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August 30, 2021 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 30 August 2021

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General Debate

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krazykiwi

Across the globe there are daily stories outlining how the vaccinated and unvaccinated are being segregated, with the latter being singled out for treatment that ranges from light mocking through to comprehensive exclusion from employment and/or civic life.

We have pilots being told to get vaccinated or they will be fired. This week NSW teachers have been told No Jab, No Job. The self-styled Lord Emperor Macron of France is busy locking unvaccinated citizens out of civic life, cafes, libraries and from public sector employment. The UK government has enlisted the support of industry to offer petty bribes for ‘the young’ to get vaccinated. Not to outdone, universities are also clamoring for some of the incentivisation action.

And so on.

While bribes and threats abound, the most troubling aspect of this is the casting aside of long-established protocols which were designed to protect individuals from becoming unwitting participants in medical experimentation.

Here are several key documents on this topic. There are plenty more, as nations have embedded element of these and other documents into their sovereign health & ethics guidelines.

The Nuremberg Code. This was published in 1947, and codifies the rights of individuals to be required to provide informed consent before taking any medication, or becoming part of any medical trial. Here is the code (emphasis mine):

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

There are 5 more provisions which you can read in this 1997 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. It provides a good background, and the content is every bit as relevant today as it was the day it was written. The paper notes: –

[The Nuremberg Code’s] basic requirement of informed consent, for example, has been universally accepted and is articulated in international law in Article 7 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)

New Zealand has signed and ratified this covenant, and every medical practitioner – yes, including Dr Bloomfield – will have had these informed consent expectations drilled into them from their first day at medical school.

Another related report is The Belmont Report of 1979. This was a direct result of Tuskegee syphilis trial in which black men were not told of their syphilis disease and thereafter monitored without consent, often until their death.

Where both the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report focus on the right of the subject of medical research, the The Declaration of Helsinki focuses on the responsibility of medical practitioners, specifically: –

3. The Declaration of Geneva of the WMA binds the physician with the words, “The health of my patient will be my first consideration” and the International Code of Medical Ethics declares that, “A physician shall act in the patient’s best interest when providing medical care.”

4. It is the duty of the physician to promote and safeguard the health, well-being and rights of patients, including those who are involved in medical research. The physician’s knowledge and conscience are dedicated to the fulfilment of this duty.

As I mentioned above, there is some concern that the long-established protections of these codes are being hastily discarded under the pretext of there being some kind of emergency. My contention is that hundreds of millions of people have been frightened, cajoled, bribed or otherwise forced into becoming part of the worlds largest medical (and social) experiment.

I am interested to hear stories from the KB community in respect of: –

(a) Any workplace coercion or incentivisation in respect of getting vaccinated (beyond simply making time available, and/or providing post-vaccination rest leave); and,

(b) The quantity or verbal or written information given prior to getting vaccinated, thereby allowing you to give informed consent. For example, did the vaccination site/person describe possible side effects (beyond sore arm, tiredness)? Did they set out the attenuation of your protection being in the order of 6-12 months? Did they explain that having the vaccination would not stop you getting or transmitting Covid-19? Did they explain options for disease treatment alongside or instead of vaccination?
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August 30, 2021 8:00am
- PhilBest
  
  I put it simply like this. ANYONE, when the way mRNA works is explained to them, and the fact that this got a 2-month trial and there has been hit-and-miss collection of adverse effects ever since (no pro-active, transparent independent oversight body), is entitled according to their own intutions, knowledge of human nature (hubris!), and knowledge of history, to refuse to bow to the edicts of what are essentially lab-coats saying they are God. This is NOT a question of people with a LOT of medical science knowledge versus people with less knowledge, it is a question of one group of people’s human nature against another group of people’s human nature. In any case, as with CAGW, the science is NOT “settled” in favour of the God-playing lab-coats AT ALL, and the censorship is another give-away to the nature of this movement – knowledge of human history will enable anyone to pick up on this.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:08am
  - RoboRob
    
    It got more than a 2mth trial.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:58am
    - PhilBest
      
      How long do you say it was and how does it materially affect my argument?
      
      BTW pregnancies are around 9 months, so how can anyone say with a straight face that something can be safe for expectant mums given the time we’ve had to work it out?
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:26am
      - RoboRob
        
        You stated it had two months of testing, as if that was a fact. I was pointing out that it did NOT have two months of testing, it had significantly more. I am not arguing with people against taking the vaccine, I was clarifying your statement for those on the fence and less informed.
        
        ‘The Phase 3 clinical trial of BNT162b2 began on July 27 and has enrolled 43,661 participants to date, 41,135 of whom have received a second dose of the vaccine candidate as of November 13, 2020’
        
        https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine
        
        It also underwent phase 1 and two tests as well. All up it had around 7mths in trials. RNA techniques have been in lab tests for years (5-10) prior to this.
        
        ‘How long do you say it was and how does it materially affect my argument?’ . I am not addressing your argument. Just correcting your (deliberate?) inaccuracy. The length of trials does not seem to matter for most against this vaccine. I have seen arguments here ranging from 5 to 50 years being an absolute minimum required before those against would consider it.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:49pm
      - kevn
        
        @Phil… Depends if it is the jab or just saline…
        
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        August 30, 2021 4:03pm
    - dcrane
      
      Phase 3 was finished in about 4 months. Normally takes several times that length to get to that point.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:51am
      - RoboRob
        
        100% correct. Pfizer states normally 1-4 years for Phase 3. https://www.pfizer.com/science/clinical-trials/guide-to-clinical-trials/phases
        
        The time critical nature comes into it. I have also read it argued that the major time component with Phase 3 is enrolling a significant number of patients of the right type. In this case they had more than 40,000 people begging to be part of the trial. That certainly helped move it forward. Also the government processing paper work with speed helps to (think building consents).
        
        A standard house can take a year to build but if the builder and government agencies have a vested interest in it happening, they can do it much faster (3-4 weeks).
        
        Obviously long tern longitudinal studies are different and not complete.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:59pm
    - RoboRob
      
      I get that some people here are against the vaccine. But my post is just stating a fact (to correct a mis statement above), which most of those against the vaccine claim as important. Not sure why the downvotes.
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:51pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  You raise too many issues to reply to in the time I have. But a few points.
  
  You will need a vaccine to travel internationally. That is a debate that was over months ago.
  
  https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/safe-covid-19-vaccines-europeans/eu-digital-covid-certificate_en
  
  But nobody is being compelled to be vaccinated. There will be a small number of occupations where it will be a condition of employment. But these are not surprising. The defence forces, airlines and nurses etc. Do you really think Air New Zealand is going to allow unvaccinated flight attendants? That is not happening because it would threaten the viability of the airline.
  
  The government won’t need to go anything. The market will decide if people value going to events or venues that only allow vaccinated people attend. For example a restaurant could promote itself as being a vaccinated only venue. That is a business decision.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:15am
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    I would have thought the crazy government over reactions to this virus killed the airlines 18 months ago, and nothing has changed, the more people vaccinate, the more money gets pumped into keeping airlines afloat.
    One aim seems very apparent, it will be made almost impossible for the plebs to fly, the rich will have a free pass, but that is where it ends.
    You are looking at the excellent analogy from one point of view, Restaurants will be able to ban vaccinated, it is happening now.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:22am
    - Greg Ettridge
      
      Isn’t it amazing, twitter states
      “Show additional replies, including those that may contain offensive content”
      Offensive material
      In rest of the world people are protesting against vaccine mandates and lockdowns.
      Example:
      Protest in Paris
      Twitter obviously has a very different view of offensive to me, thousands of French fighting for their freedoms seems very unoffensive to me.
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:31am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        It appears the big-tech definition of “offensive”, “hurtful”, “hateful” etc is anything not agreeing with the far left set of narratives.
        
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        August 30, 2021 5:25pm
  - Cinematic
    
    Relax and wait and see. Humans have an uncanny knack for moving on from an issue very quickly. If by the time NZ’s border opens fully in 2024/25 it’s still a requirement of travel I’ll consider then.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:24am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Are mind-blinded wannabe Marxist bullies to be preferred?
      
      “First do no harm” is not a bad medical viewpoint.
      How do we get any truthful statements about the current C-19, its origins, risks and avoidance?
      The providers and caretakers seem participants in its promotion.
      Cui bono?
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:31am
      - Sacha
        
        You won’t get any dispassionate information from a New Zealand source.
        There is a huge amount information on the internet – the easiest source is probably YouTube. Some comes from unlikely sources, but when you get several of them all saying the same thing, you can begin to join the dots . . . . . . .
        There are esoteric discussions between lucid researchers/clinicians with decades of experience in treating virus conditions.
        There are people who have experience in treating large numbers of the current covid virus and who deserve to be listened to but you have to be open-minded.
        One, that came via Facebook yesterday is worth watching if you are feeling doubtful and it has a New Zealand content:
        https://odysee.com/@voicesforfreedom:6/Dr-Peter-McCullough:b
        I had never heard of voicesforfreedom – but they seem genuinely interested in the NZ situation.
        also:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUE5EBPt-lU. Dr Brian Cole
        and:
        https://jrelibrary.com/1671-bret-weinstein-dr-pierre-kory/
        
        That’s enough for today !
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:20am
    - marcw
      
      Do make sure you leave at least 2 months (preferably) from when you start your vaccine course until you are traveling. Six weeks between doses, then 2 weeks for immunity to be developed is a suggested timetable.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:22am
      - rouppe
        
        What about when 3 doses are required? Israel is doing this now?
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:31pm
      - marcw
        
        When and if this is made a requirement for the vaccination passport rouppe, then I would expect you to simply take the extra time required into account.
        
        Also, the 2 months is for making plans for holidays and such. You need to include in your risk plan such things as family emergencies, funerals, and urgent business travel. These may not have the luxury of a two month delay.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:59pm
      - Cinematic
        
        Yep I don’t tend to travel without a bit of planning.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:32pm
  - Nukuleka
    
    Well-expressed comments as always, Benedict. Wayne Mapp was correct yesterday when he remarked that Kiwiblog is gaining a reputation for being a haven for – my words not his- rabid, single- minded and very boring anti vaxxers. They’ve expressed their views and we’ve been round the houses enough. Give it a rest. And please don’t come back at me and say you’re not opposed to vaccines but only the Covid ones. We’ve been there, done that.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:27am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Yeah well I don’t agree with Wayne Mapp on most things.
      
      I try to express my views as well as I can and I don’t resort to personal abuse.
      
      People have a right to refuse the vaccine. This thing is going to play out over the next decade. Hopefully in a few years it will be clear the vaccines are safe and effective (especially if we get second generation ones). But people will make their own decisions. I have made mine but I don’t push it down the throats of others. In my circle of friends and colleagues I am unaware of any who have openly declined the vaccine. But that may be due to them all being desperate to travel as soon as possible to visit family.
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:50am
      - Greg Ettridge
        
        I don’t see any point in vaccinating at this point in time, it won’t give me freedom to travel within Australia, a milestone this week was to give fully vaccinated a picnic for 5 for one hour.
        What a joke this is.
        I cannot see my children and Grandchildren in other states, vaccinated or unvaccinated, in fact it will be easier for me to fly to Europe than gain access to my family in other states.
        The sad truth is Australia is completely broken and will take maybe a decade to repair, I am 70 years old, I don’t have the time to sit around wondering like the last 18 months.
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:05am
      - krazykiwi
        
        I don’t resort to personal abuse
        
        Indeed, but you did suggest that the unvaccinated should be left to die, Benedict.
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:35am
    - PhilBest
      
      You people show yourselves up with your dishonest labels and framing of issues.
      
      Someone hesitant about mRNA that had 2 months of trials, and has had no independent, pro-active, transparent collation of adverse effects data, is no more an “anti vaxxer” – science dating back to Louis Pasteur and an average trial period of 7 years – than a climate science skeptic is equivalent to a Holocaust Denier. This labelling of people is a give-away of evil in itself. And Wayne Mapp is the epitome of Vichy Tory-In-Name-Only-Ism.
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:06am
      - Loddenthinks
        
        Couldn’t agree more Phil. I’m not anti-vaxx, I’m not even vaccine-shy, but I won’t be getting this vaccine any time soon.
        
        I’ve had people lecture me about the Fijian measles outbreak which is a complete non-sequitur, I’ve had appeals to do it, if not for myself, for everyone else – implying I’m a selfish social outcast that wants to kill grannies, and so on.
        
        IF I accept a vaccine, it will be my choice and mine alone. The situation where you have to have one for work will never apply to me, thank goodness, and if I can no longer travel internationally (right now I have zero desire to do so) then I’ll happily spend my retirement travelling throughout our beautiful country in my motor home, giving zero f*cks about overseas travel. I’ve seen far more of the world than most, and can genuinely say I’ve never found anywhere better than where I live now.
        
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        August 30, 2021 3:38pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      Nukuleka, no one is demanding you stick around. I hope you do as I’ve enjoyed your commentary in the past.
      
      And as for: –
      
      And please don’t come back at me and say you’re not opposed to vaccines but only the Covid ones
      
      I will come back to it, because it’s an important point. My conversation with surfing and virtualmark yesterday focused on the ‘anti-vaxx’ smear being a cowardly ad hominem attack, one increasingly levelled against me. I assert that I am pro-vaccines which have completed full-term clinical trials and have longitudinal efficacy and safety data. As evidence of this pro-vaccine stance I have been vaccinated for a great many illnesses, probably more than most NZers.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:34am
      - PhilBest
        
        “…and have longitudinal efficacy and safety data…”
        
        And that is a core point. That is what drove Dr Robert Malone to go public after months pleading with all his connections on the inside. When you haven’t spent the usual YEARS collecting longitudinal data in the form of trials, you MUST set up an independent data collection agency that assembles that data at least as efficiently as it would be assembled in a years-long trial.
        
        Instead, what we have is under-resourced general-purpose reporting agencies that are passive, opaque, and slow-tracked. Doctors weigh up whether the time sacrifice is even worth it – that is the doctors who don’t just default to “mustn’t report because those anti vaxxers musn’t get ammunition”. Then you get doctors unilaterally deciding deaths are “coincidental” and there is no pro-active data collation to enable us to statistically examine this assumption.
        
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        August 30, 2021 10:32am
      - The Housekeeper
        
        More than that, the people who don’t wish to be vaccinated would be a marvelous control group. There seems to be about a 1m of us in NZ who don’t want it or can’t be bothered. My reason is simply caution till we have more results and I would have no problem joining a trial of the unjabbed, in the interests of proper data. Even if only 50,000 of us signed up, that would be massive. We could be tracked healthwise to see if our outcomes are any worse than others. Those with existing antibodies could tell us how long natural immunity really lasts and how robust it is against new variants. Outcomes for those with similar co-morbidities could be compared. Are jabbed minorities less vulnerable or do housing and religious factors mean they develop herd immunity faster? We could even even agree to trial the Ivermectin protocol if we do get sick and test that for you all too. Vitamins D and C too. In the meantime, we would have as normal life as possible, no masks etc. Nutritious meals, exercise, family, friends and sunshine. Perhaps we could wear an armband so anyone fearful could simply avoid us or ban us from their spaces. The alternative being everyone scared stays home and everyone else goes on as normal.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:12pm
    - Gravelroad
      
      @ Nukuleka-
      Ok – Monday challenge:
      How many on here have had at least one Covid 19 vaccination?
      Uptick this post if you have (no names)
      Downtick if you havn’t (no names).
      
      Down ticking doesn’t necessarily mean you are anti – just that you havn’t done it.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:53am
    - NoFax
      
      Nukuleka. I have already taken the vaccine and based on my understanding I think it is the right thing to do and have yet to see any reason not to.
      
      However, I also think everyone has the right to decide for him or herself. There should be no vaccine passports for internal movement in our country and I think the requirement to be vaccinated to keep one’s job has have a really really good reason – not just you might interact with people i.e. what everyone does on a daily basis.
      
      Further, I am concerned that we have spent little time on treatment options and put all our faith in these vaccines. These vaccines also don’t work as well as I thought a vaccine will work. I don’t expect to get measles since I had the MMR vaccine. But I know I will get Covid – hopefully, not as sick as I would have without a vaccine. However, given my age and health the likelihood of me dying from Covid is so low I am not really worried about it.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:13am
      - alloytoo
        
        I fail to see what purpose vaccine passports have from a health perspective.
        
        Vaccinated persons can still catch and spread the virus.
        
        The vaccine itself can certainly help to reduce vulnerability and infection helping the individual and the health system.
        
        but the passports? Without wishing to be melodramatic they seem like a yellow star to me.
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:10am
      - surfing
        
        “hopefully, not as sick as I would have without a vaccine.”
        
        Virtually no fully vaccinated covid patients end up in ICU, so you’re far more likely to get hit by a bus than die from covid.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:15pm
      - Fletch
        
        “Virtually no fully vaccinated covid patients end up in ICU, so you’re far more likely to get hit by a bus than die from covid”
        
        Except that in Israel, where 80% of the country is vaccinated, over 90% of patients have had the jab.
        
        Now an Israeli doctor has revealed a bombshell during a television interview. In the interview on August 5 with Israel’s Chanel 13, Dr Kobi Haviv, medical director of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, stated that the majority of coronavirus patients in an Israeli hospital are fully vaccinated, including those with severe disease.
        
        Dr Haviv further specified that: “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated,” adding “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people” and the hospital is “opening more and more COVID wards.” This has led him to conclude that “the effectiveness of the vaccine is fading out.”
        
        And in the U.S
        
        A Covid-19 outbreak in a Massachusetts county in July primarily occurred among vaccinated people, sparking fears that a variant of the virus can impact that population more than other strains.
        
        Of the 469 cases detected in Barnstable County, 74 per cent occurred among the fully vaccinated, according to a new study published by the CDC on 30 July. It also emerged last month that 49 fully vaccinated people in New Jersey died of coronavirus.
        
        https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/08/most-covid-patients-at-israeli-hospital-fully-vaccinated-what-does-this-mean-for-australia/
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:12pm
    - oldfella
      
      Nukuleka, that sounds a bit like Stuffed and ‘the science is settled’ – which is how they treat climate change opinions which don’t toe their approved party line.
      FWIW, I’ve had both jabs, but I’m mindful that today’s vaccine critics might one day be applauded for keeping an important conversation alive.
      I’d rather people continued to spout opinions with which I didn’t personally agree, than try and shut them down.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:13am
      - Loddenthinks
        
        With age comes wisdom oldfella, well said.
        
