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April 4, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 04 April 2020

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General Debate

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PhilBest

DPF: at the current time, might it be worth creating a second daily GD thread, say early afternoon? There’s more participation under the current circumstances?
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April 4, 2020 8:06am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Good idea, an early edition and an afternoon edition. Much like we used to have with newspapers!
  
  🙂
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:52am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    And what happened to them?
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:37am
  - calendar girl
    
    “newspapers”? What are “newspapers”?
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:06am
    - PhilBest
      
      What are Calendars?
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:30am
      - calendar girl
        
        Good one, PhilBest.
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:51pm
    - freethinker
      
      Calendar Girl – substitute for firelighters for the woodburner, although in a crisis most of the Murdoch press could be a substitute for toilet rolls.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:32am
  - Inandout
    
    deity, you mean like the Auckland Star and the street seller yelling ‘Fiiinaal Staar’?
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:18am
    - Brian Marshall
      
      For over 25 years I used to read both the Dominion and Evening Posts. Conservative Dom, more liberal Post. I got a good balanced dose of news. When they merged, they went down hill as there was no counter balanced views and I had to give it away. If they just stuck to reporting the news, they’d (the media) not be in the shit they’re are now.
      Still lots of people think they’re getting news and not propaganda though. ?
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:39am
      - tf78
        
        I saw a great meme the other day :
        Older couple sitting having breakfast. He was complaining how the paper was half the size it used to be. She said well now you only get one side of the story.
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:22pm
      - Loddenthinks
        
        I think they’d be in exactly the same shit they are now because of the internet. It’s no longer a daily news cycle, or even twice a day.
        
        It’s by the minute, and most of us can’t be bothered paying to read something that we heard about the previous day, or saw on the newsfeed hours previously. Dead-tree media is dead, and it’s another thing the Gummint can’t take credit for achieving.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:25pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Inand: As a kid I remember going to Welly for school holidays, and hearing these older kids yelling out
      
      EEEEEEVENING-PIERRE…
      
      My older sister had to translate that to “Evening Paper”…I was about to say very soon papers will have gone the way of the vinyl LP…but they have made a considerable comeback from what I can work out..And I am going to miss the Listener cross word…and that smaller than tabloid format…perfect for reading in the toilet.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:40am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I used to have the Dominion delivered in the morning and buy the Evening Post at Wellington Station to read on the way home. Only 23 years ago but it seems like a world away.
        
        If one of the major newspapers goes under in the next few weeks I would not put it past the government to buy it. We will have RNZ in print.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:01am
      - krazykiwi
        
        I was an ‘ EEEEEEVENING-PIERRE…’ lad at one time. Felt ever-so-important being in the bustle of the city while my friends were home doing homework
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:10am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I recall an older guy with glasses who used to sell the Evening Post from a stand on Lambton Quay somewhere near Plimmer steps. Must have been there for 20 years prior to the end.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:22am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  Great idea Phil
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:31am
- cmm
  
  To resubmit my idea from yesterday:
  
  Two DGs, one for Covid stuff, one Covid free.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:27am
  - PhilBest
    
    Covid-free one good idea. Might need AM and PM Covid ones though.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:31am
  - cmm
    
    GDs not DGs.
    
    I do not propose we clone DG.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:40am
    - David Garrett
      
      cmm: cheers old man…Even I think one of me is quite enough!
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:43am
      - cmm
        
        Well certainly not while there’s a shortage of servo pies :-).
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:33pm
      - Loddenthinks
        
        Can you imagine the debates though? I’d buy a ticket for that.
        
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        April 5, 2020 12:58am
- Gazza the Giant
  
  Call it afternoon drinks LOL
  
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  April 4, 2020 2:58pm
MT_Tinman

I’m still waiting for information on how those who can’t stand in line for an hour or more can get food – not every supermarket delivers.
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April 4, 2020 8:07am
- PhilBest
  
  There’s click and collect, but there’s a days-long waiting list for it
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:28am
  - Jules99
    
    No slots available around my way.
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:35am
    - Westie Bob
      
      You need to book at midnight or apply for the priority service (Medical and over 70’s) from countdown
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:36am
      - Jules99
        
        I tired the midnight thing and no luck, but my mum has got some slots via the priority service. Since she’s 80+ with other medical conditions, that’s a relief.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:57am
- James Stephenson
  
  Our local P’n’S lets anyone with a Gold Card, or ID as an essential worker, jump the queue.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:01am
  - pdm
    
    They have stopped that at Hastings Pak N Save because of the dissension it causes.
    
    Son is on Security there.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:43am
  - whostoblame
    
    Aren’t gold card holders the most vulnerable.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:28am
    - hullkiwi
      
      So why are they go out to places like supermarkets? Shows you can’ protect the foolish.
      
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      April 4, 2020 3:50pm
- MCos
  
  My wife went to Pak n Save, Mangere at 3pm last Monday and waited 5min.
  I was waiting in the car and noticed that at times there was no queue at all.
  Inside there were a few things short, but no big deal and there wasn’t the usual throngs of people.
  It seems to be a matter of timing because I saw a photo a opening time at the same place yesterday and the queue stretched right out down the street.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:03am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Contact your local CD (Civil Defence). They will have a welfare section that can deal with these matters.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:54am
- DeepBlue
  
  I’m concerned for when the weather turns. People can’t stand outside supermarkets in a howling southerly with rain waiting for groceries, there will be many chills and flu overwhelming our health system.
  
  I think soon a new system will be required to dispense pre-packed basics and food kits from malls, gymnasiums and places where orderly warm queuing can occur.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:30am
- Surely Knott
  
  I went yesterday and no line at all. 5 pm. Google the name of your grocery store and it has a bar graph that tells you the predicted busyness of the store at different times. And then the actual busyness at the current time. When I looked at the phone the busyness was much lower than usual so i just rushed out.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:45am
- Critical Thinker
  
  Try doing a google search for local non-supermarkets that are delivering. I live in Dunedin and have been able to get most of my groceries delivered to my door from small local businesses.
  
  This also allows you to avoid the stress from going to the ridiculously packed supermarkets. And substantially lowers the risk of you and those you live with from catching or passing on the China Coronavirus.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:24pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Kumeu New World guy has the idea
  
  Text and get a time slot, arrive 5 mins before and wait in car before entering
  
  On TVNZ news last night
  
  https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/long-lockdown-queues-get-boot-in-new-virtual-queue-trial
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:00pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Good thinking by someone there, can see that idea spreading.
    
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    April 4, 2020 3:06pm
    - WaveyDavey
      
      I did wonder, when the supermarket chaos started, why they didn’t just give a paper ticket as you arrived – like you used to get in medical centres – and wait in your car until called.
      
      Text is obviously better but it really wouldn’t take much initiative
      
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      April 4, 2020 4:18pm
  - 3-coil
    
    Wavey: Wade is a very smart dude, and a good Hutt boy to boot!
    
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    April 4, 2020 3:28pm
MrTips

RIP in memoriam MLK.

In other news, it looks like the Sg strategy may not be going so well after all.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/most-workplaces-to-close-schools-will-move-to-full-home-based-learning-from-next

I am starting to form the opinion that attempts to stamp COVID19 out will prove futile, unless you consider the CCP method of lying an effective strategy.
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April 4, 2020 8:09am
- PhilBest
  
  If there’s no such thing as herd immunity for this, we are truly stuffed.
  
  But maybe lockdowns and super efficient quarantining like Singapore does, are just delaying the herd immunity that is the only true finish to this? I think the experts who are strongly in favor of “flattening the curve” accept this, they just want herd immunity to come slower, at a rate at which ICU facilities can handle the worst cases.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:31am
- krazykiwi
  
  Covid-19 will never be ‘stamped out’. This term is epidemiological nonsense. We will naturally create our own immunity and/or a vaccine will do this. The virus will mutate. Rinse and repeat. The illness will become part of the annual ILI disease calendar.
  
  A blanket quarantining of 5m people doesn’t help in the long term, and a study of what happened to North/Central American natives on arrival of Europeans in the 1500’s should help explain why.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:36am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    Covid-19 will mutate into Covid-20 and Covid-19 will be stamped out.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:04am
  - brett68
    
    True.
    Behind the scenes the people making the decisions expect everyone in NZ at some will get coronavirus, that’s considered a certainty.
    You can’t stop this, it’s impossible.
    
    All they’re trying to do is slow it down and stop everyone from getting it at once.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:01am
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    Smallpox was eradicated completely so it can happen. But I agree it is unlikely.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:07am
    - cmm
      
      Smallpox type viruses does not mutate as prolifically as Corona type viruses.
      
      The smallpox family of viruses are all covered by a single vaccine that is from the same family of viruses, but not the same strain. eg. cowpox, smallpox, monkeypox are all covered by eachothers anitbodies.
      
      Coronas are different. Each strain needs its own antibodies – like flu.
      
      A virologist explained this to me a few weeks ago, but not all the info sank in.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:49am
    - Inandout
      
      Nigel, interesting and terrible disease which apparently killed 300 million people before it was stopped.
      
      ‘Janet Parker was the last person to die of smallpox. It was 1978, and Parker was a medical photographer at the Birmingham University Medical School in England and worked one floor above the Medical Microbiology Department where smallpox research was being conducted. She became ill on August 11 and developed a rash on August 15 but was not diagnosed with smallpox until 9 days later. She died on September 11, 1978. Her mother, who was providing care for her, developed smallpox on September 7, despite having been vaccinated on August 24. An investigation performed afterward suggested that Janet Parker had been infected either via an airborne route through the medical school building’s duct system or by direct contact while visiting the microbiology corridor one floor above’.
      
      Smallpox research, yes.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:59am
  - Ed Snack
    
    However the Beta Corona viruses are not super mutators like the Influenza virus. Influenza changes so quickly because of its structure (it has eight distinct code units that can be swapped to mix and match and create differing versions – there’s multiple versions of each code unit).
    
    The BCV’s are a single 30K base pair unit which mutates fairly quickly because it is RNA (and without strict repair units) but those changes rarely lead to functional change. Thus this virus is a close relative to SARS and MERS and they appeared back in 2003 or so.
    
    Very unlikely that we’ll see a “COVID-20” that is markedly different from -19, and the same vaccine will probably handle both.
    
    Following SARS, there was initially quite a lot of research in the BCV family as it was recognised that it had the ability to mutate over time and cause a new mass infection. However the effort quickly diminished as more important efforts presented themselves – such as diversity, gender, and racism. In the initial research the chloroquine drugs were identified as potential treatment agents, but this was not followed up past laboratory tests on cells.
    
    One thing I certainly hope will eventuate out of this is a recognition that this virus family is dangerous and that serious research should be continued to find therapies and to develop potential vaccines in advance. We almost certainly won’t see a -20 disease, but we might well see a -35 or something like that.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:22am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Post of the day Ed.
      
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      April 4, 2020 11:58am
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    It appears the virus has already mutated several times , but it does appear to be less lethal each time it mutates
    
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    April 4, 2020 3:02pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  up for remembering MLK.
  Thumb sideways for Singapore.
  Thumb down for opinion about Covid-19.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:48am
  - kloyd0306
    
    I am surprised that you are so gung ho about supporting a registered Republican.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:05am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Why is that?
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:42am
      - Ed Snack
        
        Because I reckon you would find that MLK by today’s standards is a rotten Uncle Tom racist. He did not believe that every experience and attitude that a person has (or should have) was entirely dictated by the colour of their skin. Add to that being a Republican, the man obviously had no shame.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:26am
      - Michael NZ
        
        Shit, he was a rapist, liar and hypocrite.
        Didn’t you know the FBI has tapes of him watching one of his mates rape one of the woman helpers?
        
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        April 4, 2020 12:31pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Unlike you, I do not divide Americans into Democrats and Republicans to make automatic judgments on the content of their characters.
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:52pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Michael
        Those allegations have never been substantiated. One would have to ask why, if the FBI had evidence of criminal behaviour, King was not prosecuted. Instead, the FBI sent him an anonymous letter designed to persuade him to commit suicide.
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:09pm
Liberty

The politburo sucks
“On 27 March, the Minister of Finance indicated that the Government would soon begin publishing the names of companies that have received the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy.”

This is gross infringement of privacy.
The information is only the concern of the employer, the employee and the state.
It has nothing to do with the general public.
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April 4, 2020 8:09am
- Komata
  
  Liberty@0809
  
  ‘Naming, Shaming and Blaming’.
  
  Standard Communist proceedures being followed to the letter.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:49am
- Nickc2
  
  Could this information have an influence on the stock market?
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:57am
  - Nickc2
    
    Thanks for the upticks guys. From this we can deduce that Grant Robinson is attempting to crash the Stock Market. Socialist/Communist countries don’t have Stock Markets.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:02am
    - theoldbloke
      
      Nickc2 – what absolute bullshit:
      maybe you missed the bit about Shanghai Stockmarket (yep China – Communist)
      SSE Composite Index
      
      Vietname-Communist
      VNIND
      Hanoi Stock Market
      
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      April 4, 2020 2:04pm
      - Nickc2
        
        Hey theoldbloke, read what I wrote! Then, check what you are talking about. There is a difference between a Stock Market (what I said) and Stock Exchange (what you are talking about).
        I will give you some references:
        The Difference:
        https://finance.zacks.com/difference-between-stock-market-stock-exchange-4028.html
        Your Quote:
        https://www.info.com.au/serp?q=shanghai stock exchange&segment=infoau.013&s1aid=149345199&s1cid=368367356&s1agid=1157786044055699&s1kid=kwd-72361887410358:loc-134&utm_source=adcenter&msclkid=4385acbd3de710edded2f23ad7ea3ebd
        I feel an apology wouldn’t go amiss eh?
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:01pm
- fernglas
  
  It’s the general public’s money, remember. Perhaps they are entitled to see what has been done with it?
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:01am
  - Paul Marsden
    
    Perhaps then they should also publish the names of all those who are receiving any sort of benefit? Is there any difference?
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:29am
    - projectman
      
      It might be easier to publish the names of those not getting a Covid benefit.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:50am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        Both of us.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:07am
  - Sideoiler
    
    It’s the general public’s money, remember. Perhaps they are entitled to see what has been done with it?
    
    I will look forward to seeing a full list of all beneficiaries and what they have recieved of the general public’s money.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:05am
    - Michael NZ
      
      yep, Let’s Do It!
      
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      April 4, 2020 12:33pm
  - Liberty
    
    Fernglas
    
    In that case the full details of Jones slush fund will be published
    In a few days.
    That is not likely to happen because this privacy breach is selective
    And nothing more than a weak Government crawling up the unions..
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:55am
  - Sacha
    
    When we have a cashless society the Government will be able to order a special tax to be automatically deducted from everyone’s accounts whenever they need a bit of extra cash.
    It will be able to say: you are earning 100k which is more than you need because you have no children under 10, there fore we will tax you at this rate.
    Or: we need to build a bridge: everyone in this area will be taxed to finance it.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:57am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Horrors! You mean a democratically elected government might actually be able to collect a tax?
      
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      April 4, 2020 7:28pm
      - MrLovebucket
        
        Tax is just financial rape. Are you condoning state sponsored rape?
        
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        April 4, 2020 8:00pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        No. Are you a moron?
        
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        April 4, 2020 8:13pm
      - Sacha
        
        mma, I think you are being sarcastic, no? The point is that if we had a cashless society, all our ‘cash’ would be in our ‘bank accounts’, and Inland Revenue could raid them at will –
        
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        April 4, 2020 8:26pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        And you are worried that the ‘government’ will take the money you owe for your taxes?
        
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        April 4, 2020 8:56pm
- freemark
  
  Interesting. The Declaration form (now) states – “This declaration applies to you if you applied for the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy on or after 4pm on 27 March 2020.”
  Presumably anyone who applied prior to this did not consent to this.
  Further down the page it states:
  “Publication of information about you
  You consent to the Ministry of Social Development publishing information about your business and the level and duration of any subsidy provided to you (excluding any personal information about the employees named in your application) on a publicly accessible register.”
  And in the fine print:
  “The Ministry may amend this declaration.
  You acknowledge that the Ministry of Social Development may amend this declaration at any time and at its discretion.”
  I can easily see this info being used by Govt in nefarious ways.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:45am
- marcw
  
  I believe it was a condition on accepting the subsidy – the company agreed to public notification as a way of ensuring the money was in fact distributed to their workers.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:16am
- KevO'Brien
  
  It was part of the conditions on the application form.
  Nothings free under the COL.
  
  But, Where’s the payments?
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:18am
- Gazza the Giant
  
  Yes , I can not believe he is going there , what bloody point is it , it will create animosity between people still working , and people sacked at the bare minimum
  
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  April 4, 2020 3:04pm
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  That’s going to be a very long list.
  
  Hopefully most employers will be able to keep on their staff with the help of the wage subsidy. Even with that help most businesses will be substantially out of pocket because the subsidy only covers the wages of someone earning the minimum.
  
  There are also ongoing costs not covered by the wage subsidy – rent, insurance, rates, phone, electricity, etc.
  
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  April 5, 2020 6:29am
lifesgood

Our supreme leader “I will not give you the charity of a reply” when questioned about her useless Health minister. FFS!!!
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April 4, 2020 8:13am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Why did the PM yesterday do a social media tete-a-tete with Nigel Latta, who at the beginning of February told us “not to lose our shit” about coronavirus, and that it was just like the flu?
  
  Does no one in her office check social media to make sure she’s not put in situations like this?
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:34am
  - PhilBest
    
    Is Latta defending his earlier stance now? Because the truth is somewhere in the middle of what he said then, and the hysteria we are in the grip of now.
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:48am
    - David Garrett
      
      PhilB: Yep, that is pretty much my reading of it: Covid-19 is somewhere between a bad dose of the flu and something that comes somewhere near to 1918…fortunately at this stage at least, we are nowhere near that dire situation.
      
