By Chris Trotter*
One of the biggest challenges facing New Zealanders over the next few weeks will be Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance. Not the least of these will be the challenge of understanding what makes so many people so unwilling to do what the overwhelming majority of their fellow citizens are asking them to do. To reach such an understanding will require an effort of the imagination that a rapidly decreasing number of New Zealanders – especially those living in Auckland – are willing to make. For these Kiwis, the Covid proposition is fast resolving itself into a very simple binary: Get vaccinated for society, or, get excluded from society.
That, essentially, was the Prime Minister’s message from the podium on Friday, 22 October 2021:
Vaccinations are our armour. They help keep us safe.
So my message to the New Zealanders who have not yet had their first dose – if you want summer, if you want to go to bars and restaurants. Get vaccinated. If you want to get a haircut. Get vaccinated. If you want to go to a concert, or a festival – get vaccinated. If you want to go to a gym, or a sports events, get vaccinated. If you are not vaccinated, there will be everyday things you will miss out on.
And if you are vaccinated you can be assured that in the new framework, you will get to enjoy the things you love, secure in the knowledge that the people around you, and the environment you are in, is as safe as possible in a COVID world. If you have done the right thing to keep yourself and others safe, to look after one another, you should feel safe. You should be protected from those who haven’t made that choice.
But, is it fair to declare that the vaccine hesitant have made a genuine “choice”? The answer to that question turns upon the degree to which those falling into this category have heard and understood the messages directed towards them concerning the Pfizer vaccine.
Is it still a tenable proposition to suggest that after so many weeks of unrelenting messaging, from a vast array of sources, delivered from, and to, every conceivable platform, there are still people out there who have not heard that the Pfizer vaccine is tested, efficacious, safe, and absolutely crucial to New Zealand re-emerging into something approximating normality?
It beggars belief to argue that more than a tiny number of such individuals exist.
But, if the message has been received and understood by the yet-to-be-vaccinated, then only one conclusion can reasonably be drawn. The so-called “vaccine hesitant” aren’t really hesitant at all. Though they may lack the courage to come right out and admit to being vaccine resisters, they have, nevertheless, made that choice.
The Labour Government’s professional advisors seem reluctant to accept that this is, indeed, the case. It is possible that their reluctance stems from a deeply ingrained disinclination to hold the ill-treated and excluded members of our society accountable. The proposition that the experience of being ill-treated and excluded makes a human-being more – not less – likely to behave selfishly and, all-too-often, brutally towards others, is quite simply unacceptable. In the eyes of the relevant professionals, such people are victims of circumstances beyond their control. As such, they cannot be held morally accountable. As the French put it: Tout comprendre c’est tout pardoner. To understand all, is to forgive all.
All very well for the sociologists and medical ethicists, but not at all helpful to a Government struggling with the problem of what to do with citizens who refuse to acknowledge either the validity of “The Science”, or their obligations to the collective welfare of the society in which they live.
After all, the proudly vaccine resistant – the so-called “anti-vaxxers” – cannot even point to a brutalised upbringing in poverty as the explanation for their selfishness. In the avowed and proud anti-vaxxer, the state is confronted with the sort of reckless solipsism that it is actually dangerous to ignore. The sort of people who make fake bookings at a vaccination centre in a deliberate attempt to sabotage the system should not be forgiven – they should be punished.
In resolving these dilemmas, the Vaccination Certificate emerges as the only viable vector for the virtues of both the Carrot and the Stick. Without it, the Government’s goal of getting 90 percent of the population double-jabbed simply will not be reached before the patience of the already vaccinated expires. If that is allowed to happen (and in Auckland it is not far away) then the authorities will find themselves confronted with even more pressing challenges to New Zealand’s well-being.
Vaccination Certificates promise to be highly efficacious in hurrying along the huge number of young people who have yet to get around to getting themselves vaccinated. The idea of not being able to go to pubs and clubs without “the passport” should be a powerful incentive for this group. Youth is nothing if not highly social. It is also acutely fearful of missing out on the fun its friends are having. If all it takes is a couple of more-or-less painless shots in the arm to gain admission to the footy and the most fashionable music festivals, then WTFN?
For older New Zealanders the looming possibility of “No Jab. No Job” should also hurry along the stragglers. Though pointedly left out of the Prime Minister’s Friday speech, “No Jab. No Job” is only a fast-tracked parliamentary bill away from further arming the authorities against the uncooperative minority.
To those who object that the state is arming itself with a sledgehammer to crush a handful of nuts, the Prime Minister and her colleagues need only cite their duty, as the people’s representatives, to do the greatest good by the greatest number. They have a whole raft of concerns over and above the paranoid fantasies of anti-vaxxers to consider. There are people whose mental fragility is fast becoming critical. Small business owners, in particular, who cannot be expected to see their life’s work ruined because their government pays more heed to the relentless selfishness of a handful of solipsists and anomic lumpenproletarians than it does to those who have done everything the state has asked of them.
It is not fashionable these days to bracket politicians and morals in the same sentence. Nevertheless, our democratically-elected government has both the right and the duty to protect the New Zealand people from harm. Indeed, the safety of the people is its supreme duty. Those whose conduct threatens the safety of the people cannot be located anywhere else but in the wrong.
No reasonable person can deny that Jacinda Ardern’s Government has deployed a whole fieldful of carrots in an attempt to persuade those who remain unvaccinated to do the right thing by their fellow citizens. That she is now reaching – however tentatively – for “The Stick” is incontrovertibly the correct moral choice.
To those who complain that she is unnecessarily dividing “The Team of Five Million” by unethically stigmatising the vaccine hesitant and resistant, there is only one genuinely ethical retort:
They have stigmatised themselves.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
206 Comments
Opinions on vaccination aside, there is one topic we should all be reflecting on this Labour day - a commemoration of the battle which was fought for the 8-hour work day - as we listen to the Government telling us what we all need to do in order to get our freedoms back:
Rights and freedoms are never given. They are only ever fought for, and hard-won. Once established, if they are not defended, they will be removed. Once removed, they are extremely difficult to get back.
I think that if you want to change peoples mind you have to engage with them sincerely and address the facts and their concerns with respect.
If I were the government I would try to find out the substance of what people are afraid of and address those concerns with researched and easily demonstrable facts. I hear a lot of assurances, "trust us" and spin from government on this but precious little factual research based information aimed at addressing peoples fears. For example here is the CDC's full list of all the concerns that they have ever had with all vaccines back to 1955 :
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html
There have been 10 incidents. Of these only 2 were of any real concern.
