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April 2, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 02 April 2020

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General Debate

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krazykiwi

It’s time for some tough, biological truths. The very fact that you and I are engaging on this forum in 2020 is because successive ancestors each had sufficient genetic strength to survive long enough to breed. Our forebears have thrived despite The Black Plague (wiped out ~40% of the European population), Small Pox (killed 90% of Native Americans, 400k Europeans annually, Spanish Flu (40-50million), The Plague of Justinian (30-50million), 17-18th Century Plagues and many, many more. Those with weaker biological responses died (sad for their loved ones) but the resulting a gene pool had increased net strength (very good for all of us). You and I are the result of genetic resilience.

The fact that civilization has advanced sufficiently to beam cat pics around the globe, while having drones deliver our dinner in no way stops the evolution of viral biology that is determined to strengthen the human gene pool further. In 2016 (the latest global data) 2.95 million people died from lower respiratory infections (incl Influenza, pneumonia, SARS-Cov-1). SARS-Cov-2 (aka Covid-19) will run its course and duly become part of the annual statistics. I mean no disrespect for the many scared witless, or the few mourning, but some historical perspective is needed.

While I’m on statistics, here are some numbers I’ve worked up based on global and Italian government Covid-19 statistics. Italy has 60.4m residents. 99.2% of deaths in Italy have occurred where the patient has one or more of: high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease. 50% of those deaths occurred in patients who had all three. The only deaths for under-40s were for patients with one or more pathology. Based on reported mortality as at 1st April, 12428 people in Italy had died from (or with) Covid-19. Of these, 99 had no previous pathology. This means that for Italians over 40 with no previous pathology, their likely mortality with, or because of Covid-19 is 0.016%. They are 35 times more likely to die in an auto accident this year.

And it goes without saying that Italy is a worst-case model. Things are significantly more rosy in NooZild. But let’s shut the country down anyway, creating misery and hardship for 100’s of thousands of NZers, wrecking our economy and placing a massive, wealth-sapping tax burden on the current and next generation. #LetsDoThis #PoliceState #FastTrackSocialism

References: Bloomberg – National Health Authority, WHO – Causes of Death 2016, Statista – Road Deaths in Italy, 2017, Visual Capitalist – The History of Pandemics
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April 2, 2020 8:00am
- MrTips
  
  This post raises disturbing prospects:
  1) that folk like SB and R are in any way genetically resilient
  2) moving on from cat pics, what are people going to beam around the globe in 10yrs time?
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:13am
  - Random T Person
    
    2. More cat pics.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:46am
  - lifesgood
    
    I’d add to that anyone who thinks Jacinda is the great Messiah.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:47am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      No longer on the cover of the Womans Weekly as of 10.00 this morning, or the Listener or North and South or . . .
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:45am
  - cmm
    
    Many people erroneously think that Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” means that those who can run the fastest and punch the hardest win over the weak.
    
    Not so. By “fittest” Darwin actually meant those best adapted to survive in their environment.
    
    Through welfare, PC and such we have created an environment where the weak and dependent thrive. SB, R, and their ilk are well adapted to thrive in the environment we have created for them.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:01am
    - projectman
      
      I think you’ve missed the key point. Healthcare intervention is probably a more significant contributor to weakening of the gene pool over generations. Nothing is going to change there though (and I’m not advocating it, just to be clear).
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:51am
    - Lance
      
      I remember in the movie “The Gods must be Crazy” how when a Kalahari bushman happened across a white European woman for the first time (good looking by our standards) he thought her the ugliest woman he had ever seen, she was so big that if he was his partner, he would have to hunt all day just to feed her alone.
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:00am
      - Loddenthinks
        
        Communication would be a bit of an an issue too…click click
        
        Great movie though.
        
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        April 2, 2020 11:22am
- cmm
  
  Even Italy is not a homogenous picture.
  
  The vast majority of deaths are in the North in polluted Lombardy.
  
  In Southern Italy, arguably for more similar to NZ conditions, the death rate is very low. For example Calabria (at the ankle of the boot of Italy, with sea on both sides like NZ) has 38 deaths out of a population of 2 million and has 16 in ICU.
  
  Southern Italy is not under quarantine.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:24am
  - Yvette
    
    Pollution leads to respiratory problems.
    Older people with respiratory difficulties tend to die in cover-19 infection.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:53am
    - PhilBest
      
      Actually they tend to die of any infection that affects the respiratory system. At least some of the recent deaths would have occurred anyway because of the other infections that seem to always accompany severe and deadly cases of “COVID-19”. I beleive, from one of the articles I posted a link to recently, that there are 20,000 premature deaths per annum ascribed to air pollution effects in Northern Italy.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:38am
  - BlairM
    
    Nobody goes to Calabria. It gets low numbers of businesspeople and tourists. It’s Italy’s Nebraska.
    
    One thing that’s important to note is that Italy has really low rates of heart disease. So yes, deaths will skew towards the elderly there. In Britain and the United States, where heart health and blood pressure are considerably worse, it is killing a lot more men in their 40s, and sometimes younger than that.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:52am
  - cmm
    
    Downticktards can’t digest facts.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:15am
- Lee C
  
  Amen.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:33am
- BlairM
  
  You act like preexisting conditions mean death is imminent anyway, or that those deaths aren’t as important somehow. But in most cases those conditions aren’t terminal in themselves, so existing pathologies are irrelevant. A death is a death. That’s still someone’s granny. The mortality rate in otherwise healthy people is also irrelevant. The crucial factor is the incubation and level of transmission, which are respectively lengthy and high.
  
  Latest research shows the mortality rate from the virus is 0.66%. That may not sound like much, but, if the US resumed normal economic activity tomorrow and relied on herd immunity as you seem to want, a 50% infection rate would still kill about a million people. In New Zealand it would kill about 16,000 people, which is more than died in WW2, and considerably more than the annual road toll.
  
  I really don’t like being at home, not working, having no income, and relying on proceeds from the fortuitously timed sale of our house to feed my family and pay bills. Believe me, if I thought there was even a sliver of a chance people were overreacting, I’d grab it with both hands and run with it. But the facts don’t lie. The only way this thing can be beaten and lives can be saved is if people stay home. The herd immunity nonsense is going to kill too many people in a short space of time. I would like to avoid that, as would most other people I would hope.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:21am
  - krazykiwi
    
    I have some a number of close friends who are fit, healthy … and absolutely terrified. They shouldn’t be. But they are, thanks to alarmist media churning out stories that conform the the “state knows best” narrative. It’s good to see some of the [remaining] media starting to ask the tough questions though.
    
    But you’re are right about facts not lying: If my friends lived in Italy they would be 35 time more likely to die in a car crash than of/with c19. New Zealand is even safer.
    
    If you are not looking to herd immunity to get our lives back on track, then sadly you’ll be enduring your stay at home for another 12+ months.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:34am
    - BlairM
      
      Your car crash stat is bullshit. Around 3000 people die on Italian roads every year. 13,000 people have died of Covid19 there in three months. At this point in time the average person is about 17 times more likely to die from the virus than be crushed to death in their Fiat Bambina.
      
      And this is not about doing okay just because you don’t fit the demographic. You’re going to get more susceptible people sick. Don’t be selfish. Stay home, for others’ sake, not just yours.
      
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      April 2, 2020 1:21pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        BlairM, with respect, you are wrong. I have said that if you don’t suffer from any of the three conditions mentioned, then you are 35x times more likely to die in a car crash than to die of or with Covid-19. That is a fact, and a relevant one for most Italians .. and NZers for that matter.
        
        Conversely, for example, if your suffer from all three then you’d be ~3x times more likely to die from Covid-19 this year than in a car crash.
        
        If you’re still struggling let me try a further scenario: If you suffer all three, have already tested ve for Covid-19, are 85 years old and are in ICU .. then I suggest you give your car keys to a relative – your wont be driving or be hit by a car in what remains of your lifetime.
        
        The point was, remains, and still appears missed by you, the healthy people should not be terrified of this disease. It is very, very unlikely to kill you.
        
        And how am I being selfish? Who said I wasn’t staying home? For the record, I’ve not been more than 2km from home in the last 8 days, and I’ve not driven a car in 8 days. I suggest you chill with the accusations a bit.
        
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        April 2, 2020 4:58pm
  - Loddenthinks
    
    If you’re going to quote statistics, at least get them right. Yes, 16,000 is more than died in WWII (11,625) but you have to factor that as a percentage of the population.
    
    1945 – NZ Population 1,702,329
    WWII deaths – 11,625
    Percentage of NZ population 0.68%
    
    2020 – NZ Population 4,822,000
    Using your speculative infection rate of 50% with a mortality rate of 0.66%:
    COVID-19 deaths – 15,912
    Percentage of NZ population 0.33%
    
    So your statement that it would be worse than WWII for the population is wrong. It would be less than half as bad for the population.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:45am
    - BlairM
      
      LOL I guess that makes 16,000 dead people alright then.
      
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      April 2, 2020 1:03pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Good post-Blair. A new word for me today ‘comorbidity.’ It’s a word that can allow us, if we accept it to the apparent projection for some when talking about Covid 19, to say people with existing underlying conditions don’t matter. All ok, if it’s not someone you know or care about. This was apparent in the case of NZ’s first Covid 19 death, yet the women’s daughter said that despite some underlying condition her mother had not been to the hospital for years, was active, loved and so on. She was clearly managing her condition until Covid happened along. Women and children first into the lifeboats (or indeed the sick) might be old fashioned these days.
    All the best with your situation BTW.
    
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    April 2, 2020 12:11pm
- fernglas
  
  In the UK they have only reported in respect of one day the number of deaths where there were no previous conditions. Out of 260 deaths, 13 had no previous illnesses. That’s 5%. All of those 13 were aged over 63. In other words, if you are under 60 with no previous conditions in the UK, your chance of death is negligible.
  Of those who go intensive care, about 2/3rds die. So the existence of ICU beds and ventilators is not that important.
  Doctors want to save lives. That’s their job. But crashing the economy so that they can cope with the number of patients, without necessarily reducing the death rate, is bad economics and will have unquantified social effects that may well outweigh the effects of the illness.. Is the cure indeed worse than the disease?
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:44am
  - canfel
    
    Yes , it shows our pandemic plan was non existent, no back up supplies,.. you would think a pandemic plan would be more than just words on a paper, warehouses full of masks PPE being rotated all the time , ventilators in storage even if they were the old hand operated ones.. Isolation centres for vulnerable people etc.. The west was ill prepared and China should have closed its borders down a lot sooner.
    
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    April 2, 2020 2:40pm
- cmm
  
  There are two ways to “flatten the curve”:
  
  Obvious way: Keep infections at bay and delay people getting infected as long as possible, thus spreading it out. Massive costs and economic damage if implemented with lockdowns.
  
  Less obvious way: Acknowledge that most people will encounter the virus. Get lower risk people infected ASAP so that they are out of the hospitals before the peak comes.
  
  Our 20-29 year olds seem to be onto this. They are currently getting infected fastest.
  
  The trick though is for them to not spread that on to higher risk individuals.
  
  So how about this: Get all the young people (20-30) together who are not essential workers and who are generally well, isolate them from everyone else in a few locations (say 10 or so) and let them all go through their infections NOW. That would get them out of the way, remove them as vectors, and start raising herd immunity, so that would help slow things down and flatten the curve further by delaying spread.
  
  Incentivise with rock concerts etc.
  
  Once done with the 20-30s, next do the 30-40s.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:55am
  - sam green
    
    Aw – I didn’t know you were a medically trained epidemiologist. Ok. We’ll follow your lead.
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:47am
- Aunty
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:30am
- Old.Mickey.Blue.Eyes
  
  Questions need to be rasied about how the WHO have behaved andtheir reponse, and the value of the WHO. Taiwan are not members of the WHO and have managed this covid-19 pandemic response much better than anyone else.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:47am
  - canfel
    
    The WHO is under Chinese control Covid 19
    ( Wuhan Flu), look at the WHO directives early on.. The CCP by allowing their cultural cuisine wet markets or Bio lab are responsible for this..
    
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    April 2, 2020 2:45pm
    - sam green
      
      Ok. Shall we listen to you? Tell us more about how to deal with this? Really? I’d prefer to listen to Ashley Bloomfield.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:49am
- guardianista
  
  If the trump administration is right the top of their predicted death range (.24m) is 0.07% of the 327m population. Sure, a few draconian measures have been needed and this may be optimistic but statistically speaking this virus is a nothing burger.
  
  Politicians in some countries (mentioning no names) just need to harden up and tell their voters that a reasonable number of people are going to die and that trying to stop it is futile and unacceptably expensive for the generations below.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:01am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Just remember how fat and sick Americans are…
    That’s why the deaths.
    slim fit people won’t die ordinarily..
    
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    April 2, 2020 3:14pm
    - PhilBest
      
      The worst hit places in the USA are where there is population density, high level of global connectivity and travel, and virtue-signalling Democrat leadership that was still telling people in early March to get out there to that Chinatown festival this weekend to make a statement against the bad orange President’s xenophobic, racist suggestion that borders should be closed and arrivals quarantined.
      
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      April 2, 2020 8:03pm
PhilBest

Muriel Newman really nails the COVID-19 policy approach decisions:

https://www.nzcpr.com/the-lockdown-week-1-questions/

And her associate Mike Butler has dug out some really helpful skeptical expert opinion:

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2020/03/mike-butler-lock-down-model-and-flu.html

Mike has found more, and different, items to the ones I have already been trying to draw attention to on Kiwiblog. As Muriel says; we are seeing the “climate science” debacle occurring all over again, only in high speed this time. A panic and an agenda gets a momentum up and there is no chance of skepticism from even the best-credentialed experts getting a hearing.