      A sobering read of Stuff though, re Ecuador…bodies in the streets awaiting collection…
      
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120818001/uncollected-bodies-lie-for-days-in-the-streets-of-ecuador-the-emerging-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-in-latin-america
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:49am
  - Vallager
    
    Nigel Latta, the new Gareth Morgan, answers for everything, none of which are correct.
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:50am
    - projectman
      
      Yep, these people who are proclaimed as instant experts on everything are just tiresome. Switched off Latta early on and never switched on to Morgan.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:54am
    - theoldbloke
      
      Its unfortunate when experts in their field
      Morgan- Financial
      Latta – Physiology
      
      Suffer the Politicians syndrome.
      (Ie when dumbass people get elected – suddenly they know everything)
      
      The current sweetheart of the sheeple. The bright haired microbiologist being swooned over by the masses. Has fallen in to the trap.
      She is already telling us that UBI should apply and other crap about which she knows nothing.
      
      But hey, she will have her own advice TV show soon as TVNZ aims to attract the masses to some sort of entertainment and it will of course be Doctor Susie says.
      They wont bother to say she is a microbiologist.
      
      have already read some idiot reporter call her NZ’s pre-emanate scientist. God give me strength
      
      You heard it here first!!
      
      13 2
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      April 4, 2020 2:12pm
  - pdm
    
    I would not take any advice given by Latta.
    
    I do not like or trust him.
    
    68 1
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    April 4, 2020 8:52am
    - lastmanstanding
      
      Nigel Latta is an expert. Definition.
      
      X is the unknown quantity and a spurt is a drip under pressure.
      
      43 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:14am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        The higher they rise the greater their fall–The UN ones are priceless.
        
        22 2
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        April 4, 2020 10:21am
  - Notsofast
    
    [Your comment is deleted, and you are banned from commenting until the end of the Lockdown – Mods.]
    
    3 8
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    April 4, 2020 12:11pm
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    Everything is staged with Dizzy Ardern
    
    9 1
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    April 4, 2020 3:05pm
- kowtow
  
  She didn’t attend the 3 pm press conference but gave a patsy interview to Fawning Barry . Talk about ducking out.
  
  The Gnats should get a GE slogan going ” Labour , on yer bike”
  
  ps
  
  I note a change in tone from the Media Party , two items in stuff today questioning , gently, the policy and last night on TV1 a gentle piece on the lack of testing.
  
  I think they’re starting to worry about their own pending unemployment.
  
  All those calling for a decarbonised economy , you’ll have an idea of what that looks like when the lockdown/shutdown is ended.
  
  Armafuckinggeddon.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:36am
  - Ruahine
    
    Labour on yer bike. Luv it.
    
    27 1
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    April 4, 2020 9:31am
  - Ipanema69
    
    Yup Kowtow, the worm is starting to turn. The media fan boys and fan girls in TVNZ will be fully aware that the companies advertising revenue will have fallen off a cliff.
    
    There may well be a government bail out in the future but watch for the public backlash if staff salaries are not given a hair cut, particularly those of highly paid auto cue readers.
    
    There may well be a collective awareness occurring in the media, following the Bauer collapse, that this sh*t is real and getting awfully close to home.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:46am
  - calendar girl
    
    Can’t find any PM’s “3 pm press conference” in today’s TVNZ listings. Do pandemic emergencies cease for the duration of a weekend, or is this just “my time” for the PM and her colleagues?
    
    [Oh , I forgot, she can’t nominate her Minister of Health as her obvious ‘off-course substitute” – he’s in the (temporary) sin-bin for deliberately flouting her Government’s ‘lock-down’ rules, and our PM lacks the courage to strip him of his Ministerial status.]
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:44am
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    Yes , also yesterday when Robertson appeared , they said there has been a miraculous change of fronting at 3 pm , No Dizzy Ardern when she knew she would be hammered about Clark , they said Robertson would be doing Friday and Saturdays , well , Robertson did not like the questioning , it was all over his arrogant face , and woah be tide , he is not surfacing today either , I hope the media double down on Dizzy Ardern tomorrow over this , yet another bloody show of this PM, refusing to discipline ministers that are off the reservation , do not forget that this is the second time Clark has slipped up , lets not forget he went on a family holiday in Queensland and told to get back by Dizzy and sort the nurses strike , lets just remember if Clark gets the sack Genter is the dep minister , how cool is that (sarc)
    
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    April 4, 2020 3:14pm
  - curry4me
    
    kowtow: Labour on yer bike. I’ll suggest it as an idea to any National MPs who appear on my Face Book page.
    
    3 2
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    April 4, 2020 4:06pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Um, that’s not what she said.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:37am
  - Dougal10
    
    The way she talks it leaves everything up to an individual’s interpretation .
    
    35 2
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    April 4, 2020 9:10am
    - alloytoo
      
      Just like every policy they introduce, vague with lots of handwaving.
      
      Nothing thought out.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:03am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Depending upon that individual’s imagination…
      
      3 30
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      April 4, 2020 10:12am
      - Michael NZ
        
        you talk such shit sometimes mikey.
        how do you do it with a straight face?
        or is it deliberate and you’ve got a smile on…..
        
        15 2
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        April 4, 2020 12:37pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Yep. Babble and waffle. Soon after you get a headache and think “what did she actually say?”
      Nothing – sweet fuck all
      
      24 2
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      April 4, 2020 10:32am
      - Gazza the Giant
        
        Its all childish gibberish m, like we live in a bubble , we are in this together , be nice and kind , then she acts like a nasty hack
        
        9 1
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        April 4, 2020 3:16pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Obama was the master of this. Hope, change, etc etc. Everyone’s mind could fill in the blanks however they wanted.
      
      25 3
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      April 4, 2020 10:35am
    - Michael NZ
      
      read between the lines…
      
      3 4
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      April 4, 2020 12:36pm
  - Yvette
    
    Lifesgood – “I will not give you the charity of a reply”
    mikenmildagain – Um, that’s not what she said.
    
    Narrator: In an interview with Hillary Barry … making herself quite clear –
    Ardern: “Oh, I’ve shared my thoughts quite directly as you can imagine, Hillary.
    I was just going to give you the charity of my silence
    but you can be assured I did not give him the charity of my silence.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:51am
    - Michael NZ
      
      brilliant Yvette.
      I wish i’d seen this before my comment to mikey…
      brilliant.
      
      6 2
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      April 4, 2020 12:38pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Yes, that’s exactly what she said. and even you, Yvette, should be able to contrast that with what lifesgood claimed she said.
      
      1 11
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      April 4, 2020 3:13pm
- Gravelroad
  
  What does that even mean?
  I heard the PM say this (as she grinned and nodded) and thought: is she for real?
  Is this some kind of celebrity speak for mocking charities?
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:48am
  - alex Masterley
    
    I saw the thing with the TVNZ woman. The PM’s habit of smiling and exposing those choppers in interviews at the wrong time is off putting. Comes across as insincere as well.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:05am
    - Ruahine
      
      Most of the time she is insincere.
      
      38 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:32am
    - Biscuit
      
      Indeed Alex.
      
      I said to my partner ‘At what point will Barry actually act like a journalist and ask relevant questions?’
      
      Questions like:
      
      Why should the public listen to Police instructions re staying home unless for essential travel when your own Minister of Health just ignores those?
      
      Is your response to serious breaches like this ALWAYS gonna be a laugh and a ‘I told him off?’ – when your own Police threaten normal citizens with arrest over such breaches?
      
      Just what DOES a Minister have to do to get sacked in your Cabinet?
      
      But no, it was all chummy chat…
      
      You’d almost think Barry has Seat 4, Row A for the upcoming nuptials…
      
      44 1
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      April 4, 2020 10:08am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Needs a post graduate course to her Comms degree.
      
      19 1
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      April 4, 2020 10:22am
Happychappy

I see Shane Jones and NZ First large donors are still set unchanging legislation and the Forestry Industry to hopefully feather there own pockets that they will use every excuse available to achieve there objective. I still find it amazing that Winston his Partner with his Lawyer have been able to set a company up according to strong accusations from the media and others to feather there own nests and acquire farmland for there new Business.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics.html
Reading Shane Jones latest news release it sounds like they still have plenty of the Regional Growth Fund to achieve the objective.
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April 4, 2020 8:14am
gravedodger

I am seeing distinct signs of “Cabin Fever” in my Burb/Hood, not sure how this mass home detention is going to end.
The Idjit Padre might have done a lot more damage than presently thought by the Stasi and The Pardy.
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April 4, 2020 8:15am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  What is this ‘Stasi’ you speak of?
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:38am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    They were the state security police of the former East Germany. I highly recommend this book.
    
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland?wprov=sfla1
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:21am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Thanks. What was gravedodger on about then? How is the former East Germany secret police relevant to his neighbourhood?
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:47am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Why are you asking me?
        
        13 3
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        April 4, 2020 10:46am
      - Ed Snack
        
        Possibly in relation to the “dob a neighbour” campaign – the STASI was notorious for its use of neighbourhood informants. After the wall fell and Germany was United, a lot of the Stasi files were released and by some estimates up to a third of the population of the old GDR were employed informing on others.
        
        Great way to build neighbourhood trust and resilience.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:31am
      - Michael NZ
        
        But YOU KNOW mikey don’t you?
        you know he’s refering to the NZPolice acting “Stasi” like to Kiwis, whilst Jacinda Doing fck All to her team who do the same!
        
        11 3
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        April 4, 2020 12:42pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        But our police are not acting like the Stasi, and I think it is rather offensive to toss that slur around.
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:15pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  Indeed GD. Around social media, there’s a strong feeling that if it’s good enough for David Clark to flout the lockdown rules, it’s good enough for them.
  
  Heather du Plessis-Allan nailed it last night:
  
  The Health Minister doesn’t deserve to be fired.
  
  But he should be fired.
  
  Let’s be clear about the rule he’s broken.
  
  Last week, retired Police Commissioner Mike Bush was asked whether someone could “go for a drive, say to the local beach or… a local park?” and replied “There’s a short answer to that – no.”
  
  David Clark doesn’t deserve to be fired for breaking that rule, because the rule is arbitrary. Really, what is the difference between David Clark driving 2.3km to the park or biking 2.3km to the park? No one was hurt because he got in his car. He didn’t break his bubble.
  
  But… what he deserves is different to what should happen.
  
  The Prime Minister should fire him.
  
  If she wants the rest of us to take these rules seriously for the next three weeks, she’s going to have to set an example.
  
  Because right now, what she’s telling the public is that nothing much happens if the rules aren’t followed. He’s apologised, she’s accepted it and everyone’s expected to move on.
  
  Is that how seriously we’re taking this lockdown?
  
  If someone decides to break a rule of their choosing this weekend, is that also going to be okay?
  
  That’s the problem with what David Clark has done.
  
  Every example of people getting away with breaking rules – arbitrary as those rules might be – undermines the compliance by the rest of us.
  
  Who wants to be the chump sacrificing contact with friends and trips to the beach for four weeks, when we constantly hear about rule-breaking like the Wanaka bridge jumpers yesterday or the Dunedin surfers or the group of Auckland mums going for a walk together?
  
  I could give you a bunch of reasons why it’s in the best interests of the PM to sack her Health Minister. It’ll show she does have some standards in her cabinet. It’ll show she does have some of the strength required to fire someone. And, quite frankly, David Clark seems irrelevant. The fact that he’s in Dunedin when the country’s response to the biggest health crisis in 102 years is being run out of Wellington tells you everything.
  
  I can give you any number of reasons why she should fire him, but you only need one.
  
  Does the prime minister want the rest of us to follow the rules or not?
  
  https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/video/heather-du-plessis-allan-david-clark-doesnt-deserve-it-but-he-should-be-fired/
  
  The PM had a chance yesterday to show New Zealanders that she and her government are deadly serious about the need for a lockdown and the enforcement of it. Instead, and not for the first time, she bottled it.
  
  Leadership sometimes requires people to make unpopular decisions. Leadership guru John Maxwell says it thus: “If you can’t influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow, you are not a leader. That’s the Law of Influence.”
  
  Jacinda Ardern could have influenced people to follow her had she fired Clark yesterday. That opportunity has come and gone, and she must now live the the consequencs of her weakness.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:45am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Get over it, Tony. He stuffed up, was told off and publicly embarrassed.
    If it were a National Party chap, you’d dismiss it as the proverbial storm in a teacup.
    
    3 86
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    April 4, 2020 8:50am
    - alex Masterley
      
      If it were a national chap/chappess, he or she would have been demoted toot suite.
      
      80 2
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      April 4, 2020 9:06am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Like the MP promoting panic buying was?
        
        4 42
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        April 4, 2020 9:48am
      - Sacha
        
        Simon Bridges was asked if he would have sacked Clark, and he said quite unequivocally: Yes!
        
        31 2
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        April 4, 2020 11:06am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        There’s a slight difference between a backbench opposition MP and the Minister supposedly responsible for the management of a crisis, the response to which is unprecedented in most of our lifetimes.
        
        Here’s a genuine question for you though mikenmild; do you think David Clark has been sidelined, and that Dr Ashley Bloomfield is now effectively the de facto Minister of Health? And if so, why?
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:11am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        No, I don’t have any reason to think he has been sidelined. If anything, I think the government is using the opportunity to promote the PM at almost every opportunity, but leaving the detailed stuff to Bloomfield and Stuart-Black, etc.
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:20pm
    - lifesgood
      
      You blooming hypocrite, MM, I clearly remember many instances of the left going ape shit over similar things and the National leader, at least taking action not like this numpty loser. Remember milk gate, anyone. Now that was a storm in a teacup.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:07am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        To call me a hypocrite, it might be helpful to cite an instance where I advocated the firing of a different cabinet minister for a similarly trivial offence.
        
        3 42
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        April 4, 2020 9:49am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Surely someone could find an instance of my alleged hypocrisy?
        
        2 5
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        April 4, 2020 6:44pm
    - Simon
      
      “He stuffed up” Like he forgot to take a warm jacket or something.
      
      Naw the bozo showed really poor judgement for a man in his position. Should be fired for that alone.
      
      But Ardern’s position is yeah well Clark is a cretin but he’s our cretin apology accepted.
      
      58 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:18am
      - Sacha
        
        We all know the respect held for those who tell us to
        “do as I say, not as I do”.
        Don’t we?
        And the question: “If you can do it, why can’t I?”
        This whole lockdown scenario is rapidly becoming a joke as more and more people simply ignore it. The government doesn’t have the resources to enforce all their regulations and is losing the respect of the general populace.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:12am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      If it were a National Party health Minister I’d be saying fire him. And the Prime Minister had been John Key he would have been gone. You are being ridiculous here. And TBH if this were a National Government, the screams from the media and the Opposition would be blood curdling, calling for the Health Minister to be sacked.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:28am
      - David Garrett
        
        Benedict: Quite so…I had the great privilege of working with John Key, although I only spoke with him a handful of times…I know enough to know that if Key was running the show, Clark would have got a terse text telling him to “Come to my office as soon as you get this” and the very short interview that followed would end with DOCTOR Clark suffering a massive drop in salary, and a new seat in the House.
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:58am
    - yossarian
      
      The real screw up is putting your bike in a car to travel 2kms…to go for a bike ride???
      
      Why didn’t he bike the measly 2kms?
      
      41 0
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      April 4, 2020 9:47am
      - PhilBest
        
        What kind of “cyclist” is he really??? I know Trev is a genuine seasoned cyclist from way back. I think Trev’s OK on this specific issue and its not worth beating up his rides around his own large suburb.
        
        14 2
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        April 4, 2020 10:40am
      - calendar girl
        
        Because, unlike the 4-wheeled van, the bike didn’t bear Clark’s personal advertising?
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:03am
      - Biscuit
        
        Replying to David Garrett’s 10.58am post.
        
        (For some reason I only get a REPORT option for it)
        
        I remember Chris Finlayson’s Valedictory, David:
        
        I’ve almost forgiven Guyon Espiner, who taught me a very good lesson: do not appear on Morning Report just after you have woken up. I remember very well the morning he interviewed me and put a proposition to me from Metiria Turei, and I said, “Oh, well that’s what happens when one is dealing with a left-wing loon.” And he put another proposition to me, and I said, “Well, that’s what happens when one is dealing with a right-wing loon.”, and he said, “Well that commentator was John Key.” The message came down from the ninth floor that if I wanted to be Minister for Consumer Affairs I was on the right track.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:39am
      - Pheobe
        
        When the police do something wrong, we are told they are held to a higher standard because of there position, surely MPs fall into the same category, especially the minister of health, who was instrumental in making up the rules, it was a really stupid thing to do.
        
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        April 4, 2020 5:58pm
    - John Warren
      
      It’s all about perception, Milky. And in terms of perception Clark couldn’t have screwed it up further. A better illustration of his terminal lack of judgement would be difficult to find.
      
      28 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:52am
      - Kevin Herlihy
        
        I concur with DG, Clark’s indiscretion will have consequences further down the track, he most certainly knee capped himself and will always be remembered as the Health Minister who ignored the advice of his department.
        
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        April 4, 2020 12:23pm
    - Humble Capitalist
      
      Why should we just ‘get over it’ Mike? Most of us are following the rules and then you get this person thats supposed to be a leader in a time of crisis breaking the rules and setting this sort of an example. If I was dumb enough to do a ‘David Clark’ I would expect to be facing a posssible tin tacking
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:53am
      - calendar girl
        
        Totally agree, HC.
        
        But David Clark is ultimately expendable. The real issue lies with our bumbling Prime Minister – Jacinda Ardern – who is incapable of disciplining a Minister (appointed by her) for breaking the lock-down rules that apply to all of us mere serfs.
        
        NZ deserves better leadership than this in the middle of dealing with a pandemic. Who could trust PM Ardern after such a fiasco? Look after your political mates first – the health of the public at large is a secondary matter.
        
        5 1
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        April 4, 2020 7:14pm
    - davidp
      
      If a Nation Party chap had done something when Bill English was telling the entire country not to do that something EVERY DAY, then I wouldn’t sack him because he was arrogant and a hypocrite. I would sack him because he plainly is just too stupid to be a minister.
      