1 The Cutter incident in 1955 where some polio vaccine contained live polio virus and 250 people were infected. A shocking quality control event but in the context of the millions, if not billions of polio vaccines administered and the suffering eliminated it is a risk that has been well worth the cost. I am sure that our more modern systems would greatly reduce the risk of this occurring.
2 The 1998 Rotavirus - intussusception incident. This vaccine resulted in a significant increase in the risk of intussusception in infants under the age of 12 months. In absolute terms it was still a low risk but the the increase from 0.02% to 0.05% was significant, so out of an abundance of caution the vaccine was removed for all ages. Intussusception is readily readily treated by manipulation or as a last resort, surgery.
The remainder of the cases were marginal at worst and barely relevant in the context of normal occurrence of the problem concerned.
How many billions of vaccine doses have been administered in the world and how much suffering and how many deaths have they prevented. The statistical significance of the very few problems that we have had are well beyond negligible. We also have to appreciate that these Covid vaccines have probably been the most closely monitored vaccines by orders of magnitude.
I would invite rational vaccine hesitant spokespeople to debate and explore their concerns on TV with suitably qualified experts backed up by a team of fact checkers on computers.
Finally I would offer an alternative vaccine (Novax if we can get through the regulatory hurdles) so that people have the choice if they still have concerns about the novel nature of the Pfizer vaccine. It would also give these people a face saving "way out"
I fail to see why we should engage in good faith with people who refuse to do the same. Designate them as lepers and see how they like fending for themselves in hospital carparks. I fail to see why they should be able to suck in medical care away from those who made a moral and ethical choice to not spread Covid any further than it needs to go.
When You cannot get into hospital for your cancer diagnostics or operation because they are swamped with covid cases you may see things differently. As things are now, without covid having really impacted our hospitals the delays are already unacceptable. the next 6 to 12 months are going to be a nightmare unless we can get well above 90% vaccination. You may well feel righteous and impatient with these people (with some justifiable reason), but that will achieve nothing and only make matters worse.
Delta is now spreading faster than restrictions & vaccination can curb it. If the delays at hospitals etc are already unacceptable, bearing in mind this data is not being published much, then you could assume that the nightmare already exists for too many NZrs. Unfortunately there is nothing tangible to date that will prove when/if the almost mythical 90% is achieved, that the dire situation at hospitals etc is going to be relieved. In fact given the government’s open ended and unclear messaging, you would be inclined to consider that this they know.
How many people know patients who have had their treatments cancelled. I do. How many people know staff working in the hospitals who say it is already a nightmare and out of control. I do. In one case the patient is a staff member working in the hospital. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
I have an alternative suggestion to manage the hospital capacity.
1. No vax mandates
2. ICU/hospital space made available for the unvaxxed only if not required for others.
If the anti vax are that confident in their ability to fight off the virus unaided they shouldn't have a problem with that.
Good point. In nearly 2 years I am yet to hear an unvaccinated person complaining about anything except being locked down . Not even about their taxes paying wage subsidies and for vaccinating others.
some Vacinated people on the other hand cower and complain daily
It is known widely that for Delta to be contained you would need over 95% vaccination rates of the entire populace, (not just those over a certain age group). The 90% target is knowing fiction and still would result in a massive crunch of the health system and devastating loss for too many families. Yet to be fair given the lack of education, especially around basic health in schools and in training for health fields there is a substantial lack of medical science understanding and lack of medical ethics. Even amongst health practitioners and social workers the chances of getting the required vaccination rate is very low. Sadly. I know many, even teaching the next next generation of health practitioners who discourage vaccination. In all likelihood those who die or become disabled will just be happily replaced by the govt with more migrant workforce, gladly escaping their own countries with even worse governments and ethics. The fraud that 90% of those able to get a vaccination invokes enough protection in the population is one callously marketed by the govt because they too have run the numbers on splashing out the high star hotel costs for most travellers and covering every business tab (including that of trusts with property). Deaths might actually improve their bill since those people might need less medical and social support down the line say by retirement.
There are ethics (none of which refer to that code because it has long been superceded with far more in depth and detailed articles; also different to implemented practice in NZ) and there are the systemic realities in our history and current practices. Which one are you least familiar with because I have not seen evidence you are aware of either in your posts. Perhaps you can stop invoking Godwin's law because you have already lost the argument so long ago by invoking it.
How dim do you have to be to not be aware of the different modern human rights conventions (available publicly), and the difference to medical and industry ethics. Surely you got past the 1950s say to a more recent time in basic education where medical ethics and modern human rights are more common knowledge. But then again you could be one of those who failed to learn anything else past your baby duck experiences. No wait it is sadder than that, Godwin's law... Oh wait it could be even sadder you don't even know what the Nuremberg Code is about... That is pitiful and hilarious. Do you need the crayon again to copy notes from an antivaxxers unite blog somewhere.
Personally I think many that are unvaccinated are not scared. They just dont care, or are not engaged in the society that I am. Largely through no fault of their own.
Anyone who believes we are somehow one big happy family enjoying sharing in the spoils is deluded. You simply can not look at this through your own rose tinted glasses. This is an equity issue.
Nope! This is a very clear divide and conquer strategy.
It is designed to “other” those who chose to not be vaccinated. They are an easy target because a portion of them are fruit loops.
This is to distract from:
1. The slow vaccine roll out.
2. That nothing has been done to prepare the health care system despite having 2 years to do so.
3. NZ now being completely out of step with the rest of the world who are just getting on with it.
I for one will raise my voice at every chance in the opposition of segregation. Firstly because it’s wrong. Secondly because dissenting voices are vital to a liberal and free society and if you push too far in either direction it’s going to be fringe voices that speak first.
Signed,
pro vaccine and pro choice!
This government has made ample and able use of smoke screening their failings. Probably two years though would never have been sufficient to attend the inadequacy of NZ’s health services, laid down by previous governments certainly, but it does not excuse them for doing virtually nothing either. The government can quite rightly be commended for the first twelve months or so within which NZ & lifestyles were well protected. But lessons from overseas were there to be learnt, and measures taken during this time. The decision to rest on elimination was complacent and caught out by Delta, badly so, hence the current dire situation. Had the government commenced vaccinations in a planned and targeted manner last March this would have been mitigated. The government has not provided one iota of hard evidence that vaccines were not available earlier and in fact Pfizer has stated they thought delivery was to commence in March. Equally the failure, despite their own experts pleas, to implement widespread saliva testing was inexcusable, still is.