IMHO Muriel and Mike have made the most helpful contribution to COVID-19 understanding that I have seen so far, and Kiwiblog and other blogs really should cross-post these items.
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April 2, 2020 8:00am
- PhilBest
  
  And in the case of COVID-19 it comes down to much more simple questions of logic that far more “ordinary people” should be able to understand. Can the MSM be “swung” this time, to turn on the alarmism in hindsight, like they did with the Y2K bug? Or, frighteningly, is this going to be the new normal; totalitarian government forever, because there are never no viruses spreading somewhere that we can be panicked by?
  
  Obviously there are things we should do to properly mitigate future, possibly genuine, pandemics. Number one would be control of the border.
  
  Number two would be early testing of random but representative subsets of the population to determine likely real infection rate; instead of frighteningly proceeding to make policy completely blind on the basis of “confirmed infections” and a grossly exaggerated lethality rate.
  
  Number three would be “ramp-up” ICU capacity. Flattening the curve at massive economic costs needs to be avoided by having the ICU capacity that can cope with the curve. We now know how costly the consequences are from not having this. It is a sensible insurance policy. These things have been recommended before (the lessons of SARS etc) but never acted on.
  
  Also recommended long since, have been the “tracing likely exposed people” system that has been used to such advantage in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore this time.
  
  Epicentres of infection if they occur, should be quarantined.
  
  If any parts of the NZ economy should be shut down to mitigate risk in outbreaks of contagion, these are the CBD’s of Auckland and Wellington and their public transport systems. The rest of the economy should proceed full steam ahead, with people observing sensible sanitary protocols.
  
  Ironically the deaths averted at the current time, will include a lot more non-COVID-19 cases who would have died from the “normal” infection rates of un-hyped pathogens, than the COVID-19 deaths it would have averted. If the current extreme measures are worth it for COVID-19, then making heightened sanitary behavior a permanent norm would be even more worthwhile.
  
  The urban planning fad for high density living should be scrapped NOW and people allowed to live at health-preserving low density if they want to. The whole contemporary planning fad is a swindle anyway (that is another subject on which contrarians talking sense have been ignored for a decade and a half now).
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:04am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Your reference to the Y2K bug is interesting. Do you consider that was were ‘alarmism’?
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:18am
    - artemisia
      
      Seems to be a general feeling in the populace that Y2K was a scam and a rort. Possible there was some of that but the main reason serious issues were avoided is the effort and funding that went into assessing and remediating large systems.
      
      The large company I worked in at the time had some Y2K issues overnight, despite a lot of work prior, sorted quickly by a skilled team on hand.
      
      Those who say it wasn’t a real problem don’t know much about the large interlinked systems that run a lot of a nation.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:09am
      - slijmbal
        
        I’m in IT – Y2K was immensely overblown by the big consultancy companies. The number of vulnerabilities and cost to address was trivial compared to the hugely over the top approaches pushed by the likes of Ernst & Young.
        
        So yes a scam.
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:13am
      - cmm
        
        I’m in IT, specifically embedded systems (you know, all those little computers buried in cell phones, pace makers, printers, power systems etc).
        
        The Big Fear was that Y2K was going to cause everything with a computer ship in it to crash. GPS satellites were going to fall out of the sky. The Internet and phones would all die. Power stations would explode. Traffic lights would stop working…
        
        Almost none of that happened and in very few cases could it have theoretically happened.
        
        Why? Well just about zero of those systems run software that cares about the date, especially not in a form that could be munted by Y2K.
        
        Sure, Y2K could impact code that prints reports and, especially, Cobol code. But very little of that is Armageddon stuff.
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:58am
    - rangitoto
      
      Yes it was alarmism. IT companies just quietly worked to fix it. Created some work for contractors at the time. You should worry about the 2038 bug though. I wouldn’t go out in your self driving Tesla on 19th January that year.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:27am
    - Raphael
      
      The only reason that the Y2K bug seemed to be alarmism was a hell of a lot of hard work went into making sure there was no/few problems.
      
      That being said there were a fair number of alarmists about some things with it.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:27am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Generally it was, at least as far as IT systems were involved. Despite the rash of stories about imminent failures of critical infrastructure, nothing at all of substance occurred. What’s more, from my own experience of examining devices and systems in preparation (for a company with facilities in NZ, the US, and Europe), the much hyped date issues didn’t actually exist except in a handful of obscure devices. Most applicable issues had been fixed without the hype.
      
      So there was some potential for some disruptions, but the hype train made it sound like armageddon.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:38am
  - kiwiracer
    
    Number One is the answer, border control, this whole globalisation needs to be halted drastically.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:18am
  - kowtow
    
    No 1 is the UN , if it’s going to be useful for anything other than enriching its staff , needs to get its finger out and get its members to create civil society in the sh#tholes of this planet.
    
    They bang on endlessly about prog shite like colonialism, zionism ,racism,gender equality , climate change etc but there’s a real threat to everyone from disease and every years millions die , unremarked because they’re brown or black but they don’t count. Suddenly a relative handful of whiteys are dieing and the politicians and media are in a panic . Hypocrites of the first order
    
    Democracy and decency is what’s called for.
    
    Decency extends to the humane treatment of animals and that means an end to the trade , largely illegal but also to the legal trade and ‘farming’ of exotic and wild animals.That’s largely and Asian/African thing but we mustn’t be racist, can’t judge or be critical. What race is the coronavirus ? It’s not ,it doesn’t care .So the conditions that give rise to it must be criticised and ended.
    
    The media also need to examine their own role in panic and fear mongering and taking their eye off the ball and endlessly promoting pap .
    
    Rant over.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:33am
    - cmm
      
      Expecting the UN to help you out in a crisis is one step up the insanity ladder from expecting the state to do it.
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:00am
- Ipanema69
  
  Yes the linked articles suggest a couple of views on the overall mortality rate with one suggesting a range of 0.04% to 0.12% and the other suggesting 0.002%. The seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of 0.1%.
  
  I’ve posted previously that the data thus far from New Zealand testing which is a self selected sample doesn’t support the hypothesis of even a 0.5% mortality rate.
  
  Admittedly I’m only crunching the numbers as of yesterday which are 708 confirmed cases with one death.
  
  In theory I should wait for a couple of weeks to see if any more of the 708 positives as of yesterday die. However given that on 12 are in hospital and 2 in ICU (neither on ventilation) it seems unlikely.
  
  When viewed in the fullness of time the lock down is going to be viewed as a hysterical over reaction by the government.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:59am
- tf78
  
  I sent it on to Simon, Paula, Paul and David Seymour yesterday.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:17am
- GJM
  
  Exactly the same approach that the CoL and their National supporters took with the firearms confiscation, aided by a compliant biased media. As a gun owner, I am sitting here saying to those frothing at the mouth to confiscate .22 lever action bunny guns “I told you so”.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:35am
PhilBest

Mark Steyn stated in his last podcast that 90% of COVID cases that go into ICU and onto ventilation, die anyway. (Can anyone contradict this?)

So the deaths averted from “flattening the curve” so that “there are enough ventilators” isn’t nearly as strong an argument as people might assume.

I think it is a plausible hypothesis, that the experts should be investigating, that COVID-19 is being contracted by very large numbers of people who remain asymptomatic or only slightly ill, even a majority of “at-risk” elderly; but there is a stark, “all or nothing” contrast with the people who are getting really hammered, going onto ventilation and still dying (90% of them): are they being infected by another pathogen simultaneous with COVID-19? Maybe it is the transmission and potential mitigation of the “OTHER pathogen” that needs to be understood.
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April 2, 2020 8:01am
- Jules99
  
  I recall the early days in China the figure was 50% in ICU died.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:10am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Survival may well have been impacted by shèhuì xìnyòng tǐxì, the social credit scoring system. After all, this system denies ‘undeserving’ Chinese purchasing rail tickets, so it’s perfectly rational that it would be used to deny medical care.
    
    As a side note, let’s remember that the country Tarrant “most admired” was/is China.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:20am
  - PhilBest
    
    I think 90% was correct for Northern Italy. Probably not enough other data to say for elsewhere yet.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:24am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Norther Italy is unusual with many elderly living close together, smokers and a very huggy, cheek kissing people. Many also with co-morbidities which would bring about their deaths anyway.
      
      Another curious thing is a many Chinese workers in the region producing goods “Made in Italy”.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:23am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    I can’t find an update but figures out of Italy show most transmission was done in hospital or old-folks homes type environments where people were unable to get away from other people.
    
    Notably “hotspots”, London, New York, Wuhan etc. also are places where people live in close proximity – exactly the opposite to New Zealand.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:31am
    - PhilBest
      
      Even when our elderly do live in close proximity, eg retirement villages and rest homes, they tend to be in nice low density surroundings, suburban or exurban, and the buildings are modern and healthy. Look at the ugly old crap the elderly often exist in in “old Europe”. Ironic in first world countries.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:42am
  - Evadne
    
    For those statistics to be relevant, we also need to consider the survival rate for other respiratory diseases in ICU.
    
    If your lungs have deteriorated to such a point you can’t breathe on your own, what is the likelihood that can be reversed?
    
    For some people, ventilators are a life-saver, buying time for treatment & tiding people over their acute illness.
    
    For others, they merely (artificially) delay the inevitable.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:45am
    - Ed Snack
      
      From articles I’ve seen the issue seems to be that the virus destroys lung cells and also destroys the stem cells that are present in the lungs to regrow the specialized lining cells that make the lungs work. So once you get enough cells destroyed, you can’t recover enough lung function. This leads to generalized organ failure which kills pretty quickly.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:45am
      - Evadne
        
        So a hospice style bed with family around you might be a more humane option than isolation in ICU?
        
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        April 2, 2020 3:39pm
- cmm
  
  That would certainly agree with the numbers used in some WHO modelling.
  
  According to the numbers they use, when the ICUs overflow, the death rate among people that do get into ICU doubles.
  
  That implies that 50% of people going into ICU are going to die anyway.
  
  We’d expect that since most people reaching ICU already have existing medical problems. In Italy, 99% that die were already sliding off their perch anyway and would have been taken down by a flu or pneumonia or heart failure.
  
  The only time ICU would seem to make a material difference is when a person is otherwise healthy and does not have preexisting conditions.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:31am
  - septic skeptic
    
    The problem with your analysis is that in Lombardy most people over 50 are triaged at home and left there. The ICUs are focused on younger people.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:46am
- DeepBlue
  
  Any doctors out there?….
  
  I always thought there was a very low rate of survival once people are put on ventilators for any reason. They lose 7% of body mass per day so need a certain resilience to start with. Many patients choose not to go onto them (with care plans I presume) because of this risk and stick with extra oxygen only.
  
  I wouldn’t be surprised if it is only the young and fit etc who are now receiving ventilation in Covid19 over-run hospitals.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:28am
- rangitoto
  
  A Korean doctor claimed that the completely asymptomatic rate is about 20% based on the fairly widespread testing in that country.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:47am
- PhilBest
  
  Wow, just watched this:
  
  https://youtu.be/H1LHgyfPPQ8
  
  The part of the immune system that has to deal with COVID-19 can also be “already busy” dealing with any one of quite a wide range of other infections, not necessarily even ones with respiratory implications. Interestingly, something as simple as “hot and cold” treatment like sauna, helps. It is also part of the reason why Hydroxychloroquine helps. You know, the drug currently banned for COVID-19 treatment in NZ, Nevada (Democrat) and Michigan (Democrat) because that bad orange man touted it.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:19am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Yep
    I asked my GP for a script and she told me
    “NO, you’ll have to get it on the Black market,
    You shouldn’t listen to Donald Trump”!
    
    I told her I didn’t listen to Trump and I hadn’t heard him or read any reports on that.
    But I am following David Sinclair’s writings on this.
    https://lifespanbook.com/about/
    
    https://www.biorxiv.org/?utm_source=Lifespan Book&utm_campaign=5fb71cd4e4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_17_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_82e2167267-5fb71cd4e4-127288101
    
    https://www.medrxiv.org/?utm_source=Lifespan Book&utm_campaign=5fb71cd4e4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_17_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_82e2167267-5fb71cd4e4-127288101
    
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    April 2, 2020 3:31pm
artemisia

Mike Hosking had an audio clip this morning collating snips from Dr Caroline McElnay, Director of Public Health, from the Epidemic Response Committee.

Astonishing and not in a good way. Move over Sergeant Schultz.

Can’t see audio on NewstalkZB site yet, but definitely worth a listen if/when it is posted.
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April 2, 2020 8:01am
- Fletch
  
  I heard that. A long succession of “I don’t know… we don’t know”…
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:08am
mikenmildagain

Happy International Children’s Book Day and
World Autism Awareness Day
It is also the feast day for Æbbe the Younger. She is best known for an act of self-mutilation to avoid rape by Viking invaders: according to a ninth-century chronicle, she took a razor and cut off her nose in front of the nuns, who followed her example. Their appearance so disgusted the invaders that the women were saved from rape but not from death, as the Danes soon returned and set fire to the convent, killing Æbbe and her entire community. It has been suggested that this is the origin of the saying ‘cutting off the nose to spite the face.’
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April 2, 2020 8:01am
PhilBest

In spite of being banned from all the major social media, Tommy Robinson has recently re-emerged in online video format and can’t keep out of the eye of the storm even in the COVID-19 era.

