to its antiparasitic activity, it has been noted to
have antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties.
Developing new medications can take years; there-
fore, identifying existing drugs that can be repurposed
against COVID-19 that already have an established
safety profile through decades of use could play a crit-
ical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV-
2 pandemic. Using repurposed medications may be
especially important because it could take months,
possibly years, for much of the world’s population to
get vaccinated, particularly among LMIC populations.
Currently, ivermectin is commercially available and
affordable in many countries globally. 6 A 2018 appli-
cation for ivermectin use for scabies gives a direct cost
of $2.90 for 100 12-mg tablets. 22 A recent estimate from
Bangladesh 23 reports a cost of US$0.60—US$1.80 for a
5-day course of ivermectin. For these reasons, the
exploration of ivermectin’s potential effectiveness
against SARS-CoV-2 may be of particular importance in setting with limited resources.
27 pages of fine print, lots of graphs and charts and references for Africa… Fill your booties.
What you conclude from it?
Fair enough Rosemary, and even hotter off the 'press':
Tbh, I doubt any amount of evidence will convince believers that ivermectin isn't the latest wonder drug in the fight against COVID-19. I for one will be very pleased if evidence from high-quality clinical trials, such as the Oxford University PRINCIPLE trial for Covid-19, demonstrates ivermectin's efficacy.
In the meantime, however, a higher effective preventative treatment is being made available in NZ – marvellous.
https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines
You spoil all the fun 🙁
I took the time to read that article you quoted. It's pretty typical of this sort of 'debunking' effort – looks impressive until you look for something past the handwaving and smearing.
Basically it relies on two dead on arrival arguments. One is that the proven effectiveness of Ivermectin in the petri dish was done with dose rates unachievable in live humans. It's one of those handwaving tricks that depends on people not understanding that the pharmokinetics of the two cases – lab vs live – are almost certainly going to be totally different.
Secondly it makes the old claim that the only valid means to progress medical science is the large double blind RCT study. Which of course is a nonsense as almost all progress in medicine originates from observation and clinical trial. Insisting that RCT's that cost a minimum of many tens of millions of dollars to run are the only valid form of evidence of course hands the entire field over to either governments or big pharma – who can readily tilt matters to suit their interests and the outcomes they want.
Then there is all the twitter quotes – again typical – and I just treat them as red flags and ignore them. But that's just me and my obdurate refusal to engage with anything from twitter at all.
Respect your opinion RL – let's agree to disagree, OK?
Consider the possibilty that Gorski has a bit more hands-on experience of applied pharmacokinetics than either of us.
Thanks again Rosemary for your mahi around being wary of the vaccines.
It takes courage to maintain a view, despite the column inches, ad campaigns etc to not be persuaded because TINA!, and not bite at the 'anti-vax' baits that are put out.
I am confident there are many reading these exchanges with interest.
Appreciate the shot in the arm, gsays. I check, recheck and check again references and articles that I come across. Hanging around here has taught me that so many folk simply don't do that. If it's in the MSM on on a govenrnment website it must be true. I would have thought a bunch of political commentators would be more inquiring.
I guess its fear. Its the mind-killer. The little death that brings total obliteration.…
You’re not the only one here who checks, rechecks and checks again references and articles that you come across.
Indeed, so why don’t you be their role model and read the link provided by Drowsy M. Kram in their reply to you late last night?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine-take-2
Any open-minded intelligent person who values evidence-based information would appreciate that critical piece for what it is. Fill your booties.
@Incognito… reply button expired.
I did follow DMK's link… even though I had already read it. Very unfortunate that in the minds of some of the 'experts' Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine seem to be in the same stable.
Hydroxychloroquine shall forever be associated with Trump…sadly… but to use this association to bolster a derisory piece about another drug is just plain gutter stuff. It is not research…its opinion.
And someone who begins a piece about Ivermectin with referencing it as a ‘veterinary wormer’ (as if it has not been safely prescribed to literally millions of humans for over thirty years) is at best a fuckwit. At worst its appalling dishonest.
Indeed, an opinion based on knowledge, expertise, and evidence in hand, with well-laid out arguments and counter-arguments.