      Ardern has one of the dumbest people in NZ in her cabinet, and he is responsible for managing a pandemic that is collapsing the NZ economy and which, according to Ardern, could kill tens of thousands of people. Or he would be managing it if he weren’t down the other end of his country with plenty of time free to ride his bike.
      
      46 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:57am
    - Goon
      
      Yep poor guy, he just ‘stuffed up’ …and I’m going to the same on my motorbike this afternoon.
      
      24 1
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      April 4, 2020 10:07am
    - Nigel Kearney
      
      The thing is, he didn’t stuff up. There are no clear rules just vague statements about ‘common sense’. To me it is common sense that he didn’t put others at risk by driving 2km to go for a ride on an easy mountain bike track. The real problem here that different politicians, police, and officials, are issuing various statements that contradict each other and common sense. It’s a failure of leadership.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:15am
      - Michael NZ
        
        Yep, Jacinda’s leadership.
        There fixed that for you 😉
        
        13 1
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        April 4, 2020 12:50pm
    - whostoblame
      
      Is this the same Health Minister who buggered off to Australia while Nurses were striking up and down the country during they’re last pay negotiations.
      
      29 1
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      April 4, 2020 10:44am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        Yes, the same ignorant Cabinet Minister on $250K pa while you are getting a haircut and not riding your mountain bike in a park, or the equivalent.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:14am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Is Clark actually capable of being publicly embarassed ?
      
      And the telling off was probably the equivalent of being gummed by an elderly dachshund.
      
      16 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:35am
      - gravedodger
        
        My two dachshunds are seriously offended by that remark just wait until their Angry andshund getsa hate speech law and they have real teeth.
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:58pm
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Well mikenmild, for once you’re out of step with The Standard. “Bill” says it was a no-brainer to fire Clark, because he has completely undermined the PM’s lockdown instruction.
      
      https://thestandard.org.nz/david-clark/
      
      21 1
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      April 4, 2020 12:32pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Are you saying we should be taking advice form someone ranting at the Standard? Tell me more…
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:22pm
  - PhilBest
    
    Let’s adopt Dave Clark as the hero of the “use your own common-sense about isolation” movement!!! The insider who chose to send a signal about his own government’s bad faith!!!
    
    48 3
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    April 4, 2020 8:51am
  - MrTips
    
    Clark should thank his lucky stars he doesn’t work for Duterte! https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/413310/philippines-leader-duterte-takes-hard-line-against-lockdown-violators-shoot-them-dead
    
    35 1
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    April 4, 2020 8:55am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Yeah he has a unique turn of phrase that guy.
      
      14 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:30am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    The tell quote is that Clark frankly is better off in Dunedin where he can do no harm.
    
    Peters has gone into hiding.
    
    Cindy is fronting pressers, where she just says whatever she thinks will please the most people on any given day.
    
    Who is actually running the place? Please! Asking for a friend.
    
    66 1
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    April 4, 2020 8:57am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Indeed. Clark has effectively been neutered as Minister of Health, and it’s clear that the DG is now fronting the issue.
      
      53 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:05am
      - Simon
        
        Another day another Labo cretin.
        
        In 3 weeks time Ardern will order another 4 weeks Home Detention & say this time I mean it.
        
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        April 4, 2020 9:13am
    - pdm
      
      Keeping Clark in Dunedin out of the way.
      
      Perhaps that is why he went on the bike drive/ride – to show his displeasure. A hissy fit in other words.
      
      16 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:56am
      - igm
        
        Labour really have a history of drongo MPs in the Dunedin seats . . . not one of the bastards has been any good, told the truth, or done anything other leech and take their red electorates for a ride.
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:36am
    - PhilBest
      
      Winston would be a high-risk from Wu-Flu case. But he could surely broadcast from his own room or something? Where indeed is he?
      
      14 1
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      April 4, 2020 10:43am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        Apparently he’s at his bach at Whananaki up north.
        
        19 1
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        April 4, 2020 11:19am
      - andydownhere
        
        He was on Mike Hoskings show on Friday morning. But did someone say he travelled from Tauranga to Whananaki during the week? Such essential travel!
        Hate speech Angry Andy? Yeah I hate him
        
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        April 4, 2020 8:41pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Just do what you like then say sorry I love the new precedent.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:16am
    - BeaB
      
      And get ‘scolded’. Can you imagine Helen Clark Or John Key ‘scolding’ someone.
      And Hilary Barry accepted all that charity burble with a happy smile as though she was having a little chat with her bestie. Pathetic.
      Though TV1 news must take the biscuit for the worst ever news programme. No analysis, no investigation, no discussion. Just parroting the Government line and running human interest magazine stories. Who needs the W0mans Weekly when we have Simon and Wendy?
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:32am
    - JibberJabber
      
      TBH, I`ve always worked the premise that is better to ask for Forgiveness than Permission.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:52am
  - rangitoto
    
    It’s obvious from last night’s TV interview that Ardern considers the matter to be huge joke as she giggled and bobbed at the question.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:21am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    There has been no consistency of announcements about about our diminishing freedoms. Plod seem more officious then PM but he does as he pleases under the “rules: as he thinks they apply.
    
    “Law” is what the Police say it is and the force they can apply. Has there been an actual Court trial of any alleged lockdown infringements?
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:30am
  - Durden
    
    Why is nobody talking about that idiot Mallard riding up to 80km on his cycle everyday ? It was breaking news on NZ Herald yesterday.
    
    Why did he getting a free pass from the media–no mention on the news alongside Clark’s sorry not sorry. Is it because he is riding with a bunch of media mates?
    
    Why does “ride local” not apply to him.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:20am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Jacinda is a Liar by her actions.
    She says one thing but doesn’t mean it.
    
    11 2
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    April 4, 2020 12:44pm
- krazykiwi
  
  I’m seeing fear in people’s eyes as thy scurry across the street to avoid being anywhere near me of other who are out walking. This fear has been evilly manufactured by our so-called leaders.
  
  “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. — Mencken”
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:53am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Mencken was scarily prescient. Remember he also said such things as:
    
    Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
    Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong.
    Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
    
    And, of course:
    
    On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:57am
    - PhilBest
      
      My favorite Mencken quote is something like this, from memory.
      
      The world is full of complex problems to which there is a policy solution that is simple, plausible, popular, and WRONG.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:45am
    - Ed Snack
      
      They got that last one in 2008 !
      
      9 3
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      April 4, 2020 11:37am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        They got that last one in ~~2008~~ 2016!
        
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        April 4, 2020 3:24pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    Have to say that locally there’s no sign of fear, mostly a good deal of friendliness and a rather awkward series of attempts to stay at > 2 metres distance while on a narrow pathway.
    
    And there’s people running everywhere – makes me feel really guilty about not going out for a trot myself.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:40am
- Jules99
  
  Yeah, I’ve noticed kiddies playing on the streets now. They are not allowed to go to the parks,which are closed anyway, and there are no gardens to speak of, so they are yelling at their friends who live across the road. Fairly bearable at the moment, but that could change.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:10pm
Scott

Does anyone think that our government has done a massive overreaction? Our PM said that tens of thousands of NZers would die if we did nothing. So we did everything egged on by that frightened group of young women known as the NZ media.
So far one person has died. One!

The models appear to be based on the fatally flawed imperial college model that is wrong by many multiples.

But what we do know is the economy is in recession and given a bit longer we could have another depression.

What we do know is that kiwi icons such as the NZ Listener and NZ women’s weekly have gone. Three hundred people are now unemployed.
My neighbour was working hard on her own running a wedding and small conference business. She has no income now or for the foreseeable future.
My brother in law is part of an Auckland construction firm that has laid off 220 of its 300 workers.
These stories are being repeated all across the country.

I do pray that the government gets some wisdom. Otherwise we are heading towards economic and social catastrophe.
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April 4, 2020 8:16am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  This is how it is. One person has died – one!
  Therefore supreme leader has saved the lives of tens of thousands of New Zealanders.
  Does she not realise how pathetic she is? Won’t someone tell her? Please?
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:35am
  - krazykiwi
    
    I mean no disrespect to the family of the deceased, however that one death involved a person with one or more serious and already life-threatening illnesses.
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:47am
    - BeaB
      
      Probably died ‘with’; not ‘from’.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:33am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    Won’t someone tell her?
    
    It won’t help Steve.
    
    It’s no good telling anything to those who know everything.
    
    43 2
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    April 4, 2020 8:47am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      I divorced that woman.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:48am
- PhilBest
  
  Yep, dodgy models constructed by “experts” with a deficiency in logic to understand what are the correct model inputs in the first place.
  
  Other experts outraged over it, unable to cut through the hysteria.
  
  We’re already in the grip of a much slower-moving version of this story, climate change modelling and policy. The WuFlu debacle will achieve in a matter of weeks, the economic collapse that was going to take climate change alarmism another decade or two.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:36am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  No, it’s not an overreaction. If we come out of this with a very low death toll, it will be because the lockdown has been successful in saving many lives.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:40am
  - MCos
    
    If these stringent measures imposed by the government result in minimal deaths they will be labeled an overreaction by those who find fault in everything the government does.
    
    The same would have applied if National was running the show.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:13am
    - Simon
      
      “If these stringent measures imposed by the government result in minimal deaths”
      
      About one week before these “stringent measures’ Adern was heavily promoting the mass gathering in Christchurch.
      
      The “stringent measures” could have applied to the most vulnerable to the virus with out Home Detention for the rest of the population.
      
      Massive overreation by the Labo clown show has destroyed the economy.
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:48am
      - PhilBest
        
        It is absolutely fair to say that early border closure, say, for example at the same time when Bad Waacist Orange Man did it, followed by early sensible Social distancing guidelines and voluntary self-isolation, would have been more effective than what we have done, and spared the economy. And early planning for testing, testing, testing.
        
        I don’t think anyone can claim to be right about the following, but in hindsight, a random “population sample” test to determine likely rates of asymptomatic infected would be one of the b—-y best things any nation could have done.
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:50am
      - David Garrett
        
        Simon: Exactly…it was perfectly clear that Cindy waited until the last possible minute before cancelling the Christchurch sob-fest…if we had gone “hard and early” as she claims, the border would have been closed to everyone but citizens and residents a month ago, and to everyone – unless they went into government quarantine centres – at least two weeks ago.
        
        Instead we still have people coming across the border – when all but two of our cases are linked to overseas travel – and we are still allowing people to leave the airport without any reliable way of checking that they are following their supposed “self isolation” plan.
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:26am
  - lastmanstanding
    
    Prove it. Show me the evidence.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:19am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Fortunately (well, unfortunately for some countries), there will be a wealth of evidence about the efficacy of the varying approaches taken to deal with the pandemic.
      Unfortunately, it is impossible, now, to convince the amateur epidemiologists that any course of action is preferable to whatever might be advocated in the latest story they read on the internet.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:16am
      - PhilBest
        
        You know, I agree with you about the evidence that will emerge about the efficacy of different policy approaches, but I am probably expecting the exact opposite to be proven, to what you are expecting.
        
        I argue that local housing environments and air purity indoors as well as outdoors, are the most important factor. The better these factors, the less the justification for lockdown. Many locations are already displaying a vulnerability 20 to 40 times below Northern Italy.
        
        I hope Sweden’s spiky “curve” peaks before they lose their nerve and impose a lockdown. As one of their economists said, it isn’t Sweden imposing a risky social experiment; it’s everybody else!
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:55am
      - cmm
        
        But we are not really taking the approach they say we are.
        
        Lockdown, but letting in 3600 from overseas – many of whom will be infected.
        
        This basically means we are paying all the costs of a lockdown, but not getting the benefits.
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:58am
      - Brian McDonald
        
        Not letting your own citizens home sounds like a commie idea to me.
        
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        April 4, 2020 12:50pm
  - Neo
    
    Anything that the lock down has achieved is or will be undone by the constant unchecked borders.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:24am
    - Ruawai
      
      It is like locking the front door but leaving the back door wide open.
      
      33 1
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      April 4, 2020 9:54am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Walking dead: Take all precautions but leaving the compound gate open so both humans and Zombies can come in.
        
        Either: The Coronavirus is as infectious and deadly as the MSM says, in which case unchecked borders is akin to suicide. In which case current country leaders should eventually be up on murder / manslaughter charges.
        
        Or: The Coronavirus is NOT as infectious and deadly as the MSM says, and the lockdown(s) are an attempt at a New World Order, given that the Global Warming Pandemic has failed.
        
        And: Dear leader has already realised this lockdown is an over reaction but does not know how to unwind it, without losing credibility.
        
        This second option is borne out in our own NZ stats. According to the average 5% kill rate, of the current 800 ‘infected’, 40 are going to die. So you would expect to see at least 80-100 in intensive care. There are less then 10 in hospital, let alone intensive care. We have had one death, from underlying causes.
        
        As Wolfgang Wodarg and others around the world keep saying, the Coronavirus is just one of the many Corona Viruses, that are part of the annual flu statistics.
        
        https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-how-dr-wolfgang-wodarg-sees-current-corona-pandemic/5707298
        
        The Socialist Swedes, whom Jacinda would have as a role model nation, are NOT going into lockdown as they do not see it as a black plague.
        
        No Lockdown please – we are Swedish:
        https://spectator.us/lockdown-please-swedish/
        
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        April 4, 2020 10:59am
      - David Garrett
        
        Ruawai: … or as some epidemiologist said recently “It’s like trying to empty a bath with a jug with the tap still running.”
        
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        April 4, 2020 11:28am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @ DG
        
        Also the MO for socialist governments who spend wealth faster then the country can replenish it, at the same time as destroying the businesses that create it.
        
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        April 4, 2020 12:11pm
  - sgthree
    
    we currently have approaching 900 cases that we know about, and the number of hospitalisations has not increased in proportion. How has the lock down made the virus less dangerous to those affected than we were lead to believe it was.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:34am
    - PhilBest
      
      Andrew Bolt on Sky News made an excellent point: “recoveries” exceeding new confirmed infections, is occurring without any notice being taken of it.
      
      Actually recoveries and asymptomatic cases have always been way in excess of new confirmed infections; it’s just that we don’t know this data. Bolt is talking about recoveries from confirmed infections.
      
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      April 4, 2020 10:58am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Whiskey? No KFC?
      
      7 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:01am
    - Critical Thinker
      
      And currently out of the 868 cases in NZ, only 1% are confirmed to be through community transmission… ?
      
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      April 4, 2020 1:07pm
  - Waipuk
    
    But when will it end?
    
    If the lockdown is ended and there are more cases of Covid do we go into lockdown again.
    
    How many lives, careers, marriages, relationships, businesses, financial destruction, suicides, town centres with no shops, unemployment, years/decades of austerity to repay debt will it take.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:53am
    - cmm
      
      How many deaths by unintended consequences?
      
      Cardiac and cancer outpatients units have been shut down. People are not getting tests for those.
      
      I, and many others, have had their cardiac and cancer testing cancelled.
      
      Undoubtedly some deaths will result from this.
      
      So far we have had one Covid death (most likely died with, so it does not count). How many extra suicides?
      
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      April 4, 2020 11:02am
    - PhilBest
      
      Total lockdown and going in and out of total lockdown is a garbage strategy. There should be some kind of partial lockdown. Delaying herd immunity just increases the economic pain because of repeated re-imposition of lockdown.
      
      I fully expect even the CoL to see sense on this and ease restrictions within even the 3 weeks we have left to go. People are going nuts requesting testing, most people tested don’t have it, most of those who do have it don’t require hospitalization. Actual deaths are unlikely to exceed the normal rates of death, BECAUSE (this is important) all sorts of bugs that might have killed a few vulnerable people anyway without any media attention to it, are being slowed down!
      
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      April 4, 2020 11:03am
  - kowtow
    
    How many lives will be lost due to the lock down ?
    
    We will never know cos they won’t be reported .
    
    Deferred “elective” surgeries , there’ll be chaos getting all that sorted , suicides cos of bankruptcy ,loss of home , income ,family etc
    
    On top of that there’ll be the psychological misery induced by the coming economic catastrophe that this full lock down will impose across the country.
    
    And for years to come govts will have to make hard decisisons about what to and what not to fund , hard times.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:00am
    - PhilBest
      
      There is a study now saying “everyone’s lives shortened 3 months on average”.
      
      https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654
      
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      April 4, 2020 11:04am
      - Evadne
        
        That’s if GDP drops by 6.4%
        
        NZ is looking at a much bigger drop than that with our current lockdown plans.
        
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        April 4, 2020 12:05pm
  - alloytoo
    
    Despite an entirely selfish delay trying to reach her 15 March moment while all and sundry were cancelling their events…….
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:08am
- bruceavon
  
  It’s weird that half the people here think Ardern is doing a terrible job because she hasn’t locked us down enough and the other Half think she and I guess the world has overreacted. I am still not sure. I think the lockdown is sensible. But I agree with you about the figures. We are destroying our world for this disease. People in NZ die on average one a day from the normal flu. 26 a day from cancer. and in the end will it be worth it? Interesting you mention the Listener. Joanne Black wrote an article in the very last edition ever about this. That it’s an overreaction. lots of the people dying were sick anyway. The response is wrong.
  And she was attacked by everyone. Pelted. I can’t even find the article now. They might have killed it. And she issued an apology.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:15am
  - DeepBlue
    
    I’m concerned for when the weather turns. People can’t stand outside supermarkets in a howling southerly with rain waiting for groceries, there will be many chills and flu overwhelming our health system.
    
    I think soon a new system will be required to dispense pre-packed basics and food kits from malls, gymnasiums and places where orderly warm queuing can occur.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:44am
    - bruceavon
      
      I am concerned about the weather too. Not so much the queues but the virus spreads better in cold weather apparently and also the onset of the flu season which will just add to and confuse the hell out of everything.
      