Hero or Nazi? Should we believe our lyin’ eyes? Tommy’s kids are tough little characters, capturing much of this footage from the family car.

https://banned.video/watch?id=5e75658292222900a22a5cbb

The UK Plods have ultimately charged the real culprits, apparently. The PC first on the scene hardly inspires confidence. But Tommy is a pretty seasoned operator with the “undeniable footage” that leaves the Plods trapped between politically correct edicts from above, and potential explosion of public outrage.

Should I feel a certain trepidation in daring to post a link to any material from this reviled man?
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April 2, 2020 8:02am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Well, he’s not a hero…
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:07am
  - PhilBest
    
    That says a lot about YOU – given the actual video and what went down.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:25am
  - Random T Person
    
    On this I heartily agree with you Mike. Robinson is an agent provocateur deliberately causing and seeking out controversy, probably for the attention it brings.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:34am
    - PhilBest
      
      When the majority, and the government, and the forces of law and order, have derelicted all duty and honour, the minority who still act are “agents provocateurs”? I guess that label is an honorable one in the circumstances.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:45am
      - Random T Person
        
        I don’t trust the authorities, but I also don’t trust Tommy Robinson or whatever his real name is.
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:36am
    - cmm
      
      Ghandi: agent provocateur deliberately causing and seeking out controversy.
      Martin Luther King: agent provocateur deliberately causing and seeking out controversy.
      Mandela: agent provocateur deliberately causing and seeking out controversy (and also killer of tens of thousands).
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:05am
      - Random T Person
        
        Not sure where Tommy Robinson fits in this comparison!
        
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        April 2, 2020 12:39pm
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    Steps in when three youth assault an elderly woman is not heroic but it is respectful of the ladys age and gender and, being a decent member of society.
    
    Not all heros rescue children from burning buildings or wear capes and masks.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:37am
  - Steve James
    
    Take another pill Mike?‍♂️
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:30am
- G152
  
  No. He is one of the commentators who actually goes on the line online and confronts a broken law system.
  Gone the images of Dixon of Dock Green and replaced by some Monty Pythonish enduring skit…
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:21am
- PhilBest
  
  For those who haven’t ever seen much beyond MSM assessment of Tommy Robinson, but have time now to hear his side of the story from way back; James Delingpole gave him three fair hearings over the years.
  
  https://delingpoleworld.com/tommy-robinson/
  
  https://delingpoleworld.com/tommy-robinson-redux/
  
  https://delingpoleworld.com/tommy-robinson-returns/
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:54am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Thanks Phil
    Excellent.
    I bought his book as all I got from the Police side of the UK family was the MSM line.
    Which made me think.
    
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    April 2, 2020 3:46pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  He’s only reviled by liberal wet progressives (most of the UK police force) for standing up for what’s right, for calling out muslim grooming gangs and for refusing to be cowed by establishment pressure.
  
  UK police and the wet politicians would much rather Tommy went away, he’s embarrassing them by calling out blatant thuggery, grooming, rape, FGM, honour killings, drug dealing and standover tactics, and pointing out that there is an overwhelming link to islamic immigration.
  
  He’s got some cojones, and has suffered enormously for his stand. He’s certainly not blameless, and has some things he should be ashamed of in his past – such as his help in founding the English Defence League. The fact he left that organisation when he saw it being hijacked by white supremacist nationalists, and has since publicly and repeatedly denounced them, is conveniently overlooked in almost every single reporting of his actions.
  
  His book “Enemy of the State” says it all. So no, I don’t think you should have any trepidation, and personally I don’t revile him. For what he did to help those elderly people he should be given a medal, and I only hope that if my 85-year old mother was out in the street and encountered gutless cowards like that, someone with Tommy’s guts would stand up for her like he did in this clip.
  
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  April 2, 2020 12:09pm
Critical Thinker

China lied, tens of thousands of people died ??

US Intelligence Community Reports That China ‘Intentionally’ Lied About Coronavirus Outbreak:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says
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April 2, 2020 8:02am
- mandk
  
  Of course China lied.
  
  It would be foolish to believe any information or ‘news’ that comes out of any totalitarian state.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:27am
  - tf78
    
    How Shane Jones could send the buggers crayfish really goes against my grain. They deserve nothing but bats!
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:23am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    “It would be foolish to believe any information or ‘news’ that comes out of any totalitarian state.”
    Like NZ at the moment.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:51am
  - Liberty
    
    Just like COL’s and its lick spittals TV1, Radio NZ, Stuff
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:42am
Andrei

Good morning fellow lab rats;

Have you died yet?

If you haven’t have a good day channel surfing from your sofa.

And remember if you do have to venture out today to replenish your milk and bread or to collect your new Beta Blocker script from the nearest pharmacy should you spot young people having fun in a park with a ball, frisbee or skate board along the way make sure to report them to the authorities using the hotline set up for this purpose.

Yours
Test Subject 3,605,032
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April 2, 2020 8:03am
Paulus Gnome

How many still on the ATEED team today?
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April 2, 2020 8:05am
- hullkiwi
  
  Sorry, but they will be gainly employed to keep on promoting Auckland, Tourism(?), and economic development. Which is ironic, because none of them have a clue what they are doing except how to spend ratepayer’s money!
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:07am
- DeepBlue
  
  .
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:33am
Random T Person

I’m not happy with my soviet down here in the Bay of Plenty. Stories of the faithful dobbing in their neighbors to the cops, and this extract from a letter sent by the local Gestapo:

“People may exercise within their neighbourhood or travel by car to the nearest park, beach or reserve where they can exercise. Nearest is a loose definition however common sense will dictate what is and what isn’t nearby. Going to the beach when you have to pass two parks suitable for exercise activities to get there does not constitute nearby. The length of time to exercise is something else where a common sense approach will need to be used.
Meeting up with friends or family to go for a walk or do exercise, even if maintaining a 2m distance, is not complying with the restrictions. You must stay completely within your residential home life social ‘bubble’, whatever that makeup may be. The only time that you can breach that ‘bubble’ is if you are an essential worker going about work or if you are engaging with an essential service e.g supermarket, health care, veterinary care, emergency service.
Going fishing from a boat or taking a ride on the jet ski do not conform with the restrictions. Going hunting, tramping or engaging in high risk sporting activities such as Mountain Biking is discouraged. If you have an accident and require medical attention or rescuing you are unnecessarily placing strain and risk on those who will be deployed to attend to you. Think, is hospital a place I want to be at this time?

Rest assured that if as a country we cannot show self-control, the restrictions are likely to be made tighter and Police will be encouraged to use enforcement against person that are non-compliant. None of us want that!

Please take care of each other, be mindful of those who are less fortunate at this time.”

I’m sorry Mr Plod, but go and fuck yourself hard. You do not have the right to determine what for me is risky and what is not. For example, I have been mountain biking since 2007, done multiple stage races including 2 cape epics and covered thousands of kilometres. The only time I was in a hospital in all that was when a team mate broke his collarbone and I was there to support. Risky? How would YOU know, Plod?
If I want to do the Lundy 3 Hundy to escape the boredom now imposed on my life, why should I not? How risky is it for me to reel off 300km in my car, should I feel like it? How TF would YOU know if I do or do not feel like it?
I’m shocked at how easily we’ve allowed ourselves to be communised overnight. For the right reasons or not, this whole thing is a massive power grab by the authorities and we all know what Lord Acton had to say about power.
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April 2, 2020 8:07am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  I wonder if you would call a police officer a member of the Gestapo face-to-face.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:19am
  - Random T Person
    
    There is every chance I will, Mike. This worries me, because I have never been known to mince my words on the one hand. But on the other, I also do not like rarking up trouble for no reason, and a smart mouth is notorious for doing just that.
    Be assured, though, I shall be polite but firm. I have always respected the NZ Police, but that respect is diminishing by the day. Notwithstanding the fact I have 3 good mates who are police officers; at the wedding of one, I was the MC. The other two are neighbours with same aged children as mine who come and play regularly.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:51am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      Hi, I agree with your sentiments. What I would like to know, and you may have the opportunity to find out, is what do the police on the beat actually think of this?
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:33am
    - PhilBest
      
      The only guy I knew well who was a police officer quit the force altogether and emigrated away from NZ in disgust years ago.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:46am
  - Rich Prick
    
    Yes, it’s about time we curbed their enthusiasm.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:54am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    So you agree,
    The fact that, in a free country, with free speech, you would be afraid to call a policeman (or any official),a member of the Gestapo. Proves the premise.
    It is the fearful part, that proves it.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:56am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      No, my point is that keyboard warriors would never have the guts to confront an actual police officer with their name calling.
      
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      April 2, 2020 12:00pm
      - Tall Man
        
        You know them all?
        
        You know nothing mikey.
        
        3 1
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        April 2, 2020 12:23pm
      - Random T Person
        
        Right now Mike, I am more of a keyboard worrier, TBH.
        
        5 0
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        April 2, 2020 12:41pm
  - kloyd0306
    
    We wonder if [ Mod : nah ]
    
    6 1
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    April 2, 2020 10:28am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      .
      
      6 1
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      April 2, 2020 10:44am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mq2u0kd-A
        we don’t mix with these people…..
        
        2 1
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        April 2, 2020 10:53am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Must have forgot the sarc tab //
        
        1 1
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        April 2, 2020 1:39pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    If they act like it, they need to be told. We are not under communist rule – yet
    
    8 1
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    April 2, 2020 10:43am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      We are not under communist rule – yet
      some would argue with you.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:53am
  - Tall Man
    
    Irrelevant point. I’m surprised the mods let that irrelevant comment through.
    
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    April 2, 2020 12:19pm
    - Tall Man
      
      Missed out the Sarc///
      
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      April 2, 2020 3:09pm
- artemisia
  
  Can’t see why swimming, surfing etc at the beach is verboten if social distancing is observed. Even then, salt water all over is not going to encourage a virus.
  
  Exercise, fresh air, bit of fun. What’s not to like.
  
  Ok, it’s the fun.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:19am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    Don’t often see surfers, on the waves, closer than 2 meters, even on a non covid 19 day.
    It tends to ruin the ride for both of them, I assume, ps…I have never surfed, don’t intend to, this is purely an observation over my many years.
    Surfing may be the one fun thing people can do while social distancing.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:00am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Yup, no fun allowed. They want control of your fun.
    It is possible to be responsible, obey the rules and have fun
    
    8 2
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    April 2, 2020 10:48am
- krazykiwi
  
  Incredible. I’m amazed that the cop was able to put down their well worn copy of Mein Kampf long enough to write this. Such a worry.
  
  As for hospitals, a good friend works in Wellington Hospital. She’s never seen it so quiet.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:25am
  - BeaB
    
    It’s because they have nothing to do. Just think of the hips, knees and cataracts that could be done while they wait for the pandemic pandemonium.
    
    12 1
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    April 2, 2020 9:38am
  - cmm
    
    Yup, all the outpatient clinics are cancelled too. People who are supposed to be getting heart/cancer/whatever check ups are not.
    
    I wonder if we will end up killing more lives than we save?
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:44am
    - Evadne
      
      Yes.
      
      2 1
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      April 2, 2020 3:42pm
- Doubledimp
  
  And this, folks, is what relying on “common sense” gets you, an audition for police 10-7.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:29am
- Albert_Ross
  
  Well obviously you’re a special case who should carry on doing whatever they feel like and not be held responsible for any consequences of that, even at a time when those consequences might include the deaths of other people. I’m sure those people’s families will understand.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:55am
  - Random T Person
    
    Albert, I am doing my bit. But I don’t have to like it. And I particularly do not appreciate arbitrary restrictions and half-assed, nonsensical ones at that.
    And deaths aye? So I go for a drive, and that’s gonna kill people? The hyperbole is astonishing.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:28am
  - BlairM
    
    Nobody’s going to die from driving in your car and walking and swimming a safe distance from other people at a beach, dude.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:44am
- Surely Knott
  
  Agree. In Auckland, a large west Auckland beach has started putting up residents only signs, and people deemed visitors (locals from adjoining landlocked suburbs) have had their car batteries disconnected and people are being spat on to stop them walking at the beach. It’s gone quite feral.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:09am
  - Random T Person
    
    Good communists, all.
    
    8 1
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    April 2, 2020 9:29am
- rightoverlabour
  
  Is “common sense” legally defined? Is “self control” legally defined? Even they admit “nearest” is loosely defined…. The police, probably as never before, are under tremendous scrutiny at the moment. Never before in a crisis as now, is there the ability to disseminate information about their conduct. There was no Facebook during the 1950s or the 1981 tour. Generally NZ police are good buggers. Don’t destroy that, because rebuilding that reputation may take generations. And Bush seems hell bent on doing that.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:38am
Pete George

Immediately following the Christchurch mosque massacre in March 2019 New Zealand firearms laws were tightened.

The Kiwi Party was formed and tried to oppose restrictions of ownership of semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines through the courts. The Crown applied to the High Court to have their 12 causes of action to be struck out and succeeded on claims 2-12.

The Kiwi Party took it to the Court of Appeal and amongst other things “argued that New Zealanders need access to semi-automatic weapons in order to match police fire power should the police resort to unlawful use of firearms against New Zealand citizens”.

But:

An examination of the constitutional instruments relied upon by Mr Minchin quickly exposes the fallacy of his argument that New Zealanders have a constitutional right to bear arms.