You seem to have missed, or ignored, the similarities between the advocacy, or faith rather, for ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
I don’t see why you feel the need to bolster any links with Trump; he’s mentioned only once in the linked piece, which is quite long, may I add. A red herring and a strawman, IMO, to suit your narrative, no doubt.
You consider David Gorski an appallingly dishonest fuckwit because he states a well-known fact? You wrote essentially the same thing above (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24-06-2021/#comment-1799883):
I thought you were open-minded and keen to discuss this in good faith, but obviously you’re neither 🙁
Frankly, I cannot take seriously any longer your selective quoting (AKA lying by omission) and character assassinations to make your points. Of course, you will continue peddling your misguided opinions just like Historian Pete does.
In the meantime:
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/q-and-a.asp#medicines [Revised 20 April 2021]
We're all entitled to our opinions, although I'd hazard a guess that if I declared someone commenting on The Standard to be "at best a fuckwit", then I might cop a bit of flak – and rightly so, imho. Let's have a read of what the "fuckwit" wrote – remember, Rosemary's already read this:
Fwiw, I found a couple of comments under breast cancer surgeon David Gorski’s (PhD, MD, and Rosemary's "at best a fuckwit") article "Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 2" (on the Science-Based Medicine website) helpful, but science isn't everyone's cup of tea.
It is unfortunate that most research, even research that the public has paid for, is published in pay walled journals. A whole another issue.
Which members of the general public cannot easily access, making them reliant on “science” and other “Journalists” who often have an incomplete understanding of the science they are reporting.
Even worse when “Journalists” these days seem to consider that “the news” is their own opinion.
I would provide links to some very sound research and meta analyses of research and studies that point to the very safe and widely used Ivermectin as being a potential preventative as well as a treatment for Covid 19 and its variants
Well here is the most recent one.
I don't care about the pile on crowd – so far they've proven wrong at every point.
I stumbled across the Xmas Senate Hearing on Youtube shortly after the title had been 'edited' to the one I've linked to. Kory was suitably apoplectic after being labeled thus by crusty old guy. I watched because I had heard about ivermectin being on the list of possible therapeutics mid last year. And of course who (and WHO) hasn't heard about it's exemplary efficacy and safety?
I get that folks are scared about the virus, and I kinda get that they'll cling to what they have decided is the safe and true. And many here think the sun rises and sets on the Current Incumbents. (No surprises that I have little faith in Governments and even less trust in our Ministry of Health.) What concerns me a little is that Later, when the dust has settled and the critical faculties have be restored, we're all supposed to get along again. Going to require a big dose of grace and forgiveness to get past the slurs and the name calling and the derision and the cheerfully spoken desire to see those not willing to be guinea pigs (or worse, allowing their children to be test subjects) cast into the dark margins. Losing jobs and access to healthcare and education….
Wise words. Typing on my phone is conducive to brevity, but yes to everything you've said so far.
In your opinion?
Don't really care about chloroquine, vitamin D and ivermectin snake oil merchants, or the anti-vax humbugs – they've been wrong at every point, imho.
RL, I don't understand (really, I don't) why intelligent people who clearly have much valuable expertise across a wide range of areas are so confident that the considered consensus of medical and academic experts on a range of treatments for COVID-19 must be wrong. I wouldn't second guess my surgeon on the safest way to achieve the best outcome of an operation, or, for that matter, my excellent anaesthetist on what and how much anaesthetic to use – I trust them.
Nor would I challenge an oncologist on the most appropriate treatments and dosing regimes to shrink and inoperable tumour, although if I was really frightened I might seek a second opinion.
And yet, when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the best ways to minimise its tragic impact on human health, suddenly expert medical consensus counts for squat. Doesn't that seem bizarre to you? I just don't get it.
Another example; Rosemary's characterisation of Helen Petousis-Harris (PhD) as a dogmatic egotist who enjoys basking in the media spotlight – simply bizarre; how to make sense of it?
I wouldn't second guess my surgeon …
….or my anaesthetist.
A little light reading for you DMK.
(Some seriously nasty experiences in the healthcare system led me to that particular site some years ago. Very disturbing to read that our very distressing near death experiences were at the low end of the shit-gets-real spectrum. Peter didn't die.)