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      April 4, 2020 12:59pm
      - marcw
        
        The onset of flu season will be even worse than just confusion, as this COL can’t even organise getting sufficient flu vaccine into stock before the lockdown ends and social re-mingling is allowed. This Clark/JAG/Salesa health portfolio trifecta is just disastrous.
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:10pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    I think the lockdown is sensible to a point. But at this point a soft lockdown would have been more sensible and a hard quarantine on international who still make up the majority of the numbers. The people coming off the plane weren’t quarantined. Or were quarantined at home with their flatmates or families and the other members of the household continued to go to school and work and supermarket. But the cops harassing people lying on the grass alone in the park is laughable. Or not being able to drive to a beach. Or use a cricket batting cage. Or go fishing. 2 metre social distancing. Work from home. Wear a mask if its a crowded enclosed space. (eg supermarket) Open the fruit and vege and butchers shops with one in one out policy and one way aisles.. Get businesses to start making safe opening policies just like they made businesses make work from home policies.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:08am
  - hilaryt
    
    Nothing Black wrote caused my eyebrows to lift at the time. She was a victim of a hateful pile-on, in my view. How modern.
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:56pm
- Simon
  
  Nope Ardern is totally invested in the Wuhan virus as the Black Death. It will be promoted as such.
  
  Ardern is all in. She cant reduce the Home Detention period has it will look like a mistake in the first place. Home Detention will be extended for Ardern to save face.
  
  The Wuhan virus is the Black Death will be the messaging.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:23am
  - Sacha
    
    They will manipulate the stats. Easy.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:24am
  - DeepBlue
    
    People may start listening to Bloomfield over Ardern. Today he said we will know more in a few days re the levelling off of cases.
    
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    April 4, 2020 2:21pm
- oldpark
  
  Scott not forgetting just what the one death in NZs West Coast was caused by . Heard a relative ring talkback show Peter Williams on Magic Talk the only Talkback show in NZ these days . . His comments were. The authorities said the deceased had underlying health problems. The Relative caller said . He had no knowledge of previous illnesses.
  Go figure that comment . Maybe it was appropiate by the Authorities to claim death any which way by the Coronavirus , after all half the lies we are getting over the Lockdown and the virus are not true. . Just saying .
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:30am
  - cmm
    
    “He had no knowledge of previous illnesses.”
    
    It would not be the first time an old person hides their condition from their family so as not to alarm anyone.
    
    My gran did that and we only found out when I got a call from the hospital saying she could not drive home and someone needed to fetch her.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:05am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Her daughter said she did indeed have an underlying health issue when interviewed on 1. But that she was fit and active and had not been to the hospital for years.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:50am
  - Surely Knott
    
    From the Herald – She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung disease that causes breathing difficulties but it was well controlled using medication. She was admitted initially for influenza not Covid 19. She was offered a ventilator but elected to stay on oxygen.
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:52pm
    - cmm
      
      COPD (aka emphysema) is only well controlled by drugs until you get anything else coming along to give you extra breathing problems (eg. flu, pneumonia etc)
      
      NB I am not a Dr, nor a mountain bike rider.
      
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      April 4, 2020 4:18pm
- yossarian
  
  I saw another great great analogy.
  
  About 500 people die every year on the roads. We could easily bring that to zero in no time, by simply closing every road. Everyone’s daily lives will be ruined and the economy will be nonexistent, but we will save 500 lives. The economic impact will probably cost more lives, but we will have a nil road toll.
  
  This is exactly what we’re doing with the Wuhan Flu
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:55am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    JAG will be pleased and take it as a personal win
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:52am
  - JackRabbit
    
    And you are forgetting that on average, for every one person that dies on public roads, two will die in hospital from medical misadventure and cross infections they get while in hospital. Those are pre Coronavirus stats, so the figure will have likely gone up.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:05am
- KevO'Brien
  
  If NZ is not released from the lockdown fully after the 4 week period and the body count count is still low expect a very stroppy population.
  
  Like other places (California?), because we are a tourist and foreign student country, we may well have had the virus incubating among us for some time before officialdom went berserk. I wondered if I was kicking of a flu attack but it was sub-doctor level.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:37am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    So you won’t be happy if the death toll is low?
    If it is low, there may be a graduated lowering of the levels. That’s the war plan.
    Check out Guayaquil, Ecuador with a population just under 2.3 million – I guess you’d be happy with that, or with what is going on in New York where the lockdown was too late.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:04pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    I don’t can’t vouch for others, by I have been hearing from people and groups of people, that had a nasty case of the flu, with all the Covid19 symptoms, long before we started hearing about it in the media.
    
    Some date back to late last year, including events and weddings attended by Kiwis.
    
    The horse bolted 4-6 months ago and the COL, despite their “black plague” lock down, are still faffing around and holding talking groups as to whether they should fix the lock on the barn door.
    
    Their focus is not on scientific testing to establish the real infection or profile;
    
    Their focus is not on obtaining the quick 15 minutes tests;
    
    They are not hammering out the importance of nutrition, fortifying the immune system;
    
    They are not focused on adverting the fact that smoking, vaping, and smoking marijuana all attack the primary defence systems in the lungs.
    
    They are focused on the lock down. If the German with the bad haircut was alive today, he would be in awe.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:27pm
Humble Capitalist

Im an essential worker and for the last 8 days have kept hearing Ardern go on and on that there is plenty of PPE for all workers. If youre the unquestioning type you sit there and say wow thats great. The reality is that this is far from the truth. When she says it you can almost sense that she is hoping that its true or that she gets away with a massive …. whats the expression again Tall Man?
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April 4, 2020 8:20am
- mark15
  
  I know that PPE is locked in a cupboard with only managers having the key in my local hospital.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:58am
- rockape
  
  My wife too and she has to change PPE between each patient. Around 8 to 10 times per day. At that rate supplies are going to run short.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:34am
- cmm
  
  Well She is good at denying reality.
  
  Anyone that believes a word She says is a damn fool.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:07am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Would you rather she promoted panic?
    Oh, that’s right, she didn’t have to.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:07pm
krazykiwi

The reality of died from vs dies with is going to be very interesting. For example:

Austria: In Austria, too, “corona deaths” are apparently defined “very liberally”, as the media report: “Do you also count as a corona death if you are infected with the virus but die of something else? Yes, say Rudi Anschober and Bernhard Benka, members of the Corona Task Force in the Ministry of Health. “There is a clear rule at present: Died with the corona virus or died from the corona virus both count for the statistics.” No difference is made as to what the patient actually died of. In other words, a 90-year-old man who dies with a fracture of the femoral neck and becomes infected with corona in the hours prior to his death is also counted as corona death. To name but one example.”

It’s going to be interesting to look at year-on-year stats for deaths by way of pneumonia, heart disease and other ILI illnesses. Competent statisticians should be able to remove died with numbers to get the truth… because we’re not getting the truth from authorities.
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April 4, 2020 8:20am
- PhilBest
  
  Northern Italy is recorded by the WHO as having 20,000 premature deaths per year from air pollution. Presumably that figure will be lower this year because WuFlu victims will be netted out of it.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:38am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    They never are. The beauty of the public health”profession” is that the same people can turn up in both statistics. NZ has done it for years with smoking/air pollution deaths.
    
    12 1
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    April 4, 2020 9:39am
  - JackRabbit
    
    “Presumably that figure will be lower this year because WuFlu victims will be netted out of it.”
    
    No. They will convert that 20,000 into Coronavirus deaths.
    
    3 1
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    April 4, 2020 12:59pm
- JackRabbit
  
  “.. died from vs dies with..”
  
  Yes, most of the published stats are straight bullshit.
  
  As a comparison:
  In the US, 29% of all road deaths involve Hondas. i.e. victims driving “with” a Honda. By the same faulty logic, 29% of all road deaths are caused “by” a Honda. Therefore if we have an outright ban on Hondas, road deaths will drop by 29%.
  
  Yeah Right.
  
  Don’t tell JAG, she will probably implement that. No wait, she already wants to ban all cars.
  
  9 1
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  April 4, 2020 12:57pm
PhilBest

What’s up this morning? Has everyone caught the Wuhan virus and gone to hospital, or been rounded up for wrongthink on Kiwiblog?
27 4
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April 4, 2020 8:21am
- Tony Stuart
  
  It’s been such a hectic week of going to work, everyone’s having a lie-in 😀
  
  45 0
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  April 4, 2020 8:26am
  - alex Masterley
    
    I have a little work to do, then I will be weed whacking and mowing. Then that will be followed by one or two reflective beers.
    
    25 0
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    April 4, 2020 8:39am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Working at home all week makes the weekend a little bit weird, somehow.
      
      19 21
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      April 4, 2020 8:41am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        I work from home most of the time. What’s weird for me is having my wife working from home as well!
        
        27 0
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        April 4, 2020 9:07am
alloytoo

San Francisco has banned reusable bags in shops due to their health hazard.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/02/san-francisco-bans-reusable-bags-in-coronavirus-fight/
54 2
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April 4, 2020 8:21am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  So has our local pack and save as well as their own cardboard boxes.
  
  Pleasant checkout girl who says some customers becoming angry and aggressive with the new packing regime.
  
  Remember the good old days of single use plastic bags?
  
  I hope those thousands of school children are feeling ashamed of their self centered letters to the LiC pleading for the plastic bags to be banned.
  
  Where are those letters now, where there any letters at all?
  
  The first or just another lie to the New Zealand, never Aotearoa, public?
  
  My money is on the lie.
  
  47 2
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  April 4, 2020 8:43am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Plenty of lovely unicorn and rainbow cards and letters on the shelves in the Prime Minister’s office on TV last evening, Paulus.
    Did you not spot the rows of children’s “We luv you”
    correspondence during the mutual admiration broadcast between Ms Ardern and Hilary Barry?
    Possibly also a guidance book on potty training there as that was the topic they got onto after all the grinning about the Rev Clark finished.
    
    19 1
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    April 4, 2020 9:53am
    - Nickc2
      
      When that came on last night, my TV popped up a banner I have never seen before: SWITCH OFF OR CHANGE CHANNEL?
      I did the latter as quick as I could. I cant comment on the content because I deliberately didn’t see it.
      
      11 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:49am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Always put your money on the lie.
    
    2 21
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    April 4, 2020 9:59am
  - unaha-closp
    
    Supermarkets are the prime risk centre for community infection. What we should be doing is putting groceries in single use plastic carrier bags ourselves and then throwing the bags away. Unfortunately, because Greens we are banned from even purchasing sanitary carrier bags.
    
    Now we all are forced to use and reuse potentially contaminated materials.
    
    22 1
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    April 4, 2020 10:40am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Foolish San Francisco. Although reusable bags can harbour bacteria, there is no reliable evidence linking their use with increased rates of disease.
  
  5 59
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  April 4, 2020 8:44am
  - lifesgood
    
    Honestly, MM, what is wrong with you?
    
    37 2
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    April 4, 2020 9:11am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Nothing much. A few chronic health conditions, but nothing life threatening.
      
      2 26
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      April 4, 2020 10:00am
    - kloyd0306
      
      Mikey is fast becoming aware that since the lockdown he is now in the Guiness Book of Records for the most downticks.
      
      22 2
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      April 4, 2020 10:42am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Nothing wrong, just a bitter leftie
      
      19 2
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      April 4, 2020 10:58am
      - lifesgood
        
        Obviously had a failure of a life and not very bright. Poor bloke.
        
        13 2
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        April 4, 2020 12:28pm
    - cmm
      
      I almost want stephieboy back.
      Almost.
      
      14 2
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      April 4, 2020 11:09am
      - Michael NZ
        
        CMM, that is the most stupid remark I’ve ever read here.
        
        Allow Maggies Stalker back to restart!
        What were you thinking?
        or weren’t you…
        
        11 2
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        April 4, 2020 1:11pm
  - a
    
    It is just common sense that reusable bags are a bad idea during a pandemic, unless you wash them after each use, which I doubt many people would do.
    
    12 1
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    April 4, 2020 11:06am
    - JackRabbit
      
      I’m surprisd that Jacinda did not ban single use tissues when she banned plastic bags, and force us to use reusable hankies. Tissues don’t breakdown in landfill that quickly.
      
      6 1
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      April 4, 2020 2:41pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  hahahaahha!
  
  Its almost like plastic is some miracle product of modern hygiene!
  
  Wow those old white guys in the 1950s really knew their stuff!
  
  35 1
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  April 4, 2020 8:59am
Happychappy

Mike Hosking with the help of Shamubeel Eaqub gives it to the Government over it response and rocky week that shows how out of there depth they are to CORID-19.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/video/mikes-minute-governments-rocky-week-shows-they-are-out-of-their-depth/
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April 4, 2020 8:23am
Humble Capitalist

Ardern comes up with test, test, test as her next slogan. Havent we heard that one before quite a few weeks ago?
Ardern also stating that there is plenty of access to testing. Not another … by any chance or is she just hoping that what she says is true and we will all nod, smile and clap like most of the MSM?
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April 4, 2020 8:27am
- Tony Stuart
  
  We heard it from the head of the WHO on 16th March, and from Simon Bridges on the 17th March and regularly since. It took the PM two weeks to catch up with Bridges.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:49am
  - PhilBest
    
    And the head of the WHO was about 2 months late with that himself. The WHO has destroyed the trust that it needs to play a credible role in future pandemics.
    
    34 3
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    April 4, 2020 8:53am
    - Paulus
      
      Isn’t the WHO part of the UN which would account for the SNAFU ?
      
      8 1
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      April 4, 2020 1:22pm
  - alex Masterley
    
    I have said it before and will no doubt say it again, this and many other statements by the PM show the need for a royal commission into the conduct and handling of the pandemic once we are through this mess.
    
    35 1
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    April 4, 2020 9:09am
- Chris Morgan
  
  She’ll save 10’s of thousands of lives though……so…..you know……get on board people.
  
  14 3
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  April 4, 2020 9:23am
- KevO'Brien
  
  You heard it from this fellow:
  https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/35325-marxist-un-who-boss-must-be-put-on-trial-critics-say
  
  12 1
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  April 4, 2020 10:41am
  - PhilBest
    
    Interesting. I’m sure “promoting diversity” doesn’t have to mean giving important positions to someone the polar opposite of a stale white conservative. Couldn’t they have found a person of color who didn’t have an actual communist background?
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:11am
Gandolfo

My family, like many others, are suffering from a substantial reduction in their incomes and uncertain futures, whilst friends working for the Government are at home on full pay and job security.

Is this fair?
78 2
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April 4, 2020 8:27am
- MT_Tinman
  
  Notably the house arrest only started after the teachers union realised that tourism workers were being paid to stay home and demanded teachers be allowed to stay home as well.
  
  28 2
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  April 4, 2020 8:38am
- krazykiwi
  
  I agree. My business has folded, and mrs kk’s job is looking like it will be gone within a month.
  
  How about some increases on public sector workers only?
  
  32 1
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  April 4, 2020 8:44am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Couldn’t you have applied for the wage subsidy? The criteria were that turnover was down by some % compared to last year. Turnover is zero during the shutdown for the majority of non-essential businesses but lots of activity increased in the area of selling online since some restrictions lifted earlier this week.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:22pm
- PhilBest
  
  It’s the certainty of the future that is the biggie. Private sector employers are being handed a subsidy to be able to keep paying wages, but “other expenses” are still going to send a lot of businesses bust.
  
  I propose that government be obliged to shutter entire departments, in reverse order of when they were created. We didn’t need most of these departments in the 1930’s. They weren’t even in existence, to shut, back then. Even in the 1970’s many of them didn’t exist.
  
  Time to rebalance the whole economy in the direction of useful labour, not consumption of wealth created by others – paper-shuffling bureaucracies are an even worse phenomenon of this than people buying cheap Chinese made entertainment gear from The Warehouse. At least in the latter case people are doing it voluntarily and getting some utility for their money.
  
  Bureaucracies on the other hand are a phenomenon of “the devil making work for idle hands”. Even the CDC in the USA had resources devoted to combating obesity and racism, while actual pandemic preparation, their reason for existence, has now been shown up for what it is.
  
  30 2
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  April 4, 2020 8:45am
  - mark15
    
    Lets lose the Race Relations Commission for 2 months. No-one would even know!
    
    23 1
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    April 4, 2020 10:13am
    - PhilBest
      
      2 Months? I meant forever!!
      
      21 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:12am
    - septic skeptic
      
      Why 2 months?
      
      9 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:17am
  - rockape
    
    Its interesting how many employees at the hospitals are now considered “non essential” It the are getting $100K a year they better be essential if my taxes and yours are funding them.
    
    19 1
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    April 4, 2020 10:40am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Yes, the fight with the other expenses will be key.
    I think the economy will rebalance naturally, the person that bangs the nails in or shears the sheep is where it will begin again (in some places it has never stopped thankfully). Consultants, advertising and advisors, etc will rebuild more slowly.
    But first things first, managing the virus. The next 2 weeks will reveal a lot about that, whether it was needed or not (but that debate may go on and it has been said there will be a Royal Commission), how it will be lifted.
    We’ve got a product to sell that we couldn’t get to the buyers before the shutdown, now they are not in a position to even offer to price as the market has gone south overseas. Just like a good old 15 rounder – a good smack in the chops but keeping the head up.
    
    5 2
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    April 4, 2020 12:35pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  I didn’t know government workers were being paid without working. Shouldn’t their arrangements be the same – wage subsidy if not able to work, etc?
  
  17 23
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  April 4, 2020 8:46am
  - yossarian
    
    Go to the teachers union with that mate. You won’t survive 2 seconds
    
    24 1
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    April 4, 2020 10:05am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Why should the rest of the community take it on the chook when the non-productive sector don’t share the burdens imposed by their masters?
      
      20 2
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      April 4, 2020 10:43am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Teachers are working aren’t they?
      
      1 4
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      April 4, 2020 3:32pm
  - Humble Capitalist
    
    Spoken like a believer that all bureaucrats ‘working from home’ are essential Mike and (congratulations in advance for the downtick and twisted nasty sarcastic comment reply)
    
    15 2
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    April 4, 2020 10:15am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      If bureaucrats can work from home, why should they not continue to work?
      If their work is not essential in normal times, their jobs would be eliminated, surely.
      
      1 8
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      April 4, 2020 3:34pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Yes, where applicable wage subsidy.
    Everyone needs to tighten their belts.
    
    6 2
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    April 4, 2020 12:18pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  And, you are paying for that government and council employee stay at home on full pay.
  