The obvious lacuna in this aspect of the case advanced for the Kiwi Party is that it assumes British subjects had an unbridled right to bear arms. As we have already noted, there was no such right. Any ability for a citizen to bear arms has, at least since 1689, been able to be regulated by laws passed by Parliament.

It is striking that the so-called right to bear arms is not referred to in any international human rights instrument, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights. Of the 190 countries that have a written constitution, only the constitutions of Guatemala, Mexico and the United States refer to a right to bear arms.

The relevant parts of the constitutions of Guatemala and Mexico are modelled on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution but expressly provide for limits according to law. Thus, it can be fairly said that the right to bear arms is an example of American constitutional exceptionalism.

Even in the United States, the ability of a citizen to possess and use firearms may be subject to legislative control. Thus, assault weapons have been banned by seven State legislatures, including those in California and New York.

The CoA found that the Kiwi Party “causes of action are untenable and cannot possibly succeed.”

https://yournz.org/2020/04/02/court-of-appeal-no-constitutional-right-to-bear-arms/
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April 2, 2020 8:08am
- All_on_Red
  
  Back to Link Whoring again Pete
  This was covered on KB previously
  https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/03/no_right_to_bear_arms_in_nz.html
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:19am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Simply: citizens have no rights to bear arms against those legitimately appointed to control them.
  Reverse it and the people become the controllers.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:30am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    Reverse it and the people become the controllers.
    
    Isn’t that the definition of democracy?
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:01am
  - Tall Man
    
    We may not have a “right” to bear arms but surely to god we have a right to legally own them when legally purchased and have the right to be consulted before that right is removed.
    
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    April 2, 2020 12:17pm
cmm

It is Ok to allow 3600 people straight into NZ from overseas – many of whom will be infected – because NZ is a “high trust society”.

Is this the same high trust that means we have dob-in-your-neighbour and Stazi-scented Plods that stop people on a whim to see if you were really going to the supermarket?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321689

Start making sense Sweetie otherwise you will erode that trust even more.
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April 2, 2020 8:09am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  I wonder if you would call a police officer a ‘Stazi-scented Plod’ face-to-face.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:21am
  - cmm
    
    Why are you saying the plod might assault me for doing so?
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:53am
    - MCos
      
      How many times have you been stopped by the police wandering round in the streets?
      I saw a number of people walking around in our neighbourhood yesterday. A police car drove by and ignored everyone.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:20am
      - cmm
        
        You should have dobbed those cops in for not enforcing things properly.
        
        We’re all in this together. You have your part to play.
        
        2 1
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        April 2, 2020 3:36pm
  - RW Capitalist
    
    So you agree,
    The fact that, in a free country, with free speech, you would be afraid to call a policeman (or any official),a “stazi-scented plod”. Proves the premise.
    It is the fearful part, that proves it.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:04am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      No, my point is that you and your chums lack the courage to abuse police officers to their faces.
      Would your children be proud to witness their father calling a police officer a Nazi?
      
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      April 2, 2020 12:05pm
      - Tall Man
        
        If that officer was behaving like a nazi I hope so.
        
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        April 2, 2020 12:46pm
- Ruahine
  
  The lack of a quarantine is the real reason that we have the virus in New Zealand in the first place. All the Hoo Haa about the people getting a special fight from Wuhan in China and then into quarantine for two weeks was just a PR show again by the government. I believe they will not quarantine is that they want more infections to carry on so that this charade can carry on. I reckon they can’t believe how they have been able to get so much control over the country by creating mass hysteria with false presentation of data and also with the compliance of the MSM who are basically doing PR for Ardern.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:34am
  - cmm
    
    Well the biggest lie told in this whole Covid-19 business – so far – is that NZ has the best border security in the world.
    
    Meanwhile the truth is that at the time, and still, it is as porous as hell.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:51am
    - hullkiwi
      
      708 known cases in NZ as of yesterday, shows claims about our borders to be the lies they were.
      
      Others have already said it and it should be said again. NZ’s borders should have been shut to all incoming, even Kiwis wanting to come back. If they were in a situation abroad, the govt should have provided the necessary assistance in those countries, which would have been safer, and caused less damage to NZ and NZers as a whole.
      
      The pain NZ will go through over the next 12 to 24 months, was not worth allowing Kiwis back into NZ to make them feel “safe” in NZ.
      
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      April 2, 2020 9:15am
      - cmm
        
        “next 12 to 24 months, ”
        
        Next 5 to 10 years more like.
        
        15 1
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        April 2, 2020 9:26am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        Knowing that many coming here were infected and having open borders and lying about it shows a guilty mind.
        Incompetency to the degree of being reckless can be fraud.
        The COL must go.
        
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        April 2, 2020 9:34am
      - cmm
        
        Kev: She feels no guilt.
        
        Guilt is discomfort. She only feels discomfort when she’s telling the truth.
        
        She routinely telly a lie when the truth would have been easier.
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:05am
      - doggone7
        
        What if they were your kids or parents?
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:56am
      - Tall Man
        
        I hear you doggy but those people should have been quarantined away from their families. Would you agree with that?
        
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        April 2, 2020 12:14pm
    - kowtow
      
      Another lie is that the measures have been taken in order to protect the health system.
      
      It has been right royally f#cked for over 20 years .
      
      Just ask anyone who was on a waiting list for “elective” surgery and all the people who were bumped off waiting lists in order to say there weren’t any waiting lists.
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:18am
      - Michael NZ
        
        By both Labour and National !!!
        Lets get it straight..
        
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        April 2, 2020 3:58pm
  - rockape
    
    Surely she wouldn’t deprive herself of all those school visits and hugs they are her PR.
    
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    April 2, 2020 8:52am
    - cmm
      
      Oh those school visits are going to be full of spin once the schools are back again.
      
      “You love your granny right? She’s the best thing in the world, full of love and kindness.
      Well the only reason your granny is still here is because of my awesome superpowers.
      The experts said 80,000 grannies and pops were going to die. I said No, that is unacceptable, think of all the children that will miss them. You must do better.
      Soon the number was down to 14,000 and I still said not good enough. Eventually only 500 died.
      That’s 79,500 grannies and pops that I saved. That’s 300,000 children who still have their grannies to make them scones and knit for them and grandpas to teach them woodwork. I saved the childhood of 300,000 Kiwis just like you!”
      
      Applause. Tears. Hugs.
      #CinD4UN!
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:13am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Well explained. And that is EXACTLY how she thinks.
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:55am
      - doggone7
        
        Given the level of childishness which classroom will you be in to hear it?
        
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        April 2, 2020 10:57am
      - cmm
        
        doggy: I won’t need to be in the classroom. It will be broadcast on RNZ/TV
        
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        April 2, 2020 11:37am
  - OTGO
    
    All the HOO HAA from WUHAN. That has gotta be a rap line surely.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:38am
- rightoverlabour
  
  Fat chance mate. Sweetie couldn’t make sense unless it is written down for her. Her shortcoming have been exposed.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:40am
Happychappy

Coronavirus: Testing is the missing link in the Coronavirus response, but theres a problem test, test, test, said the Prime Minister on Tuesday. “We have the capacity”, we heard an nauseam from her lieutenants.
There is a problem with News Zealand’s Coronavirus testing, but the Prime Minister has effectively blamed the Clinicians for not running the tests.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120749592/coronavirus-testing-is-the-missing-link-in-the-coronavirus-response-but-theres-a-problemn
Jacinda Ardern wants to hold Supermarkets and there bosses to account but can’t face the fact that she is the Prime Minister and CEO of New Zealand and the buck stops with her and her Leadership.
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April 2, 2020 8:12am
- cmm
  
  They talk about jacking up testing to 5,000 or even 10,000 a day.
  
  We have test kits for 30k, so 3 days of testing and we have nothing left.
  
  There are 90,000 more ordered, but until they actually hit NZ soil do not count on them.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:22am
  - Michael Rodent
    
    The PM is playing with words again. They may have 30k test kits and they may have the “capacity” (lab resources) to d0 3000 tests per day but the vital ingredient to complete the process is the reagent.
    There is a world-wide shortage of reagent as China bought up most of the world supply in Jan/Feb.
    Without the reagent it is irrelevant how many test kits there are and how much laboratory capacity there is.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:44am
- EssenX
  
  About time the media started asking questions about this! Although it appears that it’s started after one of their own struggled getting tested and subsequently tested positive.
  
  I had begun to think that the Government was listening and changing policies, where required, to meet the demands of the pandemic. But Ardern’s comments yesterday demonstrate that the Government is continuing to mislead the public. This comment, in particular, is at best very misleading and at worst a lie in my honest opinion:
  
  “You will have heard me constantly and consistently saying that clinicians needed to use their discretion, and that always existed, regardless of international travel, regardless of contact with anyone else who had Covid, they’ve always had the discretion to test if they believe they needed to,” Ardern said.
  
  My understanding is that this is untrue. Clinicians had no discretion and international travel was a key requirement before a test could be done.
  
  It is incredibly worrying that our Prime Minister continues to repeat misleading information. This needs to be questioned by both the right and the left. In these situations, political games should be put aside and the public deserves honesty.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:34am
- KevO'Brien
  
  “Test, test, test”, was the mantra initially of the WHO head who previously was incidentally a financial adviser to China.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:36am
- Michael NZ
  
  she is not my PM.
  
  She was appointed.
  You don’t get elected on 31%.
  
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  April 2, 2020 3:59pm
cmm

Some regions with low test results to be given freedom ahead of others.

Well that’s one way to poke a hornets’ nest. Will people in Auckland, Chch feel that is “fair”? Will the compliance be eroded even more?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321670
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April 2, 2020 8:13am
- PhilBest
  
  I support this. The tendency I would expect from the pinko powers-that-be, would be to deny that there is any risk factor from high urban density, which urban density is something they are already in the process of ramming down our throats. I’m coloured surprised if they lift the lockdown on rural areas and suburbs because they have proven to be safer.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:29am
- MT_Tinman
  
  They certainly can’t differentiate different regions based on infection rates because they haven’t and aren’t testing enough people to gauge these rates thanks to more dictatorship incompetence.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:37am
  - tf78
    
    I feel more and more like a mushroom each day.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:39am
Tasman Terror

We have a Prime Minister smiling and guffawing in last night’s One a News about the price of cauliflowers reaching $13. She set up the fob in line so why demean it. Secondly when you earn over $400,000 the price of cauliflowers is nothing to worry about. Have you noticed how she only moves on Covid 19 when she gets public criticism from scientists and the medical profession? We are in good hands, not.
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April 2, 2020 8:21am
- tf78
  
  I didn’t know it was compulsory to buy cauliflower! I don’t really like it.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:41am
  - namron
    
    A cauli at Pak’n’save Gisborne this morning was $5.
    Perhaps locally grown!
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:48am
- Jules99
  
  We don’t know how the cauliflowers got to the store, so some investigation is warranted before we accuse people of price gouging. Growers may not have enough staff to pick and pack effectively, supply chains are weaker and perhaps less efficient than before, and there may be any number of other restrictions on each step of the supply chain requires each of which add a cost. These could be extra cleaning and PPE equipment and distancing requirements.
  
  We need our growers and farmers to be able to make a living right now – the alternative is food boxes delivered by the state. They won’t look anything like My Food Bag.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:50am
hmmokrightitis

Interesting experience yesterday. As a result of customer need (central government) I had to relocate part of my bubble. Left my beautiful girls behind for not too sure how long, and with one of my sons, drove cross country in convoy, 2 cars. Have the necessary clearances to present should we be stopped. Saw 5 cops.

Didn’t get stopped once.

Evidence from countries (1st world) suggests that our reported infection rates are low (not testing enough) and that many people are asymptomatic, and the resulting death rates (whilst any death sucks) is roughly the same as seasonal flu.

Remind me again why we now live in an (almost) police state where Mike Bush can issue vague threats unsubstantiated by Cindys words; where local butchers and bakers cant open, but the local dairy can?

Perhaps if the borders were actually closed completely this OTT lockdown would not be needed; equally, if they were closed when Ministers were first advised to do so, we wouldn’t need such draconian laws in place, and could follow the Swedish approach where they are treated like grown ups.

Worlds biggest hammer for a very small nut. Anyone else hear that cry of wolf?
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April 2, 2020 8:21am
- MrTips
  
  Thankfully, Mike Bush won’t be issuing any directives any more. His time is done. The Epidemic Committee meeting was his last gig as PC.
  
  Hopefully the new boss will be more reasonable.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:49am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    faint hope, look who appointed him.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:36am
  - Michael NZ
    
    He’s an Elder at The Street Church in Wellington, so hopefully he’ll have some common sense and won’t be a police Politician like so many have been.
    
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    April 2, 2020 4:01pm
- hmmokrightitis
  
  Let me add to this, stats weve just been provided.
  
  Overall survival rates:
  C19: 98.6%
  SARS: 85%
  MERS: 65%
  
  Ex The Lancet, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30257-7/fulltext
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:27am
  - septic skeptic
    
    And bird flu is virtually 0%. Which paradoxically explains how so FEW people have died from it.
    Covid is not the Flu. It is more deadly, and more infectious. The combination of those two factors make it vastly more dangerous.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:43am
    - hmmokrightitis
      
      Infectious: Possibly.
      
      Deadly, no, there is still no proof of that.
      