You and Peter have my sympathies Rosemary – when our healthcare system makes a mistake, the consequences can be dire.
No healthcare system will ever be perfect, and yet with (very) few exceptions NZ healthcare staff do their best for us all. Maybe I've been unusually lucky in regard to my six general anaesthetic procedures in NZ (starting with a tonsillectomy, and including a life-saving operation) spread over 60 years.
And thanks for the link, but at first glance it looks like a catalogue of woe. I believe that a positive pre-operative attitude helps to reduce post-operative pain, so won't be delving any further. Not the best pre-op approach for everyone, of course, but sometimes ignorance really can be bliss.
I think part of what is being described "…I don't understand (really, I don't) why intelligent people who clearly have much valuable expertise across a wide range of areas are so confident that the considered consensus of medical and academic experts on a range of treatments for COVID-19 must be wrong."
It isn't so much they are wrong, more that they can be slow to see that someone is also right, for different reasons.
Most of the experts we are talking about are conservative by nature. By conservative I mean resistant to change and are not comfortable outside of the consensus. After all they have degrees and masters which reinforces how correct they must be.
None of this is to denigrate said experts, just to point out they are not the sole keepers of truth.
Yes, experts "are not the sole keepers of truth", but don't outcomes (and logic) suggest that they tend to be right about matters relating to their area(s) of expertise more often than non-experts? Various expert consensuses on COVID have developed and continue to evolve rapidly.
COVID-19 genome sequencing and epidemiological analyses, development and evaluation of vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19, advising on strategies to limit virus transmission and how best to communicate these strategies, etc. etc. All just common sense?
None of this is to denigrate the essential role of the general public in combatting this pandemic, just to point out that good pandemic outcomes are heavily dependent on expertise – it’s a partnership.
The idea of being (overly) reliant on (pushy, know-it-all) experts will generate some psychological pushback, akin to concerns that your car mechanic might be ripping you off. Are we all COVID experts now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19_misinformation
No beef with any of that.
What I would point out is commerce underpins and funds most experts and that touches on one of the points Rosemary is making; Ivermectin endorsements are frowned upon because it would bring into doubt TINA, "…the only hope for these vaccines to gain that vital EUA from the FDA is that there were no alternate treatments."
Nope, because its effectivity is not yet proven in this setting and clinical trials are underway to test this hypothesis.
Reply to Incognito:
"Nope, because its effectivity is not yet proven in this setting and clinical trials are underway to test this hypothesis."
To deny the influence of commerce in this is naive.
Just as well I didn’t then.
"I wouldn't second guess my surgeon on the safest way to achieve the best outcome of an operation, or, for that matter, my excellent anaesthetist on what and how much anaesthetic to use – I trust them.
Nor would I challenge an oncologist on the most appropriate treatments and dosing regimes to shrink and inoperable tumour, although if I was really frightened I might seek a second opinion."
You are in a comfortable position. Good for you.
Now, try to encompass the idea that others in the same system have had direct experience of harm and lies, and acknowledge they are justifiably critical and no longer take the word of every health practitioner at face value.
Molly, don't know about "comfortable" (good for me!), but thanks anyway.
Having encompassed the idea that negative personal experiences due to mistakes can colour perceptions of NZ's health services, I'd hope this wouldn't lead to an impression that causing harm and lying are commonplace – healthcare workers are under enough stress as it is. We depend on them, and they are there for us – to the best to their abilities.
There is a difference between colouring perceptions, and actually realising there are some harmful aspects to our health system.
Health practitioners have egos and biases and institutional conditioning just like anyone else. If the health system does not focus on the patient – like ours – these human aspects can, and do, cause harm.
Consider yourself privileged that you have not be on the receiving end, but try not to dismiss others knowledge and experience as perception. There have been many reports of the failures of our health system. Criticism and cynicism is often valid.
I guess "just like anyone else" is where I'm coming from Molly. The people who we depend on to make the health system work (or not work) for us are only human.
You say/think 'privileged', I say/think 'lucky' (there but for the grace of God…) – either way NZers are, on average, better off thanks to the efforts of nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals. Naturally, it may be difficult to some who have personally experienced a serious failure of our healthcare system to acknowledge the truth that for every failure there might be – what? – five successes, 10, 20?