How close are you to the Ministry of Health and what they have actually done since the start of the pandemic? To provide one iota of hard evidence to support your claim they have done virtually nothing to improve NZ's health service? I suspect no where near and all your "knowledge" is from reading media coverage and the one sided anti-labour rhetoric on this site.
Improving the health service isn't something that can be done overnight and there are 100s of people working tirelessly to try and do just that, while also currently having to deal with media and opposition questions because people like you (+ the likes of business people with zero knowledge or expertise in health / infrastructure or any relevant area e.g. the Nick Mowbrays and Mark Hurleys of the world) seem to be experts on how it could be all solved. Let's be clear you are not an expert and your opinions on how it can be fixed are worthless, so stick to what you know.
Plus on vaccine timing what possible reason would the Government have for not trying to roll it out as soon as they had supply? Why do you need to see hard evidence that they couldn't get supply earlier? Get off your conspiracy theories!
My family had been working in the health sector for well over 30 years. We were approached to “re-enter” with the set up of the vaccination process. Unfortunately through ill health we were unable. You simply need to refer to the exchange between the Minister of Health and the senior ICU specialist in Wellington. The latter’s challenge to the former to go out there a locate just one extra ICU installed in NZ since the pandemic and before. Oddly the minister didn’t seem to know that ICU capacity is shared and monitored daily by relative personnel so that all resources could be engaged in case of a disaster such as White Island. Instead he rather stupidly claimed that one in Wellington couldn’t possibly know of capacity elsewhere in NZ. In terms of the vaccine introduction there certainly was no conspiracy. That is proven by PM Adern’s TV interview(Tame) 11 April where she stated that she was at that time, totally comfortable with vaccines not having needed to be delivered, because NZ had no cases. No mention then that stocks of same were not available either then or earlier, leaving the only conclusion to be that ordering had by then, still not been considered as being necessary.
Agreed.
I trust hte data and the government's assurances that the vaccine will keep me safe from the worst effects of Covid. I got vaccinated. Therefore I am safe. Therefore I do not fear the unvaccinated. Therefore I do not want a vaccine mandate.
The logic appears to be:
- The vaccine is safe
- Everyone should be vaccinated to keep safe
- Those who aren't vaccinated risk everyone's safety
- Therefore everyone who is vaccinated needs to be kept safe through vaccine mandates/passports
But 4 contradicts 1. If 1 is true, then the logic chain should stop at 2.
What gives?
Oh how you simplify the situation. If it were just a ‘vaxxed’ versus ‘by choice unvaxxed’ scenario then the answer is easy, live and let live. BUT its not. There are the immunnocompromised and medically compromised that absolutely cannot get vaccinated even if they wanted to, and the elderly who even when vaxxed are still more susceptible to complications of COVID19 if not death. Then there are Long COVID situations that cannot be fully mitigated because we just don’t know enough of the long term effects being still early days. We are about protecting them most not the generally healthy population. Herd immunity via vaccine is uptake is the best chance we have to protect them without exposing them to the virus. The selfish gene runs strong in too much of the population, even the vaxxed portion it seems.
Agreed.
Government rested on their laurels over the past ~18 months, doing nothing to ensure a faster vaccine roll-out, improvements to healthcare capacity etc.
The vilification of the unvaccinated is designed to provide the government with a distractionary target at which public anger and frustration can be aimed.
By setting the potentially-unreachable target of 90% (and let's face it, that will probably become 95% when we get there - or 101% if the likes of Michael Baker got his way) no matter what happens, Jacinda & the other hostage-takers in the Beehive have a convenient scapegoat to blame.
I've had my first dose (and despite some rather unpleasant side effects resulting in me being hooked up to an ECG machine, in and out of the doctor's office and having multiple blood tests, I'll still go back and get my second) to protect myself and my family.
However, I don't feel any need to punish those who have made a different decision to me. I refuse to treat anyone unvaccinated as a second-class citizen, even if the rest of society might. Seeing as we've now gone down the path of using Biblical language to describe the government's response to Covid, I'll gladly "break bread" with the unvaxxed any day of the week.
Countries like Singapore and Israel have provided the blueprint - even with high vax rates we will probably still see Covid rip through the community. The overwhelming majority will be fine (even the unvaxxed, particularly the young) it's just that the government needs a scapegoat upon which to deflect blame.
The only thing the government's got going for themselves is a "world leading" response to Covid - and there's a very real risk this gets taken away over the coming weeks and months as Delta spreads.
They are now behaving like a boxer in the championship rounds of a fight - down on the scorecards, knowing that the only way to win is to throw everything and the kitchen sink in the hope of scoring a knockout blow.
Yeah, also with their Friday announcement hasn't the government made this a regional issue, not a national issue.
Got a issue with lock down in Wellington? don't talk to the government, talk to the Wellington DHB.
@Chris Trotter, Rather than being "only a fast-tracked parliamentary bill away" any changes now have to go through the regional DHB...good luck getting anything through them in the next 2 years in this environment.
Allahuakbar
Islam has embedded within it essentially a similar kind of missionary imperative like evangelical Christianity has. The overall sense is basically that: this is the truth, we have here ultimately the one and only way to true salvation, if only you could realize that. And we would like to offer it to you.
In Islam that salvation is not only otherworldly (afterlife), but also in this world. Because Islam, when fully practiced, is meant to answer all worldly questions as well. It can or theoretically should encompass the believer's entire life, as a complete system. From dietary and dress code, to personal grooming, to politics and, ideally, even civil and criminal codes.
Are trotters arguments anymore sensible logical and honest than the arguments put forward by religion for conversion?
If the vaccine is so good, why worry with a ‘handful of nuts’? I’m vaxxed and I did it for myself. In saying that I’m hating the division, discrimination, the shaming and blaming. This is thoroughly unnecessary. Every other country has opened up with less than 90% and the only reason this government is not is because of its own incompetence in building hospital infrastructure. They have done not a jot in increasing hospital /ICU capacity since the pandemic began. It’s unreal that so called “good journalists” and “kind and transparent government” gets away with callous bullying, blackmail, shaming and name calling. Yet don’t do one bit on holding this government to account on its incompetence. I would never perceive I know what’s best for your body and your health. What is injected or not injected into someone else’s body is none of our business.
"I would never perceive I know what’s best for your body and your health"
There's plenty of people who are happy to pretend they know more than consensus of the medical community.
"What is injected or not injected into someone else’s body is none of our business. "
It is when you are intentionally allowing the circulation of a disease and increasing the chance of mutation that could harm myself or my newborn.