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      April 2, 2020 1:32pm
Tasman Terror

We have a Prime Minister smiling and guffawing in last night’s One a News about the price of cauliflowers reaching $13. She set up the fob in line so why demean it. Secondly when you earn over $400,000 the price of cauliflowers is nothing to worry about. Have you noticed how she only moves on Covid 19 when she gets public criticism from scientists and the medical profession?
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April 2, 2020 8:22am
- tui47
  
  Of course she is the one behind the rise in the price of cauliflower and all fruit and vegetables. She is preventing the usual amount of cauliflowers reaching the market by closing fruit and vegetable outlets. The supermarkets have the monopoly. The cauliflowers normally purchased by the green grocers are rotting in the ground and both the growers and the green grocer are going broke.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:04am
MT_Tinman

Now the absolute stupidity of the house arrest edict becomes clear instead of attempting to correct situations the dictatorship simply lie and make excuses for their mistakes.

We should be seeing ALL family run (i.e. no outside employees) food businesses, whether bakeries, butcheries, green-grocers, take-away food etc. immediately allowed to open, if only to allow deliveries.

Instead we see operations (e.g. Akaroa butchery) being closed down by pathetic civil servants.

Statistics are showing that this virus is no worse in fatalities for most people (us old farts excluded) than existing viruses and other than giving teachers time off on full pay and providing under-worked stasi with something to do the house arrest serves no purpose that a simple request would not.
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April 2, 2020 8:23am
- tui47
  
  My local green grocer remains open. I am it giving any tips to its location because I have already been attacked online by extended family for revealing I purchased a coffee from a local supermarket. Ironically, the coffee machine was closed down within two hours. My green grocer has the best fruit and vegetables probably in the country. Their store is safer than the supermarket and as a result it is quite a tedious process to make a purchase. Queuing first (only three allowed in store), hand sanitisers, gloves, sign in with name then supplied with a freshly dettol sprayed trolley. Move two metres apart, stand behind line in counter where assistant with gloves and masks packs your vege, Move to an eftpos terminal a metre from the assistant. Trolley returned to be resprayed. Sign out. The owner uses his own suppliers so he is helping them by remaining open and helping us because we are not stuck with the supermarket damaged fruit. The owner has not raised his prices.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:18am
Tony Stuart

Dr David Clark is fashioning an unenviable record as Minister. So far, he has presided over a meningococcal outbreak in Northland, a measles epidemic and COVID-19, and all he has been able to do is blame National for “nine years of neglect”.

Now we’re running out of flu vaccines, in the year we need them most. That’s unacceptable Dr Clark, and at some point, you need to start owning your own shit, because this is happening on YOUR watch.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/doctors-say-patient-safety-at-risk-as-flu-vaccine-supplier-to-new-zealand-runs-out-of-stock.html
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April 2, 2020 8:38am
- Happychappy
  
  Tony : Government Ministers have done less than his inept ability to do a job in Cabinet , yet he has made several fuck ups that include loss of life and still holds control of the Health Portfolio.
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:46am
  - tf78
    
    They seem to think he’s really a Doctor!
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:46am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      By not saying he is not a medical doctor they are telling yet another white lie. Sheeple fooled again
      
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      April 2, 2020 10:58am
- DeepBlue
  
  The mumps outbreak at Otago University has been kept quiet too. Student parents were pulling kids from Dunedin well before COVID 19 lockdown. Does anyone know more about this?
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:40am
Rich Prick

The house arrest is bad enough, but why is the Government (and supermarkets) torturing us with b-list celebrities telling us that the toilet paper situation is fine?
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April 2, 2020 8:46am
- lifesgood
  
  You are on to it RP. B-list at best and not people who inspire respect, in the main. Therefore people with a bit of nouse will ignore the ad. More waste of money.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:00am
  - david
    
    I will listen to Willie Asiata when I know he is not working off someone else’s script but under no circumstances will I take any notice of a lecture from Hilary Barry or Anika Moa.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:48am
- MT_Tinman
  
  It’s better looking at (who would be stupid enough to listen to?) them than the pictures of the thing they keep putting up whenever anything Covid-19/house arrest/economy destruction related is mentioned.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:43am
Happychappy

Has anyone got any idea how much the Taxpayer will have to fork out for the Governments , Our plan – Your plan unite against CORID 19 pamphlet that were delivered to the letterbox yesterday.
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April 2, 2020 8:53am
emmess

Can everyone please stop calling it COVID-19?
Call it Wuhan virus, China virus, CCP virus or simply just coronavirus.
I can’t stand that politically correct name invented by the corrupt China Health Organisation, also known as the WHO.
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April 2, 2020 8:55am
- tf78
  
  WUFLU is the best description. (I love Trump)
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:51am
- Jules99
  
  Wu Flu is may favourite.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:56am
- PhilBest
  
  Mark Steyn, after a singer was arrested in the UK for singing “Kung Fu Fighting” in a pub a few years ago, because of the insulting lines “funky Chinamen in funky Chinatown”, regularly sang snatches of the song on his own show to display solidarity.
  
  Now he sings “Kung FLU Fighting” with different modified lyrics referring to viruses from China, every single show….
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:03am
  - emmess
    
    A la Stephen Crowder
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPGw5Ucmwk8
    
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    April 2, 2020 12:14pm
- Fletch
  
  Kung Flu…
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:12am
- kowtow
  
  Wuflu .
  
  7 1
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  April 2, 2020 10:23am
- Ed Snack
  
  COVID-19 is the disease one gets from the virus, the virus itself is SARS-Cov-2. It is closely related to the SARS virus but with a mutation that enhances its entry to cells and spread but apparently considerably less lethal in its effects.
  
  Standing in for Maggie here who have had that at her fingertips and not had to check the correct virus name as I did.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:57am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Jacinda. NZ has had enough. Stop it with the FUCKING LIES! Do the job that a Prime Minister should be doing, or resign.
The Internet is watching you, we are well aware of your continuous bullshitting
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April 2, 2020 8:59am
- doggone7
  
  Jacinda Ardern surely deserves some credit. She’s given voice to those who’ve come to a realisation that they don’t want a Prime Minister who lies.
  
  Or maybe it’s simply that they’ve grown up and can now determine those situations. When other PMs lied they didn’t recognise bullshitting so it slipped by.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:01am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    The more lies she tells, the more she will be singled out.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:01am
- hullkiwi
  
  She has to tell lies, because the projections of what is coming next will be her legacy, but she doesn’t want anyone knowing about it before the election.
  
  Reports this morning are that unemployment could reach an unprecedented 30%. In the UK they are anticipating that 20% of small businesses will fail, that number is expected to be greater. That is a depression, not a severe recession. With this as a possibility, it makes predictions that NZ could bounce out of this relatively unscathed compared to other countries look foolish.
  
  And what do we get from those in the spotlight.
  1. Robertson is clueless, and with Treasury support he is splashing money around that he Hope’s will prop businesses until events return to normal. Wrong, the future normal is uncertain and returning to a previous “business as usual” normal is unlikely.
  
  2. Richard Wagstaff (Pres of the CTU) on RNZ this morning, “the govt must not have a programme of austerity and it must get on with its Infrastructure programme.” And, “we must use NZ labour as we will have of available people”. Wrong, much of the Infrastructure programme was “nice to have”, and unnecessary. Equally, not all the unemployed will be road builders or construction workers, so he is kidding himself. This is not 1935.
  
  3. Bernard Hickey last week on TV spoke of building up NZ’s PT infrastructure and building houses. Others to make similar comments have included BERL and Informetrics. Well they are all wrong, if NZ followed their recommendations, NZ would end up like Greece (Greece indebted itself with needless infrastructure spend for the 2004 Olympics, when the GFC came, the country was broke and it needed bailouts and still does). Yes, in the 1930s the govt built houses, but how many new houses does NZ really need, when some of NZ’s recent immigrants have returned to their homelands?
  
  NZ in recent weeks has seen its largest foreign exchange earner wiped out, and even local tourism almost made non-existent. I am aware of companies in the tourism sector who have already made people redundant. You do not turn these industries back on, just because the SLG lifts a nationwide lockdown. Equally, countries abroad are not going to be queuing up to buy NZ’s agricultural exports, as every country NZ trades with, is facing this, and their priority will be their own countries’.
  
  So what NZ needs now, and in the future, are leaders who are able to understand the issues, have strategic vision, and not fall back on the ways we have done things in recent years. Because the future, for NZ (like all countries) will mean we have to adapt to new norms and this may mean recreating a more balanced economy of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.
  
  And for what it is worth, NZ needs to be wary of other countries or foreign companies coming to NZ to “invest” (buy up) bargain basement assets (land, companies, intellectual property etc). Because NZ must not let itself be commercially colonized any further by Asian, European, American and Australian interests.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:28am
  - curry4me
    
    hullkiwi: Good points. What does SLG stand for. I should know, but I don’t.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:09am
    - septic skeptic
      
      Ask Trevor, he was the only one who heard it!
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:57am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        Yes, and in his self-confessed dodgy ear too!
        
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        April 2, 2020 12:20pm
    - Dougal10
      
      Ask trevor mallard
      
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      April 2, 2020 12:07pm
secondcumming

Anyone here found it necessary to nark on a neighbor yet? 😎
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April 2, 2020 9:03am
- Tall Man
  
  Hi SC. I know we differ on many issues but according to the mods I called you intellectually challenged. I may have but I think I also said the same of ardern so my apologies for associating you with her.?
  
  If I did, as I’m seldom wrong, did you find it overly insulting and now long did it take you to get over it? ?
  
  Cheers
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:33am
  - secondcumming
    
    Like water off the proverbial TM.
    
    I just down ticked and moved on 😀
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:34am
    - Tall Man
      
      A man after my own heart ?
      
      7 0
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      April 2, 2020 12:38pm
- krazykiwi
  
  No, sorry. I’m just back from a book burning. I’ll get right onto it.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:41am
- tf78
  
  I wouldn’t on principle.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:52am
- JibberJabber
  
  I`d bet it`s awfully quiet around a certain kiwibloggers neighbourhood right about now, no prizes for guessing which one…
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:58am
KevO'Brien

Masks anyone? Will E. shows the affects they have on control:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/01/do-lockdowns-work/
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April 2, 2020 9:16am
- krazykiwi
  
  10. That is a very informative article. Thanks Kev. Others, if like me, you want to see actual data to explain a thesis then read this.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:27am
lastmanstanding

Wuhan Flu is starting to impact the big end of town. Kathmandu have announced a capital raising 140% of current shares at a discount of 55% to the current share price with a 60% dilution factor to current shareholders who dont take up the offer.
As one who have been in the markets since the 70s and lived thru all the crashes if you told me this a month ago I would have told you to visit a trick cyclist.
KMDs supply comes from where; you guessed it China.

Fletchers are looking to pay their 10,000 staff 80% of pay for the first 4 weeks 50% for the next 4 weeks and 30% after that.
Mind you they are a good buy as they will scoop up a lot of the Governments planned infrastructure projects and have a full book for at least the next 5 to 7 years possibly longer.

As I posted a couple of days ago this is going to hit the private media. Yesterday Media Works asked their staff to take a 15% pay cut.

Being FIFO first in first out Chinese investors and companies will look to take stakes in NZX and other bourses companies and Governments wont resist as the alternative will be to see these companies collapse with the flow on consequences.

And finally you will please to know that the wet markets in Wuhan and across China have opened for business so fruit bat is on the menu again.

Expect to see Covid-19 mark 2 winging its way to you some time soon.
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April 2, 2020 9:20am
- krazykiwi
  
  And finally you will please to know that the wet markets in Wuhan and across China have opened for business so fruit bat is on the menu again
  
  Remember, the Europeans won’t take an overly bent banana from a supplier, but they’ll happily take investment from the communists.
  
  Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the European Union (EU) has increased by almost 50 times in only eight years, from less than $840 million in 2008 to a record high of $42 billion (35 billion euro) in 2016, according to Rhodium Group statistics
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:33am
- 7kiwi11
  
  But the exec’s at Fletchers are only taking a 15% pay cut!
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:40am
  - hullkiwi
    
    Remember Fletchers is now Singaporean owned.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:37am
- tf78
  
  Aussie has already put the Kibosh on any Chinese purchase of any land or business in Australia – we should do the same.
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:55am
  - DeepBlue
    
    Doesn’t our overseas investment rules and 100% sensitive land cover this? That’s the intent, well govn need to reinforce it now more than ever… Remember all the exceptions this year for forestry and farming land.
    
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    April 2, 2020 2:48pm
- hullkiwi
  
  They must resist overseas interests buying into NZ. This form of “investment” is cynical economic colonization and is not good for an economic lightweight like NZ.
  
  Sadly, the CoL didn’t have a plan going into this and almost certainly, they will not have a plan to get us out of it. Other than to allow NZ to be sold off to foreign interests.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:33am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Will NZF be putting NZ interests first? Or facilitating whatever for whoever donates?
    Rhetorical question of course.
    
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    April 2, 2020 12:06pm
Tasman Terror

We urgently need a cauliflower working group set up with a Labour Party aligned QC to chair it. It will cost $3.1 million and report in 28 months. It’s recommendations will be ignored. Reminds me of a joke (this time not Jacinda): Margaret Thatcher was dining in a restaurant with her Cabinet colleagues and was asked for her order by the waiter. She replied “steak.” The waiter then asked “vegetables?” to which Thatcher replied “ they’ll have the steak too.”
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April 2, 2020 9:20am
cas

Just returned from the local supermarket. I was going to buy a thank you card for the workers but no cards at all. Was advised that they had been told they were non essential services!!!!