If not the aspirational "first do no harm", then at least "do more good than harm". Each year in NZ tens of thousands of people die while under the care of nurses and doctors – only some of those deaths are due to medical misadventure/negligence, and even fewer are down to deliberate harm, imho.
Indeed, “failures of our health system” are reported much more often than its successes. Valid criticism is usually helpful, as is having realistic expectations. Not sure about ‘valid cynicism’ – maybe useful as a coping mechanism?
Only human, like the rest of us.
Anne – NZ Skeptics have been naming a few via their free newsletter. They do that think where they link people by association too.
Does anyone have the context for this?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/445421/westpac-banks-will-stay-linked-to-australian-parent
I knew that Westpac (are they still the government bank? or whatever the jargon is) were looking at moving out of Aotearoa. But the coincident timing of this announcement alongside the apparently sudden resignation of McLean suggests that there is a bigger story under the surface here.
McLean's retirement is hardly sudden, or a surprise. He is 61 and has been in the job for 7 years.
61 isn't that old. If it wasn't sudden, or a surprise, then why wasn't there a permanent replacement ready to go?
It was hardly sudden, or a surprise. It was actually announced about two months ago after all.
It is quite normal to appoint an acting CEO and look outside the organisation for possible people even if you then go ahead and appoint someone from inside the company when you need a new CEO.
There aren't a bunch of people sitting around doing nothing until the CEO quits and they can replace him/her.
I wouldn't bet against Simon Power getting the job permanently. He has been in the running for the job for a while after all.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/business-insider-fmas-growing-army-simon-power-tipped-as-possible-next-westpac-ceo/LQA6JIQ4ZMBYUAME6SL57ZWAXY/
Westpac where going to float the NZ business on the stock exchange weren't they/ Yes I do wonder what changed their mind. Too much profit from New Zealand no doubt? IMHO though it's high time the reserve bank attached a whole host of service conditions to a banking licence – before we wind up with services available only to the favoured few high net profit people.
"Westpac where going to float the NZ business on the stock exchange weren't they/Yes …/".
Perhaps you can provide a link to where they said they were going to do that? I have never seen anything as definitive as the claim you make.
The strongest statement I ever saw was back in March when they advised the Stock Exchange that
“Westpac is also assessing the appropriate structure for its New Zealand business and whether a demerger would be in the best interests of shareholders. Westpac is in the very early stage of this assessment and no decisions have been made"
Westpac are required to tell the Stock Exchange, and the investing public anything like this that could have an effect on the value of the firm. They were considering it, along with the entire structure of the Bank and its activities outside Australia. That is a vastly different thing from saying they were going to actually do it.
The / was meant to be a ?, as I was uncertain whether Westpac was looking at a stock market listing or whether it was someone else's suggestion. Happy to be advised by you of course.
Incognito:A few thoughts in my final post in the standard. I feel I am casting pearls before swine anyway- so my banning is timely!
Between 1967-1970 I was involved in the struggle with the neo-fascist right in New Zealand , along with others on the left, to bring about free speech . Many of us were arrested, some jailed, and beaten by Police. But we were successful. Now 50 years later all we achieved has been destroyed by the woke left. Like you see on the standard. Left blog sites are exclusive rather than inclusive .Moderators who are like Political Commissars from the Soviet Union, act like political high priests , pontificating on what is considered a heresy .Freedom of speech is no longer with us, nor does it appear on TV, radio, or web sites such as Twitter, Facebook,, Utube. All enabled by our woke left in Western countries. And for the benefit of Giant corporations owned and controlled by the 1% Oligarchic Right .In effect the destruction of Democracy.
The upside is that those responsible, like yourself, will soon be exterminated by the Covid vaccines .The Spike Protein will destroy your innate immunity that you are born with and you will be open to attack by any toxic virus or bacteria and you will die. A great pity about the completely innocent people who will be extinguished by the actions of the Oligarchic Right and their Woke enablers.
You will have 2-3 years to live according to the latest Scientific Prognosis.[ After you have received your jab.] So , as you get ready in the near future to climb into your pine box , fully understand that your timely demise is because of your arrogance and stupidity. Huzzah!!!