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        August 30, 2021 3:42pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    You may have crossed this rubicon, Benedict but I’m hopeful that society will resile from it. After all, if a business is permitted – of even encouraged – to restrict access based on some presumably-endless cycle of vaccination and certificate renewal, then why shouldn’t they be permitted to ban HIV +ve people? Or those with the flu? Or any other “it’s my right” segregation criteria? Some of those were popular in 1930s Germany.
    
    We have the equivalent of a bad flu season here, yet people have been deliberately terrorised by state and media fear-porn to the extent that many, including you it would seem, are willingly forgoing many of their most basic civil liberties. For a bad flu.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:32am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Sorry I nee to work so I will sign off for a few hours, but just some quick pints:
      
      I am beyond principle. I have a grand daughter aged two who I have met twice. I have three children I have seen twice in the last 2.5 years. I will be on the first quarantine flight out with my vaccine passport.
      
      No New Zealand could not ban people who are HIV positive because such people pose no risk to passengers.
      
      And Air New Zealand like all airlines has prohibited people flying with contagious diseases. Of course an airline will “ban” you from flying if you have influenza. And if you had influenza you would be nuts to try it on.
      
      My last point. It is common for laws to be in conflict. The Bill of Rights means you don’t need to be vaccinated. But an employer could impose an employment condition that says you need to be vaccinated citing health and safety law. That will ultimately by decided by the Supreme Court when an affected employee takes the legal fight that far.
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:45am
      - Critical Thinker
        
        “I am beyond principle. I have a grand daughter aged two who I have met twice. I have three children I have seen twice in the last 2.5 years. I will be on the first quarantine flight out with my vaccine passport.”
        
        That’s very understandable Benedict. Most of us would probably have the same stance as you if we were in that type of unenviable scenario ?
        
        I sincerely hope you can visit them again very soon ??
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:21am
      - I remember when
        
        The HIV comment is probably relevant to the discussion on vaccines.
        To date 36+ million people have died from Aids/HIV.
        There was a very vigorous debate about it in the early days and closing the borders was always an option.
        How many deaths might it have been possible to prevent by doing so.
        We did not and now it is seldom, perhaps less than it should be, mentioned as a disease.
        I guess the points are, when do you close the border and is it ever good for debate to be stifled.
        
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        August 30, 2021 10:04am
      - chukar
        
        BY,
        The Bill of Rights is a total crock!
        Its principles can be changed by any Government with a majority vote.
        So it can not be relied on to protect any NZ citizens rights unless the Government gives consent.
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:14am
      - rouppe
        
        I have to say, that from my perspective “Health and Safety” is a spurious and lazy reason that simply drives behaviour to lowest common denominators.
        
        At a previous workplace we weren’t allowed hot drinks in the elevator moving between floors because of “Health and Safety”.
        We had idiotic signs in the stairwells admonishing us to “always use the handrail” because of “Health and Safety”.
        Friday drinks were cancelled because of “health and Safety”.
        Yet when I pointed out that having linoleum flooring in the stairwells would become dangerously slippery when covered in water if the sprinklers triggered during an emergency event, it was not a Health and Safety matter.
        
        Health and Safety in modern times is used as a stupidity rule.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:43pm
  - PhilBest
    
    If someone sets up a business to cater for the unvaccinated, do you think that will be tolerated? Airline flights for the unvaccinated? Could be a significant customer base.
    
    A very interesting forgotten aspect of the Civil Rights movement in the USA, which the great Martin Luther King liked talking about, was that businesses who would deal with blacks happily paid for listings in regularly published directories of such businesses, that blacks could buy and use. MLK liked to say this was a way “capitalism” was color blind and could be of benefit to anyone. He was anti-communist, unlike the race hustlers of today.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:33am
    - westernScientest
      
      I think some, possibly all US airlines are not requiring proof of vaccine. Some dont even require their staff to be vacced, and some like delta, effectively give unvacced staff a pay cut, presumably to recoup some persevered increase in sick day costs.
      I dont see airlines stopping unvacced people, unless governments force them to which here is probably likely.
      
      * edit referring to domestic US travel
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:08am
    - Nickc2
      
      roupee @ 12:43PM
      Sorry, I reported you by mistake.
      On subject. Occupational Health and Safety is a growth industry in NZ. People get paid to write books and regulations for it, some people get paid to go forth and preach these regulations (training), people get paid to attend meetings (local, provincial, industry and international) with accommodation providers, caterers and cleaners getting paid to provide services. In addition, it provides inflated incomes for Judges, Lawyers and Courts staff. People also get paid to design and produce artwork, posters and special purpose lighting and tools etc (another cost).
      If I’ve missed anything out, feel free to add.
      All this roupee just the remove and replace linoleum in a fire stairwell with an approved, tested and stamped product.
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:28pm
  - Critical Thinker
    
    “You will need a vaccine to travel internationally. That is a debate that was over months ago.”
    
    That debate has only just begun. And so has the inevitable push back from the millions of freedom loving people.
    
    What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? ??
    
    From your link:
    
    The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation entered into application on 01 July 2021.
    
    An EU Digital COVID Certificate is a digital proof that a person has either:
    
    – been vaccinated against COVID-19
    – received a negative test result or
    – recovered from COVID-19
    
    The EU Digital COVID Certificate should facilitate free movement inside the EU. It will not be a pre-condition to free movement, which is a fundamental right in the EU.
    
    “It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” -Samuel Adams
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:42am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      “It will not be a pre-condition to free movement”
      
      That means movement WITHIN the EU.
      
      You and I will need to be vaccinated to ENTER the EU.
      
      And it is game over. You think the EU is going to change its law because some unvaccinated people in New Zealand want to travel there? Or Australia?
      
      It is not happening.
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:58am
      - Critical Thinker
        
        An EU Digital COVID Certificate is a digital proof that a person has either:
        
        – been vaccinated against COVID-19
        – received a negative test result or
        – recovered from COVID-19
        ☝️?
        
        Just 1 negative test result or proof of previously having Covid allows anyone to travel around the EU freely ?
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:02am
      - Simon
        
        “You and I will need to be vaccinated to ENTER the EU.”
        
        Lol – this isnt happening. They say there is a requirement but people are travelling in and out the EU without their vaxx papers being checked. Thats green pass & recent tests are not checked.
        
        Its theatre. The EU especially the Med just want to get on with things. Loser Anglo countries like NZ & Aust have shat themselves. Others are just getting on with it.
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:30am
    - Nickc2
      
      The YES/NO debate pertaining to Vaccine Passports was had on KB a couple of days ago and to the NO protagonists of the debate, I ask: “do you think Drivers Licenses are essential to enable eligible persons to drive a motor vehicle on a public road? IMO, the predictable answer is YES. So, why not a Vaccine Passport as a safe rite of entry and travel?
      However, I’m in two minds about what else such a document may contain being it will no doubt be electronic.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:50am
      - dcrane
        
        All such questions are matters of degree. Extreme limitation of liberty is accepted for critical goals, as in wartime. If this vaccine were proven as a tool to eliminate covid (e.g., smallpox), there might be enough gain to get more people to accept it. But the vaccines here do little but reduce the chances of bad outcome for the infected.
        
        The drivers’ license example doesn’t do very well since there is nothing so extreme in that requirement as a mandate for poorly tested and invasive medical procedures – and perhaps every five months in the U.S.!
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:26am
  - Jimbob
    
    Good summary Benedict, just as an aside the technology used in producing RNA vaccines will be used to produce RNAi (interference)to target cancers, nerve disorders like parkinson’s disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, arthritis etc. It is an interference drug that stops proteins produced by the body that causes these diseases.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:09am
  - NoFax
    
    The NZ Defence Force have not ordered men and women to be vaccinated as it would most likely be an unlawful order. However, what I have heard is that there is immense pressure to do so. It will really only be an issue for overseas deployments.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:08am
    - Batman
      
      They get a huge range of vaccines for deployments, including anthrax in some cases which literally leaves a spot of permanently damaged skin.
      
      Covid vaccines are no different and will be optional, along with the end consequence of not going on deployment unless you’ve met the requirements. Same as whether you’ve completed the necessary training and fitness requirements.
      
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      August 30, 2021 2:09pm
    - Adroit
      
      Incorrect. There has been a general order to be vaccinated. A friend of mine was removed from command as a result of his refusal of the vaccine.
      
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      August 30, 2021 5:21pm
  - dcrane
    
    My university (in the USA) has imposed the vaccine as a condition of employment. My term is set to expire in a few months, which has made it easier for me to tell them I will not comply.
    
    They claim it is about “safety” of the university community. But there is no exception for people who already have superior immunity through earlier infection. There is no exception for people who work entirely remotely.
    
    A staff member can comply by providing evidence of negative tests every week, but there is no requirement for testing the vaxxed even though we now know they also catch and spread the virus. The vaxxed could be a greater concern in this respect, since they may be more likely to come to work infected.
    
    They are even making the students get vaccinated, despite their much lower risk.
    
    There is a trans-institutional complicance craze spreading. It must be about control rather than safety.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:57am
  - Ed Snack
    
    And those who have had the disease ? Latest research is pretty clear, natural immunity is enormously superior to vaccine mediated immunity. For them, to also get the vaccine is nothing but additional risk.
    
    Also, loss of job and ability to be employed is coercion and *should* be illegal. That is, it is contra to the Nuremberg code NZ has signed.
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:27am
    - Batman
      
      Re your first point: https://www.immunology.org/coronavirus/connect-coronavirus-public-engagement-resources/covid-immunity-natural-infection-vaccine
      
      To your second: the Nuremberg code applies to medical experimentation of the likes of Mengele. Citing it for approved vaccines is a misunderstanding of how the code actually works and what it covers.
      
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      August 30, 2021 2:14pm
- Matt Long
  
  There has already been the suggestion on this blog that the unvaccinated should pay for medical care as well as no jab no job reports. Both of these ideas are in contravention of basic human rights, especially given that vaccinated people who contract the virus are reported as being more infectious than unvaccinated.
  Only an idiot, vaccinated or unvaccinated, would not be taking D3, Zinc, and Vitamin C routinely, and Ivomectin which may or may not be particularly effective is millions of times safer than the current COVID-19 vaccines when taken under proper supervision.
  Should those who have taken the vaccine and refused to take immune enhancers be forced to pay for medical treatment for vaccine reactions both immediate and long term, and for Covid infections they receive while vaccinated?
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:23am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Indeed. It was suggested to me that if infected, I should be left to die because I wasn’t planning on taking the Pfizer therapy.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:34am
    - The Housekeeper
      
      I would be happy to comply with the uglies KK, stay out of hospital at all costs. I know 2 very senior NZ nurses who have taken leave and won’t be returning because of the cock-ups going on in their wards. Seriously, from what they tell me, if Melanie Reid turned up at our wine o’clock she’d be calling a news crew.
      
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      August 30, 2021 12:45pm
  - PhilBest
    
    That is exactly what I say to some people I know who have been tipped into a state of hysteria by the media’s terrorism, wanted lockdowns forever, and couldn’t wait for a “vaccine”: I say, are you taking vitamin D, C, and zinc? Every single such person looks at me blankly. Morons!
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:35am
  - RoboRob
    
    Should we apply that concept to smokers, obese, unhealthy eaters, those that don’t to the ‘right’ amount of exercise, people how spend to much time in the sun, not enough time in the sun etc
    
    The ‘professionals’ who suggest not treating unvaccinated people should be sacked.
    
    Pro vaccine, pro choice.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:02am
    - Flossie
      
      Add to that drivers who crash while speeding or otherwise breaking laws.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:20am
    - PhilBest
      
      Pro vaccine pro choice also describes Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, but you would never know that from the media slanders of him. He’s had the double jab himself, but you would never know that.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:35am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Also those who undertake risky ventures, those who chose to take a risk that might injure them. For example mountain bikers, skiers, horse riders, surfers, mountaineers, etc, etc, and etc.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:29am
    - miltonF
      
      And sports injuries. Apparently someone who becomes paralysed from contact sports should be left to die because it was their choice to play rugby…
      
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      August 30, 2021 2:40pm
  - westernScientest
    
    I wouldnt say it is a violation of human rights. Health care is not a human right. A human right can not require the action of another human, as that breaches that other humans human rights.
    
    I would even be all for it, if I could stop paying the taxes to pay for fatties to get their free hips and diabetes treatments. NZ public health care is a joke, get rid it, lower the taxes and let people buy health insurance and set up private hospitals with much less regulation.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:14am
    - Sacha
      
      @Western Scientist:
      Health care is not a human right. ?
      But it forms such a significant part of our ‘civilised’ society that denying it would cause uproar, to say the least.
      What do you expect of your doctor? How would you react if he said, No, I don’t care for people who smoke/have diabetes/are mad. Or have multiple trauma from an accident?
      Would you be content to live with your irritated appendix or gall bladder, so that when it ruptured it would give you continuous abdominal pain/infection (no antibiotics though!) and probable lingering death.
      It is easy to make statements like that, but you need to think it through.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:48am
      - westernScientest
        
        What gives you as an individual the ‘right’ to force another person to do something, because you want them to? This is what that amounts to.
        
        There is a big difference between something which is a human right, and what one expects within a civilised society. We pay taxes to fund a public healthcare system, under that system all people should have access to medical care, I agree, which is why I disagree with the call to refuse treatment to those who refuse the covid vaccine, but that does not make it a human right. It makes it a something which is afforded to us by government. Human rights come from nature, not the government.
        
        Human rights can not be removed by a government, only suppressed, such as the right to freedom of expression. A human right derived from the state of nature can not require the action of another person in order for it to be expressed, as that would require the infringement of the individuals right to bodily autonomy. You are free to express yourself, but no one is of any obligation to notice, to force them to would be a violation of their rights.
        
        In the state of nature where human rights are derived, one has full autonomy over their own body and may do with it as they please, this can not be extended to others bodies as it would violate the right to bodily autonomy in those other individuals.
        
        We willingly accept a level suppression of some of these human rights by governments under certain conditions, such as trial by out pairs, in exchange for them to protect us from others infringing on them. The government is the ‘biggest bully’ because individuals are extremely poor arbitrators of their own disputes, this is why we have a justice system, primarily to safe guard individuals human rights from others.
        
        The point is fundamental human rights are extremely important as they are what differentiate a free society from tyranny. By including things which are afforded to us by government in with human rights as derived from the state of nature we significantly devalue the importance of them.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:21pm
      - westernScientest
        
        Further whats even more frustrating about these types of arguments is they can be applied to call anything a human right.
        
        Housing, better force a bunch of builders to build houses, oh no we need timber, better use the state to steel some trees from an individual, then force some mill workers to turn the trees into timber.
        
        It also follows that Nurses and Doctors should not be aloud to strike, they should be forced by the state to work, because they must to uphold human rights. Further, there is no need to pay them to start with, it is a human right to receive medical treatment after all, better force them to. Oh they need food, better force a farmer to grow it and then provide it to the medical staff, and everyone else.
        
        If human rights are derived from the state, then the state can force anyone to do anything. There is no boundary.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:35pm
  - barnacle bill
    
    re Matt
    
    It seems that deniers learn the hard way.
    
    https://news.yahoo.com/police-captain-refused-vaccine-took-152556970.html
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:47am
    - Sacha
      
      Ignorance and disinformation: The human formulation of ivermectin has been safely used for decades and studies are emerging that show it can be effective in reducing susceptibility to the virus.
      
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      August 30, 2021 12:00pm
      - barnacle bill
        
        @Sacha
        
        Go for it..
        It is your choice.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:57pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        BB you are clearly a science denier. 60 positive trials to date involving 10’s of thousands of patients and hundreds of researchers all over the world who put their professional reputations and careers on the line if they lie. The very definition of the scientific method in play with widespread replication. Vs FUD from bodies in control of Big Pharma pushing lucrative vaccines. Are you some sort of nut implying a conspiracy in these scientific peer reviewed results and to stupid to see the malignant profit/institutional gatekeeping influences at play (after the very open demonstration of such influence in covering for wuhan virology lab this last year)?
        
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        August 30, 2021 2:58pm
      - barnacle bill
        
        In reply to Urban Neo.
        No way am I am a science denier, far from it actually.
        
        But for every science report in favour of Invermectin, there is another saying the stuff is dangerous for humans to take.
        
        But that is for you to choose, your choice.
        
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        August 30, 2021 4:44pm
  - Batman
    
    Oh so now you are against personal responsibility and cost? When it suits you.
    
    You either embrace public health systems or you adopt the US approach where the Bill for a snake bite is $152,000 as I happened to see a bill for online over the weekend.
    
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    August 30, 2021 2:16pm
    - Loddenthinks
      
      You’re a bit slow on the uptake Batty, that happened more than 6 years ago!
      
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      August 30, 2021 4:49pm
  - Mrs_Right
    
    If some suggest that unvaccinated people should pay for their medical care would they also agree that those who are vaccinated but obese/smokers/diabetic (caused by bad diet) should also do the same?
    
    There are a lot of pro COVID vaccine warriors out there who seem to miss the obvious. They are more likely to get COVID and have complications from it if they have the above conditions than a non vaccinated healthy person.
    
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    August 30, 2021 2:21pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Thanks. I will print that for my employer to read.
  Also, remember the words of Candace Owens, do not be pressured by your employer or others to get the vax. Do not quit, wait to be dismissed, then talk to your lawyer. That will be enough to wake up rabid leftie employers.
  There is of course the possible need to travel and the vax required then.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:25am
- septic skeptic
  
  Gosh, it sounds like everyone will need to complete a PHD thesis before becoming eligible for the vaccine. I guess the same applies to treatments as well.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:29am
- SilverSurfer
  
  Food for thoughts KK!
  Really? there are 2 people out there that are down ticking the Nuremberg Code!
  