And where is Dr David Clarke these days? He should be fronting all the 1 pmers with Ashley B if he is in Wellington which surely he must be. Talk about Nero.
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April 2, 2020 9:32am
krazykiwi

.
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April 2, 2020 9:33am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

From my Facebook posted by friends in Alaska.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEuIZ0Vwmg
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April 2, 2020 9:39am
Gravelroad

Call me frivolous, but can’t help but reflect on the departure yesterday (April 1st) of Prince Harry and Meghan from royal duties.
HM Queen must really wonder how this has happened again.
The similarities occurring between Prince Harry’s situation and that of her Uncle David – King Edward VIII, and then Duke of Windsor, are stark.
Uncle Dave, debonair playboy Prince, popular with the ladies (and others) meets uber-ambitious, hard bitten American divorcee of dubious repute.
Chucks in royal life, takes off (without a backward glance) for the celebrity lifestyle somewhere else leaving shy, stuttering brother Bertie to cope as best he can with sudden elevation to King.
But King George has nice, pretty, supportive wife who sticks with him at Buckingham Palace through WW2 and the blitz, visiting hospitals and communicating with essential workers.
Prince Harry of LA: doing what he is told by the Mrs.
Prince William of England: adding value.
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April 2, 2020 9:40am
- Sacha
  
  Harry Markle.
  
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  April 2, 2020 4:13pm
lifesgood

Woo Hoo! Mike Bush’s last day as Police Commissioner. Cause for celebration.
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April 2, 2020 9:46am
- DeepBlue
  
  And Simon’s committee made it a bad day too. You always remember your last day.
  
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  April 2, 2020 2:50pm
- Michael NZ
  
  I am glad but wary of what other role they have for him. He was Jacinda’s man.
  
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  April 2, 2020 4:07pm
rightoverlabour

And on to other issues, its quite warm, here, but I would not like to be up North…. https://electroverse.net/norway-battered-by-snowstorm-after-snowstorm/
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April 2, 2020 9:47am
Maggy Wassilieff

Jacinda Ardern is clearly being propped up by her media mates.

And they are her Achilles’ heel.

As one by one they drop by the wayside, she is left exposed as the shallow mouthpiece of an incompetent bunch of venal folk.
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April 2, 2020 9:49am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And if on cue…
  
  The Listener is goneburger
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120754944/publisher-of-metro-womans-day-closes-in-nz-amid-coronavirus-woes
  
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  April 2, 2020 9:53am
  - MrTips
    
    Oh no, Matthew Hooton may have be direct employ to Ardern now.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:55am
  - tf78
    
    Best news I’ve heard all week Maggie – we won’t have to turn the mags over ever again.
    
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    April 2, 2020 9:56am
    - kowtow
      
      North and South gone . Terrible loss to real NZ journalism.
      
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      April 2, 2020 12:20pm
  - jp_1983
    
    Sorry to hear about the staff at Bauer media. Will there be a ‘kiwi media’ soon?
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:10am
  - Inandout
    
    As it can’t be sold at retail, by royal decree, this leftist publication Listener must be an example of Labour idiocy. The age of globalism is decaying and we can witness CNN dying before us because their airport monopoly has ceased as a source of income. Govt radio will survive as a haven for the dwindling leftist journalists.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:12am
  - rangitoto
    
    The problem is that we will be left only with Government propaganda publications.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:13am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Noooo. How will we #TurnArdern without Woman’s Day?
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:13am
    - namron
      
      Is the failure of these magazines an indication that all those Jacinda photos and stories didn’t work after all??!!
      
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      April 2, 2020 12:38pm
  - hullkiwi
    
    Welcome to the cynical world of foreign investment and why New Zealanders have got to learn to be sceptical of overseas investment.
    
    Very rarely, does overseas investment add value to NZ, usually it is about an opportunity to sell product to New Zealanders, earn profit and repatriate the profits, while using price transfer mechanisms to avoid paying corporate tax in NZ!
    
    The above is not a CoL rant, but the reality of what such investment is and what happens in times such as the current.
    
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    April 2, 2020 10:46am
- bruceavon
  
  If I was stuff and herald I would have another go at merger now. bound to succeed. Mind you, this might push both of them under. Skyrocketing readership but no advertising money.TV3 must be close to the end also. We might be left with only state owned media. Bauer have wanted to close its NZ operation for ages. This just provides a convenient excuse. all media is doomed by the internet. None of them make money. Covid 19 is just revealing how flimsy some businesses are.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:04am
- KevO'Brien
  
  She still has TV1.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:51am
Iamright

We keep getting the daily report of actual Covid cases plus probable. We then get the cumulative total, which if you add the current day to the day before total you get the latest total. What has happened to all the probables? Have they become actuals or are they are part of the recovered total or are they simply inflating the total thus giving a misleading figure?
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April 2, 2020 9:51am
- KevO'Brien
  
  They have presented those misleading numbers from the outset. They also have said they closed the borders.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:50am
- septic skeptic
  
  I imagine a presumed case is based pretty strong evidence. Remember that the test only has about 70% sensitivity, so not everyone that has Covid will test +ve.
  
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  April 2, 2020 12:24pm
JibberJabber

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1245271911900184576
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April 2, 2020 9:54am
MrTips

Dear diary
Day 8:
Saw the sweetest moment between two oldies holding hands out walking this morning. Almost felt guilty dobbing them in to the cops.
Lived a little vicariously at the supermarket. Stood 1.5m away from some guy in the queue and took 3 loaves of bread. Hagan lio!
Wife losing sense of humour. She’s taken up cheese making and asked if curds could transmit coronavirus. Didn’t laugh when I said that Syrians think so……sour milk indeed.
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April 2, 2020 9:54am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Advantage of standing 2m behind an attractive lady, you get a better view.
  Sexism rules…
  Please don’t pretend you don’t look,you girls too.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:47am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Be warned…
  
  It’s ~~toadstool~~ mushroom season .
  perhaps you both could go fungi foraging in the local park…
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:01am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    Advice when mushrooming
    Pick twice as much as you need
    Leave half in the pantry
    So that when they find your body, they know what killed you.
    Most people wouldn’t know which mushrooms are safe to eat.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:08am
    - MT_Tinman
      
      Great advice RW – except by the time they find my body I won’t care what killed me 😉
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:29am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Most people wouldn’t know which mushrooms are safe to eat.
      
      Indeed they don’t in NZ
      Means lots of sticky buns for me..
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suillus_luteus
      
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      April 2, 2020 11:59am
Allan

Dr Muriel Newman’s latest opinion piece on her NZCPR web site is excellent also this post by Antipodean on the BFD is also one to carefully consider.

How Will It All End?
By
Antipodean –
April 2, 2020 9:00 am

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin

We’re a nation of ANZACs, our leaders like to remind us, every April 25th.

They like to remind us just once a year. They don’t like to remind us too much.

I come from a military background, as does my partner. Every year we can be found at the Dawn Service with family and friends, remembering our countrymen who gave their everything so that we and our children could live in peace and freedom.

There are many events on our calendar that might slip from time to time, but never this. Never this.

Except for this year. ANZAC services are cancelled this year.

I’m appalled.

Have we changed so much as a nation that our forefathers were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom, facing bullets and bombs, but we cower here in our homes sacrificing all our freedom for just a tiny bit of safety from a virus?

Are we that pathetic?

The Government has been quick to shut so much down, with no consultation, debate or pushback. We citizens never got a chance. One minute it was business-as-usual, next it was Gestapo, Kiwi-style.

(It’s interesting to point out that ALL Government workers are still considered “essential” – right down to the lowliest admin person. Butchers aren’t necessary – unless they’re Halal, of course – but the people who know how to photocopy stuff and take minutes are vital. And are being fully paid.)

All the local and community newspapers have been shut down, as has local talkback radio.

[Editor’s note: the Government has reconsidered its definition of “essential media” so that it will now include those publications which meet the following criteria:

serves a need for hard to reach rural communities, with reduced connectivity,
and/or serves non-English speaking communities,
and have appropriate health and safety measures to minimise the spread of COVID-19 during production and delivery.]

Local newspapers such as the Otago Daily Times are now carefully screening their comments sections – and not much that is critical of the Government is getting through.

It’s a Jacinda lovefest out there. Anyone would think every single New Zealander is on board with everything she’s done.

Censorship abounds, especially regarding criticism of China. There has not been a single mention in the mainstream media of how China first created this mess and is now poised to profit hugely from it, selling us everything we need from PPE to new computers for our stay-at-home workforce and schoolchildren. There’s been no mention of how the virus figures out of China don’t add up and are out of alignment with those from the rest of the world – glaringly obvious to anyone outside of government.

There’s no questioning how we might avoid this all happening again, and no discussion of how it happened in the first place, how we made ourselves so vulnerable to a huge foreign power, and how unwise some of our choices as a nation may have been.

There’s very little mention of the lack of accountability the NZ Police now have, and the fact that overnight we seem to have become a police state, with the Police now controlling everything and Mike Bush our de facto Prime Minister.

Look, I get it. This virus kills. It could kill our parents, our grandparents, our most vulnerable. It might even kill you and me. Nobody wants our loved ones to die. Nobody wants to take unnecessary risks.

But if we’re so afraid of this that we’re willing to give up practically every single freedom we have – everything we claim to believe in, everything the ANZACs fought for – then we may as well don our Mao suits and start handing out copies of the Communist Manifesto.

It’s all over. Time to kneel. Obey now! We didn’t even put up a fight.

Our economy wasn’t wiped out by some natural disaster. It was wiped out because Jacinda said so, then proceeded to destroy New Zealand, in one day, with the stroke of a pen. She then let the Police take over and bully the population into submission.

No vote, no referendum. Just thuggery and threats.

HOW WILL IT END?

We’ve been asked, like sheep, to stay in our pens, and like sheep we’ve willingly complied.

The rules keep changing, yet we’ve never even asked what right our Government has to make these rules in the first place! We’ve just cowered and assented. We’ve even been asked to snitch on our neighbours and friends. Should we pick on the Jewish ones first?

Some of us have even thanked our jailers, and praised Jesus and Jacinda for locking us in our cells.

We haven’t been brave ANZACs. Instead, we’ve cowered and hidden beneath the covers and hoped it all goes away.

I feel ashamed. I feel sick to my stomach, actually.

There are bigger things in this world than living and dying. These are the ideas and beliefs that we live and die for – liberty, love, friendship, family, country, tradition, religion, bravery, honesty.

If we don’t put our freedom ahead of our safety, as the ANZACs did, then we truly deserve neither. We’ll be nothing but a nation of sheep.

It’s time we stopped being sheep.
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April 2, 2020 9:55am
Happychappy

Have they a break through in there race to find a medicine to fight COVID-19.
It sounds great with hope so let’s hope it is right and Dr Glanville has found the suitable medication to fight the virus.
Dr Glanville told Checkpoint that his breakthrough means this make them suitable medicines that one could use once they have gone through human testing to fight the virus.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-scientist-makes-breakthrough-on-covid-19-cure.html
It sounds promising and gives hope .
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April 2, 2020 10:00am
jacob

BREAKING NEWS

Dear Leader now no longer appearing on magazine covers

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120754944/publisher-of-metro-womans-day-closes-in-nz-amid-coronavirus-woes
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April 2, 2020 10:07am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Something about clouds and silver linings, comes to mind.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:33am
RW Capitalist

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Winston Churchill
I think this sums up our govt.’s approach to all this.
Can we have our “9 long years” of success back.
(Note: I didn’t say perfection)
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April 2, 2020 10:07am
fernglas

It’s hard to find facts about who it is that is dying from Covid-19 and how many are at risk. But there are some indications.
1) The Italian Health Minister has said that 12% of the deaths in that country attributed to CV show a causality; in other words, 12% died of, rather than with, Coronavirus. That’s about 1400 people in Italy, a country of 64 million people.
2) In the only available statistics from the UK, on one day, on which 260 people died, 13 had no pre-existing condition. In other words, 5% of the deaths were caused by CV. Of those 13, the youngest was 63 and the oldest, 99. To date UK deaths are 2352. If the one day statistic holds true, the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 is about 115. The population of the UK is about 66 million.
3) There have been no studies undertaken to determine the level of infection in the population. Around 25% are asymptomatic. Others would have had minor illness that didn’t warrant reporting. Prof. Skeggs is advocating testing the population, not for the virus but for antibodies. There has been a study begun in Germany to find the same information, and that is how many in the population have already been infected (and are immune) Until we know how many people have already had the virus, it is impossible to know how close we are to herd immunity.

Doctors want to save lives, but the reality is that they are saving very few. Most of those dying with the virus would have died within a short time in any event. And all this shutdown is doing is spreading out the deaths so doctors aren’t overwhelmed by numbers. In terms of lives actually saved, as opposed to extended by some brief time, is the economic hardship really justified?
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April 2, 2020 10:09am
- cmm
  
  So, scaled to NZ population, we’re talking about less than 150 when we scale the Italian “died from” deaths and 10 for the UK “died from” deaths.
  
  We’re still on zero.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:22am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    We’re still on zero.
    
    ..and unlikely to reach 25, without the house arrest.
    
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    April 2, 2020 11:31am
DeepBlue

Just got my $1 back from Herald Premium…

“We need some sort of help to help them (businesses making decisions) navigate through this period because everyone’s operating in a vacuum, and we need a grown-up to tell us how to think about it.”

So far, there is little sign of that. Shamubeel Eaqub.