Congratulations on your newborn, hope you guys are getting as much support as you can, some rest and lot of love during this very difficult time. I know it must be super exhausting with a newborn by itself without having to live through a pandemic no less. You might be really tired and frustrated but there is no need to troll my opinion. Have an opinion yourself I completely respect that. In saying that I am not intentionally allowing circulation of a disease so don’t troll me because you are having a shitty day. Hope your day gets better.
You are not getting the vaccine.
The vaccine means it is less likely you will end up in critical care in hospital.
We have finite intensive care resources. Your choice is to absorb more of those resources out of a personal preference.
I'm guessing you know these things, but aren't prepared to accept the link between them. That doesn't mean it isn't something you are choosing to do.
I hope your loved ones do not need a hospital bed that is occupied by someone who has had ample chance to get vaccinated but also chose not to.
I am double jabbed. Please read my original post.
Every single over 12 in my family are vaxxed. Please get some rest if you can. I’m trying not to sound like a nanna but engaging with so much negativity in Social media especially with having a newborn to look after can wear you down quickly.
To GV27
You talk about "the concensus of the medical community". This is coerced concensus at the point of a gun.
The "gun" being the threat of loss of licence for entering into any free discussion. Doctors who question are actively shamed in the NZ Herald, Stuff and on TV.
As for the unvaxed causing the virus to mutate, well you are totally confused here. Mutation is a response to resistance and that resistance is supplied by vaccines.
Mutation is not so much a response to resistance, it is more a result of errors during replication. The more chances for replication means the more chances for mutation.
If vaccination can reduce your infectious period and reduce the replication (assuming you even get it while vaccinated) that is a good thing. And by also reducing symptoms, if by chance you do catch it and by chance a mutation occurs, you are less likely to spread it if you are infectious for a shorter period as the data shows.
Can I suggest you read a little here…?
https://aaronkheriaty.substack.com/p/why-the-cdc-ignores-natural-immuni…
You do realise that your rants only seem to make sense to those who are equally, or even deeper enveloped in irrational fear. Anyone with just a little common sense will read about this medical professional’s (chair of UCLA ethics committee, no less) fight to have the scientific research acknowledged by CDC in the US regarding natural immunity being superior to experimental injections. You simply try to hysterically detract from the issue.
Let it be known that in time it will be proven that the so called immunity conferred by the shot will be short lived, inferior to natural immunity and will be creating an evolutionary pressure on the S protein to mutate to avoid the immune response. You will be in line for never ending boosters. And we don't know the long term effects on the innate immune system from these new shots. There are many reasons to want to be in the control group in this experiment. Especially if you are young healthy and able to gain natural immunity relatively painlessly.
The reason I am against vaccination mandatory.
1,
At present, it is not clear to the medical community why 50% of infected people are asymptomatic and healthy! This shows that half of the population has natural immunity!
2,
The long-term side effects of the Rna vaccine on the human body have never been confirmed and no one knows.
This technology is created for cancer treatment, as medical professionals we have learned from textbooks:
All cancer treatments are carcinogenic! So I suspect that this vaccine may have serious long-term side effects.
3.
Medicine itself is not an accurate nor real science!
It use limited experimental results as a practical guide, and the results are always uncertain! The conclusion is always fickle!
On the premise that medicine is an accurate and real science, think medical specialists as scientists, this propaganda thought itself is pseudoscience!
If your water supply is in a leaking bucket ( Covid) and you only have limited water proof cardboard to put over the leak do you keep using the limited life cardboard or try and find something else?
The limited waterproof cardboard is effective at stopping the leak, at least statistically speaking, but for how long? ( current vaccine)
When the limited waterproof cardboard begins to leak you can put some more new stuff in ( Booster shot)
Why not let other parties with different ideas work out how to fix the leak? ( Natural immunity or novavax or ???)Or is the cardboard the only solution and if anybody disagrees they are nuts?
Except even the vaccinated will not be fully protected and if an outbreak happens and it is wide enough many of those responsible enough to be vaccinated WILL DIE or be DISABLED with their families suffering economic loss. Not to also forget the same for those too medically vulnerable they cannot be vaccinated as they have a non existent immune system. The immune system is extremely faulty and if the whole population above 95% are not vaccinated then for many they might as well be completely unprotected by the vaccine as a wide outbreak will take them down too. Not to also forget an outbreak amongst even just those unvaccinated will lockdown and crash the health system to the point of utter failure so even those with other treatable conditions will die from lack of medical access. People can survive a business failure. It is much harder to survive after death.
The reason I am against vaccination mandatory.
1,
At present, it is not clear to the medical community why 50% of infected people are asymptomatic and healthy! This shows that half of the population has natural immunity!
2,
The long-term side effects of the Rna vaccine on the human body have never been confirmed and no one knows.
This technology is created for cancer treatment, as medical professionals we have learned from textbooks:
All cancer treatments are carcinogenic! So I suspect that this vaccine may have serious long-term side effects.
3.
Medicine itself is not an accurate nor real science!
It use limited experimental results as a practical guide, and the results are always uncertain! The conclusion is always fickle!
On the premise that medicine is an accurate and real science, think medical specialists as scientists, this propaganda thought itself is pseudoscience!
You do know how long it takes to build ICU capacity don't you - it's not just building new rooms its actually training Drs and nurses something that takes years to do? and other hospital infrastructure? This isn't stuff that can just be magicked up, it needs to go through design phases so you build the right thing for the future not just waste money on a whole lot of white elephant projects, and then these aren't straightforward builds. We don't have the supply chain in NZ to allow us to build technical infrastructure like this quickly, plus add in the disruptions to supply chains in the current environment, it is delusional to think that we should have suddenly built a whole lot of hospital infrastructure in less than 18 months!
Go have a chat to anyone in infrastructure
Its about science not reason
Hospital allows employees with natural immunity to defer COVID vaccine - YouTube
Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting | NEJM
Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States | SpringerLink Go to the PDF version if you want it to look like a normal scientific paper
They are all from the lancet and other top regarded science sites. Reasoning is difficult as it can involve emotion but the science unfortunate
It's totally unethical to exclude and demonize those who dont wish to take a emergency or provisional vaccine. Those that enforce and support this will likely on the wrong side of history.
The lies of politicians add to hesitancy:
On Tuesday Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern went a step further, saying not only will there be no forced vaccinations, but those who choose to opt-out won't face any penalties at all.