  I think these people must be spending their Monday hitching rail cars together getting ready to load the unwashed on for their trip to reeducation camps for medical experimentation or the gas chamber…
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:41am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    The down tickers prob have a problem spelling ‘Nuremberg’ and too thick to research it
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:24am
    - Biscuit
      
      In the downtickers’ defence, Steve, even the Germans have problems with ‘Nuremberg’.
      
      They prefer to spell it Nürnberg!
      
      Not my face, not my pretty face!
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:39am
- Master Mariner
  
  Morning KK,
  As for me I have No choice in the matter. It would be nearly impossible to Transit as a Seafarer and getting harder to do so without proof.
  Out of Interest , Trying to get an “official” letter to say what vaccination I have had in regards to Vaccines etc has been a struggle to say the least.
  
  I finally got a “letter” from MOH which highlights my Health number but has No reference to your Passport and/or Seamans discharge book, Whats the point ?
  
  A little bit of carboard hand written does not “cut the mustard” for proof of vaccine.
  
  I did however get the Nurse to fill out my WHO Yellow fever book as “back up”.
  https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/pages/MSVaccinationPushMay201.aspx
  and
  https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/pages/SG-Vaccination-Statement-May21.aspx
  
  On another note,
  I’m only recognised as a “Key worker” once I leave the country with NZ not “officially” recognising that they do even though ratifying protocols.
  see below,
  https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/44-seafarers-UNGA-resolution.aspx
  So plenty of “hoops and hurdles” KK.
  Looks like next tour is either India or Myanmar. Still waiting for final details and “visas” applied in both at great cost to ship owner.
  How I get back to NZ is anyones guess, But “Inshallah” commonsense will return to NZ authorities.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:43am
  - Taieri
    
    On another note,
    I’m only recognised as a “Key worker” once I leave the country with NZ not “officially” recognising that they do even though ratifying protocols.
    —————-
    
    Australia (at least some states) recognizes seafarers as “essential workers”. I have a letter saying testifying it.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:14am
    - Master Mariner
      
      Yes correct. They follow protocols and realise Seafarers are “key workers” this country does not even though being at the arse end of the world and 3 ships on the coat of arms.
      
      This Government does not hence complaints with the Ombudsman and HRC.
      A national disgrace.
      Remember a “essential” worker is different in designation to “Key worker” as outlined by the UN IMO.
      How the hell did we gets BA in Arts etc as ministers?
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:43am
- RiP NZ
  
  “If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivised, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished and criminalised…
  
  If all this is considered necessary to gain your compliance – you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest
  
  -Ian Watson
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:47am
  - PhilBest
    
    “People who can be made to believe in absurdities can also be made to commit atrocities”
    – Voltaire
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:37am
    - Don Beckett
      
      ” In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – (can’t remember author) 🙂
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:15am
      - Deadly pony
        
        Orwell
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:31pm
- surfing
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  You’re free not to take the vaccine, but there are consequences to that. Just like other vaccines from time to time .
  
  You sound like a typical socialist too, wanting everything handed on a plate to you. You don’t work for OSH by any chance?
  
  If there were a male equivalant for “Karen”, you’d be it.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:51am
  - RiP NZ
    
    …someone who goes straight to ad-hom when you cant string together any meaningful contribution.
    
    Bet if feels good – you showed em surfing.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:14am
  - westernScientest
    
    The solution to his, and your issue is simple, get rid of public health care. We are forced to pay for all sorts of things that are brought on by peoples own choices, fatties, smokers, drugies, along with people not taking well proven vaccines, measles, hep-b etc. If I am forced to pay for them, why draw the line at someone who didn’t get a covid vac? I am happy to not pay for the un-covid-vacced peoples healthcare, if I dont have to pay for every one elses.
    
    By the way I have no real worries of getting the vacs, at this stage it appears to be safeish, and moderately effective for a a few months, and will get it or a 2nd gen one when I am and they are eligible and available and have a reason to. I would even pay the bill myself for one of the 2nd gen ones rather than the pfizer, if the government would let me. If I going to get pfizer, I want to time it so that it actually works during a time period when I am likely to contract covid, or because I want to travel some where.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:31am
- Albert_Ross
  
  You have the right not to be vaccinated.
  
  You do not have the right to work with the employer of your choosing, in the capacity of your choosing. You do not have the right of entry onto other people’s premises.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:56am
  - westernScientest
    
    True, but if you want to take a hard line libertarian or an-cap stance, then take it. No public health care, no social welfare, no pension, no roads, no minimum wage….
    
    Ans most importantly, no ability for government to impose restrictions on what businesses can open, who can work, where people can go, what they have to ware….
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:37am
    - Joe Kerr
      
      I think many would take a true libertarian pay as you go system, it’s the massive class of people that get free housing and endless free money for doing nothing are the ones that will you will be fighting against this change.
      
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      August 30, 2021 12:40pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    Ah, it’s personal choice. These are my premises. Let the private sector decide. Got it. So if I forbade Jews from eating at me restaurant, that would be consistent with your thinking?
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:39am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      No if you banned Jews you would be acting unlawfully.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:23am
      - westernScientest
        
        What about banning people who have not been vaccinated for measles, and requiring proof they have been for them to enter?
        
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        August 30, 2021 10:27am
      - Ed Snack
        
        Measles is a lot more infectious than Covid too, and more dangerous for children. Think of the children !
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:32am
    - Vory v zakone
      
      Coming to a place near you soon.
      We walked in to a restaurant to have dinner last night….
      Hello.
      Hi, table for two, please.
      Sure, and your name.
      Summer.
      Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?
      We do….Can you tell us who our server will be?
      Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight.
      Great. Can you show us Brad’s vaccination card?
      Um…
      And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases?
      Um…
      Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad’s most recent tox screen, that would be great. Matter of fact, I’m going to need to see ALL of your employees medical history.
      
      Um… Let me get the manager for you.
      That would be great, thanks.
      
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      August 31, 2021 12:39am
Happychappy

So Jacinda Ardern our Prime Minister and Ashley Bloomfield our Health Director want you to believe they are on top of this latest outbreak of the Delta version of Covid – 19 while her main advisors like Shaun Hendy have panicked and have started calling for tougher rules in lockdown to combat this pandemic.
First you have Jacind
a and Ashley saying the numbers have plateaued and then the Covid profile Hendy suggesting we might have to close Supermarkets to stop the virus with more stricter rules in lockdown.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126218178/covid19-government-told-to-up-its-game-after-one-of-the-worst-pandemic-days
Has the Government failed in their quest to eradicate Covid-19 or are they losing there nerve and have we come to the point where the sheeple will actually realize that there is no plan ‘B’ and you are about to see the pandemic take control.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/coronavirus-live-updates-latest-on-covid-19-community-outbreak-monday-august-30.html
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August 30, 2021 8:00am
- Frank the tank
  
  Remember none of these so called experts have had any prior experience managing a pandemic as the last pandemic we had was before they were born. Remember that, people are making up best practice as they go along
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:32am
  - artemisia
    
    There was an epidemic plan carefully tucked away in a bottom drawer though.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:17am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    We have had pandemics in recent history..
    2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic “swine Flu”
    19 NZers died and there were over 3000 reported cases.
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_New_Zealand
    
    Between 1994-2008, NZ averaged 500 deaths/year from influenza
    https://www.otago.ac.nz/otagomagazine/issue45/inbrief/otago664450.html
    
    Our mortality rate from influenza and Pneumonia has dropped considerably since the 1980s.
    
    https://figure.nz/chart/i01a0sx5LV45oZuV-DK2aPEYpSMMUocAk
    
    (Sort of makes you wonder how we coped in those days with folks dropping like flies)
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:46am
  - Sacha
    
    More importantly, none of these experts have any knowledge about the way viruses work at the cellular level. And they seemingly can’t find anyone to help them out.
    Anyone can count the number of people who feel off with a temperature, runny nose, and the sneezes –
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:08pm
- PhilBest
  
  The officials were warned that Crowne Plaza ground floor was an aerosol risk as a result of MIQ on the floors above. The officials have been dismissing aerosol risk all along, in spite of even the WHO finally backing down in April 2021 on the issue.
  
  The fraudulent “contact, droplets and surfaces” hypothesis is needed to justify tyranny. So they are quite happy for one aerosol-vectored outbreak after another to evade their mandated protection measures, so as to justify more and more tyranny – because “people are disobeying our mandates” – the very mandates that don’t actually work.
  
  One of the doctors who warned the officials about Crowne Plaza is calling the officials “killers”; the MSM knows all this and they are up to their own eyeballs in complicity.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:40am
  - PhilBest
    
    Aerosols will wipe out a high proportion of rest home occupants even as the staff engage in fanatical sanitizing, PPE use, and deep cleaning. In fact keeping the oldies locked inside will speed up the process.
    
    Then we will be told this is the fault of people not being submissive enough to the mandates that are useless against aerosols.
    
    Even the latest Plan B says “get the rest home residents outdoors as much as possible”.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:44am
- Paulus
  
  Are there more Vaccines available after September 2nd ?
  – understand problem is that if too many people want the jab, but with no Vaccines available until October.
  We are being mushroomed.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:45am
- Spoff
  
  Ashley Bloomfield has had an interesting career.
  2010 – 2011, WHO.
  2012 – 2015, Capital & Coast District, Hutt Valley, and Wairarapa Health Boards.
  2015 – 2018, chief executive at Hutt Valley District Health Board.
  2018, Capital & Coast District Health Board.
  His speciality was Diabetes management.
  In the decade 2009-2019, Diabetes went from 176,389 to 263,938.
  Well done sir.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:35pm
  - Adroit
    
    That a bit rough – in the decade more fat bastards became fat, and the fat bastards that were already fat got diabetes. Much larger than old Bloomers, that’s for sure.
    
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    August 30, 2021 5:25pm
NZisleadbyaCommunist

Just thought I’d rasise an alternative view to this lockdown.
Covid in the US has a rough death rate of 1.6 in every 100 (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality)… however this average includes all the deaths before the Covid vaccine – which has reduced dealths exponentially. To put in perspective Cancer has a yearly death rate of 1.58 for every 100 people (https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics) and unlike covid, the deaths each year from cancer is increasing. In fact every 6th death on earth is due to Cancer (https://ourworldindata.org/cancer).
This lockdown is costing NZ $1.5 billion a week to prevent these covid deaths ( https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/covid-19-coronavirus-what-lockdown-will-cost-the-economy-and-how-the-experts-work-it-out/TPLNTT25ECNK4F2UBX3AACNTDY/)
However, the government refuses to fund key cancer drugs… the most significant being Pembrolizumab/Keytruda which has near double the success to chemotherapy (https://news.cancerconnect.com/lung-cancer/keytruda-doubles-survival-compared-to-chemotherapy-treatment-of-nsclc&ved=2ahUKEwjMso3r0NXyAhUTnGoFHdfjCkkQFnoECEoQBQ&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw1GUzRScD5KigzR5PI8J2KW).
The numbers of this really makes you think… for example
6 weeks of full lockdown costing $1.5b/week = $90b. If the average cost of keytruda is $60,000 per patient… this would mean with what covid lockdowns have cost the economy,1.5 million keytruda cancer treatments could’ve been funded.
You cannot tell me 1.5million NZers were going to die from Covid!!!
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August 30, 2021 8:00am
- gump
  
  6 x $1.5 billion does not equal $90 billion. Every calculation and conclusion you made beyond that point is nonsense.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:28am
- Durden
  
  “6 weeks of full lockdown costing $1.5b/week = $90b” Wrong.
  
  It is $9B. Hence 150,000 cancer treatments.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:54am
- Spoff
  
  Protocol for re-opening New Zealand society
  https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/our-posts/protocol-for-re-opening-new-zealand-society/
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:38pm
CaptainCompromise

Good news is thanks to Covid the govt will be able to push on with the 3 waters without too much pesky debate.
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August 30, 2021 8:01am
- Clyde
  
  That is happening, believe me. The long game continues unabated.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:26am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Good news ???
  The worst possible.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:40am
Souvlaki

A specific/pedantic question for an enquiring reporter to direct to the “Podium of Truth” today please:
EXACTLY how many viral genomes have been isolated in the current Auckland Covid outbreak ? The information to date ONLY mentions the outbreak being related to the NSW strain. Are there in fact any other genomes circulating ,in addition to the NSW one?
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August 30, 2021 8:01am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  This type of information has never been produced in a timely manner.
  
  Sometimes it has been fed to us months after the initial community transmission event.
  
  So we still have mysteries as to how community transmission occurred.
  
  This is very convenient for the Government as it allows them to keep feeding into the myth of a tricky, cunning virus… when what we have is bog-standard respiratory viral transmission.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:09am
  - alex Masterley
    
    We never get the source of the daily infections.
    Are they sourced within the individual’s bubble or are they sourced at work, if the individual is an essential worker, or by way of casual transmission at a supermarket? for example.
    Having some unexplained cases is not good enough. I would have expected the Prime Minister and the DG of Health to be all over this information.
    It would also be nice to have the number of active cases. As opposed to cases notified.
    Finally, can we see the Prime Ministers heat map covered with blue dots she waved around at a news conference. That document seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:23am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      That blue dot scrapbook page just showed us how childish Jaspinda is
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:31am
      - Ruahine
        
        Yes. Blue for danger. Everyone knows that.
        
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        August 30, 2021 8:37am
      - doggone7
        
        You’re a real card. I see what you did there.
        
        Making a point about the prime minister being childish over some scrapbook thing.
        
        And accentuating the full extent of it with the adultness of calling her Jaspinda.
        
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        August 30, 2021 10:20am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        doggone 7, she spins bullshit – not childish, just the plain truth
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:15am
      - doggone7
        
        The plain truth of her being a bullshitter can’t hide the plain truth that childish name calling is the sort of behaviour of peeved or nasty seven year olds.
        
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        August 30, 2021 3:05pm
    - Bobba Fret
      
      When I was young working in an office in the city, I was told by peers, “always carry a piece of paper when walking around the office as it makes you look busy and important”. I think that is the same concept with the “heat map with the blue dots”. No one gets a good look at it but it makes Jacinda look important.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:58am
Andrei

💉💉💉💉💉 💉💉💉💉💉 💉💉💉💉💉 💉💉💉

Non Essential ~~Occupation~~ Policing

Orca remain in harbour north of Wellington, police checkpoint halts rubberneckers
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August 30, 2021 8:01am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  So the so called researchers can go watch in their bubbles, but nobody else? Rules for thee but not for me.
  Wellington has very few Covid cases, but Wellington is chocka full of snivelling socialist control freaks. I know this, my brother lives there.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:48am
- krazykiwi
  
  What about ‘customary whale watchers’?
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:59am
  - plc
    
    Jawbone harvesters
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:59am
    - miltonF
      
      That would be hilarious actually. Some Maori bloke should take his boat out and shoot em dead. No one would be allowed to bat an eyelid as Maori are allowed customary harvesting of seafood in level 4! The greens would absolutely lose their minds.
      
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      August 30, 2021 3:11pm
      - Nickc2
        
        FYI, the rules have now changed for Level 4 WRT fishing and Whitebating. Non-Maori are now permitted to do it. The words Maori and Traditional have been removed.
        https://covid19.govt.nz/activities/sports-and-recreation/#sport-at-alert-level-4
        External pressure on this Govt works eh.
        
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        August 30, 2021 4:39pm
    - hullkiwi
      
      …nah, nah, they’re after ambergris….instant riches for the iwi.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:22pm
- Happychappy
  
  The stand in AM Host Ryan Bridge forced to google himself to prove he was an essential worker.
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/the-am-show-stand-in-host-ryan-bridge-forced-to-google-himself-to-prove-he-s-an-essential-worker-to-police.html
  The Police do nothing about Labour Party pamphlets being delivered in lockdown illegally but pull over those who are on their way to work like Bridge.
  Bridge who is also host for magic talk, said he was pulled over while driving his Partners BMWto work before 4am Monday Morning.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:29am
- SilverSurfer
  
  It’s not like Orcas have been coming in and out harbours chasing stingrays for thousands of years is it, how ever did they cope not being watched then?
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:15am
Tony Stuart

Great quip from David Seymour on Newstalk ZB this morning. He reminded Mike Hosking that only two countries are still pursuing an elimination strategy for Covid, New Zealand and China.

“One”, he said, “is a communist dictatorship. The other is China!”
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August 30, 2021 8:02am
- krazykiwi
  
  That is a brilliant quip!
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:07am
  - PhilBest
    
    China has the power to make the world THINK it has succeeded – and it wants to make the world think that way so the world will self destruct trying to copy it. All China has to do is not PCR test, and shut down any hysteria about people with one foot in the grave already, dying after getting the seasonal virus. Which is well within China’s power to achieve.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:11am
    - krazykiwi
      
      I believe it is China’s hold on WHO that is the reason for global lockdowns. WHO specifically recommended against such actions as recently as October 2019, but after China started welding doors to keep people in their apartment blocks (Jan 2020 IIRC) WHO suddenly decided that lockdowns were a top idea.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:02am
    - Fletch
      
      I believe China is using a “dead” or inactive version of the virus for its vaccine instead of the fancy mRNA one, are they not?
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:30pm
- Scott
  
  Imagine if the government today were socialist and ruled by socialist precepts. What would the government look like?
  
  There would be maximum control of people. People would be in fear, a fearful population is very submissive. They would be tightly controlled, they would have to sign in to get essential services for example. The government wants to know where the population is and what they are doing.
  There would be huge amounts of propaganda and there would be a house organ that would freely disseminate that propaganda.
  
  At the same time as there was maximum control of the population, there would be huge radical transformation. Socialists always want to overturn everything especially the family and the church. So the churches would be shut. There would be attacks against them and any of their practices particularly conversions. Legislation would come in to provide abortion with no restrictions and the elderly would be euthanised under the guise of compassion.
  Any indigenous people would be seen as victims and everything would be overturned to raise them up. So they would get special representation on city councils. They would get to manage large resources such as water. They would be portrayed as victims needing special treatment at every opportunity by the house organs controlled by the socialists.
  
  Under socialism, women would be separated from their families through stressing their individual rights and men would be punished by draconian legislation regarding sexual harassment. Stories would circulate through the house organs about a supposedly epidemic of rape in university campuses to justify the legislation.
  