  Grind yer gears? You betcha!
  
  35 2
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  April 4, 2020 8:46am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Let’s hope is a last hurrah for these bloated councils. The economy certainly won’t sustain the incessant rate increases required to keep these troughers troughing. The council’s need to be gutted and replaced with a slimmed down version with a mandate for basic infrastructure only. If you work for ATEED, or are responsible for cultural awareness, rainbow themed crossings – don’t come Monday!
    
    15 1
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    April 4, 2020 11:23am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Auckland Council has an entire “sustainability” department focused on climate change. All the Councils have the same thing. It is NOT their job. The Government sets a price on carbon via the ETS. That should be the end of matters.
      
      Honestly after this crisis is over these activities need to be burned to the ground. Even DHBs are recruiting for “sustainability officers”. Read this and weep.
      
      https://www.seek.co.nz/job/41191803?type=standout#searchRequestToken=1aacc9da-b89c-4c10-9d87-ad8fba7fed5b
      
      These people are not part of the real economy. They do absolutely no good. If anything good can come from this awful business it will be getting rid of these roles from local government. That, and stopping building convention centres while letting the water infrastructure decay.
      
      Local Government will not do this voluntarily. It will require new legislation to strictly proscribe the roles of local government.
      
      11 1
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      April 4, 2020 12:35pm
      - calendar girl
        
        Good comment, Benedict Yu.
        
        7 1
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        April 4, 2020 2:47pm
      - Nickc2
        
        Thanks Benedict Yu, I was not aware this was going on. I was aware they were going about declaring a state of Climate Emergency or something similar but from you have said, it has become worse than that – Thanks again.
        
        7 1
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        April 4, 2020 3:29pm
- MrTips
  
  Nope. And it’s taken the Bauer debacle for the media to realise it. Also, the NZ Herald is letting 28 of its 40 sports journos go.
  
  But Hillary’s job is ok, she’s part of the girl fan club. Soon, all you need to know will be bought to you by the only approved info team of Hillary Barry, Siouxsie Wiles, Wendy Petrie, Nanogirl and Juliet Gerrard.
  
  47 3
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  April 4, 2020 8:50am
  - Dougal10
    
    Being a fan girl is good for Hillary’s job security and prospects going forward if cindy nationalizes the media.
    
    16 1
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    April 4, 2020 9:31am
  - Ruahine
    
    No picking on Michelle Dickinson please. She is a good and proper person. Look her up on Linkedin or Wiki.
    Nanogirl.
    
    9 0
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    April 4, 2020 9:43am
    - WaveyDavey
      
      I’ve had dealings with her. She’s horribly unpleasant when the cameras aren’t rolling
      
      10 1
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      April 4, 2020 12:58pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Where’s the men?
    I’m getting a little bothered by a possible complete takeover of all communications by women.
    
    14 2
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    April 4, 2020 10:46am
    - septic skeptic
      
      I assume that you know how archeologists can tell instantly whether a skull is male or female?
      
      5 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:26am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Pale, Stale and male. They were let go first. Some of them have washed up on Magic FM. Of the rest there’s only Peters’ sycophantic drinking buddy.
      
      I don’t think Tame or Campbell qualify as male, they had there man card stamped years ago (if Tame was ever issued one)
      
      15 1
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      April 4, 2020 11:52am
  - Fletch
    
    Feel free to let that stupid female reporter on Seven Sharp go who thinks she is funny…
    
    10 2
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    April 4, 2020 1:01pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  Of course it’s not fair Gandolofo, because the Government has the resources to keep public service salaries at normal levels, something businesses whose revenue streams have been choked off do not.
  
  What I would like to see is the PM and Cabinet announce that, with immediate effect, they are taking a 50% pay cut, encouraging all MP’s in the Parliament to do likewise on a voluntary basis. Let’s see who is prepared to share our pain.
  
  55 1
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  April 4, 2020 8:56am
  - DeepBlue
    
    I think list MPs should have a pay cut. What are they doing?
    
    And with the success of Simon’s E.Committee Parliament should continue this questioning and we should go down to 90 or fewer MPs
    
    18 2
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    April 4, 2020 10:48am
  - hilaryt
    
    Michael Reddell at Croaking Cassandra urged ‘ACC for all’ as a recommendation a while ago….80%, like in ACC’s ERC payments.
    
    4 0
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    April 4, 2020 2:09pm
- Odakyu-sen
  
  An old friend told me that in the last depression, his grandfather (who was a government worker) bought a car and his grandmother bought a fur coat.
  
  33 1
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  April 4, 2020 9:07am
- yossarian
  
  I mentioned that same point on our favourite leftie blog the other day, that I was down to 80% of my salary, going to 50% in a weeks, yet I’m actually still working. The response I got, was that it serves me right for working in the private sector.
  
  No, we are definitely not in this together!
  
  31 1
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  April 4, 2020 10:09am
  - Jules99
    
    Last time there was a recession I was working for a local authority in the UK. The downturn was used as an excuse to shed staff and cut budgets. I expect this downturn to be harder, and many public sector workers will find themselves laid off as the loss of tax revenue bites.
    
    12 1
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    April 4, 2020 12:21pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Could happen. Depends whether the approach to recovery from recession/depression is based on cutting or boosting expenditure.
      
      1 3
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      April 4, 2020 3:39pm
Kiwi

Stuff article – “Coronavirus: Health is important, but it cannot be the Government’s only aim::
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120791273/coronavirus-health-is-important-but-it-cannot-be-the-governments-only-aim
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April 4, 2020 8:37am
- kowtow
  
  The article is a good one , but I fear has been induced by a serious case of whataboutmeism.
  
  It didn’t take long for the Media Party who have been shilling the panicmongering with lurid stories of mass death in Italy , to realise that they’re own jobs are now on the line.
  
  As the good book says “Ye reap as ye sow ”
  
  Kowtow says ” Fuck ’em, they brought it on us”.
  
  17 2
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  April 4, 2020 10:10am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Kowtow, They, have always been 50% of the Problem..
    
    5 2
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    April 4, 2020 1:19pm
  - curry4me
    
    kowtow: No sympathy for the ‘journalists’ who are now looking for a coding course to enrol in. Plenty of it for their support people though. After all, most here despise the MSM
    
    2 3
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    April 4, 2020 4:39pm
Greg Ettridge

I posted this back on 15 March
“See the Ruby Princess has just tied up in Napier, are they going to view the dock for the day from the boat or defy the ban.”
Thumb up 35 Thumb down 3 March 15, 2020 8:47am
For the doubters and downtickers, suck up all the good news, this ship just keeps on giving.
The newspaper article below asked the Ruby Princess for a comment, will any journalist have the fortitude to ask the PM, why her government gave it the big tick to dock and sightsee after the ban took place the day before.
Stupid childish decisions have consequences.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-new-hawke-s-bay-cluster-linked-to-ruby-princess-cruise-ship-responsible-for-hundreds-of-australian-cases.html
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April 4, 2020 8:38am
- MT_Tinman
  
  My last day working tourist tours was March 15.
  
  Had some contact with Ruby Princess people on the 13th (Akaroa).
  
  I’m still alive.
  
  Maybe it was the Wellington leg that introduced the virus to the ship.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:45am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  That is because we currently have a government full of stupid people, vastly out numbering the competent, lead by a chip shop worker.
  
  Cometh the hour, cometh the man did not know about our incompetent Prime Minister and her clown car pardy.
  
  38 1
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  April 4, 2020 8:50am
- MarkF
  
  Greg, I believe it is something to do with International Marine Law and the fact that the ship had entered NZ waters and docked elsewhere it was still considered to be in NZ, not entering. Therefore technically the passengers were already in the country.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:52am
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    They are passport wise, but country still has right to refuse entry at any port, because you have been cleared by immigration, doesn’t mean you can automatically disembark.
    I can think of various examples.
    We were cleared by immigration in Dili, but because there was fighting in hills behind Baucau, we were servely restricted in our movements. Country has every right to control its borders regardless.
    Sick persons on ships is a totally different ball game.
    This is just weak leadership or no one thinking of the consequences of a really stupid action.
    
    12 1
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    April 4, 2020 10:35am
    - Michael NZ
      
      Gteg.
      Theres 3 levels, immigration, customs and health.
      As the head of Australian Border Force said as he left NSW health department hanging in the wind for letting the passengers off the cruise ship.
      
      4 1
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      April 4, 2020 1:22pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  Even worse, the Ruby Princess also berthed and discharged passengers at Wellington the previous day. There have already been multiple alerts given to people who visited Te Papa.
  
  The Hawke’s Bay cluster is worse however, given there is now an outbreak in a rest home related to the Ruby Princess. The PM has some explaining to do, as does the DG of Health, whose management of the coronavirus issue has been almost faultless to date.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:53am
  - gravedodger
    
    @Tony I wonder if that ‘almost faultless’ description resulted because there was little active journalism at the daily Punch and Judy shows, to put pressure on Bloomfield.
    He, Ardern and von Bush got an almost “riding for the disabled ” effort from “the fourth estate”?
    
    disclaimer I am a supporter of RDA and the great work the do, it is just that RDA is not three day eventing.
    
    9 1
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    April 4, 2020 11:33am
- Ruahine
  
  The more cases of corona virus infections the more justification in the Governments eyes for the rest of us being under house arrest.
  
  21 1
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  April 4, 2020 8:53am
- Raphael
  
  because it was already in NZ waters. The ban was for ships that were not already in NZ waters.
  
  4 11
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  April 4, 2020 8:54am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    That’s irrelevant. If you impose a ban, it should be a blanket ban. The Ruby Princess could have been allowed to berth at Wellington and Napier without discharging passengers. It was passengers from the ship who carried the virus into the Wellington and Napier communities.
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:58am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Exactly. It was a Claytons ban, just like our border controls were.
      
      It sounded all tough and grown up at the press conference though!
      
      The girls from the media were all chanting “you go grrll!” So it must have been true?
      
      Oh hang on. Letting thousands more people into NZ, no testing, no quarantine, but handing them a pamphlet! Yup, toughest border protection in the world!
      
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      April 4, 2020 9:04am
  - Nickc2
    
    What has NZ waters got to do with it? Ships can be ordered out of NZ waters and to the best of my knowledge, no reason need be given. She could have done this but either she was not advised or chose to override any advice for whatever reason.
    Probably pig headed incompetence – “don’t till me, I’m the Prime Minister!” Thanks Winston, NOT!
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:47am
- Caleb
  
  Unacceptable.
  Add the bullshit flight ban too.
  There is only one thing NZ had to do, considering our luxury of time, isolation, political and social advantages.. And that was: Stop Importing the Virus!
  Hopefully the media loose all their advertising revenue and actually start questioning their inept government.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:55am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Won’t happen. They know the business model is fucked. They are all in on the State media handout.
    
    Gotta support “responsible journalism” dontyaknow.
    
    And if you say the wrong thing about the wrong comrade….
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:45am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  I sent an email to my family on March 14th bollocking the government for letting this cruise ship out amongst our communidee.
  I was also appalled at the way a colleague got back into NZ from London on March 10th was given a pamphlet and was free to return to work immediately without any isolation required. He decided to rest up and returned to work on March 16th buy with considerable concern from teammates. We have got so lucky that communidee transition jas been so slow with our pamphlet and hope policy.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:29am
MrTips

Exponential growth is incredible. Proven unambiguously by COVID19 and the current online petition demanding Tedros resign over his slackness: https://www.change.org/p/united-nations-call-for-the-resignation-of-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-who-director-general
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April 4, 2020 8:45am
- krazykiwi
  
  Too late for WHO. Their focus shifts about in the breeze … to wherever their corporate sponsors want it to be.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:00am
G152

Judging from the behaviour of her minister theres a bit of a credibility gap.
The minister for whatever drives somewhere and goes off on a bike into the wilds.
We cant!
Its a big nono.
So he was ‘chastised’
Was it a one or maybe two finger waggle and a serious head nod ???
Thanks Peters we need the comedy
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April 4, 2020 8:47am
- kowtow
  
  Credibility gap ?
  
  The Plod and government are actively assisting the illegal ,lock down busting, Hone Henchmen roadblocks .
  
  WTF !
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:12am
- Michael NZ
  
  cred gap?
  
  Lees Galloway offering Residency to a drug dealer in prison, ignoring the “good Character” test.
  and she did nothing.
  That did it for me.
  Tall Man was always right…
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:26pm
oldpark

Lest we forgot . A special belated Thankyou to Sir John Key, Bill English, Stephen Joyce , who helped NZ through the GFC and Christchurch earthquake in recent times . What a pity you were denied the opportunity and choice to be once more in the front line helping NZs in their time of need with the present devastating crisis to their way of life and the Coronavirus debacle and the way it is being handled. You are certainly missed.
A case at the present time is the Peters selected COL should maybe be forgiven for not knowing how to handle the Crisis in a professional manner
as results and direction and decisions for the
good ship NZ and where to next is missing .
Seems namby palmy comments will not put food on the table any time soon .
Yes way beyond the pay scale of the Peters selected COL .Labour/Green/NZ First . What an indictment of amateur Politicians Masquerading as Professionals .
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April 4, 2020 8:48am
- KiWombat
  
  OP you should also remember that it was the same three gentlemen who had the foresight to develop a pandemic response plan – the plan that our government is using right now.
  
  If nothing else, we should continue to remind the PM and her cohorts that the “9 long years of neglect” may well have been responsible for saving New Zealand in her hour of need – at least it could have if implemented as proposed, rather than twiddling their thumbs for a month before making any real decisions !
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:40am
  - yossarian
    
    So they had been given the plan and are still screwing it up! Can they implement anything?
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:11am
  - alloytoo
    
    We may also thank them for the “Fibre to the Door” Policy that has enabled many people to stay working from home during this crisis.
    
    We have so much to be thankful for during that decade of neglect.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:23am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      Is that the same nine years when the opposition pardies should have been developing policy resulting in something with better working than Kiwibuild or, is it the pardy just turned up to eat their subsidised lunch and get out of the Wellington southerlies?
      
      I know the answer, I am asking for my imaginary friend . . .
      
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      April 4, 2020 11:27am
- krazykiwi
  
  How I wish they were leading us now. The childish incompetence on display from Ardern’s useless rabble is heartbreaking. And country-breaking. Also, slight edit. It’s Sir Bill English.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:57am
JibberJabber

Unfortunately, this is a glimpse of the future of New Zealand if we continue down the path of MMP and electing low IQ, single issue nutters, educated fools and pompous arrogant simpletons that have no idea of how an economy works.
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April 4, 2020 8:52am
- Swifty
  
  A good point JibberJabber.
  
  What is now certain is that our economy is going to shrink significantly and for quite some time; a period that cannot yet be determined accurately, but likely years.
  
  This will inevitably result in a greatly reduced tax take – and which will require some very tough decision making by those in power.
  
  Let’s say, for argument’s sake, the next financial year’s tax revenue is forecast to be and then actually down by a third? What happens then? Will the CoL then recognise that some of their policies are simply unaffordable and/or some policies deliver little or no benefit especially when compared with other uses for the money?
  
  I would think Labour will be happy to borrow and borrow (as they’ve already done) but will they also be so keen to prioritise central government activity to eliminate spending of low-quality – so that a little more might be left in NZers pockets?
  
  Or will we see more of the nonsense we’ve heard from the left over the years that a dollar spent by the government has these magic extra-stimulatory powers as opposed to when the dollar is spent by the person who earned it?
  
  Tough times ahead for our decision makers. They’ll be dealing with a support base (and support partners) often ignorant of economic considerations and who will be relentlessly carping for their costly pet projects to proceed but on the other hand the piggy-bank will be broken on the floor and long-empty.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:40am
lastmanstanding

On Day One of the lockdown the Commissioner of Police told us anyone who didnt stay local would be paying a visit to his place.

On Day Nine Ride About Dave the Minister of Health the guy whose supposed to stop us dying from Covid-19 takes himself off into the wilderness.

So what does the Prime Minister do. She tells Ride About Dave hes a very naughty boy.

Anyone who still thinks this Government is fit to govern is a fool and a moron.

Still its yet another weapon to beat them over the head if and when we get another election.
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April 4, 2020 9:02am
- alex Masterley
  
  and now we see the instructions to officers says, as I read them, they can only do things like the commissioner said if they suspect a person has corona virus. There seems to be a complete disconnect between what the directions say and what we are being told by the PM and the Commissioner the poilce can do.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:13am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    How can a Police Officer legitimately suspect someone has the CV without a prior test? Without that action is based on supposition not evidence or reason.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:53am
Ruahine

I am expecting a breathless announcement within the next few weeks how the Government is saving New Zealand business.
North and South and The Listener will become SOEs.
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April 4, 2020 9:04am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  My guess is that they will become business units of the ministry for culture and heritage -renamed as the Ministry of Truth.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:46am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Yes RNZ in print. Just what we need.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:41pm
Stu2

Stuff has sourced an interesting story on Sweden – the non-lock down state (they are taking some precautions)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120805778/coronavirus-to-swedes-its-the-rest-of-the-world-engaging-in-a-reckless-experiment
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April 4, 2020 9:10am
- PhilBest
  
  Exactly – thanks for that.
  
  “…(Sweden’s epidemiology) team have published their own assessment of the virus and its likely trajectory, showing it peaking with about 250 needing intensive care in Stockholm. The nation’s hospitals, he says, can cope. A 600-bed temporary ward is opening tomorrow, south of the city – and when it does, a quarter of all intensive care beds will be used. So for now, no reason to impose any more restrictions.
  
  Dr Tegnell urges caution, and Swedes are responding. Sixth formers and university students are learning from home. Sports fixtures continue, but with spectators more spaced out. Online meet-ups are replacing real ones, elbow-bumping (remember that?) replaced handshakes long ago. A naturally cautious country is taking Tegnell’s advice…”
  
  Going in and out of lockdown just delays herd immunity and recurrence outbreaks. Some middle course is optimum. If a nation ends up hardly utilizing its ICU capacity but destroying its economy, that is the extreme example of “worst policy”. Sounds to me like Sweden’s epidemic modellers are among the world’s best, Sweden is lucky to have them.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:22am
Manolo

Can the cure be more expensive than the illness? Can this “government” extend the crippling lockdown?