"No, and we haven't for any vaccination in New Zealand applied penalties in that way," Ardern told The AM Show, after being asked if there might be tax penalties or other sanctions for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/coronavirus-jacinda-ard…
This is the dumbest talking point - yes, of course it's an emergency vaccine. The pandemic hasn't been going long enough for there to be full medical trials. Do you want to sit around and twiddle our thumbs until we reach an arbitrary timeframe that 99% of anti-vaxxers have no qualification to decide is long-enough? How long should the rest of the country miss out on medical care because people can't accept the limits to their own knowledge?
Get over your own self-indulgence and do what thousands of newborns do each week: get a simple jab. The entire country isn't a backdrop for your poor, misinformed decision-making.
Ironic given that this whole problem is being caused by people who are completely unaware of where the limits of their own knowledge are.
I'm not a virologist or a biologist or a doctor or a laboratory medicine specialist. I suspect a very small number of people here who are making assertions about the vaccine are. Deferring to scientific consensus is a smart thing for dumb people like me to do, and that consensus is overwhelmingly that the vaccines are safe and you're better off having them when you get Covid than not having had it - and that's before you get into the ethics of whether a person has more rights to more intensive healthcare resources even though they have been given the option of not sucking up those resources by doing something extremely simple and ultimately in their best interests anyway.
No Scientists advise politicians only
Hospital allows employees with natural immunity to defer COVID vaccine - YouTube
Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting | NEJM
Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States | SpringerLink Go to the PDF version if you want it to look like a normal paper
S
Problem is that the young, who are the ones who are primarily the laggards, have had much less time to get a vaccine (outside of Counties-Manukau DHB which was prioritised) even if they wanted to, but that time lag is almost up. More importantly, the statistics offshore strongly suggest that the young, particularly children, are not at material risk to Covid so the very small risks of getting serious illness from Covid are more finely balanced against the very small (but smaller) risks of getting some bad reaction to the vaccine. i.e. vaccination is mainly beneficial for slowing the spread amongst the community rather than to young people themselves.
Solution: Focus very much on the oldies and those with co-morbidities in terms of vaccination percentages not the young and healthy.
Most the young and healthy are unfortunately some of the ones most vulnerable to be disabled by the virus, especially those youngest. We actually have vulnerable populations amongst the young who consider themselves healthy... Bit of a downside with letting the fashions of the day and socioeconomic opportunity decide what is healthy. Our most deadly disorder is the desire and obsession to obtain perfect health. It affects the younger generation far more and actually leads them to be far more vulnerable with crashed immune and other systems (e.g. cardiovascular, endocrine etc). Meanwhile our populations most at risk are those who can isolate themselves from high risk environments the least... versus retirement villages and elder care networks tend to deal really well with providing isolation, it is actually more of a problem for them.
"One of the biggest challenges facing New Zealanders over the next few weeks will be Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance"
You might even add vaccine accessibility to that? But we probably don't really know the answer to how much lack of access is contributing to below target vaccination rates.
I'm thoroughly turned off by this new approach to turning us on each other based on vaccination status.
Signed, double jabbed already.
Access is no problem Hamish. Ever been in Central Otago? Vast distance and small towns.
But yet near the highest vaccination rate. Folk got off their butts and did it.
Where vaccination is low, it's not the antivaxxers. It"s the sloths who can't get off the couch.
I've not had the vaccine and I'm not going to either. Just returned from a work trip to Poland this afternoon. They dont give a sH&t about covid in Poland. I was shoulder to shoulder in night clubs after work until 4 am the next day. Nobody wearing masks. Nobody asking for vaccine passports. Nobody asking for negative covid tests (except at the airport).
If the person next to me has covid I dont care because I've already contracted it and naturally recovered over a year ago. It was a mild infection. There's no way I'm taking that vaccine.
Good points. I forsee the NZ govt will be slow to react to a higher proportion of us already having natural immunity. They will still be blaring "no jab, no whatever" and most of us won't even need endless boosters any more because we'll be getting mild doses all the time. Someone's vaccine status is easier to record and publish than their immunity, so it's the current preference, but it will become an increasingly crappy substitute.
I'll be double vaxxed next week and completely respect those who choose otherwise for whatever reason.
Totally disgusting article Trotter.
Jacinta is on record for stating she would not force people to vaccinate but essentially she lied, yet again. Your being pretty much forced to vaccinate or you loose your job. There are very few people like me who are in a position where you truly now have the freedom of CHOICE to get vaxxed or not.
I still don't get it why the vaxxed are afraid of people like me. I think its really because YOU had to take the risk of some experimental vax and I didn't need to ?
Rubbish the Labour government is killing your business and jobs mate with an impossible 90% target. We are the only country in the world trying to get to this stupid high target. Wake up. Said it a week ago, NZ should fully open on the 1st November. You give a firm date and that will be the cutoff point to motivate the last couple of percent to get the vax or do you want lockdown forever ?
My informed decision so far consists of so many detailed points that it would take so many posts it is not funny… However, we have a basic human right, and if you take that away, don’t complain that other rights are taken away from you as a result too. I for one, am standing up to fight for my freedom. You will find that the same thing happening in Israel will happen here. The majority of hopsitalisations will be for vaccinated people seriously ill! And why is that? Because you have been promised something by the government and were lied to. Now you throw your arms up and scream, the unvaccinated are at fault. Not true, blame the government selling you a lie and you bought it hook line and sinker. Now you might feel a bit pissed off about that and try to blame someone else. There is a name for this, cognitive dissonance. Others might use less kind description for it…
Did you 'fight for the right' to drive on whatever side of the road you chose to? NO because it is a health and safety policy to reduce the rate of accidents!
Did you fight the right not to wear a seat belt when traveling in a car? NO because as we all know, wearing a seat belt contributes to saving lives when there is an accident.
The Covid vaccination is a health and safety matter for the whole of society, you do not live on an uninhabited island (though maybe you should) - we are all part of society and as such have a responsibility to contribute to the general health and well being of our fellow citizens.
A closer like for like comparison would be to have the right to use an automated gun into a crowd of thousands of people. Most will survive, over 99.9% but there will be some deaths and some people will be disabled. Also the health services with be under strain and likely will need to cancel urgent necessary surgeries for other conditions so more disablement and death.
This is laughable! And you have been around here for a while too, and are generally fairly intelligent I thought.
Are you required to have anything injected into your body to drive anywhere? Are you required to have an experimental treatment injected in order to wear a seatbelt? You try to compare a fundamental human right to not have a medical procedure forced upon you with a simple rule to drive left or right hand side of road? If you insist on making that kind of dumb comparison, should we next say, everyone not agreeing to being raped every six months (think boosters) can’t drive their car? They are lepers and therfore to be excluded from normal life?