  At the same time the economy would start to plateau and decline. This is a key feature of socialism. People get tired of working hard only to find the fruits of their labours are distributed to others.
  But the socialists won’t mind because their key aims of maximum control and radical change would still go on everyday.
  
  Meanwhile a cult of personality would arise around the leader. He or she would be magnified by all house organs as a wonderful human being, forever worthy of our praise
  
  Meanwhile the work of socialism would carry on. Maximum control of the people and radical change of the society is not a bug of socialist rule, it is a feature.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:10am
  - Ronin
    
    You forgot the gun ban
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:47am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    I think I know this place, forgot where though
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:56am
    - Bob
      
      Steve…
      I believe that the article refers to some place of an unidentified Global location, called Aotearoa; such events as described, would not be happening in South Pacific located DEMOCRATIC New Zealand
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:03am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Ah! Correct
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:16am
- mandk
  
  I heard it, and guffawed with a mouthful of coffee.
  
  Brilliant. Quote of the year.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:19am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Good stuff
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:49am
- surfing
  
  New Zealand doesn’t have a zero covid strategy. New Zealand’s strategy is to vaccinate, then open up.
  
  Not that I’m defending this government by any means, they are the most useless incompetent bunch of idiots that we’ve ever had to endure — to announce a year ago that NZ is at the top of the list for receiving vaccines, then, for us to be at the bottom of the actual list…. it is embarrassing.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:57am
  - westernScientest
    
    I will believe it when I see it. They will never decide that the time is right, it is to risky for them politically to take the chance.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:44am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    AAAHHH
    The difference between words and actions.
    Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive,’ is a very ‘Shakespearean’ phrase, however, it is not from Shakespeare. It comes from an early nineteenth century Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott, best selling writer of novels, plays, and poems.
    
    Pasted the whole thing, because I wasn’t aware that it was NOT Shakespeare.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:23am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I think you will find that vaccination doesn’t stop spread of the Covid virus.
    
    So we may well find ourselves confined to these shores for a very loooooooooong time.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:52am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Certainly using the current vaccines there is zero prospect of preventing the spread. They may, based on current evidence, reduce the spread and also may ameliorate the seriousness of the resulting symptoms.
      
      So unless a new vaccine offers a genuine 95%+ protection, when (if ?) NZ opens up, there will be a significant (probably very significant) wave of infections. Worse in NZ than elsewhere because we have not really had our first wave so most of the truly vulnerable are still around.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:39am
    - surfing
      
      I guess you are not getting vaccinated then. No point at all if it doesn’t halt the spread of the virus.
      
      https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/2021/08/27/adult-icu-patients-hit-record-highs-pandemic-new-report-shows-unvaccinated-people-are-more-15-times
      
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      August 30, 2021 12:12pm
      - Inandout
        
        surfing, I guess the chances of developing cancer are higher on the list but the virus takes precedence in hospitals. I feel for those people literally ‘dying to get into hospital’.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:29pm
  - septic skeptic
    
    Surfing, I haven’t heard that strategy announced unequivocally. Jacinta is always evasive.
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:19am
- Hollyfield
  
  Something else of interest in that interview – Jacinda is saying Parliament shouldn’t meet in person, as everyone else around the country is meeting over Zoom, Parliament should too – “we” shouldn’t expect businesses meet over Zoom if Parliament is going to meet in person. David Seymour pointed out that the daily standup is done in person. Why then isn’t the standup being done over Zoom?
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:00am
  - Joe Kerr
    
    While the team of 5 million suffers, her and Ashley sitting pretty on their full high salaries.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:53pm
  - Inandout
    
    Holly, I meet people in person at the supermarket; no difference.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:31pm
    - Ruawai
      
      You can go to the supermarket with random strangers but you can’t attend a funeral with close family.
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:50pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  Seymour the leader of the opposition
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:02am
  - Joe Kerr
    
    I’d like him more if he wasn’t also the leader in pushing for private roads and tolls.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:55pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Regarding the request for Pacifica attending BoP DHB vax sessions to bring their passports, it’s interesting that not one report that I’ve heard has referred to the Overstayer issue – which is clearly at the heart of the matter.

The fact is, that in non pandemic times, anyone fronting up for medical health is obliged to prove their residency status. No one is turned away but ineligible people will be billed.

This is not relevant in COVID times as it’s in all our interests that all are vaxxed & there are no charges. My best guess is that the DHB did not make the no-charge policy clear all the way down the hierarchy & someone simply applied the existing policy.
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August 30, 2021 8:07am
- CJames
  
  One reason they might have done this is because many recent PIs won’t be in our health system. They will have to create NHIs for them. And the passport will provide all of that info.
  Nothing sinister or racist, just sensible bureaucracy.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:37am
  - surfing
    
    I was wondering this myself. The story in the media was weak, wasn’t followed up…. although to be fair, it sounds like media had asked the BOP DHB but were not given a reply… this is bad by the BOP DHB not to close this down.
    
    This NHI number, should be our national ID for everything!
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:59am
    - kowtow
      
      ‘This NHI number, should be our national ID for everything!’
      
      Javol.
      
      Papeirene , schnell , schwinehunde .
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:10am
- PhilBest
  
  We need to be deeply thankful that PI’s are really the only significant illegals we get in NZ. If we had a land border with the whole of Latin America or the Middle East, the Jacinda regime would be making us suck up an overland flood of people just like the treasonous pols in the US and Europe are.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:48am
  - PhilBest
    
    I should have said too, that I love PI’s. Parts of the world that don’t have them are really missing something. The islands themselves are paradise, and the people bring something of that here with them in their character.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:40am
  - thirteenstars
    
    Indeed.
    
    The lie about Trump’s racism was largely based on his border policies, those being to secure the US border and make sure those seeking to emigrate into the US had been properly vetted (security, health, etc.) and after their application was successful, only then to enter the country.
    
    If that was racist then New Zealand’s immigration policies are racism on steroids, they being orders of magnitude far more restrictive (read:racist) than anything done or even proposed by Trump.
    
    Yet how many Kiwis piled on against Trump, led by the nose about his “cruelty” at the US-Mexico border, all the while enjoying the safety of their own Antipodean “border wall”, that is, thousands of kilometres of deep ocean.
    
    Imagine if the islands of the Pacific were pushed up against Northland. No ocean to cross, just a short walk, with no effective barrier and the border guards giving out food, health checks and then releasing the border crossers into various parts of NZ purely on the promise they’d apply properly for permission to stay, and every month around 3,000 coming in.
    
    I wonder how many Kiwis would quickly turn into “racists”.
    
    Perhaps we could reverse the situation somewhat. Imagine NZ was pushed up against the east coast of Australia, from Victoria to Queensland, and Kiwis could walk in without getting their feet wet. Despite the liberal travel and immigration conditions that exist between NZ and Australia, under that scenario even our Australian cousins would also quickly turn into rabid “racists”.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:53am
    - Nickc2
      
      Aussies are not racist! They just hate anyone who is not a fair dinkum Aussie.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:15am
  - doggone7
    
    If you were installed to replace the treasonous pols what would you do to sort those situations out? Gun emplacements around the coast of Spain with instructions to shoot?
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:55am
    - thirteenstars
      
      How dramatic you are.
      
      All you need do is a) make it clear that illegal immigrants will be deported, and b) deport them.
      
      Which is exactly what Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy achieved with a massive drop in border crossing attempts.
      
      The only shots fired were between border guards and heavily armed Mexican cartels.
      
      Contrast that with what happened after Biden was elected and he had in very obvious terms told everyone the border was open, and illegal crossings went through the roof.
      
      With that policy in place murders and suffering have increased dramatically.
      
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      August 30, 2021 4:02pm
- graham
  
  The fact is, that in non pandemic times, anyone fronting up for medical health is obliged to prove their residency status. No one is turned away but ineligible people will be billed.
  
  Yes, that was exactly my thought when I heard this story. I am in my early 50s, born and raised right here in New Zealand, a 100% NZ citizen. Recently I’ve had to pay a few visits to Greenlane Clinical Centre, and on one of them was asked to send through my passport details as proof of residency for this exact reason.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:32am
- rjay
  
  The person concerned had come to believe that the PI s were seasonal workers. Bringing a passport as ID would have facilitated the processing for the vaccine in that case. Their assumption was wrong.
  The DHB replied to the media before 1.30 on Sunday explaining this. They lied when they reported no reply.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:33am
- MCos
  
  To qualify for free/subsidized healthcare in NZ one needs to be a citizen, have PR or a two year work visa.
  Everybody that accesses the health system will have an NHI number & only the the health system has access to details.
  There can’t be anyone who fronts up for a vaccine/test who doesn’t have one unless they’ve never been to the doctor, hospital, anything.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:28am
Maggie Pie

RANDOM IMPERTINENT QUESTION…

Has Labour allowed this to turn into a Personal Vendetta?

https://twitter.com/nzherald/status/1432051332190461958

🙁
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August 30, 2021 8:08am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  You think Leo has plagiarised the title of Labour’s Covid-19 elimination plan for his bar?
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:15am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    LOL!!
    
    And what about where he sez…..”the muppets told me they were trying to make contact for 15 days, until they suddenly realised they’d left the ‘nz’ off my email address”
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:30am
    - artemisia
      
      An incorrect email address will almost always bounce. Is anyone looking at the bounces?
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:31am
- Inandout
  
  Maggie, why does Twitter put the huge Paris demos behind a ‘could be offensive’ sign?
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:25am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    The Media Is The Virus.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:40am
Kiwi_in_Paris

An oldie but a goodie. Proper journalism from 2010, on the so called Swine Flu “pandemic”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qeLcq3y8w
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August 30, 2021 8:15am
- PhilBest
  
  Here’s another astonishing video on how a past pandemic was “sold” – this Belgian public health official has no shame, it is amazing this video is still up in 2021.
  
  https://eswi.org/eswi-tv/marc-van-ranst-communication-and-public-engagement/
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:50am
Yvette

ICU bed capacity truth?
In the past few days I have twice referred to ICU bed capacity from an Opinion piece by Peter Dunne on Newsroom’s website that in part says –
Woeful vaccination rates were one thing but when it became clear according to Ministry of Health figures that the numbers of ICU beds had been reduced from 358 beds in July last year to 284 today, there had been no increase in ICU staffing for 18 months, and the NZ Medical Association’s call a year ago for a co-ordinated national ICU strategy had been ignored, the Government’s indolence began to look scandalous.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/govt-needs-a-new-story-on-covid

This reduction of 74 intensive care beds was not mentioned at all in a TVNZ One News item yesterday evening with intensive care specialist Rob Bevan on the preparedness of the nation’s ICUs to cope with a serious covid outbreak.

So is Newsroom inaccurate, or 1-News misleading by perhaps an obvious omission?

This morning 1-News website has the same video and a print item at –
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/icu-bed-patient-ratio-not-enough-if-delta-cases-increase-expert-says
… Bevan is the vice president of the College of Intensive Care and says the country has “a model of care that is world-leading” after spending the past 18 months working and learning from overseas colleagues who have “borne the brunt of the pandemic”.
He said specialists have been working with DHBs and the Health Ministry to “absolutely maximise our ability to look after as many people as we can, albeit “within the constraints of the capacity that we have”.
Bevan conceded that five beds for every 100,000 people would not be enough, meaning other life-saving surgeries would need to be cancelled. [the item gave no numbers]
Bevan concludes –
“We are absolutely reliant on the vaccine uptake being as close to 100 per cent as it possibly can for eligible New Zealanders,” he said.
He added a first dose of the vaccine reduces the need for ICU care and the second dose reduces the need for any kind of hospital care.

There may be an extra reason why he is so really adamant on vaccination keeping people out of ICU.

(This morning 1-News also reprints RNZ, “Hospitals hone contingency plans in case of Covid-19 patient surge”, which does not mention any intensive care capacity numbers.
Newshub reprints the same RNZ article)
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August 30, 2021 8:18am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Our ratio of ICU beds per capita is the second-lowest in the OECD. Even if more beds were to be commissioned, it is doubtful they could be staffed at present.
  
  Given that there was an increase in hospitalisations of more than 30% yesterday alone in the current Delta outbreak, this should be an issue of significant concern to the Government.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:31am
  - Stu2
    
    “Even if more beds were to be commissioned, it is doubtful they could be staffed at present”
    
    Exactly
    Takes years to train the specialist nursing staff needed to maximise outcomes in ICUs. And it takes a lot of them per patient. In an emergency other staff would be added to the mix but staff numbers and skills are the constraint, not beds or ventilators
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:37am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Govt has had 18 months since need became apparent, and have clearly done nothing (they would be trumpeting it if they had), instead they’ve gone backwards
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:44am
      - surfing
        
        Government will say that is false, quote the bucket loads of money they’ve thrown into health, and then blame national for years of underinvestment.
        
        How long can labour continue to blame national?
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:01am
      - Taieri
        
        Govt has had 18 months since need became apparent, and have clearly done nothing
        —————
        
        This is not fair and in fact is a slander; the Government has been exceptionally busy improving our collective lives and wellness. A few random examples of legislation considered in this period are as follows:
        
        Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill
        
        Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill
        
        Local Electoral (Maori Wards and Maori Constituencies) Amendment Bill
        
        Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Amendment Bill
        
        Anyone can see that the Government has been extremely busy ensuring that their benevolence extends to as wide as possible range of issues. Notwithstanding the Covid-19, where as a country would we have been if the conversion practices were not addressed? What would have happened to our civilization if the freedom camping irregularities were not immediately put to rest? How could we sleep at night knowing that Maori wards have not been implemented? And last, but not the least, the harm to our society caused by all forms of publications, which the Government does not approve – should that be ignored?
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:38am
    - Master Mariner
      
      Hymm, in times of war the nurses and Doctors had to Triage and in fact major crashes and in any multiple injury scenario they need the ability to triage.
      So I ask this.
      What would they do if all ICU were full and casulaties at the door waiting to get in.?
      
      Stop all care due to “lack of training”. ?
      
      Point is , Where is the increase of ICU and training of nurses over past 18 months?
      
      Total Negligence.
      
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      August 30, 2021 8:58am
      - artemisia
        
        And has the immigration gate been open for trained ICU staff? Rhetorical question ….
        
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        August 30, 2021 9:33am
      - Adroit
        
        I’m not sure what your point is? I can tell you what we’d do – we’d spread our care, and more people would die. Triaging occurs every day in every ED or urgent care in the country. The point is, without the correct staff and necessary equipment, more preventable deaths would occur compared to a well correctly equipped and staffed ICU.
        
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        August 30, 2021 5:30pm
  - Salacious Crumb
    
    ICU nurses require considerable training. It is no surprise we have a shortage – they can earn upwards of 30% more in Australia without the stressors the NZ health system places on them.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:38am
    - krazykiwi
      
      The #1 occupation of NZers who want to get back to NZ but can’t thanks to a broken MIQ?
      
      Nurses.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:11am
      - Salacious Crumb
        
        An awful lot of them have left in the last 8 months from all specialties. Mostly to Australia – some out of Auckland to other NZ centers.
        
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        August 30, 2021 10:45am
    - Jimbob
      
      ICU nurses are the best, as are HDU nurses. The HDU nurses have 12 hour shifts and are lovely people. They are there to look after you when you are very vulnerable to, as the song by Guns and roses goes, “knock knock knock on heavens door”. Nurses are way under paid and earn every last cent.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:45am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        * Bob Dylan
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:34pm
  - Stu2
    
    There was a telling remark in an interview a week ago.
    
    There is a piece of software used in NZ to score patients to decide who gets an ICU bed and who doesn’t when the hospitals are struggling. It is being reviewed
    
    NSW may be facing those sorts of decisions soon
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:46am
    - Master Mariner
      
      Common sense tells you they have to triage.
      
      Software? Hymm what could go wrong.
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:41am
    - Sacha
      
      Yes. Each general ICU bed requires its own nurse – that’s 3 each 24 hour, 7 days a week. If you have 10 beds, that’s 210 shifts and that’s a lot of nurses. And they are on the higher pay rates because ICU requires highly developed nursing skills and ongoing education. A nurse needs a good basic body of nursing experience before being accepted for training. It’s not everyone’s choice – there are easier jobs in the nursing field.
      There are also useful people like technicians, who service all the electronics, the ventilators, the little machines that go beep – and pharmacists who prepare special drugs – and the blood labs who detect infections and do stuff like blood typing. The X-ray techs. And cleaners and orderlies . . . . . .
      And the clinician doctors, who generally have a wide range of experience and specialties to cope with the varied demands of ICU.
      Expensive? Yes indeed.
      
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      August 30, 2021 12:52pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        24/7 staffing = 4 people not 3. Days off and all that. 168 hours divided by about 40 = about 4. Not sure about 1 nurse per bed though …..
        
        https://www.cicm.org.au/CICM_Media/CICMSite/CICM-Website/Resources/Professional Documents/IC-1-Minimum-Standards-for-Intensive-Care-Units.pdf
        
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        December 30, 2020 12:58pm
      - Salacious Crumb
        
        ICU nursing is 1:1. At the moment on some shifts in non-ICU wards at Auckland Hospital they have only one nurse for the ward given the staff shortage which has been compounded by colleagues being made to stay at home to isolate if they have been casual+ contacts of suspected COVID. This is 3rd world and completely unsafe.
        
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        August 30, 2021 3:30pm
  - PhilBest
    
    This virus kills people who don’t get enough fresh air or at least makes them sicker. Self-isolation often deprives people of fresh air. Read the section on “reduction of self-re-inoculation” in this paper:
    
    https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltext
    
    I know too many stories from overseas of people self-isolating without any understanding of the importance of fresh air, who ended up dead.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:54am
  - Yvette
    
    Tony Stuart, your comment reminds me I did not raise, nor did the 1-News interview, the question of why there is a television ad campaign for Starship ICU beds
    
    From their ad “We can fix a lot of things, but the one thing we can’t is the lack of beds.
    Starship urgently needs ten new intensive care beds – donate now”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDDY4EbzONY
    
    (Note: in fairness, one comment on YouTube asks why does the Starship Foundation spend money on ad production and prime tv placement rather than beds themselves, but that is a question apart from any lack of Government funding, but raises “How much does a ICU bed provision actually cost?”)
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:57am
    - Master Mariner
      
      “How much does a ICU bed provision actually cost”
      
      Not sure where I read it or the accuracy but the cost is 5200$ a day to operate.
      