What will be left of NZ’s economy?
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April 4, 2020 9:11am
- PhilBest
  
  It should be freakin’ obvious that the cure can be more expensive. If it isn’t obvious, then it shows how economic illiteracy can destroy a society.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:23am
Chuck Bird

The government appears to be lying to us again.

Coronavirus: Police lack power to truly enforce lockdown rules

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120785044/coronavirus-police-lack-power-to-truly-enforce-lockdown-rules
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April 4, 2020 9:17am
Ruahine

So Geoffrey Palmers so called Bill Of Rights is really just a Bill of Rubbish.
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April 4, 2020 9:24am
- Happychappy
  
  Any legislation that Geoffrey Palmer had anything to do with is a Bill of Rubbish, but its seems that Labour always talk up those that have been Elected Prime Minister until the legislation is deemed not fit for use.
  There will be plenty when this bunch of muppets are finished.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:52am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Has Sir Geoffrey ever once admitted that he might have made a mistake on anything…?
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:03am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    “However, there could be the possibility of a mistake, but such have been carefully guarded against with a host of provisos designating each case and the expected consequences within the boundaries imposed by Statute law or International Agreements….”
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:02am
rightoverlabour

I think I’d rather have the lock down than this:

https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/rotting-corpses-litter-ecuador-streets-as-coronavirus-spreads/
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April 4, 2020 9:26am
- sgthree
  
  so would most people, but it isn’t a choice of one or the other.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:50am
- Benedict Yu
  
  The New York Post has been known to exaggerate in the past.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:51am
- krazykiwi
  
  A false dichotomy. Quick reminder: You’re living in New Zealand which is 11,227 kms (and a long swim) from Ecuador.
  
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  April 4, 2020 9:52am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Well, that’s the nub of it.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:10am
- kowtow
  
  Don’t panic.
  
  That’s not due to a lack of lock down , that’s due to it being a Third World shit hole.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:17am
  - mark15
    
    NZ-hold my beer!
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:05pm
- cmm
  
  Equador, population 17M.
  620 people die on average every day of all causes.
  93 Covid deaths should not overwhelm the system.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:33am
- PhilBest
  
  Take a look at their local environment. That’s not NZ, and its why NZ doesn’t have the same vulnerability to this disease. Our urban planners want to make us more vulnerable. Just one of a few things we should have a harder think about when this is over.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:25am
secondcumming

There’s no doubt that Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones & Peta Credlin are a class act.
We have nothing here that even comes close. Watching them on Sky News thru the week, the point was clearly made that the Chinese are not interested in any type of *Partnership*, what they want is *Ownership*.

The CCP’s release of *coronavirus* was nothing more than a trial run. Hopefully we have learned a few things. What we need to do now is prepare for the worse. We need to reduce our reliance on Chinese imports, stop selling off our assets, and we must NEVER trust the CCP…… or their Agents already here.

Hopefully someone will bring this to Simon’s attention before it’s all too fuking late 😎
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April 4, 2020 9:29am
- PhilBest
  
  Rita Panahi, Rowan Dean….
  
  Yep Aussie is lucky to have these people on a specialized domestic TV channel
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:30am
- Michael NZ
  
  Soiman, the one with a Chinese Intelligence Agent in his caucus.
  or
  So many of his colleagues linked to Chinese Businesses or Govt Depts?
  
  Yeah that Soiman.
  
  No! Party Vote David Seymour then blue tick.
  No List MP’s..
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:32pm
you reap what you sow

When this is all over NZers need to seek retribution from the CCP.
Their membership of the WHO needs to be cancelled.
Their ambassador needs to go home to wuhan.
All Chinese politicians need to be banned from party lists
All donations from Chinese govt and companies to nz political parties need to stop now.

https://t.co/NiVmJeKnpN?amp=1

Just saying
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April 4, 2020 9:29am
david

Chuck, I know it is a matter of semantics but surely that should read “ Police do not have the authority ……”.
Sometimes I despair for the quality of what passes for journalism in this place. Mind you it is Stuff so we should not have high expectations of an outfit that caters to the lowest common denominator.
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April 4, 2020 9:34am
rightoverlabour

Anybody any the wiser after reading this?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120785044/coronavirus-police-lack-power-to-truly-enforce-lockdown-rules

Looks like some police have been acting way above what is legal…..

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/412906/an-open-letter-to-the-police-in-a-time-of-covid-19
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April 4, 2020 9:41am
- Benedict Yu
  
  It will be interesting to see what the PM says when she is asked about this. Seriously, I have assumed to date that the police can simply pull my car over and if they are not happy with my excuse for being out, order me home. That is precisely what Bush and the PM have been saying. Now I find out – from the Police!- that it is simply untrue. It is totally unacceptable.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:45pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Welcome to the new order. Cindy didn’t head the International Union of Socialist Youth movement for nothing. What we will get is her and Robinson’s version of Socialism as they make it up. We have only seen the beginning. Worse is yet to come and now they either have the MSM on their side or they have been successful in silencing some major outlets of it, who is going to stop them?
    Don’t count on September 19 being the panacea.
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:14pm
Benedict Yu

Good example of poor judgment from police.

One guy sitting in a deserted park eating a sandwich and minding his own business. Harrased by police.

Second guy enjoying the sun in a deserted Park. Harrased by the police.

Also contrary to the headline, the unfortunate guy was not a “picnicer”. He was eating a sandwich. He may have been working at home all day and this was his one chance at some fresh air.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120806685/police-target-auckland-sunbathers-picnickers-during-coronavirus-lockdown

I guess if they had jumped up and started jogging around the park it would be OK.

You have to wonder at the judgment of the police. They were driving past, saw the guy sitting alone and eating his sandwich and decided to go for him. As a result, this guy is likeky to have been permanently changed into someone who is cynical of the police, or worse decides they are all idiots.
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April 4, 2020 9:43am
- Nickc2
  
  Ah, but the police have been instructed to use their discretion. Tell me again how many times they have lowered the entry standards for police recruiting.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:18pm
- Michael NZ
  
  I am just by reading it!
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:34pm
Poppa

I went to a pharmacy this morning to buy Flixonaise
nose spray. The young chap came to the entrance way & asked what I needed & I told him.

He then proceeded to question me about sore throat or any other symptoms. It seems to me that they are now trying to find more virus patients as the numbers are not high enough to warrant taking our economy into the hell hole that is now.

I am concerned I could be out of a job, or least taking a cut soonish. Many businesses will not survive this circus
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April 4, 2020 9:50am
Benedict Yu

Just felt an earthquake in Christchurch. That’s all we need.
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April 4, 2020 9:53am
Paul Marsden

The weather in the main, has been beautiful over the country since NZ has been in lock down. Now that the country is on the cusp of winter and the end of daylight saving, I have no doubt it will bring with it a monumental sea-change in the pubic mood against the Govt. With continuing displays of Ministerial arrogance such as that exhibited by Clark and the country’s lack of Ministerial leadership at every level, it is the type of behaviour that could ignite a tinderbox of social unrest and disobedience. Add fuel such as the article in Stuff today regards the (current) limited powers of the police in detaining people going about their normal business. Not to mention that domestic violence incident rates are about to soar, though I fear that these numbers will also be deliberately distorted.
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April 4, 2020 9:55am
- DeepBlue
  
  The young will rebel and be out on the streets on mass at any hint of an extension. Jacinda said next week they will plan the exit.
  
  Government had better plan well for a mass uprising because the exit will be done to them in about two weeks time.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:00am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    The Government and the police will know they have no way of enforcing this. Right now they are relying on the goodwill of us all to make this work. And it is working. That is why the Health Minister’s antics were so egregious. It undermines the ‘social licence’ that the Government is receiving. If that breaks down, their only recourse would be soldiers and checkpoints.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:48pm
    - marcw
      
      And this reinforces my view that the only reason he wasn’t stood down is because there is no-one capable to replace even such an incompetent Minister. That’s all folks, we got nothing left. Woods, Robertson, Parker, Peters – all chocka with other duties. The cupboard is bare.
      
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      April 4, 2020 12:58pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        There is always someone. What about Ruth Dyson? I am not a fan, but she does have considerable Ministerial experience. She is retiring at the election. She could depart on a high note.
        
        I simply do not believe she would do a worse job, and more likely much better.
        
        Your cited reason for the PM not acting is not correct IMO.
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:15pm
      - marcw
        
        I think it would have been the deciding factor when all the factors were considered. After NurseGate, the flu vaccine stuff up, meningococcal outbreak, measles epidemic, PPE shortages etc, what other possible reason could there be for not sacking him? He’s already not part of the team (working from home FFS).
        
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        April 4, 2020 1:25pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  A private report alerted me to a substantial rise in juvenile crime because the watchful Police are apparently reduced.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:06am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I believe that – around where I live in Christchurch there are daily reports of property crime and car break ins.
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:16pm
    - KevO'Brien
      
      It was Christchurch that my informant referred to.
      
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      April 4, 2020 4:43pm
- lifesgood
  
  Paul, you are right. The last 10 days have been like a holiday for most. Freed of duties, quality time with family, lounging around home, enjoying pleasant walks on lovely sunny days. Just wait til the rain comes and we are all locked in. I think there will be a rebellion, I have no doubt of it. This govt has made a monumental balls up, taken a sledge hammer to crack a nut, and the public will quickly wise up.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:11pm
GT Build

I can’t wait to hear our superior leader and the fat controller (Megan woods) come out with the news that they have got the price of petrol under control and the whole world owes them a big thanks
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April 4, 2020 9:57am
MCos

There is an argument that says it is disingenuous to attribute most of the deaths to Covid-19 because the patient was going to die anyway.
If that was the case there would be a mere blip in number of people dying in New York. However the numbers show otherwise. On a typical day 158 people die from all causes in the city.
However in the short time this pandemic has been going almost three thousand deaths have been attributed to Covid-19 alone, most in the last 7-10 days.
397 yesterday.
Sure, all these people are going to die sometime, but aren’t we all?
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April 4, 2020 10:06am
- PhilBest
  
  But really the panic we’re in is on the assumption that the excess death rates are far above “twice daily rate at the worst epicentres”.
  
  The other question is, how much shorter were those lives? What will the annual deaths in NYC look like come end December? I’m betting nowhere near twice as high as usual.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:35am
  - MCos
    
    One would hope not.
    That would be 40,000 more deaths than normal in a population twice that of NZ.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:45pm
- cmm
  
  It does not help to use NYC as a data point for NZ.
  
  NYC is pretty much the perfect place for a virus like Covid19 due to public transport. Over 5.5million subway rides a day and over 4000 buses giving over 3 million rides a day. That’s a total of 8 million rides a day for a population of 8.5 million or so. Put a few infected people in the subway stations and you’ve infected a huge % of the city in a few days.
  
  On 5 March, the NYC mayor was telling people to keep using the subway without fear. Ouch!
  
  I think it does not help anyone to conflate “everyone is going to die anyway” with a person with a serious health condition that means they will likely get their ticket punched by the next flu or whatever and has a life expectancy of less than a year.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:28pm
Maggy Wassilieff

For those wondering about the PM’s phrase of
“the charity of my silence”…
it comes near the end of a speech by the Irish Republican Robert Emmet as he is about to be sentenced to death…

his words
“I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world – it is the charity of its silence!”

“The Charity of Silence” is also the title of a book about the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins.
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April 4, 2020 10:14am
- kowtow
  
  Emmet and Collins.
  
  Dangerous people. Interesting choice of luminaries , if that is the case.
  
  I wonder who’s advising her, ‘cos I doubt she’s that widely read.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:21am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Ardern’s ancestry is Irish.
    
    Jacinda Ardern
    18 March 2017 ·
    While my Irish great great grandparents settled here, the rest of my family went to the United States. Pleased to see the Irish PM reminding Trump of why….
    
    From her facebook site.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:27pm
    - cmm
      
      And you believe any of that?
      Why?
      
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      April 4, 2020 1:07pm
    - cmm
      
      I have some Irish great grandparents too, but that does not mean I know anything about Collins etc.
      
      No, she, or more likely her advisor, learned this in commie school.
      
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      April 4, 2020 1:12pm
    - Jack5
      
      Jacinderella is one-eighth Irish then (two-sixteenths). She might have third-cousins in the US.
      
      If she gets one of the flaky DNA tests from a genealogy site, they’ll probably throw in 1 or 2 per cent of American Indian ancestry and 10 to 15 per cent of Viking origins. And as a bonus 1.5 per cent Neanderthal.
      
      Those seem to be the current traces of choice.
      
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      April 4, 2020 2:09pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Thanks Maggy. It was a f***ing stupid thing for her to say in the circumstances. I mean she committed in 2017 to being open and transparent. Now when asked what she said to an errant Minister, she essentially says “not telling, so there”.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:21am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Yes, and that just illustrates perfectly the sly nature of many of Ms Ardern’s utterances.
    She goes on a prime time, light weight current affairs TV programme and slips in an arguably little known literary quote which many in her audience will not know or understand.
    She laughs and then goes on to give an update on potty training.
    That is playing with the people in a very u cool way IMO.
    
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    April 4, 2020 10:46am
Benedict Yu

I am totally confused. According to these police guidelines I can get in my car and go for a drive anywhere. It would go against government advice but the guidance to police is they have no power to pull me over unless I commit a driving offence.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120785044/coronavirus-police-lack-power-to-truly-enforce-lockdown-rules

This is totally at odds with what the Prime Minister has been saying. That the police can enforce an order that you stay at home except for venturing out for approved activities. These guidelines from police are clear they have no such powers.
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April 4, 2020 10:18am
- septic skeptic
  
  Can’t see why you are confused, Ardern is lying again.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:30am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Has nobody told you? The PTPM is a compulsive liar
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:33am
- cmm
  
  She’s lie even if the dog really did eat her homework.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:06pm
Maggy Wassilieff

I’d be interested in knowing how many of us have family who have lost jobs/businesses since the Covid-19 breakout & lockdown came on.

I have an acquaintance who has seen 3 of his grandchildren laid off with (permanent) closure of their workplaces.

My youngest daughter was stood down from her job a couple of weeks ago (in Australia).. but managed to pick up employment in an essential workplace last week.
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April 4, 2020 10:32am
- krazykiwi
  
  My small business is toast and 5 years of investment. We have a Plan-B but can’t enact that without functioning economies here and, importantly, in Europe
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:41am
- MrTips
  
  – One friend laid off 4 staff. If not for cash injection by himself and other investors, company servicing the agri sector would have gone bung.
  – Neighbour’s son about to lose job at newspaper.
  – Wife’s cousin has shut up his business dependent on foot traffic and this has caused much family stress.
  – Son’s law firm (a VERY large one) has stopped new hires and may let some staff go.
  – Other son’s hospitality firm has let half its casual staff go. He is lucky to have his job still.
  
  Its everywhere. A pandemic one might say.
  
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  April 4, 2020 10:54am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  Maggy
  Eldest does IT for vast majority of GP clinics on Gold Coast, he is frantic with work. Wife in care management no change.
  Second is Marine Transport inspector, so everything normal for him except doing driving tests and wife has banned from the house. Wife is stay at home mum.
  Most probably better on the $1500 and conjugal rights and sit around and do nothing.
  Youngest has lost one day which I am amazed at he delivers frozen food but mainly restaurants etc.
  Partner is school teacher so untouchable money wise.
  Now here is the real eye watering one.
  16 year old grandson has lost his one day a week job with a magician, but it looks like the Australian government will magically pay him the $1500 a fortnight because he meets criteria.
  Well I guess it will be him and his children that will be trying to pay this huge debt back. He will have a head start by the looks.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:02am
- MT_Tinman
  
  I suspect, at least, that I’ll never work again after the CoL shut down the industry I was involved in.
  
  It’s going to be a f@%$ing boring life from now on!
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:14am
- kowtow
  
  Yesterdy on magictalk Rodney Hide was asked by Peter Williams about the bauer closures , Rodney said he’d heard about many business’ in CHch alone facing similar .
  I imagine as an in touch exMP he has a lot of contacts .
  
  This will be very severe when the Cindy imposed shut down ends and we hear of others who’ve been smashed by this ,not just the media. who are self obsessed by their own demise .It will be very ugly .
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:23am
  - Swifty
    
    You must understand kowtow – all these businesses deserve to fail as they were being managed inefficiently, or were already broke and are using Covid as an excuse to hide their ineptitude.
    
    Well, according to ‘R’ and Martin Williams that is.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:59am
- Philview
  
  The NZ media only provide commentary on the USA unemployment figures. Their main focus is holding Donald Trump to account so we get zero information on the NZ unemployment position as that may make the NZ Government look bad.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:24am
  - septic skeptic
    
    It’s not just Trump. Pretty much any right wing leader is being disparaged. The agenda seems to be that only socialism can save us now.
    
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    April 4, 2020 11:41am
- alex Masterley
  
  My wife lost her job with a local textile company. No need for home make-overs at the moment.
  My business has flatlined in terms of transactional work. Advisory work is ok.
  Will struggle on.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:37am
- Lucia Maria
  
  Maggy,
  
  My youngest son had a deliver easy job which he lost right before the lock down.
  
  I’m guessing you’ve changed your mind now on the necessity of locking down or do you now realise the consequences?
  
  Am noticing a difference in your postings, yet no statement of position.
  
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  April 4, 2020 8:25pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    No, I haven’t changed my mind about the need for a lockdown..(as long as it is well managed).
    
    I’m staggered that so many people flocked into NZ and weren’t better monitored.
    
    I don’t support slack border controls.
    
    And I would have expected that a decent economic strategy accompanied the lockdown.
    
    Once we have a handle on how much transmission and where the virus is, then I’ll be looking forward to a relax in the the emergency level.
    
    I realise the consequences alright…
    It is upsetting to see your kids out of work, but as long as they are not seriously ill or dead, then matters are recoverable.
    