You all have totally lost any basic common sense and any common decency I am afraid!
For many people that is a Yes. Get a crayon to write this down: Not on certain drugs, not certain levels of exposure to chemical substances at work, not certain exposure to alcohol, also some must have glasses, some must be on certain medication, some must not be on certain medication, some must not have certain medical conditions. Welcome to the party many already live in as they are denied the ability and right to drive and denied the right to a license even though they can pass the tests and can drive safety all to pretty much most of the time and others are required to take certain medication or use medical equipment for the right to drive with a license.
Actually it is pretty odd you were never educated about basic medical tests needed for certain work environments, necessary vaccinations and medical procedures in high risk fields. Don't they have it for dumb people to watch in online tv shows since decades ago. Oh well I guess they missed those who cannot reach the standard of trailer park trash tv shows for those without an education around the fields. Idiocracy is the new education and all that.
Also sadly in many places (even in this country for some people) we already have the you must agree to be raped on occasion before being allowed to drive... but that is not written into law but into treatment of classes of people. It is a lived experience for many in NZ and to deny that is a gap in your understanding of the recent reporting data. Again this is too common already and even more common in other countries. However rape (months or years prior) has no connection to the ability to driving safely as it does not affect a persons ability to drive unlike missing medication or medical equipment. However missed mandated medical treatment sessions does affect the allowance and freedom to drive with a license. We do have many rape victims who have to undergo mandated treatment before being allowed certain freedoms. But often that is run in part with the prison system. Seriously have you seen our child abuse & female rape and assault stats. They are mental for a country our size and supposed OECD position. Mandated medical treatment was a bread and butter industry for NZ for a very long time into recent decades. It is unusual to find someone who is not educated about it or to have family who have not experienced it.
Here is the lived example even with severe lockdown conditions one person has managed to spread the virus to over 1000 people. Most have not recovered yet. Some have died, and some are extremely lucky the health services were able to drop everything for their ICU care. There are many in hospital and while their medical conditions and outcomes are not widely published many have been disabled as they approach long term condition management stages. It is one unvaccinated person responsible for this latest outbreak and they have spread it to those who even though they were vaccinated whose immune system did not adequately fight the virus. Without lockdown that one case would have affected more people exponentially. There would have been more deaths as the virus without the public lockdown would have reached more vulnerable people (often people who did not know they were vulnerable because they thought they were young and healthy).
It is not like a car, you cannot hit more than a thousand accidents (with some deaths and disablement) before the police remove your license and add preventative detention. You would be unlucky to have over a hundred accidents in your lifetime. It is more like shooting wildly into a large crowd. Over 99% will survive. But there will be deaths, there will be financially crippling disablement for families beyond that of bankruptcy, and many will not recover.
You seem to think you have the right to do anything and that is written in to law but you do not. By choosing to live in NZ you do not have the right of choice to severely threaten the lives of others, especially in high risk fields. That is written into law multiple times. We have mandated medical procedures and treatments written into law and it has never been your choice to pick and choose the laws you follow and the ones you don't so you can threaten people's lives on a whim. Grow up. You want to talk law you need to have the most expensive lawyers as even the UN human rights which are written into NZ laws are abused repeatedly and thoroughly by NZ crown law, even the rights against torture in this country. You need money for lawyers who will fight until they win against the govt after a decade (and even then it can be dicey).
Carlos67,
" I'm in the 1% who still has the freedom of choice". This amuses me. Surely you must also be upset that you don't have the freedom of choice to drive on the other side of the road, without a seat belt of course. What about the inability to smoke in any public area? In short, why shouldn't you have the 'freedom of choice' to do anything you want, anywhere and at any time?
There is a word for that-anarchy. I would prefer that you do become vaccinated, but if not, I fully support moves to exclude you from society.
Lets break that down logically. I don't drive on the wrong side of the road as that would put my life at risk. Wearing a seatbelt is personal choice, I don't care if you wear one or not because I'm always wearing mine. Bit like the Vax really, why should anyone care what my status is, you have had your shot and your happy about it right ? I prefer the word Rebel, Anarchy is next level and only a few are preparing for that.
Good example tell me why is there no freedom to drive without a license and drive while heavily drunk and what happens to those who do. Perhaps the alcoholics with their licenses revoked can unite and create a pro-choice protest to enable them to drive with no responsibilities and no repercussions. Want to be a rebel, we have criminal convictions for those who criminally fail to abide by the laws around driving. Also if you said it was a choice to not have a seatbelt with a child in the car we have criminal convictions for that as well because you are directly negligently risking the lives of vulnerable people. Protip risking a far more deadly and disabling virus infecting others in the community particularly those who cannot be vaccinated themselves or those vulnerable including anyone in the medical sector, elderly, young with immune deficiencies, pregnant, or those at risk of disablement (which includes those fit and healthy in high stress fitness roles) is far far more dangerous than driving without a seatbelt. As one person can infect hundreds of people. Think mass shooter rather than driving a single car. Many of the shot victims survive but that does not make the dead or disabled ones any less dead or less disabled.
Here is the lived example even with severe lockdown conditions one person has managed to spread the virus to over 1000 people. Most have not recovered yet. There are many in hospital and while their medical conditions and outcomes are not widely published many have been disabled as they approach long term condition management stages. It is one unvaccinated person responsible for this latest outbreak and they have spread it to those who even though they were vaccinated whose immune system did not adequately fight the virus. Without lockdown that one case would have affected more people exponentially. There would have been more deaths as the virus without the public lockdown would have reached more vulnerable people (often people who did not know they were vulnerable because they thought they were young and healthy). It is not like a car, you cannot hit more than a thousand accidents (with some deaths and disablement) before the police remove your license and add preventative detention. You would be unlucky to have over a hundred accidents in your lifetime.
You obviously can’t even read the official designation from medsafe?
This is directly copied from medsafe gazetted info:
Provisional consent is granted until 3 November 2021. This consent is given subject to the following conditions:
To see all 58! conditions, please go and read them yourself!
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/Comirnaty-Gazette-Jun-2021.pdf
I'll wait for you to back this statement up with actual statistics and figures.
Currently 4 out of the estimated 23 (17%) spare 'emergency' ICU beds are already occupied by those with Covid19 and the size of the current outbreak is ~1112 cases. Ergo, we're using roughly 1 ICU bed used per 278 cases. Extrapolating this, our ICU spare capacity will be gone by the time we reach 6000-7000 cases nationwide. At this point we either stop all operations that may require ICU follow-up to free capacity or start having to triage who can have an ICU spot or not.