      Out of interest, Why cant you outsource and monitor Livestream from the ICU bed?
      
      I’m guessing ICU equipment is not standard equipment and very reliant on manufacturers training?
      Herein probably lies the problem with “training” but like I say I dont know.
      Anyone know?
      
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      August 30, 2021 9:12am
      - Sacha
        
        The whole point of ICU is that it is ‘intensive care’. There will be a baseline cost, but each patient would incur costs according to their treatment needs. Much more than 5200K in many cases.
        Machines are great and life-saving – but they need people who can interpret the information that they provide and act to protect the patient. Hence the need for educated and experienced bedside nursing staff.
        Every ICU I have ever been in has had a central system where all the patients could be monitored for real time heart and blood pressure recording with pre-set alarms to alert staff of changes. ICUs sometimes have ‘high dependency’ beds attached so that as patients recover, they can be moved to a more normal environment, but still be under the ICU ‘eye’ for a time, before being transferred to a regular ward.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:34pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  This is absolutely appalling. Many people are going to die needlessly as a result of this govt incompetence
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:40am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And why have all the medical folks wanting to work in NZ been put on hold for 18 months?
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/450304/calls-for-medical-staff-to-be-prioritised-for-residency-we-need-to-look-at-it-like-an-emergency
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:48am
  - Stu2
    
    Faafoi?
    
    There is the other problem as well – medical staff (including GPs) leaving NZ as they couldn’t get the rest of their families into the country
    
    This area seems to have been dragging. Doesn’t feel like a minister intent on quick, high priority outcomes
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:39am
JibberJabber

Has the Western world gone Mad?

https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1431909365779505152

Down thru history, one totalitarian regime after another, one ideology after another has identified the Family as the fundamental building block of society and thereby the most stubborn stumbling block on the road to establishing their Brave New World.

on Afghanistan.
In the 4th century, BC Alexander the Great said it was an easy country to march into but very hard to march out of.
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August 30, 2021 8:28am
- Master Mariner
  
  Reading this, Worth a read.
  
  “Fisk not only called Blair “repulsive”, but also a “worthless” and “mendacious” political figure “who – in an obscenity of history – we…refer to as a ‘peace envoy’” and given his “prosaic” nature, has had a disastrous preoccupation with the “banal” at the expense of the profound, indelible human suffering he is responsible for.”
  
  https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/29/tony-blair-should-go-to-afghanistan
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:15am
- JibberJabber
  
  Neil Oliver says ‘parents decide what happens to their children, their flesh and blood. Governments, if they know what’s good for them, stay the hell away from law abiding parents and their kids.’
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:01am
  - SilverSurfer
    
    Was a brilliant monologue by Neil, much respect to the man fighting for his family!
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:25am
- Batman
  
  Conveniently leaving out those regimes that promoted traditional values and the family in traditional roles.
  
  Including some of the worst of the 20th century… Guess who!
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:27pm
JibberJabber

Michael A. Sherlock

Duke Women’s Studies Professor Questions Taboo of Bestiality
The #Woke have f*#ked with academia, science, sports, education, climate activism, entertainment, comedy, corporations, government, and humanity, so I guess it makes sense that animals are next in line for a f*#king.

https://4w.pub/duke-professor-bestiality/

#Wokeness catfishes well-meaning #liberals by marketing hate as love, exclusion as inclusion, tribalism as diversity, and intolerance as tolerance. It is an ignorant wolf in an enlightened sheep’s clothing.
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August 30, 2021 8:34am
- PhilBest
  
  The abolition of any age restrictions will happen faster than anyone dares to think. And Vichy “conservatives in name only” will cave in like sandcastles before the tide when it happens. It will be all about “science” now working out that it is good for kiddies, and the “rights” of the kiddies to do what “they want”.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:56am
Souvlaki

Another query for the podium of truth:
“is there ANY evidence to link the ‘Great Apology’on August 1st to the subsequent explosion of cases in the Auckland Polynesian community ? “
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August 30, 2021 8:38am
- Tony Stuart
  
  None that I’m aware of. However the blunder in Tauranga yesterday where Pasifika people were asked to produce passports before being vaccinated is absolutely appalling, and has completely undermined the Dawn Raids apology.
  
  https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/pasifika-in-bay-plenty-forced-present-passports-get-covid-jabs
  
  The Bay of Plenty District Health Board has since apologised, but when 30 of the 34 people currently in hospital with the Delta variant are Pasifika, and the Government has been doing its best to reach into the various Pasifika communities and get them vaccinated, this is a dreadful look for Ardern and co.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:48am
  - PhilBest
    
    Notice how in the USA, illegals still have the “right” to flood into the USA (you are a waaaacist to say otherwise) even in a pandemic that apparently justifies the removal of all daily-life rights for actual citizens.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:59am
    - doggone7
      
      Fortunately they built a big wall so there are no illegals getting in from the southern border.
      
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      August 30, 2021 10:49am
      - Nickc2
        
        Biden ceased construction of that wall! It’s ineffective because it hasn’t been finished.
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:27am
      - Batman
        
        Nick that is an insane position to take. The wall never worked and was a concept designed to please simple minds.
        
        You’d be far better to support aiding functional governments in SA countries to secure and support their populations and an immigration policy that doesn’t incentivise illegal crossings. But I suppose that doesn’t have the same appeal to the base…
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:37pm
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Batman, they tried that for decades.
        It failed.
        Solution is a bit like the safety instructions on airplane.
        When the mask drops down, put your own one on first, before helping others.
        ie when you get yourself sorted, then help others.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:22pm
      - Nickc2
        
        Batman @ 12:37
        Insanity knows no bounds Batman. Welcome to the inner circle.
        
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        August 30, 2021 2:12pm
      - Batman
        
        Has it? Installing friendly dictators as a bulwark against communism is not the same thing. In fact it only made things worse as it promoted corruption and the drug cartels we see today.
        
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        August 30, 2021 2:30pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    I really fail to understand this is an issue and should be a requirement to all, Not only Pasifica.
    
    Think about it this way,
    
    Most will be returning to their country of Origin and identifying them will be problematic. I mean a lot go by different names anyway.
    
    Also raises the question , How accurate is Pasifica and Asian nationalities as well living in NZ.
    
    As the world will move on then Identifying “who” actually has had the vaccine will be critical and being in a global world it is more critical than ever having correct information.
    
    I’m astounded its not compulsory regardless of any Moral high ground.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:23am
    - MCos
      
      I don’t know what you’re talking about MM.
      The vaccine is free to everyone, unlike healthcare in general, which has limitations.
      Vaccine recipients are tracked by their NHI number, which everyone has.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:51am
      - Master Mariner
        
        Sorry MCos, I guess what i was trying to say is too link everyone with a Vaccine for Foreign travel.
        
        Hence requirement to bring in Passport to validate. Should be everyone, Not linked to a Mickey Mouse NHI number.
        A real hassle for me was to get MOH on “official” letter to link me to the vaccine. A bit of carboard overseas does not cut the Mustard.
        I mean seriously, This should of been “front and center” of proof.
        At least they are now asking for a passport.
        What hope do I tell someone in Ie India that my proof is a NHI number linked.
        I’m sure you can join the dots.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:37pm
      - Paulus
        
        Everybody should have a NHI number but………..
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:38pm
  - Muttonbird
    
    A dreadful look for Tauranga, don’t you mean?
    
    Not far behind Christchurch for that sort of thing.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:31am
  - DeepBlue
    
    It does make you wonder how extensive institutional racism in health is.
    
    Who carries their passport around, unless they are constantly required to identify themselves? Fair enough if seeking hospital treatments (my English friend had to for her cancer treatment), but for a free national immunisation service. Sickening. They are not us.
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:40am
    - septic skeptic
      
      I carry my passport everywhere I travel except for my home country. That seems normal.
      When I got my Vax I had to produce ID. That also seemed normal.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:30am
  - Nookin
    
    I must confess, Tony that when I first saw this story, I questioned its objectivity. Linking to the dawn raids does nothing to diminish the view that this is simply provocative divisiveness.
    
    Anyone receiving the vaccine or even a swab test needs to be identified. By the sound of it, those presenting themselves over the weekend did not have their NH number available (if they have one). What record does the vaccinator maintain if there is no NH number or other acceptable form of identification?
    The explanation given was that the DHB had to ascertain whether they were dealing with temporary residents. Was that the full explanation or was it one of a number of scenarios posited to justify the request for identification?
    The reference to dawn raids was irresponsible. It may just be that the people on the ground had insufficient training but the simple request for identification does not seem to me to have been untoward.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:04am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      The issue is that the Covid website clearly states that there is no visa or passport requirement to get vaccinated; it’s available for all. As far as a link to the Dawn Raids apology goes, it was merely a matter of ironic timing.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:21am
      - septic skeptic
        
        It is available to all (races). But Maori and PI have prioritized access. All have to produce ID. But maybe that is racist and we should abolish the ID requirement for Maori and PI.
        
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        August 30, 2021 11:36am
      - Batman
        
        You produce ID to confirm you’re the person booked for the appointment.
        
        Not eligibility for the vaccine.
        
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        August 30, 2021 12:43pm
  - Paulus
    
    I assume that these people did not have their Medical Health number ?
    because it is not on the DHB record.
    If not BOP DHB record then where ?
    I have had to copy my passport to BOP DHB before as they were updating the system – and I have been here 50years – no problem.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:53am
westernScientest

looks like stuff forgot to turn the comments off, this could be interesting if they let any be published:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126218178/covid19-government-told-to-up-its-game-after-one-of-the-worst-pandemic-days

Also Hendy, he finally said something not completely ridiculous, ‘Government should introduce rapid Covid self-testing such as saliva tests quickly’
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August 30, 2021 8:49am
- kowtow
  
  A number of recent stuffed articles on this clusterf#ck have allowed comments , and the commentary is strongly anti Jax .
  
  Strange times .
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:04am
  - westernScientest
    
    Yeah, but a number of them have been of the tune: ‘spank me harder mummy, your not destroying NZ hard enough’
    
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    August 30, 2021 9:51am
- RoboRob
  
  My understanding is that the saliva tests have been ‘authorised’ for months but the govt is sitting on it. I suspect the issue is they don’t want to have to deal with false positives. Would NZ need to jump to a level 4 lockdown every time a saliva test came up positive?
  
  With our current full elimination strategy, saliva tests seem to be out of the question. Hendy must understand that.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:22am
  - The Housekeeper
    
    If everyone could do a simple spit test we might find it’s far more prevalent than modelled and we’re still not dropping dead in the streets. What if we were allowed antibody tests and over 70% of us (jabbed or not) had antibodies? Would that open our cell doors?
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:51pm
Critical Thinker

BREAKING: CNN reports that shadows can carry COVID-19, advises you should run from it if you have one ?
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August 30, 2021 8:55am
- RoboRob
  
  CNN reports Trump cause of COVID.
  
  CNN reports Biden has just won the war in Afganistan with no casualties.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:57am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Not surprised, coming from what was a proud cable network and is now a shadow of itself.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:11am
JibberJabber

Noga Tarnopolsky
@NTarnopolsky
#Breaking: Israel no longer considers people who have received 2 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines “vaccinated.” As of September 1, only 3x vaccinated are considered immune.

How long from now will only dead people be considered immune from Covid?
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August 30, 2021 8:55am
- krazykiwi
  
  And this underscores the elephant in the room: Protection attenuates thereby demanding individuals receive these novel vaccinations indefinitely, yet we have zero knowledge of the impact of continuous treatment on the health of the immune system.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:23am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    I see, that in the future, covid19 will become like the tide.
    It will rise and fall in different parts of the world, at different times and therefore be manageable.
    Eventually smoothing out.
    As per the Spanish flu and variants over the past 100 years.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:16am
- Inandout
  
  JJ, noticed Hosking covered this as well this morning. Also the Aussie guy he spoke to mentioned Hosking was referred to as ‘the breakfast king, and ‘shock jock’ over the ditch by some paper because he dared to question Jacinda’s edicts. Many Australians think Jacinda is a sort of saviour, kind of sad really considering many NZers have family over there and surely tell a different story.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:46am
  - Nickc2
    
    I too have family in Aust and none of them have heard of Jacinda Ardern. That’s probably because I told them that if they hear such a name, ignore it because it’s of no consequence.
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:08am
- krazykiwi
  
  I looked into this further. A new guidance in Israel is that in order to be classified as ‘Immune’ (which is nonsense as the data shows), one must have had: –
  
  (a) their third jab; or,
  
  (b) had their second jab within the last 6 months.
  
  I’m going back to idea of a Frequent Vaxx™ club, where you earn special awards, like freedom, liberty, and the right to participate in civil society, every time you are jabbed.
  
  This is the default trajectory.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:38pm
ecco

Left wing, woke, blunt media instrument, the NZ Herald, (calling itself a news site when in reality is just a Left wing media mouth piece), already attacking Ryan Bridge, the replacement for Duncan Garner on the AM show. Ran a not particularly nice piece on Bridge driving to work.
(BTW Bridge seems to be doing a great job of taking over from Garner, whom I do miss)

Unneccessary detail and uncalled for NZH article but editor obviously instructed to start doing this by their Labour masters, should they want their funding applications to the Labour media bribe fund to continue to be successful.

This is no different to living in a soviet gulag or under the Chinese communist party regime, with the control Ardern and co have over the media, through that bribe fund, facilitating the censorship by stealth that is prevailing over NZ currently.
Notice all right wing articles on NZH are hidden behind the paywall and all pro Ardern/flattering photos/articles about Gayford, are not behind the paywall.
Thank goodness for Kiwiblog.
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August 30, 2021 8:59am
- kowtow
  
  Bridge is pretty woke himself , just a bit less woke than the others.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:13am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    I always thought Bridge was pretty left-wing, but in recent months, both on his afternoon radio show and when filling in for Garner on TV, he has asked some pretty direct questions of the Government. Good on him.
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:23am
    - Muttonbird
      
      What planet have you been living on, Tony? Ryan Bridge is harder right than Genghis Khan.
      
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      August 30, 2021 11:29am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        That be would be me.
        
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        August 30, 2021 1:11pm
  - ecco
    
    Didn’t used to like him but he has an excellent line of questioning in to Ardern and Hipkins since he’s been filling the role.
    
    I think the mere fact that NZH has attacked Bridge, tells you all you need to know. Clearly trying to send him a message not to take the job full time if he wants to avoid further constant attacks like that from NZH (obviously emanated from Cindy’s office in the first place, NZH is the messenger).
    
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    August 30, 2021 3:25pm
Yvette

From Newsroom –
The Government hasn’t used Bluetooth tracing to check whether people have been exposed to any new cases since the first day of the outbreak, Marc Daalder reports –
The Government has not made use of a contact tracing function that Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins described as a “tool that will help to speed up contact tracing”.

Bluetooth tracing works by registering proximity to another person using Bluetooth. If someone tests positive for Covid-19, their unique and anonymised Bluetooth “key” can be added to a server. Everyone else’s app will then check to see if that key is one they’ve been close to and will notify any potential contacts.
While QR code scanning can identify potential exposures in specific locations, Bluetooth can catch contacts within locations of interest and outside of them – such as at a bus station, or waiting for an elevator, or even passing someone on the street. [1]

And from a very long article in The Atlantic, “This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic”, which says it is not “R”, a measure of its contagiousness on average, but “K” – the measure of its dispersion or simply a way of asking whether a virus spreads in a steady manner or in big bursts, whereby one person infects many, all at once.

Overdispersion should also inform our contact-tracing efforts. In fact, we may need to turn them upside down. Right now, many states and nations engage in what is called forward or prospective contact tracing. Once an infected person is identified, we try to find out with whom they interacted afterward so that we can warn, test, isolate, and quarantine these potential exposures. But that’s not the only way to trace contacts. And, because of overdispersion, it’s not necessarily where the most bang for the buck lies. Instead, in many cases, we should try to work backwards to see who first infected the subject.
Because of overdispersion, most people will have been infected by someone who also infected other people, because only a small percentage of people infect many at a time, whereas most infect zero or maybe one person. [2]

Does anyone with a knowledge of computer sciences think Bluetooth technology would better detect the K factor than contract tracing concentrating on more linear R factor?
And if Bluetooth requires little more than it being turned on by people, and a couple of programmers at the other end, why is it not used?
“This new Bluetooth functionality adds to the tools we already have and improves our chances of getting on top of any potential outbreak quickly – as long as we use them.” – Hipkins, when Bluetooth tracing was added to the NZ COVID Tracer app in December

[1] https://www.newsroom.co.nz/govt-hasnt-used-bluetooth-tracing-since-start-of-outbreak
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/
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August 30, 2021 9:05am
CAKE FACE1

It strikes me that the effectiveness of this vaccine seems to fall very fast – in six months it is halved?

I suspect that there will be trouble getting people to take boosters, shortly after they’ve already had two jabs.

People who are infected relatively soon after we open up could be the best protected. From six months after opening, our death rates may start to rise dramatically, as vaccines wear off, and people get more complacent?

I suspect with our large Pasifika population, we are going to have a high death rate. Vaccine hesitancy is high here as well, which doesn’t bode well for our figures. Kicking the can down the road is not going to save the number of lives they hope, I suspect.

Every socialist I’ve spoken to about Covid says the same thing – “NZ has only 26 deaths, so has done the best in the world.”

Of course, these smug views came from the top – Cindy did her little victory dance. How stupid would you have needed to be to think we had “beaten” this “tricky” virus back then.

I see it all as a morality play. Foolish pride is the deadliest of the deadly sins. Now we will pay for our government’s foolish pride.

The only question is how long the government can drag this process for. The longer they drag it out, the worse it will be. Indeed, I think we could be economically ruined, if the elimination fantasy is temporarily successful.
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August 30, 2021 9:10am
- Surely Knott
  
  Does Pfizer effectiveness last 6 months?
  From HealthNavigator.org.nz
  How long does protection from the Pfizer vaccine last?
  Data from Medsafe shows that protection from the Pfizer vaccine lasts for at least 2 months. It is expected that the vaccine will provide protection for longer than 2 months, although exactly how long for remains unknown at this stage.
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:13am
- dcrane
  
  We should convene an expert panel of doctors like the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, tasked with designing our plan for prophylaxis and early treatment of covid cases, so we can minimize the number who end up in hospital.
  