And he went on to ask if Ministers and Treasury always not give over info at select committee like that…
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April 2, 2020 10:20am
- kevn
  
  @Deep… If Shamu is criticising the incumbents there is a massive turning of the tide.
  
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  April 2, 2020 10:59am
Aunty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
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April 2, 2020 10:30am
Iamright

Another thing I am a little confused about is the number of people in hospital. Of the 708 less recovered of 82 there are only 14 in hospital. Google number of hospitals in NZ and you get 220. Not sure what that includes but does include private. So 14 cases in hospital. 220 hospitals so why is there a crisis in hospitals. No elective surgery etc etc so what are they all doing?
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April 2, 2020 10:32am
- cmm
  
  Yup, outpatient clinics shut down too… No heart/cancer checks. People who should be getting checks in April to make sure their meds are working may only get seen in June or whatever.
  
  Is this going to kill more people than the disease?
  
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  April 2, 2020 12:36pm
  - DeepBlue
    
    Southland DHB chief yesterday said whilst elective surgery is off they are bringing forward many cancer and critical checks/treatments to clear the hospital in advance of flu season.
    
    Hopefully all DHBs have a similar approach, but it is a local decision.
    
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    April 2, 2020 2:56pm
    - cmm
      
      I just received a cancellation in the post from the cardio clinic at Chch hospital. It only confirms an email exchange I had with them 2 days ago.
      
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      April 2, 2020 4:44pm
curry4me

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/30/west-reaping-whirlwind-policy-kowtowing-china-senior-tory/
Former Conservative leader Ian Duncan Smith says kowtowing to China has been a terrible mistake. China believed it was invulnerable to criticism over its human rights record because of all the cheap stuff in Western stores. No doubt, Britons will be even more grateful for Brexit.
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April 2, 2020 10:33am
curry4me

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/01/coronavirus-threat-dock-workers-refuse-to-unload-chinese-cargo-ship/
Union members are afraid of another Ruby Princess scandal. They didn’t like officialdom shaving two days off the quarantine period. I guess if Chinese stuff doesn’t make it off the ship, it won’t make it on to the shelf.
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April 2, 2020 10:34am
lifesgood

Poor little Sioxsie, Susie, Susan, oh whatever the hell her name is, Wiles is throwing a tanty on twitter because some nasty bullies are not being nice to her and telling her how wise she is and how beautiful her hair is, and how valuable her contribution to society is, etc, etc, etc. Didums!
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April 2, 2020 10:37am
- tf78
  
  “Diddums” was the most memorable thing that Helen Clark ever said.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:31am
- doggone7
  
  Silly Siouxsie! Not only did she not realise people on sites like this would know more about microbiology and science than her but then they’d get at her for pretending she knew more than them.
  
  Her contribution to society? Taking Knowledge and Experience to a Dumb Party in NZ? How naive.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:50am
- graham
  
  In amongst all the comments I notice the following from one Kotahi Tāne Huna: ‘It’s a deliberate strategy to attack and intimidate you, and anyone else watching. It says “stay down, shut up” ‘.
  
  Strangely enough, it seems like just yesterday that Siouxsie herself was trying to make a colleague of hers “stay down, shut up” when she tweeted “For anyone who comes across the opinion piece of an epidemiologist suggesting lockdown is like using a sledgehammer to hit a flea: he studies diet not infectious diseases. Don’t listen to his reckons.“
  
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  April 2, 2020 12:14pm
adamsmith1922

In contrast to be kind’ here is a better PSA, posted by the BBC no less

https://adamsmith.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/a-lockdown-psa-that-has-impact/
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April 2, 2020 10:37am
Inandout

I am sure this face can soon be swapped with our Dear Leader.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/history-shows-north-korea-will-respond-coronavirus-lashing-out-139732
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April 2, 2020 10:37am
RW Capitalist

How many days into this lock down?
My wife is on the phone with Te Omanga hospice, her first concerned call from any, remotely concerned, organization.
Still no follow up from Nurse, Dr or any DHB.
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April 2, 2020 10:42am
- RW Capitalist
  
  She’s still on the phone,,,desperate to talk to anyone other than me?
  I am actually pleased about that.
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:38am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Have you called your Dr or DHB and alerted them to your situation?
  
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  April 2, 2020 12:01pm
- Paul Marsden
  
  Maybe Chris Bishop could help again..??
  
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  April 2, 2020 2:07pm
kiwiracer

Let’s do this. . . . .nah

How about. . . . .

She’s got to go!!!!!!
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April 2, 2020 10:42am
adamsmith1922

And a little bit of humour to help everyone

https://adamsmith.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/mid-morning-laughter-staying-inside-a-covid-19-parody/
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April 2, 2020 10:48am
Chris Scott

A excellent but sobering graphic: https://xkcd.com/1732/?fbclid=IwAR2Cvbd0jCvKKWJpZHV1yzLGKa20_KwUVeAJJVhh3fZO4D5hbgOABNNXt1M
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April 2, 2020 10:59am
kowtow

Coke snorters . It’s a big thing in the west . Wonder if that compromises your pulmonary capacity.

Is drug addiction an underlying condition ?
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April 2, 2020 11:04am
- Tall Man
  
  Pepsi man myself ?
  
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  April 2, 2020 11:09am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

The wheels are falling off the PTPM train.
I get the feeling that the resulting wreck is getting close
19 1
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April 2, 2020 11:05am
- JerJer
  
  PTPM:
  
  i) I will elimate POVERDY.
  
  ii) I will build 100,000 houses.
  
  iii) I will plant 1,000,000,000 trees
  
  iv) I will manage the measles outbreak.
  
  v) I will defeat CoronaVirus.
  
  Yes, darling, of course you will. I agree the trainwreck will happen very soon.
  
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  April 2, 2020 2:02pm
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    Ha!
    The light at the end of the tunnel is actually another train.
    
    3 0
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    April 2, 2020 5:16pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

While we are bored, some weird stuff from Alaska. Alaskans are not really weird, just different.
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/strange-laws-alaska/?fbclid=IwAR3Pzpcu-IR1CKl8RPAUAgoHeWxSUNEcs8w-CtdE4AYTtkxqHtR98kgDsK0
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April 2, 2020 11:18am
curry4me

Thanks for the quick responses mods.
2 1
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April 2, 2020 11:22am
Fletch

Hmmm, I’m far from being a conspiracy adopter (too many of those on the internet), but might there be something in the dangerous level of microwaves emitted by 5G networks? It makes me pause, anyway…. I don’t buy the spying aspect of the clip, but the microwave thing looks bad in itself… ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oIIP-i2K8I
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April 2, 2020 11:38am
- dave_c_
  
  I encourage you to continue with your research. There is plenty of accurate commentary out there, about the dangers of 5G.
  
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  April 2, 2020 4:26pm
rightoverlabour

Hey, I am really keen on this “Dob In Line”. Could we all report a certain Jacinda Arderne for Gross Mismanagement of a crisis and selective reporting of facts. Do your Duty!
13 0
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April 2, 2020 11:44am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/01-04-2020/watch-auckland-in-lockdown/?fbclid=IwAR0CsF1WIAG5XXJL3bs8LTgasqsh9gUsc4sgEVK-JU9Cbdn6nayiCnnphuc
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April 2, 2020 11:48am
kiwiBuzz

Sweden has decided to continue more or less normally with everybody under 70 behaving normally but taking sensible precautions and therefore not risking the mass loss of jobs and misery associated with the major shutdown we are experiencing. Over 70s – the ones most likely to get seriously ill or die and clog up hospitals – are isolated.

This makes a lot of sense.

I am not sure that enough thought has been given to the long term implications of trying – and maybe succeeding – to shut down the epidemic before we have herd immunity.

If it does succeed, we have to adopt a “fortress New Zealand” policy for, maybe, years and will always be at risk from a new Covid-19 epidemic. The outcome of that will be continuing economic damage and misery.

If it fails then it takes months – or maybe more than a year – to build up the herd immunity.

For those under 70 and in good health it seems to impose little more risk – if any – than ‘flu.

The big hope in the short term is that chloroquine or some other medicine will mitigate the symptoms. If this happens, then the policy of acquiring herd immunity ASAP becomes stronger.

The only hope for the present policy is that somebody comes up with a vaccine sooner rather than later. But it seems that we are looking a year out and that amounts to a lot of misery, bankruptcies, depression and, almost certainly, suicides.

I suspect that far too much weight is being put on the opinions of some doctors backed up by computer modelling which relies on critical factors that have a huge range of uncertainty. Depending on which value of the factor is chosen, enormously different outputs are produced. A prime minister and media that tell us that the death of one already ill woman from Covid-19 is a tragedy does not help. It all needs to be put into proportion.

1000 people die every day from malaria – which could be eliminated with DDT – 40,000 a year die from car accidents in America and 70,000 in Iran. And so on. In transport engineering, a human life is valued at $NZ4 million. What is the fair value of the life of someone who is already sick and is over 70? The unspoken assumption that it is very high indeed is destroying the economy.
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April 2, 2020 11:50am
JulieBabe

My prediction for this week
Total dead from CV in NZ
Maximum of 3

(This is based on the fact that we have two in ICU.)
It really is time to life the lock down.
Its going to cripple NZ for years
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April 2, 2020 12:04pm
- cmm
  
  Is that based on on total dead from CV is currently at zero?
  
  The lady in Greymouth appears to have been “died with”, not “died from”.
  
  5 1
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  April 2, 2020 12:31pm
  - DeepBlue
    
    Show some respect, the lady has a family.
    
    I disagree about your ‘died with’… She was healthy and active before. Yes she had underlying COPD risk but she would have expected to live a lot longer. I think she ‘died from’ Covid19 because without it she would be alive today.
    
    She also elected to not go on a ventilator. I suspect a lot of older people will say the same thing ‘to save resources for others’ and we should respect the huge sacrifice that they will make. This is not dissimilar to the euthenasia argument of pressuring the elderly that many here have made.
    
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    April 2, 2020 3:08pm
    - cmm
      
      I’m not sure how my post was disrespectful but yours isn’t.
      
      Her family thought she was healthy and active, but that is not what the doctors said. People often hide the truth from their families not to worry them.
      
      Your “save resources for others” theory only makes sense if there was a shortage of ventilators in the hospital at that time and that does not seem to be the case. There is no shortage of ICU facilities in NZ at the moment and there is no reason to believe that there was alocal shortage in Greymouth.
      
      No, if she did refuse ventilation (and we don’t know that she did) then I would expect that it is along the same lines as many old or sick people that see a post-ventiated life as barely worth living.
      
      If you already have a high COPD risk then any flu is going to get you.
      
      And, for the record I am not pressurising anyone to euthenase themselves.
      
      Still, screwing up an economy for 5 or more years to try add a few months to a few sick people’s lives is not a good deal.
      
      6 1
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      April 2, 2020 5:00pm
kowtow

Just before mid day a guy phoned into peter Williams , says he lives in a nice cul de sac in Chch.

After listenening to the Plunket / Harawira interview yesterday , he said he sent an email to Top Cop and PM saying he and neighbours were going to set up roadblock to keep out ne’er do wells …….

……..nek minnit he got the knock on the door !!

So descriptions of this country as being a police state are not very far off the mark .

Plunket continues on the illegal roadblock theme this pm.
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April 2, 2020 12:13pm
Steve Todd

It looks like the red states are in for a battering over the next couple of months. I suspect Trump should be very afraid.

See https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2020/04/the-coming-red-state-coronavirus-catastrophe/.
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April 2, 2020 12:19pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  A battering from whom? Biden? He does not even know he will be the candidate.
  There is only one possibility – Killary does what she does best and she runs
  
  5 3
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  April 2, 2020 2:18pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    No, Steve. A battering from Covid-19. Did you not read the article I linked to?
    
    Not only will Covid-19 have a devastating effect on red states over the foreseeable future, but it will also have a devastating effect on many of those who, right now, are planning to vote for Trump on 3 November, i.e., elderly Republicans.
    
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    April 2, 2020 4:20pm
emmess

Watch the video here
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12321725
Grant Robertson is so full of crap, he literally give me a headache.
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April 2, 2020 12:23pm
emmess

CCP coronavirus: What’s known and not known about China’s numbers

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12321834

You think? No shit Sherlock

MSM finally catching up to what anyone who can read a graph realised six weeks ago.
9 1
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April 2, 2020 12:46pm
WaveyDavey

Mike Bush’s last day.

Could his replacement be any worse?
14 0
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April 2, 2020 1:19pm
septic skeptic

Just listening to Mike Bush explaining NZ border quarantine system. It sounds like self isolation with voluntary monitoring and an honesty based system where we rely on arrivals to tell us where they are.
We are now weeks I to this. I despair!
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April 2, 2020 1:22pm
septic skeptic

TVNZ just cut away from the press conference to an unscheduled program. After about 18 minutes, when they would normally have close to 30 minutes.
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April 2, 2020 1:25pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Just to clarify what I meant by the post above. My belief is that TVNZ cut away because Bush was facing some awkward questions about border security and monitoring of arrivals who were supposed to be in self isolation.
  My guess is that TVNZ are promoting the viewpoint that the NZ government response is near perfect, and aren’t we lucky to have such a kind and capable leader as Cindy in charge.
  
  3 1
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  April 2, 2020 5:01pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    “[…] TVNZ cut away because Bush was facing some awkward questions […].”
    
    No, that is quite incorrect. I accessed the Guide on my remote at lunchtime yesterday, and it clearly stated the mid-afternoon briefing would be from 3.00 – 3.20 p.m.
    