I'm not going to carry on a discussion about statistics with someone who thinks extrapolating data from a small, localised outbreak of 1112 cases is sound methodology, especially when we have publicly available data on hundreds of millions of cases around the world.
I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to look up what the typical rate of hospitalisation is for COVID-19 globally, particularly among the age groups which have low rates of vaccination in New Zealand today.
If I read correctly, weekly hospitalisation rate (not just ICU) in Scotland for people with (not necessarily because of) Covid in Sept-Oct of unvaccinated population ~0.06%, ~0.02% of vaccinated of over 60's.
https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/9648/21-10-13-covid19-publicati…
I'll let you think a bit critically about why rates of hospitalisation from delta might be lower in places that have already had widespread outbreaks and may have a shitload more natural immunity than we do locally. Reminder: our hospital system was almost pushed to breaking point by RSV.
You raise an interesting point, but according to MoH, those "at risk" people here are vaccinated already.
This is the big thing being ignored by all - those that get hospitalised/end up in ICU/die, sit in a very specific demographical range. The unvaccinated in NZ tend not to sit in that range.
There will be exceptions of course, but if the hospitals are flooded here, it is unlikely to be those who are unvaccinated.
Current stats of course don't show that yet (but that is mainly due to the way it was rolled out, after all, many conveniently forget that it has only been ~8 weeks since vaccine was open to all).
Now that we are >70% we will slowly start to see more and more vaccinated appearing in Hospital. This virus doesn't "Target the unvaccinated" as the PM so idiotically put it. It targets the very old, the very fat, and the very ill.
well said. UK stats suggest >80 age group, vaccine only 50% effective but that's because of the co morbidities we tend to have at that age. Young people, particularly the very young have very little to fear themselves from covid unless they have some underlying health condition (which tend to be rare at that age).
Is it? If were undeniably fact then
- Children wouldn't be going to school
- Children would be wearing masks
- They would have moved faster to get vaccinations tested and approved for children
If you have 1/4 of the population ineligible for vaccination, and at the same time have no concerns for what they get up to, then yes claiming the unvaccinated are "targeted" is idiotic.
If we wont move to protect the children, then why move at all?
It's the government needlessly holding the country to ransom. There’s no acknowledgement of the dirt-cheap prophylactics or treatments such as gargling povidone iodine, or taking ivermectin, vitamin D, zinc (c19study.com) that could keep people out of hospital. No acknowledgement of empirical evidence coming from other countries that high vaccination actually correlates with more infections. They’re not looking at the scientific literature. They only see a magic bullet that absolves them of liability from wasting what will probably amount to over 100 billion dollars.
Totally disgusting tactics being used now. The government are so gone at the next election. This is bad enough but the financial hurt and mental illness is only just starting. I will be surprised if JA even makes it to the next election, she will see the writing on the wall and step down early.
I agree house mouse. I have been a labour supporter with my vote for the last 4 election cycles. I would have never wanted Judith Collins to be the PM of our country. I have been a strong supporter and cheerleader of Jacinda until Friday. I would rather vote for Judith than Jacinda really. The degree of deceit among these two as how I rated it just flipped massively.
The problem with many who are forcing, coercing, blackmailing, villifying, degrading, abusing and bullying a person who chooses not to vaccinate themselves for whatever reason don’t seem to understand that over 80 people in NZ have died following the Pfizer vaccine. https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/safety-report-31.asp
On Super Saturday at a regional vaccine clinic, a person put a post up with photos of how a man he thought was in his 50s started having convulsions and became non responsive immediately after his vaccination and was pronounced dead by the first responders on arrival. That post was blocked by Facebook.
My partners uncle in his 50s caught Covid overseas and had complete recovery, then had his first shot, was fine, went for his second shot and had a heart attack and died within 2 hours of his second dose administration. He drove home himself and we were so glad he didn’t have his heart attack mid way when driving. The doctors ruled that it had nothing to do with his jab. Everyone Tom, Dick and Harry has an opinion and that is that it has nothing to do with the vaccine. His family thinks differently and they are branded loonies, crazies, selfish amongst other demeaning slurs.
It is ok with everyone until it is them that is affected. Where there is a risk there must be a choice with no consequence of livelihood. Today it is someone else, tomorrow it could be us. So before we throw abuse at someone who does not have the same opinion as us, one day we can easily be the one abused for having a different opinion.
My partner and I are vaxxed, our kids are too young to be and when it’s their time, I need as much information as possible to make an informed decision, not just one sided ones. Before you argue, look up Pfizer’s history with deceit and how many times they have been fined for medical deceit and negligence.
80 people in NZ have died following the Pfizer vaccine.
- 31 of these deaths are unlikely related to the COVID-19 vaccine
- 26 deaths could not be assessed due to insufficient information
- 28 cases are still under investigation.
- 1 death was likely due to vaccine induced myocarditis (awaiting Coroner’s determination)
Despite this, it's a concern that Pfizer is only the only choice in NZ. Clearly it doesn't react well to some individuals. The reaction list is a concern, no doubt highly under reported and something that is putting people off getting the second jab or first if they've heard of someone else having issues.
There probably needs to be more discussion around the reactions and expectations. Instead any concern seems to be immediately discredited as having covid is so much worse.
It's not a reaction list. It's a list of people who had the vaccine and later died. If I get the vaccine and then get hit by a train, the vaccine didn't cause it. If you've eaten thirty pounds of steak a day and die of colon cancer the day after getting the vaccine, the vaccine didn't kill you. It's a list of people who died AND who had the vaccine. There is just one expected link to the vaccine out of the millions of doses given.
I'd be more charitable to concerns about the vaccine if so many people weren't trying to misrepresent the reporting around its side effects.
I’m going to be real gentle here GV as not too far in the distant past were we home with a newborn and the protection trait as parents are in overdrive so I can relate to your emotions, concerns and your points from a place of unconditional love and care.
But to say if someone had a Pfizer jab and got hit by a train later to be reported in medsafe as a mortality just does not make sense.
There just are two sides to every coin and it is unfair to vilify anyone and everyone who does not share the exact viewpoint as you.
Maybe I was distracted, maybe I had a headache, maybe I couldn't hear the train. All 'arugably' a vaccine side-effect I could argue should warrant being reported as part of the Adverse Reactions list. Someone reported that they turned into the Incredible Hulk as a side effect of an MMR vaccine in the US.