[I’m fully supportive of freedom of expression, so I’ll let this through, unedited, so that others can marvel as well – Incognito]
I think we have just witnessed the logic of free speech.
2-3 years? Hah. My cholesterol will get me long before then!
Why do you claim this particular vaxxine is so bad for us compared to all the 'invasive' cures that we have had since World War 2, including those for Smallpox, Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and all the rest?
You are more than welcome to be non-pc on my posts, so long as you bring cited facts.
I just remembered Homer saying something along the lines of "why are we vaccinating Maggie for diseases she doesn't have?".
Very good remembrance I Feel Love. That is the sort of question that lots of people worry over! It's just common-sense – isn't it? /sarc
I am not against those vaccines. I am against this jab because It is not a vaccine. It is experimental. It has been manufactured in haste at the behest of Big Pharma, most of whom have convictions for fraud from previous manufactured products. The regulatory authorities have not scrutinized these so called "vaccines" with a normal tested scrutiny. The side effects , that are frankly horrific, are hidden and buried by our authorities. NZ does not publish toxic side effects, we are not allowed to know. Strangely this is not the case in the US,UK, and Australia. In previous articles I have itemized the efforts of authorities in the Canada to threaten medical staff with termination if they whistle blow .I have a close confidant who has an intimate knowledge of a care facility. in NZ where similar is happening. Serious side effects ending in hospitalisation are happening but never reported. Expert medical staff like Dr Robert Malone,who invented the m RNA have stated the covid jabs are lethally toxic . How much more do you want?
[Still not a single decent link, just hot air and utter bollocks.
A “close confidant who has an intimate knowledge of a care facility”? Yeah, right!
You are an ignorant incorrect conspiracy nutbar, as far as I can see, and my parsnip agrees:
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview.asp
This is your last warning, as you keep on wasting Moderator time – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 3:18 pm.
HPete, I haven't read that much bile since, since ….this morning on tdb. Another crusty old bastard spewing out venom and bullshit, probably because you don't like all this quite minor change, really. No wonder the moderator gives you stick. It's offensive. The old rednecks in this country are slowly being reined in and oh shit do they complain and cry like little babies. But much louder. Left leaning blogsites like TS are very tolerant towards old crusties like me having a go at old crusties like you, but isn't that the freedom of speech that you want? TS is not the CPP.
When I am called shit for brains by one poster, and hysterical Pete and nut job by the moderator, and then my post is expunged in its entirety, my feminine gentle side disappears, and I go feral !
NZ are test cricket world champions, Nothing more earth-shattering can possibly occur so it's a perfect time to climb into that pine box.
What a load of old crock. The neo fascist movement didn't exist back then. It wasn't until well into the 1980s before neo Nazism started to rear its ugly head. Ok there might have been a few tiny pockets of left-over Nazis around in the 60s but they had no power or sway.
As an historian you are certainly a lousy example. Good riddance and… don't slam the door as you exit!
Edit: Ok, so you fought the National Front Party which had its earliest manifestation around the late 1960s. About 10 of them I think. Wow, what a mighty brave fella you were.
Things you don't say to a judge in a bunny boilover:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300337900/i-sleep-with-a-loaded-gun-rabbit-breeders-admission-alarms-judge
Oh my…
Rabbits have teeth and can be quite feral. Just saying…
Skulduggery!
Got bored half way down though. Garden variety skulduggery
New martyr, conspiracy theory?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/23/john-mcafee-dead-spain-prison-extradition
He was an anti-virus computer developer, and bizarre. Madmen like him are running the world it seems.
I see. So you print my main article to let your pathetic sycophants have a go at me and then expunge my responses. That is the kind of dirty pool/ slimy tactics I would expect from a second rate woke tosspot.
[Excuse me? Do Moderators have to be at your beck and call 24/7? We are volunteers with jobs and other commitments.
You were told a couple of days ago that you are in Pre-Moderation until you lift your game – I’m still waiting and the signs are not good.
Not a single comment of yours has been “expunged” today, so an apology might be in place, don’t you think? – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 3:48 pm.