  Can’t say I’m hopeful this is being done. Has anyone in the media asked the PM?
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:18am
- Ed Snack
  
  On a per head of population basis, according to the official figures, there is one major country that has done better than NZ.
  
  That is China !
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:10pm
I remember when

SPRINGBOK TOUR 1981:
Have the government forgotten or are most of them to young to really remember.
What happens to the police reputation when you use them to enforce ‘unpopular’ policy.
It would take many years for the stigma of the Springbok tour enforcement incidents to be forgiven.
Now they are being used to enforce, in an unnecessarily over the top way, control measures for the ‘covid’ lockdown.
Interestingly, in both cases there is an element of electoral gain for the government.
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August 30, 2021 9:10am
- Tauhei Notts
  
  I was at Eden Park on 12th September 1981 and when that final penalty kick went between the uprights, well into injury time, I predicted that we would have another three years of “the pig”.
  There was electoral gain for National in 1981, just as there is electoral gain for Labour in 2023 from a frightened population.
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:41am
  - Paulus
    
    The latest opinion poll shows that women lead the men by over 30% in the division between National/Act and Labour/Greens.
    So Cindy you are a sweep in anyway for the next election despite what stuff ups you do.
    
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    August 30, 2021 10:57am
- RW Capitalist
  
  The harassment of surfers has to be the most nonsensical .
  They claim it is putting any potential rescuers at risk.
  Since covid doesn’t survive UV or salt water and the surfers are way more than 2m apart.
  It can’t be from covid.
  As for rescuing any surfers from peril, how would the rescuers be at any more risk than usual?
  Argument holds less water than a sieve.
  or
  Holds back less covid than a supermarket brought face mask.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:06am
  - dcrane
    
    Argument seems to hinge on the fact that occasionally people like that will need rescue assistance, which will draw resources away from more important needs as well as create more contact between individuals. Won’t happen often, so seems low priority, but then again see the mountain bike incident the other day.
    
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    August 30, 2021 11:14am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      and of the policemen draw away from crime due to govt. edict to harass surfers?
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:10pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      How many surf lifesavers are actually working on covid?
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:25pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  Imagine the outcry, if arrests had been made at the anti TPP protests.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:08am
- Inandout
  
  Irw, not entirely comparable. The use of Police during the Tour was in many cases to stop wanton destruction and disruption of games. In lockdowns they enforce rules which in Mk2 are not as readily accepted as Mk1 was in 2020. The Tour was pretty much 50/50 for and against, lockdowns not quite so.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:29am
- kowtow
  
  1 The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
  2 The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.
  3 Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
  4 The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
  5 Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to the public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
  6 Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.
  7 Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to givefull-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
  8 Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
  9 The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
  
  The nine Peel principles , or in short policing by consent.
  
  Our police “managers” need a few lessons in their own history .
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:35am
  - The Housekeeper
    
    Yes and isn’t our responsibility as citizens to at least give them a society worth defending?
    
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    August 30, 2021 2:03pm
Biscuit

Those nasty, evil banks, eh?

Headline on ‘Stuff’ today:

Bank fails to stop woman sending $30k to fake boyfriend

They (Stuff) then go on in their story to show that it wasn’t the bank – BNZ in this case – who failed:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300394272/bank-fails-to-stop-woman-sending-30k-to-fake-boyfriend
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August 30, 2021 9:17am
- Master Mariner
  
  Probably to the Taliban.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:01pm
JibberJabber

?‍♂️
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/450266/community-projects-missing-out-on-pokie-funds-in-lockdown-official
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August 30, 2021 9:19am
Opie

Finally getting drip fed some data. As per newshub this morning (the article disappeared very quickly);

So far, 511 cases have been reported in the current outbreak, 83 of which were announced on Sunday.

“Of the 34 people in hospital at the moment, 30 are Samoan and two are Māori.

None of those hospitalised are fully vaccinated and just eight of the 34 have had one dose.

A higher number of women are in hospital – 21 women compared to 13 men.

And Delta is affecting younger people too. Seven of those in hospital are in their 30s, four in their 20s, and one is under the age of 20.”

What I really want to know is of the 511 cases, how many are vaccinated?

Must be lots otherwise we would be hearing about it…
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August 30, 2021 9:23am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Quite a number of those in hospital are under 40.. They weren’t in the age group able to get vaccinations when infected.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:58am
- RiP NZ
  
  The BMI of the hospitalised would be more relevant than the ethnicity
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:06am
  - Colville
    
    I would bet average BMI is above 40 of those hospitalized.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:25pm
    - Joe Kerr
      
      Yes knowing the incidence of comorbidities is required to draw any useful conclusions.
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:12pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Maybe not, islanders have very limited evolutionary history with coronaviruses. Spanish flu killed 10x polynesians compared to Europeans. PI community have very little non polynesian DNA compared to Maori
    
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    August 30, 2021 3:36pm
- surfing
  
  The important figure you need to look at….
  
  “None of those hospitalised are fully vaccinated and just eight of the 34 have had one dose”
  
  Those who refuse the vaccine will have to accept covid infections.
  
  Hospitals will have to increase ICU capacity. I reckon that we’ll only get to 50-60% fully vaccinated, so , we will be overwhelmed on current capacity which is abysmal even pre-covid.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:39pm
  - Batman
    
    And those unvaccinated people will not receive the care they could have if more had got vaccinated.
    
    More will die needlessly, because of their stupidity and stubbornness. A tragedy caused by political stupidity and age-old lies about vaccines.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:47pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Read the latest..
      One dead from myocarditis following Pfiiser jab.
      The first death linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been recorded in New Zealand, says the Ministry of Health.
      
      A woman died from a rare side effect of the vaccine, marking the first death in New Zealand with a clear link to inoculation.
      
      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/coronavirus-live-updates-latest-on-covid-19-community-outbreak-monday-august-30.html
      
      I had pericarditis about 15 years ago…
      What do you advise?
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:03pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Last I looked it was about 1 in 40000 dying from vaccine. Anyone know more up to date figure?
        
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        August 30, 2021 3:38pm
- JohnRidd
  
  If you are overweight or have brown skin in NZ at this time of year, you almost certainly will be deficient in vitamin D.
  
  If you are deficient in vitamin D, your immune system will not function well.
  
  If your immune system is not functioning well, vaccinations will provide little benefit.
  
  Which is the reason why the majority of covid 19 patients in hospital have brown skin or are overweight.
  
  It is therefore not controversial to say that low vitamin d levels will result in a more serious infection, even if you are vaccinated.
  
  https://joannenova.com.au/2021/08/people-deficient-in-vitamin-d-are-14-times-more-likely-to-get-severe-covid/#comments
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:27pm
ABS4EVA

Can’t organise a Virtual Parliament

What a pack of over paid XXX

How USELESS IS that
Ever heard of SKYPE ZOOM etc etc

OVER PAID ENTITLED XXX

They shut it down because in lock down
People would see

HOW USELESS THEY ARE
UTTERLY AND TOTALLY
OVERPAID AND USELESS
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August 30, 2021 9:34am
I remember when

Thank you Duke:
If your television has access to Duke I hope you have taken the opportunity to watch at least some of the Paralympics.
What an amazing display of determination, dedication, physical prowess, imagination and the sheer ability to overcome seemingly impossible odds.
Every session you see something you do think is possible. People who refuse to give up.
You imagine the amount of time given by those who coach, are on committees, umpire, manage, fundraise, encourage and support so that they can participate.
Jacinda who.
What covid.
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August 30, 2021 9:34am
- Tony Stuart
  
  The coverage has been pretty average, but the courage and competitiveness is something else. I caught the end of the men’s shotput yesterday for very short people. The winner won on the final throw of the competition, by a mere 1cm. The guy who finished second was preparing to celebrate; instead he came straight over and hugged the winner warmly, both smiling from ear to ear. And don’t get me started on the Egyptian table tennis player with no arms, who holds the bat between his teeth! It’s great sport.
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:28am
ecco

Those so called ‘experts’ that Ardern is taking ALL her advice from, Hendy, Baker and that woman Wiles are all pretty low rent aren’t they. She needs to stop listening to them and start asking some of the business community, big and small, how they are going to survive long term with this hair brained lockdown that she persists with.

At this rate there will be no NZ economy left soon. Of course the consequences of her actions will be of no interest to Ardern as she will have high tailed off to her UN job by then.
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August 30, 2021 9:36am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Without them she has no idea, such is her level of wisdom
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:24pm
Critical Thinker

Mother of U.S. fallen Marine Rylee McCollum, whom was 1 of the 13 Marines killed in the Kabul airport explosion, calls into radio show ??

https://twitter.com/Peoples_Pundit/status/1431682739917443080
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August 30, 2021 9:43am
cmm

The lack of planning/usage on CV19 levels is astounding.

First they gave us 4 levels that were designed to take us from a low treat level (L1) up to where the health system is being compromised and overrun (L4).

Then they used L4 when only L2 was justified (maybe L3 for a few days in a few places).

Now L4 is not enough and they’re talking about L4.5.

So this begs the questions:
A) If we’re already running on L4, then what’s the number for if we get to Brazilian level conditions (you know: bodies stacked up waiting for burial in mass graves – something like what happened in NZ during the Spanish Flu). If we’re already on L4 then that must be L10 or so.
B) Why is there no planning for this? Why does the system only define levels up to L4?
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August 30, 2021 9:51am
- Stu2
  
  Seeing they only drop one level at a time, be careful what you wish for
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:15am
- rangitoto
  
  The Brazil stats look quite different to most countries. They seem to have much broader peaks. No idea why that would be.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:28am
  - kowtow
    
    Removing unsightly hair diminshes immunity?
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:47pm
    - cmm
      
      I know you jest, but evolution would have removed that hair if it did not give an advantage, especially since there are some disadvantages too (eg. lice and crabs).
      
      I suspect there is some benefit to the immune system in having public hair. eg, maybe it provides an ecosystem for healthy bugs.
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:18pm
- Nickc2
  
  Good point cmm and well-phrased. I’m picking they don’t think they will be in office when it happens or if they are, it won’t matter because they will probably comprise the bodies awaiting a mass grave burial.
  MAY THEY RIP!
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:58am
- Master Mariner
  
  Plane simple, Just wing it.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:42pm
- Hard Cheese
  
  Because they can’t count to 5?
  
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  August 30, 2021 3:23pm
Critical Thinker

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” – Voltaire

Four newborns die after being denied heart surgery due to COVID-19 travel restrictions ??

https://twitter.com/RodneyNCulleton/status/1430326866221539331

Idiotic border restrictions prevent NSW baby accessing crucial brain scan

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-20/tough-qld-border-restrictions-nsw-baby-refused-vital-brain-scan/100393322

I want everyone to start asking themselves, their friends and their family… “Where will you actually draw the line and say enough of this madness?” ?
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August 30, 2021 9:56am
- Critical Thinker
  
  Judge strips mother of parental rights because she is not vaccinated
  
  https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/cook-county-judge-strips-mother-of-parental-rights-over-vaccination-status
  
  Judges are mandating vaccines as part of their defendants bail and sentences
  
  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/nyregion/covid-vacc
  
  Furor Erupts After Australian Officials Kill Rescue Dogs Over COVID-19 Fears
  
  One of the female dogs had reportedly just given birth to a litter of puppies ?
  
  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/austraila-covid-rescue-dogs-killed-controversy_n_6122f3c3e4b0e8ac791f346d
  
  Northland man will watch from road as wife laid to rest
  
  “We’ve been instructed if anybody comes on the cemetery ground, we are to put the casket down wherever it goes, and they will call the police and they will take you away.”
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/lockdown-burial-northland-man-will-watch-from-road-as-wife-laid-to-rest/W3GJVPXLDNHWRQYZ3XLSZCIHRQ/
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:02am
Yvette

How do different testing levels relate to cases?
• Media release – 29 August 2021
There are 83 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community today
Yesterday, 23,139 tests were processed across New Zealand.

• Media release – 28 August 2021
There are 82 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community today
Yesterday, 36,418 tests were processed across New Zealand. [1]

Does this mean 83 cases to 23,139 tests is a percentage of 0.00358
while 82 in 36,418 is a percentage of 0.00225

So is a case difference of 1 (83 : 82) a helpful simple comparison when one day’s testing appears to be 63% of the day before – 23,139 compared to 36,418, assuming one day’s tests are reported the next day?
If there is any mistake in my figures, there is still a question relating to varying test numbers.

[1] https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/82-additional-community-cases-covid-19-1-new-case-managed-isolation-facility-more-89000-vaccines
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August 30, 2021 10:04am
- westernScientest
  
  If you want to try to make the comparison, remember that there is a lag between the number of tests taken being announced and the positive tests being announced, i.e. the 83 cases, probably came from the released testing figures 1 or 2 or 3 days prior to the 83 positive cases being announced.
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:18am
  - Ian Boag
    
    And the positive tests came from people infected a week or two ago ….
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:11pm
- cmm
  
  One must also remember statistical noise.
  
  Anything from approx 75 to 90 is not statistically different from 82.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:20pm
westernScientest

Get ready for more re-definitions:

RNZ reported Baker saying that the whole alert system needed to be redesigned on the basis of controlling aerosols.This would include reviewing who is an essential worker, the environment they’re working in and looking at ventilation and mask use.

One would think they are softening us up for something… closing supermarkets and welding doors maybe?
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August 30, 2021 10:19am
- cmm
  
  Ok, Master Baker if we’re finally going to recognise the importance of aerosols then:
  A) Dump masks. Masks don’t stop aerosols. The theory behind masks is based on the virus only traveling in large droplets. They are just theatre props.
  B) Get rid of social distancing rules (2m spacing etc) which are all based on large droplets falling on the ground.
  C) Encourage people to go outdoors – particularly to beaches etc.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:25pm
I remember when

So 41 of yesterday’s confirmed cases were the result of household contact. Half!!
In other words the result of following government’s lockdown directions.
On the other hand no-one that went surfing, fishing, walking in isolated areas will have caught covid there.
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August 30, 2021 10:23am
- MCos
  
  Obviously people are going to catch the bug from someone else in the family whether in lockdown or not. That’s the nature of contagious diseases.
  On the other hand if nobody else visits the house it spreads no further. That’s the aim of the lockdown.
  
  I think the reason people are discouraged from those activities you list is because if something go wrong they tie up medical staff when the hospital could potentially be struggling with covid patients.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:24pm
  - cmm
    
    MCos. We know that time allows people to pick up larger doses. If you’re at home bingeing Netflix then you’re going to be breathing the same air as the others 24/7.
    
    If you’re out most of the time, then that number reduces immensely.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:27pm
NoFax

Interesting program on Sky News last night called “The Alliance”. Mostly about Australia and the US relationship. However, there was a good segment on NZ. Overall positive but the criticism that we don’t spend enough is valid. The second criticism, was around our childish relationship with the US and how that broke ANZUS.

Is it time to end our anti-nuclear policy? I think so. I suspect I am in the minority though.
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August 30, 2021 10:32am
- MCos
  
  The anti nuclear legislation was passed by the Labour Government in 1987, over the opposition of National.
  Various National administrations have had the opportunity to throw it out, but nothing’s happened.
  The thought of ships coming here with undisclosed nuclear weapons would certainly not be a vote winner.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:09pm
  - NoFax
    
    I am not really a National supporter and I don’t expect much leadership on the issue (or any issue for that matter). And I suspect few voters would support it. Of course when/if there is war with China I doubt many will care then.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:23pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Why not? IMO, most of those leftie loonies who protested in the 80’s would either be capitalists now or they have fried their brains with drugs such as they are now more likely to be seeking assistance from the Mongrel Mob’s rehabilitation programs.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:41pm
- Nickc2
  
  Agree, I watched that program. There is a second part to come I believe?
  No, I don’t believe we are in a minority. I think many of the protagonists in that era have grown up albeit they are probably still Labour/Greens aligned although they won’t admit it in mixed company.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:47pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Absolutely, Save the plannet and build a Nuclear power plant in Auckland.
  Climate change , Tick the box. Done.
  
  “the criticism that we don’t spend enough is valid”.
  
  Tell that too the people left behind in Afghanistan.
  
  Sending a shit Airforce and expect miracles.
  
  Build a Nuclear Power plant and put in control of the Greens to manage if they bother to turn up for work that is.
  
  Any fuck up is on them.
  
  Job done.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:48pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

All Trump’s fault.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAioyZFfBwU
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August 30, 2021 10:38am
Opie

This from the most open and transparent prime minister ever

“It’s not a matter of running out, it’s a matter of whether or not we are in a position of where we need to have a little less demand,” Ardern said when asked when supplies would run out”

A manipulative, narcissistic, arrogant liar.
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August 30, 2021 10:42am
- Yvette
  
  Opie
  This may be why Dr Ayesha Verrall, Associate Minister of Health, has supposedly commented on the current upsurge in vaccination demand, to say vaccination requires a certain duration to offer any immunity and so is no help in the current lockdown situation.
  
  When they have a rising impetus for people to get a vaccination, why is she dampening down that rate of vaccination enthusiasm which they have previously so lamented as not being as high as desired?
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:36am
  - Batman
    
    “current” versus future. They are two different concepts.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:42pm
    - Opie
      
      Batman – are you defending this absolute rubbish?
      
      Anyone who spoke like that in the real world world be laughed out of the organisation.
      
      I think it’s getting to the stage where we could use her statements as the basis for an IQ test
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:25pm
      - RW Capitalist
        
        The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.[3] It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between “idiot” (IQ of 0–25) and “moron” (IQ of 51–70).[4
        To differentiate between these 3 groups?
        
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        August 30, 2021 2:57pm
- Colville
  
  “its not a matter of not having enough food, we just want people to stop getting hungry”
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:52am
- surfing
  
  Just a short time ago they were saying we had enough vaccine to cover the booster shots….
  
  Now they are saying (unofficially) that we don’t even have enough vaccine to fully vaccinate everyone.
  
