Everyone’s wrong except the PM!

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared to be at odds with more than a few people during her press conference with media this afternoon.

From the New Zealand Medical Association to her own MPs and even the principal of her old high school, Ardern was not too shy to point out her disagreement with a number of parties. …

She also disagreed with comments made by the New Zealand Medical Association, which this morning said the roll-out of the flu vaccine was a “debacle” and “total disaster”.

Kate Baddock, chair of the association, said the issues with the roll-out of flu vaccine meant her practice went without for 10 days while they had 4000 vulnerable people they needed to vaccinate.

Ardern pushed back on these comments this afternoon.

“I disagree with them on that,” she said.

When pressed, she said flu vaccinations started earlier than has otherwise usually the case “for good reason – we wanted to be prepared”.

They started early, but they ran out after one day because they didn’t have the supply line set up.

Defenders of the Government constantly say we should be listening to the medical experts and decry anyone who disagrees with them. SO by their logic, we should be decrying the PM for disagreeing with the NZMA Head.

Ardern also pushed back on comments by Epidemiologist Sir David Skegg, who said if New Zealand had reached the gold standard of contact tracing, the country would be able to come out of alert level 4 now.

“Whilst David Skegg has made that statement, you will have seen others like Shaun Hendy have encouraged New Zealand to stay in level 4 two weeks longer.”

Shaun Hendy is a professor of physics. Sir David Skegg is a specialist epidemiologist and a professor of Preventive and Social Medicine who is globally recognised as a leading expert.

So the PM disparages what he says as an expert epidemiologist, by pointing to the views of a physics academic!