    As for the rest of the nonsense you espoused, you need to calm down.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:23am
Wired-one

So does everyone still think 30% unemployment, small businesses across the country destroyed, tens of billions of dollars in debt, superannuation accounts smashed, not to mention the stress and harm that this lockdown will impose on hundreds of thousands of kiwis for the next decade at the minimum was worth it? Cos I dont. We should’ve kept as much business open as possible whilst continuing to impose the two metre segregation rules and sanitization requirements. And we should have at the minimum tested and isolated every single person entering any of our ports. Our overreaction has done more harm than Covid-19 ever would have.
15 4
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April 2, 2020 1:56pm
- septic skeptic
  
  I think you are half right. We could have sacrificed international tourism and the international arm of Air NZ in order to retain the bulk of our economy. Closed the borders and quarantined returning kiwis.
  But from here, I think we need to try to eliminate Covid. If we get a widespread outbreak it will be catastrophic.
  
  5 2
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  April 2, 2020 2:18pm
  - Wired-one
    
    35000 kiwis die every year, that’s 100 a day. People see the latest figures of potentially 14000 deaths, which many believe is a extremely bloated figure just like the much maligned 80000 that we heard recently, and rightly are shocked. But in the scheme of things its stuff all. I am more than prepared to take some risk and get back to a semblance of normality. We have ways to mitigate pandemic without stuffing everyone’s economic futures.
    
    3 2
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    April 2, 2020 4:22pm
Kevin Herlihy

CNN is leading with a story of how Covid19 is reeking havoc on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier now moored in Guam.
Early reports estimate that about 100 sailors have been infected and that the Pentagon is moving to contain the situation:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/01/politics/roosevelt-quarantine-guam/index.html
5 1
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April 2, 2020 2:13pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  CNN? You expert the level headed to read that and believe it?
  
  4 4
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  April 2, 2020 2:47pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    expect* ffs
    
    2 2
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    April 2, 2020 3:12pm
  - MCos
    
    ‘As of Wednesday afternoon, Modly said about 24 percent of Theodore Roosevelt’s crew, about 1,273 people, had been tested. Of those tests, 93 crewmembers tested positive for COVID-19’
    https://news.usni.org/2020/04/01/navy-plans-to-put-uss-theodore-roosevelt-sailors-in-guam-hotel-rooms
    
    4 0
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    April 2, 2020 4:02pm
  - Mattb
    
    The level headed already do. I take it you don’t.
    
    3 0
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    April 2, 2020 10:08pm
septic skeptic

What say we compare the soft approach to Covid at the border with the really serious stuff like undeclared fruit. With fruit you get announcements on the planes with threats of serious consequences, inspections, detector dogs and instant fines. With Covid it’s more like an honesty box, and whatever happens don’t impinge on someone’s right to privacy!
13 0
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April 2, 2020 2:14pm
MCos

President Trump claims to be #1 on Facebook.
Mr Bean has almost three times as many followers https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245480070111735809?s=21
5 3
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April 2, 2020 2:17pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  See? He does have a sense of humour, unlike most lefties
  
  6 3
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  April 2, 2020 2:49pm
Aunty

So the current COVID-19 numbers are, if you exclude the Chinese numbers which are notoriously unreliable, 850,244 cases and 43,503 deaths.

So that means that if 1 million New Zealanders were infected we could expect 51,165 of them to die. That’s one hell of a flu season!
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April 2, 2020 2:22pm
- Tall Man
  
  And about as likely as a lotto win without a ticket.
  
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  April 2, 2020 3:12pm
- cmm
  
  Clearly the 850,244 (let’s just call that 1 million) cases are nothing like comparable to 1 million getting infected in NZ.
  
  Cases are not infections.
  
  The population of all those countries (excluding China) is somewhere around 5 billion people.
  
  If there are only 1 million cases in 5 billion people (1/5000) then, scaled to NZ we’d be looking at 1000 cases – not 1 million. And then working out the deaths it would be 51, not 51,000.
  
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  April 2, 2020 4:06pm
  - Aunty
    
    “Cases are not infections”
    
    And your scientific evidence to support that and your other statements are?? Or is it just your assumptions and suppositions that you are expressing there?
    
    You are perfectly entitled to have an opinion. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But don’t assume that your opinions rise to the level of acceptable fact or evidence, scientific medical or otherwise because they don’t.
    
    I have a different opinion to you. And that doesn’t make me wrong and you right!
    
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    April 2, 2020 4:37pm
    - Tall Man
      
      True but his is vastly more likely but we’ll have to wait and see.
      
      3 2
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      April 2, 2020 6:25pm
      - Aunty
        
        Well that’s the whole point of the lockdown, Tall Man, isn’t it? So that we don’t end up with 1 million New Zealanders infected and 50,000 of them dead. Otherwise what are we doing it for?
        
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        April 3, 2020 10:53am
    - cmm
      
      Cases and infections do not mean the same thing.
      
      All cases are infections, but not all infections are cases.
      
      Cases are only those that have entered the medical system. There are many who have had sniffled.
      
      2 + 2 = 4 is not an opinion.
      
      You are claiming that NZ will have a million cases. The whole world has not yet had a million cases. Less than 1 in 1000 people in the world live in NZ. For NZ to get a million cases would mean it needs a case rate 1000 times as high as the rest of the world.
      
      3 3
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      April 2, 2020 7:38pm
      - Aunty
        
        So as I suspected, you haven’t provided any published scientific or medical evidence or serious-expert opinion to support your own musings. And that’s fine. That’s what a blog is all about. Musings and opinions. But stating ones’ personal opinion over and over and over again doesn’t make it valid or correct no matter how strongly held that opinion might be.
        
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        April 3, 2020 10:49am
- KevO'Brien
  
  There’s two thing against using that simple comparison.
  1. The Chinese have a proven genetic difference that gives them 5x the vigor of the regular expression of the COVI-19 virus. (Rough.)
  2. The number are not drawn from the same statistical population. Using the numbers coming over our borders violates that too. We can’t tell from new arrivals what numbers of infections we already have in the people living here for some time.
  
  There will be some pockets that are different from the average, even from nursing home to nursing home the incidence and outcomes could differ.
  
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  April 2, 2020 4:22pm
rangitoto

Mike Bush has a sense of humour after all:

“Very good questions, I’ll come back to you with the answers”
“I dont know, I’ll come back to you on that”
“I’m excited to say I will come back with that data”

“By the way, today’s my last day”
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April 2, 2020 2:24pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  That’s typical Jacinda kindyspeak
  
  10 1
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  April 2, 2020 3:14pm
Prince

Sorry, A repeat of my post under ‘Labour MP’s on the Crisis Committee…

Outcomes of this ‘crisis’ so far:
– Public Service employees, whether working or not, are on 100% pay.
– Private sector companies are being squeezed. No revenue for many. Many companies face closure over the next four weeks.
– People encouraged to dob in Companies for pricing ‘abnormalities.’ Management now having to spend resources responding to the Prime Minister on complaints regarding, eg, cauliflowers.
– People encouraged to dob in their neighbours for contravening unclear ‘laws’ regarding association, travel etc. Citizen roadblocks set up with the blessing of Police.
– Minimum wage lifted despite Company revenue being slashed.
– Daily appearances by Prime Minister to assure the public that all is well, despite obvious failures in immigration, Policing, Health capacity. Media brought to heel if any are off message.
– Political agenda continues apace. Prisoner voting, Minimum wage, Hate Speech legislation.

Interesting to consider how much of Labour’s agenda is being achieved under the guise of ‘Kindness’.
9 0
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April 2, 2020 2:55pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And I added …
  
  No PPE gear for the workers who are keeping the place ticking over…
  
  the caregivers, the supermarket check-out workers, the taxi-drivers, the plumbers, the midwives…
  
  5 0
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  April 2, 2020 3:48pm
Bobba Fret

Anyone know why Mike Bush is suddenly stepping down?
I thought he was going to stay on through the lock down at least?
2 0
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April 2, 2020 3:20pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  He’s stepping down as Police Commissioner, as planned. But he’s staying on as a member of Ardern’s all-of-government COVID-19 response team.
  
  5 0
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  April 2, 2020 3:54pm
  - cmm
    
    Planned?
    
    Was he always being set up as the fall guy?
    
    5 1
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    April 2, 2020 4:09pm
- Prince
  
  His latest idea is a doozie – tracking ‘people’ who are supposed to be isolating by tracking cellphones.
  Of course cellphone could be in a drawer at home while the person is on the town, but sshhh, don’t tell Boomer Mike.
  Way past his level of competence I’d say.
  
  4 0
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  April 2, 2020 3:56pm
- cmm
  
  The bus wheels need a body and it is NEVER PriNZess.
  
  4 1
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  April 2, 2020 4:08pm
Fletch

TV One cut away from the press conference before someone could ask about the borders. I heard a reporter refer to the border in a question, but it was jumbled up with the questions of other reporters so I don’t know if they got around to asking it.
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April 2, 2020 3:26pm
cmm

Hey DPF: Can we please have 2 GDs. One for Covid & related and one for other stuff.

It is hard to raise other points of interest with this Covid fire-hose going on.
5 2
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April 2, 2020 4:13pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Great idea.
  Kiwiblog could quarantine on their own thread the:
  – amateur epidemiologists
  – morons ranting about a police state
  – folks who say the virus is no big deal
  – folks who say the shutdown is worse than the virus
  
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  April 2, 2020 5:30pm
Maggy Wassilieff

There’s No Plan B, folks.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120770940/coronavirus-government-says-it-has-no-plan-b-if-lockdown-fails-to-stamp-out-covid19

I always work with a Plan B.
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April 2, 2020 4:27pm
- Poppa
  
  Exactly Maggy. They have absolutely no idea
  
  How do we get out of this?? UmmmErrUmm
  
  Can an adult please take over
  
  5 3
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  April 2, 2020 5:40pm
- cmm
  
  No need for Commies. They are always right.
  
  No Plan B: shutdown for as long as needed. Flogging a dead horse springs to mind.
  
  No other ideas, 4 weeks becomes 6, then 8, then…???
  
  3 2
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  April 2, 2020 6:18pm
- MrTips
  
  I am starting to wonder if Plan B is to let National sort out the fall out and take any blame. That is, limp along enough to let the election happen and then let National have to break the bad news about jobs, economy, deaths and severely beaten health system. I know Sept is a long way away but….Cindy will be eyeing a UN job seeing as they have just asked the whole fucking planet for 3trillion dollars. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1060612
  
  I think Labour are too lazy to sort it, the Greens don’t care and Winston is knackered (his appalling performance on HDPA early tonight suggests a man preoccupied with SFO and not on top of his job).
  
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  April 2, 2020 7:56pm
- Dougal10
  
  Just like the M bovis eradication > 150 000 dead cows and no further ahead than when it started. Again no plan B
  
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  April 2, 2020 8:21pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The Siouxie Wiles Science spat

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/02/1111326/navigating-a-public-spat-between-scientists
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April 2, 2020 4:42pm
- tf78
  
  Nikki Kay asked during the Committee meeting today why the Government wasn’t taking advice from overseas experts rather than the governments’ chosen ones. She was denied the answer as far as I could see.
  
  4 2
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  April 2, 2020 5:10pm
- MrTips
  
  God, Wiles comes across as arrogant in n that article. And Gerrard is way out of her lane. It took the previous PM science advisor, Prof. Gluckman to really get that office to push lockdown.
  
  I communicated personally with Thornley.
  He deserves more credit than he’s been given. He’s not against lockdown and cares very much for people and the right outcomes.
  He is definitely not unhinged and imo, he has a case for defamation against Wiles.
  
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  April 2, 2020 5:28pm
- sam green
  
  Tell us what to do Maggy.
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:12am
MT_Tinman

I refer you to https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/120764624/cyclist-killed-after-crash-in-north-canterbury

Particularly to: Canterbury police rural area commander Inspector Pete Cooper said with the lockdown there were more “vulnerable people out on the road”

“There are a lot of people out exercising, walking on roads that would not normally be out and about. People have got to be more vigilant.”

So, according to local pig, Cooper, drivers on Canterbury roads must be extra vigilant because law breakers, in the form of road lice who cannot conform to the mores of society, are at large.

Maybe this pig should simply do his job!
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April 2, 2020 5:10pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Do you habitually refer to our police as ‘pigs’?
  
  4 8
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  April 2, 2020 6:41pm
  - Dougal10
    
    It’s a very common term .Do you live in a bubble
    
    3 3
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    April 2, 2020 8:24pm
niggly

Crikey, when (left of left) former broadcaster/lawyer Cat MacLennan is writing positively of David Seymour (especially) and even Simon Bridges (by subtly acknowledging his legal maneuvering) when they were questioning Commissioner Bush over the Police having no legal basis over their remarks and actions … it marks a watershed moment in that the more intelligent Left are concerned about this governments inept bumbling handling the emergency lockdown (my words not theirs of course)!

It doesn’t need to be like this! Labour!

Sheesh trust Labour to manage do anything correctly? Sure can’t!

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/flippant-bush-doing-himself-no-favours/ar-BB122S4T?ocid=spartanntp
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April 2, 2020 6:55pm
Swifty

For nasska.

Covid-19 now all sorted in the US it seems:

https://youtu.be/OSIrQBGfUtw?t=1
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April 2, 2020 9:16pm
sam green

In the days to come – who will show themselves as heroes?
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April 3, 2020 1:04am

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