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    April 4, 2020 9:17pm
Cobolt24

Did anyone hear Markus Lush on ZB cut off that person who rang up to talk about David Clark mountain biking? It happened around 11:30
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April 4, 2020 10:37am
Humble Capitalist

Test, test, test. If that doesnt work then how about pamphlet, pamphlet, pamphlet that should do the trick
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April 4, 2020 10:37am
Yvette

Andrew Little must face some problems in presenting any “hate speech” law proposals, without any resolution of the racist statements made by Shane Jones – condemned by the Race Relations Concilliator – but supported by Shane’s boss, Winston Peters.

This may be a Little conundrum in itself, but does it not relate also to David Clark’s biking indiscretion, in that there being apparently no consequence for his actions, apart from some negative press and Ardern offering only charitable silence to questions, how can Police actually charge anyone for a similar indiscretion?

And when they want to introduce a curfew, will Ardern run it by David Clark for his approval?
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April 4, 2020 10:44am
- DeepBlue
  
  Is Pike River an essential service?. I’d like that closed down and the money spent elsewhere, anywhere else would be more beneficial. Or better still not spent.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:05am
Michael

Fake news, sort of.
An article in the local newspaper earlier this week tells the story of a 72 year old Italian priest who was in hospital with the coronavirus. No doubt some Kiwibloggers will have read the story. The priest was put on a ventilator Then a younger man was brought into hospital with the coronavirus and he also needed a ventilator . Problem was the hospital had run out of ventilators. The priest asked that the younger man be given his ventilator. The priest later died.
That heart warming story was picked up by a number of newspapers.
On reading this mornings newspaper I find that story was only partly correct. Yes , there was a 72 year old priest in that hospital who died of the coronavirus but he was never on a ventilator.
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April 4, 2020 10:45am
kowtow

TV1 showed a northern tribe doing their won thing , keeping their own people safe from foreigners’ Wuflu ,cos you know colonialism has been harder on them than anyone else , testing on the “news”

The person dressed up as a medico did the test from behind the ‘patient”, this involved if you can picture it the, “medico” essentially putting patient in a reverse headlock , with one arm fully around his neck ,head and upper chest while the other did the swab.

nek minnit , does she do the same close contact to the next testee , without changing her gloves and prtective smock ?
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April 4, 2020 10:46am
rightoverlabour

Bugger…. Guess where it is snowing? As they are in the warming pleasant times of spring…

https://electroverse.net/its-snowing-in-portugal/

Calling Greta, now that you are over the virus or what ever, How Dare it Snow in Portugal….
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April 4, 2020 10:47am
rightoverlabour

Interesting article. Even if the lockdown eases, we need to keep places where large groups are in close proximity for long periods, closed if possible ( like schools, Universities etc.)

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/wear-masks-flush-the-air-microdroplets-suspend-for-hours/
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April 4, 2020 10:50am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Jo has her own viewpoint. I doubt if suits NZ. Each population is its own statistical entity. Our young amateur politically biased advisers have not acquired the needed wisdom for that role.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:14am
rangitoto

Google release mobility data for each country. I presume obtained from Android phones. Big Google is watching you. However it does give an overview of how each country is responding to the lockdowns.

https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
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April 4, 2020 10:54am
Lee C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnXzGB170GI&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0tk77PtbLb4-MVVqPsmTi1l02kYQPMpk4f9rUmWwyYjMeMAYDOCMGEY64
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April 4, 2020 10:55am
rockape

Maggie I have to say my wife and I are starting to feel guilty that our finances are unaffected. She a NP and me a pensioner with a military pension twice the old age pension.
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April 4, 2020 11:00am
secondcumming

Just switched on to ZB to catch the News.
Heard Jack Tame saying “…that he’d been on a bear hunt before heading home to make gingerbread men”

Maybe he was planning a *Mad Hatters Tea Party* 😎
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April 4, 2020 11:00am
oldfella

’60 Minutes’ Australia reports on how China screwed the world by allowing 5 million people to leave Wuhan without testing… https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/29/60_minutes_australia_chinese_president_xi_allowed_5_million_out_of_wuhan.html
China lied and thousands will die. Never forget.
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April 4, 2020 11:06am
- Philview
  
  Most of our MSM seem to provide zero negative commentary about China so I expect we will not be hearing anything about it.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:19am
- barnacle bill
  
  @oldfella.
  People will forget as soon as it turns to their back pocket.
  
  They cant get enough cheap plastic shit out of China.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:28am
  - kevn
    
    @barnacle… Not about plastic, but about the baking flour missing off supermarket shelves. Apparently it is because the bags used, are made in China and production had stopped.
    The 20kg bagged flour is available.
    
    6 1
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    April 4, 2020 12:52pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Are these flour bags made out of paper from the logs we send to China?
      
      5 1
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      April 4, 2020 1:25pm
- septic skeptic
  
  If this virus had started pretty much anywhere else there would have been zero chance of containing it. Do you think that we would have locked down and isolated say Wellington? Armed checkpoints at the demarcation?
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:37am
- secondcumming
  
  We have a fair idea how many people died in Wuhan.
  What we haven’t heard, is how many died in Beijing or Shanghai from coronavirus…..home to China’s wealthiest citizens and the Political Elite.
  
  Just saying.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:43am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘We have a fair idea how many people died in Wuhan.’
    
    Are you serious?
    
    8 2
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    April 4, 2020 12:13pm
  - Stu2
    
    “We have a fair idea how many people died in Wuhan”
    
    Little idea would be more like it – when you look at the explosion of deaths in New York the Chinese numbers are totally fanciful.
    
    Remember that their early action were denial, rather than tracking and isolating contacts. So like NY they would gave the thing time to get a head of steam up.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:39pm
  - greybeard
    
    For some reason Mike Hosking believes that China has been truthful, and that China has solved their problem.
    I don’t know why he thinks this.
    He has a blind spot when it comes to China.
    
    8 3
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    April 4, 2020 12:47pm
  - secondcumming
    
    Well we do have a fair idea……
    official estimates have put it between 50,000 and 1,000, 000. Depending WHO you listen to.
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:51pm
  - andydownhere
    
    Yes I had been wondering that. If it is so infectious why hasnt all China got it?
    
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    April 4, 2020 8:46pm
- oldfella
  
  And the word police strike again to shield China…
  https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/04/word-police-strike-again-grammarly-says-using-wuhan-coronavirus-can-encourage-bias-and-misinformation/
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:47am
- oldfella
  
  China appointed to UN Human Rights group. Crazy. But true.
  https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-appointed-to-u-n-human-rights-group-despite-routine-human-rights-violations/
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:56am
  - krazykiwi
    
    This isn’t any old group. It’s the UN most senior so-called human rights committee, the one tasked with nominating new member states, selecting investigators for cases.
    
    The UN is sick and not fit for purpose.
    
    9 1
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    April 4, 2020 2:17pm
    - Nickc2
      
      The UN lost all relevance when they admitted Yasser Arafat – a Palestinian terrorist leader.
      
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      April 4, 2020 3:21pm
- curry4me
  
  oldfella: Also, never buy another thing that’s made there.
  
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  April 4, 2020 5:00pm
All_on_Red

Thank goodness for Fibre to the home
How much easier has it made it to work from home for us all.
No vid calling on Broadband!
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April 4, 2020 11:12am
cmm

Some while ago I proposed a modification to the up/down tick system whereby:
1) If you get, say, 100 downticks a day then you lose your posting rights for the rest of the day.
2) If you get, say, 200 downticks in a week then you lose posting rights for a week.

I think that could clean up a lot of mess and make KB a lot more readable.

But, hey, DPF’s the boss. He gets to choose the rules.
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April 4, 2020 11:15am
- barnacle bill
  
  @cmm
  Well now, how democratic of you.
  
  You would be for all those who agrees with you, and to hell with the rest.
  
  So much for healthy debate.
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:21am
  - cmm
    
    If it is healthy debate then there will be considerable numbers of upticks too.
    
    PS: This is not democracy. This is DPF’s show.
    
    If you want democracy then try the Standard :-).
    
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    April 4, 2020 12:09pm
    - barnacle bill
      
      @cmm.
      
      Don’t give up your day job.
      
      Because you sure do not cut it as a comedian.
      
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      April 4, 2020 12:52pm
- septic skeptic
  
  I for one enjoy the contrary opinions for the most part. Sure, there are some fatuous comments – but we don’t want an echo chamber!
  
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  April 4, 2020 11:33am
  - cmm
    
    I think a high bar of 100 or so allows a lot of room for vigourous debate.
    
    5 5
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    April 4, 2020 12:10pm
    - RichardX
      
      Someone like you who posts 35+ times a day would only require 3 people to downtick every one of your posts and you would be gone for the rest of the day.
      
      If they did it again the following day you would be gone for a week.
      
      I’m sure there would be individuals out there who would accept that challenge.
      
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      April 4, 2020 3:01pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  That would just make Kiwiblog more of an echo chamber than it already is. At least now, there is the possibility of contrary views being debated, however insubstantially.
  
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  April 4, 2020 3:45pm
Jack5

If you have shares in our big banks, you should be interested in a report at the Interest web site on Reserve Bank moves on banking.

It could have been an April fool’s joke, but it is dated April 2.

The Reserve Bank is forbidding banks from paying dividends to shareholders, though the small NZ owned Heartland Bank thinks it will get around this because it will pay them through its holding company.

Is this a forerunner of wider Government bans on companies paying dividends?

https://www.interest.co.nz/banking/104388/rbnz-offers-banks-more-help-encourage-them-keep-lending-cost-it-restricts-them-paying
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April 4, 2020 11:21am
herb1

#letsdothisletsfindanadultforPM
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April 4, 2020 11:29am
JackRabbit

You will find that many New Zealanders have already been infected with this Coronavirus, long before it became public knowledge that it was a threat. Some dating back to last year. In these people, the primary immune defences overcame the virus and produced anti-bodies. We are only testing those that have the Coronavirus symptoms, so this skews the real picture. It is extremely poor science, but what we have come to expect from the Chicken Littles in the science world.

The generic Coronavirus family has been around for decades and make up between 7-15% of the annual flu statistics. Around the world, 20,000 people die every week from the flu, but no-one considers this.

Of those who have already been infected with the Coronavirus, some may have had no symptoms and most would have just experienced it as a bad case of the flu, as happens from time to time. The bad Covid-19 cases we hear about also occur annually with the flu, and in large quantities with anyone who is asthmatic or has any form of lung disease or a weakened immune system.

It is commonly accepted that every year a certain percentage of people (we will called A group) who “get” the flu, and the rest (B) are lucky enough to “avoid” the flu. In a research project years ago, it was pointed out to me by medical experts that this common notion is false. Due to the ease with which all flu propagates, most people “get” the flu, but only the A group actually “experience” it.

The B group are exposed to the flu, but primary defence systems in the lungs and throat, stop and expel the invaders before they can infect the body. The body, having sampled the flu, now produces anti-bodies. If this flu does make it past the primary defences in the future, it will be stamped out by the anti-bodies. This B group never actually experiences the flu.

With the A group, the flu gets past the primary defence systems, and invades the body. The body’s internal defences go onto red alert to attack and expel the invaders. Fever, thirst, Diarrhoea, vomiting, sneezing, coughing, and excess mucus production (runny nose), are all actions taken by the body to attack and expel the invaders (flu). They are the actions of the body “cleaning house”.

Which is why fortifying your immune system to either repel the invaders (B), or overcome the invaders (A), is so important. The same body defense mechanisms that deal with the flu, are used by the body to deal with Coronavirus.

https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/australian-researchers-find-clues-to-how-the-body-fights-covid-19-20200317-p54avz

If you are a smoker, have underlying lung disease, or a weakened immune system, you are at risk, as you are from the flu.

Also being exposed to a heavy dose e.g. on an aircraft, or cruise ship, can overwhelm primary defences even in a healthy person. From my knowledge and research both of respiratory diseases, and air circulation systems, a good portion of airline passengers get exposed. Those who were “lucky”, and didn’t get it, were exposed to it, but primary defences worked and it did not take hold. (Group B)

Focus should be on fortifying immune systems, and lowering infection rates by good sanitation and cleanliness habits. Fortifying immune systems is important but it does not sell drugs.

How much focus has gone on the lock down from the establishment? Heaps.

How much focus has gone on nutrition and fortifying your immune system? None. In fact WHO has been actively disseminating that most immune preventive measures are quack science.
So who controls WHO?

In my view, the lock down is a waste of time, and will throw the economy back decades and if allowed to go on, will send us all to the gulag.
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April 4, 2020 12:07pm
oldfella

Anyone see any similarities with where we are, and where Sth Africa is with fighting the virus? And if we might yet follow their lead. Hopefully not, but…
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/03/the-senseless-brutality-of-south-africas-lockdown/
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April 4, 2020 12:18pm
- cmm
  
  Here’s the South African army and police dealing with some lockdown breakers:
  
  https://youtu.be/655bm4lGM1s?t=35
  
  I wonder if the NZ Army are going the same in Kaitia?
  
  Even though the SA Army is a shadow of its former self, it is somewhat heartening to see that some of the punishment PT drills are the same as in the 1980s.
  
  No doubt RoL and a few others will remember having to roll in the mud and doing the chicken hop for “opvok PT”.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:43pm
  - rightoverlabour
    
    And people wonder why we left the place. Never did the Chicken Hop, but spent an inordinate amount of time running.. As I did Officers course, the crap went on for 11 months, not just during basics…
    
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    April 4, 2020 1:16pm
oldfella

Are NZ doctors using Hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus symptoms? I’ve just realised it’s a synthetic version of Quinine which has been around for decades to fight malaria.
This, of course, is the same drug Trump talked about as ‘promising’ for treating sick patients, and for which the US media slammed him.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/after-mocking-trump-promoting-hydroxychloroquine-media-acknowleges-might-treat-coronavirus
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April 4, 2020 12:30pm
- Fletch
  
  The media are despicable. They are still on their anti-Trump push, despite this being a time when everyone should try and pull together. Genuine criticism is one thing – that is the media’s job, to hold government to account – but the U.S media are playing a dangerous game.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:07pm
  - Michael NZ
    
    maybe they’ll go bankrupt if the had a 4 week lockdown…
    
    3 1
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    April 4, 2020 1:36pm
  - curry4me
    
    Fletch: Yes, imagine Harveywood, and the MSM of 1944 being anti FDR, and pro Hitler?
    
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    April 4, 2020 5:07pm
- MrTips
  
  Yes, we are, Mark Thomas in Auckland is trialling it as part of an Australasian consortium. It is being used as an adjunct to anti-viral therapy and as a stand alone, compared with usual care. Google it, it’s bound to be online somewhere. Try the ANZCTR registry if you want the protocol.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:26pm
- Michael NZ
  
  no old fella
  i asked my GP (Seatoun) for a script when i got my flu jab.
  she said “no, i would have to get it on the black market.
  i shouldn’t listen to Trump.”
  
  i kid you not..
  
  I read David Sinclair the Harvard Prof and he posted some science and medical posts and info on it.
  Never read or listened to Trump.
  
  https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/sinclair/people/sinclair.php
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:41pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Don’t take unprescribed medicine because you read that Trump thinks it could be a miracle cure. Just don’t.
    
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    April 4, 2020 3:48pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Countdown this morning. Queue is about 30M long. Guy about 30 comes up the stairs, sees the line and starts raving like a 10 year old. Calls someone on his phone and has a thermonuclear meltdown. Goes over and screams at the sky. Calls on his phone again but no answer. Throws it on the ground and smashes the screen. Throws his shopping bags in the bin, followed by the phone. Rips the top off the bin and gets the phone. Runs back down the stairs and tries to use the phone again, throws it on the ground again. Totally lost his shit.
So funny – but he needs to be locked up.
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April 4, 2020 12:33pm
- Ruahine
  
  Perhaps his Mother had told him you are supposed to be going to New World.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:49pm
- alex Masterley
  
  He would have hated the one I was in yesterday at Mt Eden Countdown.
  Looped around the carpark – about 250 meters long.
  Moved steadily though.
  
  9 0
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  April 4, 2020 1:41pm
- Kevin Herlihy
  
  I went to Countdown, Lincoln Rd ,Henderson around 6 pm last night and found the wait short but the shelves very empty. The fresh meat section was wiped out.
  So I went again this morning at 10 am, waited 45 minutes to get in, and found the meat section virtually empty. The queue over the road at Pack n Save was to long to contemplate another 45 minute wait so I ducked off to Fresh Choice Ranui, and after a 30 min wait, got in and found they had a full fresh meat section with plenty to choose from.
  Despite what the food companies are saying they are struggling to meet demand. Prices have definitely become inflated and the govt seriously needs to reconsider the lockdown on independent butchers and greengrocers.The smaller stores play a role in the food chain and by not having them there consumers have less choice and pay more for their food.
  
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  April 4, 2020 3:31pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

I swear my fridge just said “What the fuck do you want now?”
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April 4, 2020 12:40pm
- rockape
  
  Joke from my Mrs.
  
  Is corona virus turning you into a dog?
  You hang around the house all day looking for food.
  When you approach people in the street they raise their hands and shout ” NO”
  You get really exited when you get to go for a ride in the car.
  
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  April 4, 2020 12:44pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    “Is corona virus turning you into a dog?”
    
    NO, but the conditioning from the government is eliciting Pavlov Dog fear responses in the public.
    
    Add to your list:
    
    No, you are not allowed to go walkies, otherwise you will be arrested. Bad Dog.
    
    No, you cannot go out to work, otherwise you will be arrested. Bad Dog.
    
    No, you cannot play with a rolled up magazine. They are all banned. Bad Dog.
    
    No, you cannot get a Coronavirus test until you are as sick as a dog, at which point you can go and sleep in the kennel with the dog.
    