  Which one is it? I bet the latter.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:44pm
  - cmm
    
    Based on the numbers on the MoH website, the vaccines in stock would not last even one day if they got off their arses and vaccinated.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:29pm
- cmm
  
  We have run out. That’s why the vaccination rates are so low.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:28pm
- The Boss
  
  Record daily number of vaccinations not so good news anymore! LOL
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:55pm
greybeard

Another great opinion piece this morning from Kate Hawkesby, reacting to the Public Service boss’s support for Bloomfield from last Friday.
( Listen to NewstalkZB “On Demand” at about 5:25am this morning.)
Both she and Hosking are really raising the temperature on the Govt these days.
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August 30, 2021 10:54am
freemark

As the Govt is running out of “vaccines” they should be going only for the vulnerable at the moment. I expect this information to come from the podium any minute now….
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August 30, 2021 11:04am
- westernScientest
  
  they are not running out of vaccines, they just have too much demand right now. The spin is going to make her so dissy she falls over that the podium of truth soon
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:23am
  - The Boss
    
    The record number of vaccinations every day is no longer good news! LOL
    
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    August 30, 2021 2:51pm
  - greybeard
    
    They have been exhorting the population to get vaccinated for the last 2 weeks: what did they expect, when so many dutifully turned up and then they found they didn’t have enough vaccine?
    What absolute idiots.
    
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    August 30, 2021 6:40pm
Stu2

Two numbers from Sydney – 126 in ICU from the current outbreak, only one fully vaccinated
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August 30, 2021 11:05am
- kowtow
  
  Ages and pre existing health conditions etc
  
  raw figures mean nothing w/o context .
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:20am
ABS4EVA

Vladimer Putin versus

Cindies Friend Dan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFcvGs8MJ4Y
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August 30, 2021 11:07am
Maggie Pie

Just shot up to the dairy to buy the latest copy of ‘Woman’s Day’
Thort this worth sharing with the group…..

BEHIND THE PALACE WALLS:

‘With all eyes an Prince Andrew and the horrifying sexual assault allegations he faces, it’s sad to read that pregnant daughter Beatrice has had a break down….. due to all the drama with her dad proving too much for the fragile princess.
Palace insiders say there’s never been a scandal like it in the modern-day history of the Monarchy, and behind closed doors the fallout is deeply affecting everyone’.

>>Oh wot a tangled web we weave….. 🙁
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August 30, 2021 11:11am
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  What a shocker! middle aged single man shags young woman for money, surely a unique occurrence in history of royal family. If only he had used a more conventional prostitute.
  
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  August 30, 2021 3:50pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4z-aDTZgCA

Why Doesn’t the U.S. Call China an Enemy?

China would like to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower. While China is building up its nuclear arsenal and other military capabilities to catch up with the U.S., American leadership has been hesitant to call the Chinese Communist Party what we might have called it without hesitation in years prior—an enemy. Joining us in this episode of China Unscripted is Jim Fanell, a retired U.S. Naval Intelligence officer who specialized in Indo-Asia Pacific security affairs, with an emphasis on the Chinese navy and its operations. [8:48]
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August 30, 2021 11:23am
New Zealander

Herald reckons about 50 cases again today.

Most of the new cases will be from tests on Saturday, when 23,000 people were swabbed for Covid-19. That was lower than the 36,000 tests on Thursday and 37,000 on Friday (82 and 83 positive cases respectively).

So while the government will claim “good news”, it’s actually almost the same positive case per test as the previous two days.

Victoria and NSW both experienced drops before cases began to rise rapidly. NZ outside of Auckland and Northland going to Level 3 is going to be very interesting. It only takes one positive person to go un-tested (as many will have for the fear of having to go to MIQ) and there could be a major outbreak.

I won’t be going to KFC for a while.
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August 30, 2021 11:23am
- Stu2
  
  Was looking for the daily test numbers on the MoH site last night as I was wondering if the weekend tests were lower (they always are outside lockdowns). There is a graph but no table. Annoying
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:51pm
- Inandout
  
  NZer, KFC is ‘finga licking good’, don’t be a meanie.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:48pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  almost the same positive case per test as the previous two days
  
  That’s consistent with the random production of false positives. The replication process naturally creates dna independently of the sample similar to the human way of sometimes getting the copying wrong.
  
  The whole of the batch is end tested against a defined pattern and if the batch includes matching dna from sample or bad copying a positive is returned.
  
  The more people who are tested the greater number of positives.
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:09pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5zTXbjSpqo

As Biden gets exposed in AFG, Kamala accepts Chinese supremacy in Vietnam.

By the end of her trip, China’s position got strengthened in the region whereas the US failed to assure its Southeast Asian allies. Neither Kamala’s statements nor her actions during the visit to Vietnam and Singapore can be described as a success. [6:34]
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August 30, 2021 11:24am
- Inandout
  
  curry, Kamala’s role as VP has put the shits up the Dems as she is as popular as the plague amongst voters. And Joe is barely able to hang in there. And we think NZ has problems.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:50pm
  - curry4me
    
    Inandout: Yes, either way, it’ll likely be a red wave in 2022.
    
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    August 30, 2021 8:17pm
Yvette

I reckon that under Alert Level 2.8 David Seymour will be the only person required to stay at home, for suggesting that there should be a lottery to encourage people to use the Covid Tracer App. – James Elliot “reckons” on Newsroom
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August 30, 2021 11:42am
JibberJabber

https://asianinvasion2019.blogspot.com/2021/08/panic-sets-in-will-ardern-ego-ever-end.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed: AsianInvasion2019 (Asian Invasion 2019)

Can we just remind you all of this from January 2020 where New Zealander of the Year and revered Science communicator hero made this prediction.
NZ is unlikely to see a Coronavirus outbreak

This would be amusing but remember it is the likes of muppets like Siouxsie Wiles with their ever changing predictions and modelling that are deciding when YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR HOUSE.

She has an opinion on everything. She is the most political of all the activists. Right down to universal benefits. Oh and economics.

You are adults.

You have common sense.

Use it.

!
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August 30, 2021 11:52am
- JibberJabber
  
  Her entire thread just keeps getting better…?
  
  I went to High School with your colleague Nikki Moreland and she is smarter than you will ever pretend to be.
  
  I sat in an assembly in the 3rd form when she was made Dux of my school in her 7th form. I remember this in awe of her academic achievement. I then stood where she was in my 7th form. Nikki as I heard was going off to cure cancer…..covid surely would be quite easy in comparison.
  
  The chap who came second to me the whole of my high school (apart from Computer studies) as I dragged him around like the little geek bitch he was, is apparently now Professor and Head of School for Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at UNSW Sydney. Good on him. Excellent work.
  
  Yeah so probably better in the pecking order than you Siouxsie.
  
  No one has a monopoly on an opinion to the Covid response. We know the science. How dare you dismiss the opinions of others when your opinion actually is worth really just a bunch of saggy tits?
  
  My Gawd! why can’t we have journalists like CK in the mainstream?
  Calling it like they see it.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:00pm
  - Batman
    
    The death of expertise will end human civilisation, and be cheered by the self-appointed experts of everything.
    
    Idiotic.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:40pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Day 12 of egg sammies for Lunch.
Must admit I was over them by day 3, but hubby is still keen.

But having discovered 8 half-empty bags of old bread in the freezer, I’ve decided to treat him to some greasy French Toast instead. (except I’ll tell him its Croque Monsieur )
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August 30, 2021 11:53am
- Batman
  
  I hope you keep your windows open Maggy ? should be warm enough in Gizzy in late August surely!
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:06pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    It has been pissing down, but I’ve not been confined indoors.
    Just before lockdown commenced, we were landed with a feral bantam that had been attacked by a dog…we have had it confined in a large dog cage and made a small outdoor run for it on one of my back lawns whilst it recovered over the last couple of weeks… but my Heath Robinson banty shelter is now bog central….and being unable to purchase any decent construction materials, I have released banty from Lockdown and cast her out into the wilds of my Gardens.
    
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    August 30, 2021 12:43pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Bluddy cat next door just came over and frightened banty who rushed to our Front door for safety and hid behind one of my orchid pots….
      
      So we’ve carted the dog crate aka Banty’s abode into the Garage and she’s back in Lockdown!
      
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      August 30, 2021 1:57pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  My mother used to misuse the term “egg bound”, as to what may happen to you if you eat too many eggs.
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:52pm
Batman

Given that the idiots at the Ministry of Health can’t even utilise the functions of the app they built, perhaps we should make like the founding fathers of the USA and all get vaccinated and endorse vaccine mandates, to save ourselves from the incompetent idiots at MoH.

Here’s a wonder thread which goes from a terrible church gift bag to something called the US Constitution, to the source of the MMR faux dangers.

https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1432060194276659203?s=19
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August 30, 2021 12:10pm
- Joe Kerr
  
  Haha are you the tough guy that will try force a needle into my arm, or are you going to send some other poor sod to be knocked out in your place?
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:22pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    Unfair! Batty is our adopted stray, if mangey cat. Mostly needs a light patting, occasionally a bit of a kick. Best left with a saucer of milk and a warn rug.
    
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    August 30, 2021 6:27pm
krazykiwi

I see Fauci says mandating COVID vaccines for kids to attend school is a “good idea”, and that “We’ve done this for decades, requiring polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis”.

Fauci is, again, speaking with a forked tongue. Schools have rightly* required polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis vaccinations because there are decades worth of longitudinal efficacy and safety data to provide confidence to parents. What he thinks is a ‘good idea’ is the mandated use of an experimental therapy without such efficacy and safety data.

* Don’t know why I bother highlighting this as the anti-vaxx smear will almost certainly be trotted out against me regardless.
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August 30, 2021 12:14pm
- TWEEDSE
  
  Thanks KK. Some of us who value research, value your time and effort.
  
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  August 30, 2021 12:54pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    Cheers TWEEDSE et al. The topic has become something of a crusade for me. Every time I consider parking it another relevant data point or bone headed political decision surfaces … and I just can’t.
    
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    August 30, 2021 1:48pm
- MCos
  
  I had a polio vaccine in 1961.
  As far as I’m aware there wasn’t decades ‘decades worth of . . . safety data’
  
  Dr Salk developed a vaccine that was trialed on half a million kids in America in 1954 & and year later was used to start widespread vaccination of the rest of the kids. By 1961 polio was pretty much wiped out.
  A rival vaccine developed by Dr Sabin was used in NZ.
  https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/kids-ailments-health-news-434/the-salk-polio-vaccine-greatest-public-health-experiment-in-history-691915.html
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:46pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    There had been quite a bit of work prior:
    – Early polio vaccine projects (1935)
    – Cultivating poliovirus in human tissue (1936)
    – Koprowski polio vaccine tests (1948-1950)
    – Salk poliomyelitis vaccine trial (1952-1953)
    – Vaccination programs suspended (1955) [after 11 deaths, and hundreds of cases of paralysis]
    – Koprowski OPV test (1957)
    – Testing and licensing of Sabin polio vaccine (1959-1963)
    
    By 1961 you were the beneficiary of lots of efficacy and safety data. Something I just learned is the orval vaccine (‘the sip’) was responsible for creating small number of polio cases each year. I seem to recall I had this as a wee nipper in the late 1960s
    
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    August 30, 2021 4:50pm
70andstilllearning

A letter to Cindy and Ash from the Mid North. Will they take any notice? Personally I doubt it as history suggests that once Cindy has taken a premature position on something she appears incapable of adjusting it, irrespective of the evidence in front of her.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-outbreak-prime-minister-why-is-northland-being-kept-at-level-4/SW75DN42XF6SBMB2NWXMYJ3NWM/

Also notable that all three Northland Mayors have called for the decision to be revisited.
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August 30, 2021 12:42pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  They are not from Waikato.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:58pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    Sorry KevO – lost the the context there. The Mayors or ?????
    If it’s the mayors I can identify having lived/had businesses in Waipa/HCC for 3 decades up until a few years ago.
    
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    August 30, 2021 5:44pm
- 70andstilllearning
  
  Uumm So 70a might need to eat a bit of humble pie. Another 2 days is better than a week so a bit of a face saver on all fronts.
  
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  August 30, 2021 4:55pm
westernScientest

If anyone is interested. Very basic visualisation of the current outbreak case numbers, with some basic curve fitting.
Note these are not predictions, curve fitting is just to see what kind of function the case numbers are following, but extending a couple days into the future gives some accountability, if a particular function is way out for a couple of days in a row, it is obviously not performing. Its just a couple of pictures to make it easier to visualise.

https://github.com/westernsci/NZ-covid-outbreak-curve-fitting/blob/main/covidCurveFitting.ipynb
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August 30, 2021 12:53pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Looks good…
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:53pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Oh Shit!

The first death linked to the Pfizer vaccine has been recorded in New Zealand, says the Ministry of Health.

The CV-ISMB has considered that the woman’s death was due to myocarditis, which is known to be a rare side effect of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300394307/covid19-live-ministry-of-health-to-give-update-on-covid19-cases-ahead-of-lockdown-announcement
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August 30, 2021 12:56pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  I still don’t regret getting it.
  But the full facts are still helpful.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:08pm
- Durden
  
  I see that date of death has not been noted. This is likely to be one of those 5-6 deaths by adverse reaction reported which the ministry has been reviewing for a while.
  
  Strange timing on the information coming out. Either the information dictatorship is losing control, or it is a convenient bit of news to “manage demand” as Cindy said to compensate for dwindling vaccination stocks.
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:39pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yep,
    The latest posting on the Min of health site is for week up to 7 August…which refers to 26 deaths after the Pfizer (Comirnaty) vaccine
    
    Summary of reported deaths
    Up to and including 7 August 2021, a total of 26 deaths were reported to CARM after the administration of the Comirnaty vaccine. Following medical assessments by CARM and Medsafe it has been determined that:
    
    17 of these deaths are unlikely related to the COVID-19 vaccine
    4 deaths could not be assessed due to insufficient information
    5 cases are still under investigation.
    
    https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/safety-report-23.asp
    
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    August 30, 2021 2:58pm
    - Surely Knott
      
      Yes. The most recent published is 7 august. But Newstalkzb appears to have the august 25 data. They say “As recently as August 25 there have been 32 cases of people reporting myocarditis and pericarditis ….” Do the media have access to the next safety report before they are made public?
      
      https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/covid-19-delta-outbreak-new-community-cases-dip-to-53/
      
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      August 30, 2021 3:42pm
RW Capitalist

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300394580/covid19-nz-chris-hipkins-admits-misinterpreting-vaccine-delivery-schedule-by-a-month

Told ya so.

“Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins says he inadvertently misled media when discussing the delivery timetable for the Covid-19 vaccine.”

Inadvertent my ass.

Their behaviour over the past several weeks shows they knew.
1. Extending the time for the 2nd jab to 6 weeks.
2. Shutting down vaccinations for 2 days.
.3 Blaming everyone else for the slow roll out.
4. The painfully slow roll out in the first place.
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August 30, 2021 1:06pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Chris Hipkins says he inadvertently misled media
  I’ll accept that on the basis he lacks numeracy and judgement. A youthful Biden?
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:50pm
  - RW Capitalist
    
    He told the story of how he supposedly went to the hairdressers and refused to take his head phones off. When the hairdresser asked if he could remove them just for a moment to cut around his ears, Chris Hipkins gave a definite “no” explaining that his headphones were a matter of life and death. The hairdresser couldn’t bear it, he had to listen. He bent down to Hipkin’s ear and lifted the ear piece only to hear a voice giving instructions – “breathe in, breath out, breathe in, breathe out”.
    
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    August 30, 2021 3:10pm
- cmm
  
  So clear up some lies by lying even more!
  
  This is being spun as a result of over achieving (“due to our high rate of vaccination”). What bullshit:
  1) Our vaccination rates are excruciatingly low.
  2) In fact it is the lowest in the OECD.
  3) Although much is made of all sorts of other factors (which would have been caused by incompetence if they were true), the real limiting factor has been the lack of doses.
  
  They can spin it that we’ve not run out, but if there is stuff in the cupboard (does anyone believe them any more?) then that is only because they are pacing themselves.
  
  Last I checked on the MoH website there was not even enough left for a day’s worth of vaccinating – even at our sloth-like pace.
  
  They had to stop. Creating a L4 lockdown was a very convenient way to avoid this embarrassment for another few days.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:56pm
- alex Masterley
  
  What else has he got wrong?
  
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  August 30, 2021 3:47pm
- Nickc2
  
  He misled the public – bullshit – he lied to the public. Will the PM get rid of this lying bastard? No, of course not, he knows where all the bodies are within this Labour Govt including her lies and pontification throughout this Govt’s Covid-19 debacle.
  
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  August 30, 2021 3:54pm
Surely Knott

I see it is buried in an general health update. Will it get its own headline and article. As a woman considering the vaccine I’d like to know her age.. I’d also like to know the details of the other 25 deaths. Will they mention these in an article. If the other 25 deaths after vaccine were not the vaccine then what did they die of? Were the other deaths clot and heart related? What is there definition of died after vaccination – how long after vaccination?
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August 30, 2021 1:08pm
- krazykiwi
  
  All good questions. The most ethical response would be full disclosure however I expect there will be limited transparency.
  
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  August 30, 2021 1:43pm
- Hollyfield
  
  Full information is on this page: https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vaccine-report-overview.asp
  
  I say full information, but I’m not sure it’s that helpful.
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:09pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Unbelievable. Humvees, helicopters, arms, amo, cash, fuel, and now these; and Biden is still POTUS?
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/taliban-hit-squads-using-u-s-biometric-data-and-scanners-left-behind-to-hunt-afghans/?
11 2
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August 30, 2021 1:21pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Face, finger, eyes …..
  
  2 1
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  August 30, 2021 1:23pm
Maggie Pie

Sung to ‘CANDIDA’ by Dawn

“oh oh Jacinda, you took action on Climate,
while we were scratching our privates……”

https://youtu.be/MdbKEVt37j4

😀 😀 😀
7 1
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August 30, 2021 1:38pm
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  Love it. You can have her!
  