    8 1
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    April 4, 2020 2:36pm
oldfella

An article I read this morning (and can’t find again) suggests Australia has a similar rate of infection with something closer to Level 3, than our Level 4 lockdown. It will be interesting to see what the COL decides when this 4 week lockdown is over. It might be hard to justify keeping us locked away, if we can get the same results with less draconian measures. Unless Cindy and the gang really do plan to try and eradicate, rather than contain this virus. Which could cripple this country.
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April 4, 2020 12:44pm
Michael

Have to say the lockdown has hardly affected me [and my wife] at all. We are both over 80, the pension keeps on coming, in fact it has just gone up.
We used to go to the supermarket for groceries once a week, one of our grand daughters is picking up our groceries now. We do miss going to the library, once a week for me, once a fortnight for my wife.
Otherwise nothing has changed. We are still able to go for our daily walks.
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April 4, 2020 12:54pm
- Michael NZ
  
  good for you both Michael.
  Keep well and safe.
  
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  April 4, 2020 1:35pm
cmm

And still MOH’s Covid19 stats page is only updated after the 1pm show & tell.

This data is gathered at 9am, then collated into reports (maybe 2 hours), so is available at 11am.

It is unacceptable for MoH to be withholding the info until 1pm or even later just for political purposes.

How does this fit in with “most transparent government ever”?

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases
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April 4, 2020 12:57pm
- Stu2
  
  They seem stuck on 1% community transmission and 17% unknown
  
  The rest are travel or known case related. It looks as though if you catch it from a known traveller you are put in the known case bucket, even though you caught it in the community
  
  7 1
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  April 4, 2020 1:18pm
- curry4me
  
  cmm: Most transparently incompetent ever.
  
  4 1
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  April 4, 2020 5:11pm
- dave_c_
  
  It’s a bit like lotto. They use the Bingo approach – They use the number between 50 and 100 that comes up, and meets their agenda, which attempts to maximise panic and obedience.
  
  2 1
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  April 4, 2020 6:31pm
PaulDunmore

Some new transparency about COVID-19 testing in today’s Ministry of Health page: for the first time they are reporting the number of tests performed yesterday (3,631), the daily capacity (6,271), and the test supplies in stock (24,886).
The last number may be the key to the limited amount of testing: if they went full out at 6,000 tests a day they would run out of supplies in only 4 days. There must be some extra supplies in the pipeline between the central store and the testing labs (the stock is down 34% from yesterday, which is about 12,800 kits out of yesterday’s 37,700 or so, although only 3,631 tests were done). But there is not a large safety margin against any supply disruption.
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April 4, 2020 1:29pm
Critical Thinker

As it currently stands in NZ:
824 confirmed cases of the China Coronavirus
126 probable cases.
128 Recovered.
10 in hospital. 1 of them is in ICU but stable.
1 death. Woman in her 70’s that had an underlying chronic health condition.
?
10 2
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April 4, 2020 1:33pm
- dave_c_
  
  Watch this and understand the agenda.
  https://www.davidicke.com/article/567141/covid-19-5g-whats-connection-david-icke-dot-connector-videocast
  
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  April 4, 2020 6:33pm
cmm

Christchurch has zero CV patients in hospital.

Yet still all the services at the hospital excluding emergencies are shut down.

Hmmmm.
21 2
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April 4, 2020 1:35pm
- MrTips
  
  Wards are empty. 19 (ortho) usually has 30-40. Now only has 10.
  
  On the plus side, TAVI implant rate in cardio is really high as they take the opportunity to push through stuff before its lost in the CoVID crunch.
  
  7 1
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  April 4, 2020 1:40pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Saving money.
  I a waiting for a colonoscopy procedure due by the end of April. Also an MRI prostate scan (low level cancer)
  Looks like they will be deferred.
  
  7 2
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  April 4, 2020 1:59pm
  - kevn
    
    @Steve… Thousands of elective surgeries cancelled. I’m in the same boat.
    
    6 1
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    April 4, 2020 2:57pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  And according to today’s 1 report, the hospitals are now planning the re-use of those wards as NZ gets further ahead in its fight against Covid 19.
  I’m happy that it appears we won’t need the extra beds for cv patients but that there was preparatory work for their use for that purpose. Many other countries including the states failed to do that.
  
  4 1
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  April 4, 2020 3:28pm
- dave_c_
  
  Hmmm indeed. We are being lied to and taken for fools. There is more to this than is being reported.
  I smell a rat, and it’s not pretty.
  The so called Covid-19 is not exactly what is being reported.
  Open your minds and do some research folks – you are being coralled into subservience and obedience by the ruling elite who are introducing 2030 agendas.
  
  2 1
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  April 4, 2020 6:23pm
MrTips

Dear diary
Day 10:
– The scales are now in the trash. They are clearly wrong. Weird, Germany usually makes such accurate gear.
– Cat looks smug. It has a better social life than I do, but at least my manhood is still intact eh kitty?
– This must be what prison is like. Starting to think twice about picking up the soap in the shower and when the mail comes, it’s like visiting rights.
– To the cop van revenue gathering on Memorial Ave this morning. Please make sure you print my picture out in 600dpi. That way you’ll best capture both my elevated fingers and Rik from the Young Ones face as I was doing 58k in 60k zone.
18 1
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April 4, 2020 1:38pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Running out of material?
  
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  April 4, 2020 5:20pm
Poppa

Just looked up the latest update on the numbers

It seems to me they are doing more tests but getting about the same number or less. And of course no more deaths. So on a graph we must be trending down surely. How is that figure of 40,000 people dying looking Cindy?

I predict there will be far more deaths by suicide due to this than the virus itself. Only thing is they will never publish that
18 2
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April 4, 2020 1:45pm
- Durden
  
  Yes. But she will say deaths are down because she went hard and early. And if there are lots of deaths, she will say she warned you.
  
  It the election year.
  
  10 2
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  April 4, 2020 2:28pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  The scope of the test has been widened, with no high temperature required any longer. if the number of cases doesn’t increase to the proportion of the increased tests it shows it was the right approach with testing all along – despite that testing kits needed to be stocked at a higher level as well.
  Not happy about that and wish suicide stats instead?
  
  3 5
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  April 4, 2020 3:35pm
Stu2

NZ Covid tests to date 33,116 or about 0.67% of the popn (ignoring that some people might be repeated)

Oz was over 1% of the popn two days ago, wonder why we are that far behind
8 1
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April 4, 2020 1:48pm
pseudonymous

Closing golf courses was overkill in the extreme. The first thing I’m going to do when this is over and golf resumes is tee up my ball, pause and look around and appreciate my happy place. The second thing I’ll do is hit a provisional!!!
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April 4, 2020 1:53pm
- cmm
  
  I hope shutting down the golf courses does not trigger our Christchurch terrorist that was having golf therapy at our expense.
  
  They should have kept the golf courses (or at least those in Chch) open for national security reasons.
  
  4 2
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  April 4, 2020 5:30pm
JibberJabber

LoL
https://www.dailysquat.com/prince-charles-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-after-eating-an-old-bat/
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April 4, 2020 2:13pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Brilliant!
  
  4 0
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  April 4, 2020 2:28pm
Wired-one

So do we all think 20+% unemployment, small business crippled, the economy is massive debt for the next decade and peoples livelihoods wrecked was still worth it? Because I dont.
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April 4, 2020 2:14pm
- Ian Boag
  
  You have a point. This is all pretty ugly.
  
  Leaving the borders open would not have done much to support the economy. Noone much would have come …. perhaps we could have avoided a Spain-style outbreak if the border had stayed open. Two weeks quarantine for visitors would not really have worked.
  
  Stopping cruise boats was a bit of a no-brainer. If the border was still open then hospo – motels – eateries – car rentals – might have “only” been crippled … Tourism in general and Air New Zealand would have been toast no matter what.
  
  Gummint would have opened the chequebook for the conseqences of closed borders. Might not have been as expensive but we will never know.
  
  The expected tsunami of hospital cases has not happened so far.
  
  An epidemic like Spain would be pretty terrible too. I can go along with the “northern Italy is different” line, but unfortunately the UK, US, Germany and France look to be in a position that we would not envy either.
  
  We have a lot of misery and hardship coming. I don’t pretend to know the answer to your question.
  
  7 3
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  April 4, 2020 3:23pm
  - Wired-one
    
    No we should have closed the borders and actually tested every single person coming into our country. But we should have left as many businesses open as possible so we could at least keep the domestic economy ticking over. It makes no sense to have freezing works open where hundreds of workers work shoulder to shoulder but a garden centre or golf course cant? Yes we all need to keep our distance and sanitize but destroying the economy for this pandemic is absolutely moronic. One hundred kiwis die a day, I know its harsh but would it matter if it was one hundred and ten a day?
    
    11 3
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    April 4, 2020 3:33pm
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Have to ask if you have any information that we had the capacity to do that extra testing along with the community testing. From the MOH has said the answer is no.
      
      5 2
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      April 4, 2020 3:40pm
      - Wired-one
        
        Well if we cant test everyone entering our ports, dont let them in and quarantine the ones you do.
        
        6 1
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        April 4, 2020 4:05pm
septic skeptic

The link below is an interview with a Doctor working in an ICU in the UK. I found it very moving. Surprised to hear that many of their patients are young and with no pre-existing conditions.
https://youtu.be/ejlbCmRJMW4
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April 4, 2020 2:15pm
- DeepBlue
  
  Possibly the oldies are triaged to general wards, corridors or back home. That way only the young end up in ICU.
  
  6 2
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  April 4, 2020 2:47pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Don’t think so, that Doctor would have said that if it was the case.
    
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    April 4, 2020 5:51pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  That’s in accord with the Diamond Princess findings. Their 10-19 cohort had a 22.5% flu rate beaten only by the 80+’s at 25%.
  
  The rate from ages 20-50 was only 8%, beyond that it began increasing. Half of those who caught the Covid-19 showed no symptoms. Only 7 died out of 3,700 and they were all in the oldest group and the virus may not have been the main cause.
  
  This suggests a virus that’s most effective where negative health events have occurred or are existing. A typical ageing scenario.
  There is a genetic component identified in some Chinese too. Others also may be carrying a particularly infectious strain which shows up in some pockets.
  
  We won’t fix the virus by killing off our ability to sustain ourselves. We dodge the annual flu which is not always the same. We need to be wary of another of its cussies to mitigate through healthy living and watchfulness.
  
  Killing off the economy by closure will ultimately cause more illness and death through side effects.
  
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  April 4, 2020 3:16pm
  - Poppa
    
    So so true Kev
    
    1 1
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    April 4, 2020 4:57pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  Hauntingly real. That Dr was so impressive in bringing the message home.
  
  6 2
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  April 4, 2020 4:04pm
  - septic skeptic
    
    Yes, he is exactly who you want in your corner if you need an ICU bed.
    Who knows why we appear to be getting away with so few severe cases this far. One can only hope that if winter makes this more severe we are well and truly on top of it by then.
    
    3 0
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    April 4, 2020 5:40pm
Wired-one

S
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April 4, 2020 2:17pm
- Wired-one
  
  [ Mod : Can’t actually delete it, so “ghosted” it. Interesting because WordPress has some some of “dupe comment” catcher which obviously didn’t work for your one. ]
  
  1 0
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  April 4, 2020 3:35pm
Michael Rodent

The extra Covid 19 support for Maori of $56m was on the basis that they are apparently more at risk to the virus than the rest of us. Just checked the most recent MOH figures and of the 950 cases only 68 are Maori (7.1%) while Maori are 16.5% of the total population – so it seems they are less susceptible and therefore shouldn’t they give the money back?
18 2
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April 4, 2020 2:25pm
- marcw
  
  I would be interested to know what was in the “Care Pack” delivered to tens of thousands of Maori only families. Note, not low income families who are in just the same situation but lack the required heritage. So does anyone know what all taxpayers have delivered, and including all those óther ‘low income’ taxpayers?
  
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  April 4, 2020 3:03pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    According to the Gizzy herald.. The Turanga Health provider supplied 200 food parcels for families just before the Lockdown and delivered 1100 hygiene buckets to families.
    
    The Hygiene buckets had soap, multipurpose wipes, a disposable rubbish bag and Covid-19 information.
    
    Ngati Porou health has set up an assessment & observation clinic for respiratory patients at Te Puia Springs Hospital.
    
    http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/local-news/20200403/a-marathon-effort/
    
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    April 4, 2020 4:23pm
- Stu2
  
  The issue is being more at risk of a bad outcome if they catch it.
  Lots of the spread in NZ has been either travellers returning or caught from those travellers, and the numbers of travellers heading to the East Coast or Northland would be proportionately lower than back to the North Shore etc
  I’m not surprised maori infection figures are low so far, but that won’t remain low forever.
  
  3 1
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  April 4, 2020 3:28pm
  - septic skeptic
    
    In reality of course Maori are at a much LOWER risk than Europeans. The average Maori is 23.9 years, compared with 41 for the average European. Feel free to speculate that Maori might have some inherent genetic vulnerability, but given that their death toll is zero so far – it’s pure speculation.
    
    5 1
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    April 4, 2020 5:53pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I would guess that most of those cases are overseas travel related. Overseas travel is correlated with higher incomes. Therefore Maori were less likely to have been in the cohort that caught the virus outside New Zealand.
  
  4 1
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  April 4, 2020 5:10pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3yjqbIxZj0
Legacy media ad revenue is down due to the CCP virus. Toeing the CCP line early on probably didn’t help. Independent media were on the ball. The MSM dropped it, stuck a knife in it, and squashed it. Who said it didn’t have an upside?
4 2
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April 4, 2020 2:49pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYgJEz42D7s
How many Americans will die from the CCP virus? Maybe 100-200,000? The CCP is lying about it. The WHO is in thrall to the CCP. CCP ‘spies’ at media outlets might be expelled. Chinese donated testing kits have been proved inaccurate. China makes the majority of the worlds’ medical supplies. ZOOM has direct ties to China.
4 3
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April 4, 2020 2:50pm
Maggie Pie

Just got back home.

Is it today or yesterday?
12 3
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April 4, 2020 3:08pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  It’s tomorrow Maggie.
  
  5 1
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  April 4, 2020 4:06pm
  - greybeard
    
    It was, yesterday.
    
    3 0
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    April 4, 2020 5:11pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Thank God for that Brian – for a moment there i thought I might be losing it.
    
    6 0
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    April 4, 2020 5:11pm
Michael Rodent

We have been complaining about our testing but they must have a really slack testing regime in Sweden.
Poor Greta who said a week or so back that she was certain she had the virus but it appears she hasn’t got her results back yet to confirm it …… or maybe she never had it and was just upset to be out of the media spotlight?
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April 4, 2020 3:11pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Sweden has limited its testing
  
  Who should be tested for COVID-19?
  The healthcare services in Sweden prioritise the following groups:
  
  Hospitalised patients
  People that work in healthcare or elderly care, with suspected COVID-19.
  
  https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/
  
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  April 4, 2020 4:31pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Sensible.
    
    5 1
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    April 4, 2020 4:45pm
    - Harriet
      
      You can still have a beer in Sweden.
      
      2 2
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      April 4, 2020 5:51pm
  - cmm
    
    They have it right.
    
    If you’re doing antigen testing then it is only worth treating those people and perhaps other essential workers who might be exposing themselves to lots of other people.
    
    It is not worth doing wide testing with antigens because it only shows currently sick people and therefore does not give a population picture etc.
    
    If a person is not being hospitalised then they just treat symptoms. Whether it is Covid or flu makes little difference.
    
    If we were doing antibody testing then that would be a different matter because antibody testing provides good stats about herd immunity, susceptibility etc.
    
    The Swedes might have totally bollocked their handling of invaders from Middle East, but I think they got this one right.
    
    6 1
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    April 4, 2020 5:20pm
Maggie Pie

Anyone else’s car getting one week to a liter at the moment?
10 2
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April 4, 2020 4:00pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  Make sure you start it once a week, or you may not be able to.
  
  4 1
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  April 4, 2020 5:25pm
MCos

Thailand has brought in a 10pm to 4am curfew that may be extended to 24hrs if needed.
They have also closed the airports to incoming flights so that just about nobody can enter the country, even Thai nationals, for the next couple of weeks.
I’m not sure what happens if a Thai gets refused entry by immigration at Auckland, if they make it that far?
4 0
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April 4, 2020 4:22pm
Andrei

And in other news Raelene Castle has got the sack
5 1
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April 4, 2020 4:24pm
lifesgood

So all those starving school children who had to have tax payer funded free lunches, have they died yet?
11 1
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April 4, 2020 4:45pm
surfing

It is getting more likely that we’re going to be required to wear masks in public.

Small problem – -you cannot buy masks.
9 1
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April 4, 2020 5:03pm
RW Capitalist

Under covid 19. I am reminded of Downton Abbey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhfpBW-nUWk
What’s a weekend?
2 1
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April 4, 2020 5:23pm
cmm

Greta’s friend Prince Charles really cares about Global Warming and emissions.

He cares so much that when he’s visiting mum up in Balmoral Castle, he still insists that he eats food raised at his Highgrave organic farm near London, fresh mind you!

That all needs to be transported approx 900km for him.
13 2
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April 4, 2020 5:27pm
- Stu2
  
  We’ve got rid of two of them
  
  3 1
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  April 4, 2020 5:33pm
- dave_c_
  
  No doubt scanned and approved as being Corona virus free, all at the tax payers expense.
  
  4 1
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  April 4, 2020 6:36pm
- krazykiwi
  
  His father once opined that if he were to be reincarnated, he’d like to come back as a virus so as to decimate the world’s population. Charlie, the cloth-eared git takes after his father.
  
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  April 4, 2020 7:45pm
MrTips

Public service announcement: don’t forget to put clocks back tonight. Daylight saving ends.
4 0
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April 4, 2020 7:00pm
cmm

There’s a whole new list of what is and what is not permitted.

Anything involving water is out.

But mountain biking is not mentioned. Looks like they’ve retrospectively sorted out Dr Clunk’s problem.
8 1
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April 4, 2020 7:26pm
cmm

Ok, HTF can they determine next week whether or not to extend lockdown.

The data is still emerging. It would be far better to delay until at least the week after that (ie. 13th).

If they say it won’t be extended, then change their minds they’re going to lose compliance even more.
5 1
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April 4, 2020 7:29pm

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