  2 0
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  August 30, 2021 6:11pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

See what happens when you don’t pay attention? Spapool pump was running, partner said it was running all day. Oh boy. Thermometer says 46 degrees, that is a bit warm. Draining and putting cold in now. Someone forgot to turn the air switch from heat to thermostat.
I think it was Jack
1 2
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August 30, 2021 1:42pm
cmm

My mother in South Africa is in the throes of adding herself to the CV19 death count. Probably all over sometime later today.

Terrible thing this CV19….

Or maybe it’s really down to being riddled with cancer, a lifetime of morbid obesity leading to congestive heart failure and other strains and her body packing it in after 85 years.

When someone dies of AIDS they normally die of pneumonia. We count that as an AIDS death.
If we applied the same to counting CV19 deaths then perhaps there would be many more cancer/heart failure/old age deaths and many less CV19 deaths.
28 0
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August 30, 2021 1:47pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Condolences for when it happens
  
  21 1
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  August 30, 2021 1:53pm
  - cmm
    
    Thanks Steve. I appreciate your kindness, but no condolence required.
    
    We didn’t see eye to eye on much and were not really communicating. In fact I thought she had died some time last year because her abusive phone calls had stopped. Her death is somewhat liberating.
    
    At least all the CV19 gives me a good out for not having to travel for a funeral etc.
    
    17 0
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    August 30, 2021 2:02pm
    - Cinematic
      
      Still a period of adjustment in front of you CMM. Look after yourself.
      
      16 0
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      August 30, 2021 2:09pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Still a Mother – you only get one
      
      14 2
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      August 30, 2021 2:44pm
      - YesMinister
        
        Lord, how loathsome this attitude is. Women get a free pass to sanctification merely by allowing some man to spend himself inside them, and then forever more, no matter how negligent, cruel, neurotic, or abusive they may be, they are excused their cruelty and every gormless git dribbles out the same nonsense about how wonderful mothers are by merit of simply opened their legs.
        
        There are plenty of women who have spawned who do not deserve the title, or the easy accolades associated with mother, and frankly, it is insulting to the millions of people who deal with abusive parents to keep parroting this nonsense.
        
        3 1
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        August 30, 2021 3:04pm
      - Nickc2
        
        delete
        
        0 0
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        August 30, 2021 4:48pm
Inandout

I am sure I heard on the radio that some Maori guy in Dunedin had arranged for students from his race to attend a vaccine rollout this morning at 9am. No one turned up so he explained that he was once a student and ‘they do sleep in’. Mate you have a lot to learn about your culture.
24 2
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August 30, 2021 1:56pm
dcrane

NZHerald: “Meanwhile, a woman has died after a rare side effect of the Pfizer Covid vaccine, although health officials note that other medical issues “may have influenced the outcome”.

Let’s watch to see if the same nuance appears when our next covid deaths occur.
21 1
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August 30, 2021 1:58pm
RW Capitalist

My attitude to the vaccine is the same as my attitude to smoking.
Vaccine(I got it)….I suggest, that on the balance…you should get it, but I will not think less of you if you decide not to and will still associate with you.
Smoking (I quit in 1994)…I suggest you quit, But I will not think less of you if you decide not to and will still associate with you.
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August 30, 2021 2:03pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Good point in Vaccine. Smoking? I quit in 2009 after 42 years. Needed to stop for cervical spine neck fusion.
  Same with the vax, my choice. Those who want me to vax for their safety are delusional – especially after my recent anaphylaxis.
  The vax is ‘approved’ by FDA means sweet fuck all when it is still being tested. Janet Woodcock also ‘approved’ fentanyl as a painkiller. She is a paid off puppet
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:50pm
  - RW Capitalist
    
    Moral of your story appears to be:
    Get all the info. (especially professional) you can, then…….
    MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND.
    
    6 0
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    August 30, 2021 3:07pm
dcrane

Is there any history of NZ intelligence agencies running entrapment psyops of the sort we’ve just seen in the US (alleged Michigan governor kidnapping scheme in 2020, and probably 6 January as well)?

Can’t help but wonder when I read something like this:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/nz-covid-19-conspiracy-group-in-disarray-after-almost-nobody-turns-up-to-anti-lockdown-protest.html
8 1
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August 30, 2021 2:13pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  The reporter on the TV let it slip.
  One of the reasons that nobody showed, is because the police intercepted them before they could arrive.
  Definitely an attempt to make them LOOK like they had no support.
  
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  August 30, 2021 2:48pm
dcrane

Interesting analysis considering allegations of U.S. involvement with the so-called ISIS-K group, including protection of its members in other theaters and transportation to Afghanistan.

https://realalexrubi.substack.com/p/did-the-us-support-the-growth-of
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August 30, 2021 2:42pm
Nickc2

cancel
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August 30, 2021 2:45pm
Captain Mainwaring

West Auckland strikes again.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-lockdown-bus-driver-attack-teen-girl-tries-to-gouge-out-eye/6HDP62PQHEX2LUKMSY3WLHIBK4/
9 0
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August 30, 2021 2:58pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  and I laud him for his restraint.
  Me
  punching and kicking would have been involved
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:10pm
Chuck Bird

Did anyone see the part on the Sunday show about Afghanistan? It mentioned how some warlord kept a young man as a sex slave. I wonder if the paedophile prophet would approve.
8 3
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August 30, 2021 3:16pm
- Adroit
  
  Definitely not – while I am as anti-Islam as they come, to be fair to the Taliban, they outlawed it under pain of death while they ruled Afghan. If i recall correctly, it’s origin predates the arrival of Islam in the region.
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:45pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

No description.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T1txBRoQxQ
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August 30, 2021 3:27pm
RW Capitalist

https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/influenza-pandemic-plan-framework-action-2nd-edn-aug17.pdf

Some excerpts.

The purpose of this document is to outline the all-of-government
measures that will be considered in response to an influenza pandemic and to provide an
overview of the activities that are being undertaken to ensure New Zealand is adequately
prepared for an influenza pandemic

6 New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan: A framework for action
Impact of pandemics on Māori and Pacific peoples in
New Zealand
The 1918/19 pandemic had a severe impact on Māori, whose death rate of 4.2 percent was
approximately five to seven times higher than the non-Māori death rate.
Māori and Pacific peoples in New Zealand had higher rates of morbidity for the influenza A
(H1N1) 2009 pandemic than other ethnic groups.
History, therefore, suggests that Māori and Pacific peoples are more susceptible to pandemic
influenza than other groups.

The type of pandemic being planned for
The NZIPAP is flexible enough to enable a response to be tailored to the level of severity of a
pandemic. Key actions outlined here reflect the more serious end of the scale of national health
emergencies, but can readily be customised for less serious pandemics.
New Zealand pandemic planning is based around a six-phase strategy:
1 Plan For It (planning and preparedness)
2 Keep It Out (border management)
3 Stamp It Out (cluster control)
4 Manage It (pandemic management)
5 Manage It: Post-Peak 6 Recover From It (recovery).

able 2: Six-phase strategy of New Zealand pandemic planning
Phase Potential trigger Specific objectives
Plan For It
Planning and preparedness
Level of influenza at normal seasonal
levels
Plan and prepare to reduce the health,
social and economic impact of a
pandemic on New Zealand
Deal with disease in animals, if
required
Keep It Out
Border management
Sustained human-to-human
transmission of a novel influenza virus
overseas in two or more countries
Prevent, or delay to the greatest extent
possible, the arrival of the pandemic
virus in New Zealand
Stamp It Out
Cluster control
Novel influenza virus or pandemic virus
detected in case(s) in New Zealand
Control and/or eliminate any clusters
found in New Zealand

New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan: A framework for action 11
Manage It
Pandemic management
Multiple clusters at separate locations,
or clusters spreading out of control
Reduce the impact of pandemic
influenza on New Zealand’s population
Manage It: Post-Peak
Transition to Recover From It
phase, and planning for a
resurgence or second wave
New Zealand wave decreasing Expedite recovery, and prepare for a
re-escalation of response
Recover From It
Recovery
Population protected by vaccination, or
pandemic abated in New Zealand
Expedite the recovery of population
health, communities and society where
affected by the pandemic, pandemic
management measures, or disruption
to normal services

What part of this did they follow and in what order???
A: NONE
and the mess we are in now?
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August 30, 2021 3:28pm
RW Capitalist

5 rockets fired at Kabul airport, no injuries.
But Bidens plans are …………..
You choose the words, because, unusually, I have none.
5 0
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August 30, 2021 3:38pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Biden’s plans are:
  
  – Lunch.
  – A nap.
  – Meeting with therapist.
  – Teleprompter practice.
  – Another nap.
  – Helicopter sightseeing outing.
  – Handover training with Kamala.
  – Dinner.
  – Help with brushing teeth.
  – Help with Meds.
  – Bed.
  
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  August 30, 2021 4:38pm
- Fletch
  
  I swear he must use an earpiece and they tell him what to say. He has these long pauses where he looks down as if listening before speaking.
  
  6 1
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  August 30, 2021 4:59pm
70andstilllearning

Out of the mouths of babes 🙂

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/lifestyle/stuff-of-lockdown-nightmares-neves-disturbing-homemade-doll/
3 0
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August 30, 2021 3:49pm
- rockape
  
  I want one, I want to stick needles in it!
  
  3 0
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  August 30, 2021 4:53pm
Hollyfield

Random question: why doesn’t Parliament’s press theatre have a large screen so graphs etc can be displayed clearly on a big screen, instead of a small piece of paper held up shakily and crookedly?
11 0
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August 30, 2021 4:16pm
- Fletch
  
  Or maybe the camera operators can ask if she is going to share anything and have their zoom set beforehand so they can just do an insert.
  
  5 1
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  August 30, 2021 4:58pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Because then you could take a screenshot and analyse what they had put up. And if said graph included predictions you could then use it to hold them to account at a future date.
  
  9 0
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  August 30, 2021 5:01pm
- wilderbeast
  
  Great question. Watching Jacinda hold up that scruffy piece of paper and say “just for the memes” made me blush it was that bad. You could barely see the graph and god knows what she was saying. Maybe that was the point?
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:51pm
lifesgood

Wow! Just watching the comments on the live news feed. Not a lot of love for Cindy and her little sidekick. Dozens and dozens of comments and only the very occasional one saying she’s done well. That Roy Morgan Poll? Don’t know who they asked, maybe paid up Labour party members.
13 1
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August 30, 2021 4:21pm
- ecco
  
  Understandable though isn’t it. I try to avoid these forms of media during the day. Just winds me up too much. I see she’d like to have absolute control over the whole of Auckland for another few weeks. Totally unneccessary.
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:53pm
- ecco
  
  If you’re meaning the NZH live feed on facebook Ardern’s mates at NZH have stepped in and stopped all commenting on the article about Ardern locking down Akl for another fortnight.
  
  Couldn’t handle all the NZers who are venting there at the lockdown decision. So people in the media are protecting Ardern from any negative comment. Deplorable. There is no accountability.
  
  The press are muzzled and so are even facebook commenters, which I thought was supposed to be the last bastion of free speech.
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:59pm
kevn

Observing… St John ambo staff and police driving around with their masks on. I thought that new habit was for the plebs only.
3 1
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August 30, 2021 4:23pm
krazykiwi

From Steerpike over at The Spectator. Will the Tabiban attend COP26

Already there has been speculation in the Swedish media as to what role, if any, the Taliban will play in doing its [bit] to tackle climate change. An analysis piece by STV journalist Erika Bjerström asked the question everyone in Kabul wants answered now, writing: ‘It is not known what the new Taliban regime thinks about the issue of climate change or food production, nor is it known whether they are thinking of coming to COP26 in Glasgow.’

While No. 10 may be fully signed up to the green agenda, Mr S suspects the climate summit may be lower down the Taliban’s priority list…

Those Swedes, eh?
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August 30, 2021 4:32pm
Maggy Wassilieff

It’s still a mystery how Covid got into the community this time..
but so are the 2 previous outbreaks…

While the source of the last two outbreaks were never found,

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300394766/covid19-mystery-remains-as-to-how-delta-got-out-into-the-community
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August 30, 2021 4:52pm
- krazykiwi
  
  When the tide comes in you don’t ask where it came from, but rather ensure you have the right clothing to cope with getting wet!
  
  8 1
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  August 30, 2021 5:07pm
- alex Masterley
  
  I was reflecting on the current outbreak and was wondering who to sue for damages.
  Those of KB’s readership with a legal education will remember the case of Rylands v Fletcher, which involved liablity of the escape of something brought on to a neighbours land which caused damage to land.
  It seems to me that the crown or its agent brought infected persons onto land, in this case an MIQ facility,, the covid virus has escaped and surprise surprise caused damage.
  The only downside is I suspect there is some sort of exclusion from liablity so i might have a look at the legal basis of MIQ and the statutes that have been used to create the shambles we have now.
  
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  August 30, 2021 5:13pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    Probable place to start is the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. I think anything can be done under that. Mind you it’s starting to run down to it’s sunset provision and they might forget about that clause!
    
    5 2
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    August 30, 2021 5:29pm
  - doggone7
    
    The crown or its agent brought infected persons onto land, in this case an MIQ facility because the people demanded it.
    
    Defence? People wanted open borders, wanted everything to be normal. They despised the restrictions applied to anyone coming into the country. They wanted someone coming back from England to see granny before she died, because their job had ended in Boston or they’d been overseas to their brothers funeral in India.
    Or they wanted the border open simply so they could be ‘free’ and wanted others to be free.
    
    Evidence? This site for one, over many months.
    
    2 3
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    August 30, 2021 5:30pm
guardianista

In today’s party political broadcast I’m pretty sure I heard her kindness say that in America there were currently 100,000 people being admitted to hospital a day. Just googled, it’s about 12,0000, not good but they have the advantage of now having broad based immunity and a functioning economy.
7 1
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August 30, 2021 5:30pm
- sooty
  
  Population of 333 million from memory!
  
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  August 30, 2021 9:24pm
Inandout

I seem to recall Foot and Mouth disease had draconian legislation with regard to forcible entry to farms. Interesting reading.
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/biosecurity/plans-for-responding-to-serious-disease-outbreaks/foot-and-mouth-disease/about-foot-and-mouth-disease/
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August 30, 2021 5:44pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Foot and Mouth: Intervention protects economy
  
  Covid-19: Intervention wrecks economy for 1-2 generations hence.
  
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  August 31, 2021 7:25am
Stu2

I was surprised to learn there were 840,000 doses in the supply chain, when the weekly vaccination target is 350,000 (same as the average weekly delivery).

Does that stock level indicate some uncertainty as to whether our shipments will arrive as promised?

Or is it a symptom of having 20 DHBs in the mix, all sitting on reserves?

Looks like we could continue at 90,000 a day (630,00 a week) for a couple of weeks, and longer if the govt manages to get the extra shipment they are trying for. All to the good if Auckland gets priority
1 0
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August 30, 2021 6:05pm
- sooty
  
  Could cease jabbing in the south island!
  
  0 0
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  August 30, 2021 9:23pm
Fletch

On Twitter, Laura Ingraham asks the question everyone wants to know –

“Who’s running the White House and making the big decisions? Is it Ron Klain, his Chief of Staff? Is it the First Lady? America deserves to know”
7 1
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August 30, 2021 6:05pm
greybeard

Jeff Bell’s cartoon on Stuff: finally they have found someone with a sense of humour & whimsy, instead of those execrable Murdoch and Scott sad-sacks.
8 0
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August 30, 2021 6:37pm
CAKE FACE1

I’ve got to say, Mallard’s hateful attitude towards Parliament means that he is not an appropriate person to be the Speaker of the House – and this is leaving aside all his other crimes and misdemeanours…

Ten people in the House is an affront to democracy.

His health and safety squeals are obviously bogus.

The fact is, the Left is full of bad people. Kindness my arse.

CAKE has zero time for any of them. One day a great rain will come…
12 1
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August 30, 2021 6:38pm
dcrane

The PM seems unaware of the embarrassing role the word “surge” has played in world politics. Waiting for a skilled cartoonist to link her vaccine surge to America’s failed ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan…
8 1
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August 30, 2021 6:49pm
Maggy Wassilieff

If I had stood in front of one of my classes with a little sheet of paper showing a few curving lines whilst carefully covering the Y axis label, I would have been laffed/hissed at.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/assets/news_crops/129250/eight_col_MicrosoftTeams-image_%2810%29.png?1630300176
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August 30, 2021 7:05pm
- tf78
  
  Don’t worry Maggy, we’re laughing and hissing all right.
  
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  August 30, 2021 8:28pm
Maggie Pie

Been keeping myself occupied watching a lot of Cooking programs.
Have you noticed the number of colored girls that make the finals these days?
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August 30, 2021 7:29pm
RW Capitalist

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/126226862/the-covid-update-review-has-delta-peaked-a-53case-day-only-comes-with-caution

That graph…..wow…talk about fake news
there is no way, given the initial points on the graph, that you can predict that red curve with no lock down.
entirely made up.
and yes I did study statistics at university.
The best fit would be a straight line, suggesting no difference to the other lines on the graph.
If they cared, the Washington Post would give it 6 pinocchio’s.
and a pants on fire side bar.
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August 30, 2021 9:05pm
- dcrane
  
  She didn’t use Trump’s magic marker, so it’s all good.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:15pm
- Prince
  
  It’s increasingly obvious that Ardern doesn’t understand figures very well, so she is easily swayed by a few pretty graphs, heat spots on a map etc.
  She likes to look intelligent but maths is a foreign country for her.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:44pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  A 7 year old could see that graph is bullshit
  
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  August 31, 2021 8:10am
Batman

More great news:

?NEW VARIANT—a new #SARSCoV2 variant C.1.2 just identified in South Africa & several countries, with concerns it could be more infectious and evade vaccines. #C12 also has mutation rate that is nearly **twice as fast** as the rate of the other variants.?
https://t.co/r4RReDcAIe

Source: https://t.co/a432jYiexE
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August 30, 2021 9:25pm
- dcrane
  
  We’ll see over time I guess. Looking at his chart, there are other lineages that have gone almost as far from the reconstructed common ancestor.
  
  That Eric Feigl-Ding character sure does like the hype.
  
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  August 30, 2021 10:13pm
- rangitoto
  
  Is that the Cindy variant?
  
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  August 30, 2021 11:05pm

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