Also, this whole 'someone has different views' thing is bullshit. I don't have to be treat someone who is completely misinformed with the same credence I would treat someone with specialist knowledge. Merely having an opinion doesn't mean that opinion is above any scrutiny at all - you don't have a right to your own facts.
I think it is criminal to suppress and portray the vaccine injuries don’t exist. But just like the after the Nazis lost the war, and were eventually caught and put on trial, thd same fate awaits those who knowingly put lives at risk against all human basic rights and against the Nuremberg code. And for those not even familiar what the latter means or where it came from… do some well overdue reading up on history!
Except anyone and everyone can easily make up side effects reports and get them added to the register, likewise if you drunk yourself to death with meths even a week after getting the vaccination it too would be a death added to the list. Yet those who die from respiratory failure, heart inflammation from effects of a virus can provably be linked to the virus. You all seem to fail to understand how basic viruses kill people and then seem to not understand how medical data and side effect registers work. This is not rocket science it is even more basic. Come on people, learn and educate yourselves.
People have had plenty of time to get vaccinated, but a certain proportion of the population are sitting aronud twiddling their thumbs when they could be off to get their vaccines today, tomorrow or the next day. They are the people holding us back. We aren't protected until we are all protected, that's why they need to get as many people as possible vaccinated.
Also, remember the Pfizer vaccine has a 95% efficacy rate. So if 4 million people get jabbed, that's 200,000 vaccinated people who aren't protected, let alone having to worry about the 10% of Kiwis who aren't even going to bother getting a vaccine.
Everyone watching that press conference who has been fully vaccinated would have been cheering her on. The anti-vaxxers need to see what they will be permitted to do versus the vaccinated. They will be ostracized because they aren't doing their part as a citizen of this country, as a member of our society, and don't care about the health and wellbeing of anyone else. I don't think most vaccine hesitant or anti-vaxxers care about the science, I really believe 90% of them are just afraid of needles and using every possible reason under the sun to get out of it.
If you're anti-vax, does that mean you're anti-care? So if you don't get vaxxed, then you shouldn't take a hospital bed from someone who has gone out of their way to protect themselves and their community. You should either be denied hospital care or required to pay an excessive amount for the care you receive. Otherwise the 90%+ of us who will be vaccinated by the end of November will suffer from the negligence of the antis.
"Minister and her colleagues need only cite their duty, as the people’s representatives, to do the greatest good by the greatest number."
Jeremy Bentham would be proud. This is pure Utilitarianism and none the worse for that. Every effort should be made to persuade the fence-sitters to do the right thing, but at some point, the good of the great majority of us must take precedence. That is our government's moral obligation, quite apart from other considerations like the economy.
They are already in a cafe right next to you so what's the difference. Vax passports are never going to fly and every single businesses will never support it anyway. The choice is really simple, set a cuttoff date or your going to be in lockdown forever. The number of those not getting the second jab followed by the complete collapse of support for booster shots every 6 months will mean that keeping the rate above 90% is a complete failure. The Labour government has failed you, end of story.
No, the minority who believe they have a God-given right to circulate disease in a first world country is failing us. Your right to do that ends where it affects mine and my family's ability to access emergency care.
We are catering for idiots who are too stupid to know that they're idiots and we should treat them like we treat toddlers who have tantrums.
The level of medical care in NZ was already stuffed even without this Pandemic. Even if we had a really bad Flu season it wouldn't cope. It was on TV and on Stuff "New Zealand has 4.6 ICU beds for every 100,000 people. This number has decreased as the population has grown. We compare poorly to countries with equivalent healthcare systems – the UK has 6.4, Australia 8.9 and Germany 38.7". This government has had years to improve the numbers and did nothing. FYI my IQ was measured at a job interview at 125, that's a score that puts me at a 95% chance I'm smarter than you. Be careful who you call stupid.
Not smart enough to know that your IQ doesn't mean you're not immune to specious reasoning, apparently, or that the fact we have pre-existing issues with our health system isn't a good reason to just say "to hell with it" and abandon all attempts to mange it.
Also, next time you want to throw your IQ around, bring a gun to a gun fight. I couldn't care less, but to the people who actually take those things seriously, a 125 is laughable. Frankly, I'm not convinced this isn't some extremely low-effort troll and I'm kind of mad with myself for engaging with it.
To be fair a lot of poor people get fooled into thinking an IQ test is a superior measure of intelligence. It is like the gold standard for scams, or to pick a local example: a CV valuation for property. They think it means something when in retrospect it is easy to fool, cheat, and has no relevance to the marketing of the brand or value. It is a bit like the halo effect. Much like other psych tests you can get anything you want out of them if you put 5 minutes into researching the principles and rules used in the development. The trick is to gauge the audience it is presented to and again stating an IQ test here is like presenting a d measuring contest in a formal business meeting. However it is always an interesting study to see people taken in by IQ test scores and why.
Low effort troll is a good guess but it could have revealed more about their personality they may have been unwilling to provide. Lots of people have been driven to the less common message boards but the amount of posts on these articles not related to financial or economic matters even on a tenuous level is telling. Frankly I find it odd they could not just collect to reddit or 4chan for echos like others do. That would also play to a person who likes IQ scores to "measure" their "intelligence".
Me doing an IQ test is like Darryl Kerrigan showing the valuers around his house in The Castle. 'See that lace? That's fake'. I'm terrible at crappy puzzles because of a life-long medical condition that will probably leave me as a smiling pile of goo on a rest home floor in my 80s. Not too dumb to know the limits of my knowledge, when to defer to others or mistaking being a bit quicker with smart arse comments as having expertise in all fields that is beyond question.
Then there are all the people who have read and understood the "Science" = that vaccine immunity wears off quite quickly. So there is zero point in being vaccinated now, when most of the country is still zero covid, and that you should wait until you really need immunity. Already, those in Group 1 and 2 have run out of immunity, and by Jan those that got vaccinated last month will have lost theirs too. Getting vaccinated to meet some Govt mandated number vs getting vaccinated to make sure you have peak immunity when you really need it - kind of a no brainer isnt it?
Pretty sure i heard the Govt say that 85% of hospital beds are in use.My question is who with?
If they are that full now then we obviously don't have enough beds to cope with every day requests.
With a pandemic possibly around the corner we are going to be in the poo.
The past does offer us some lessons: it wasn't so long ago that those with the highly infectious and disfiguring disease LEPROSY were isolated in special colonies (today's MIQ facilities?); those so disfigured and deformed were called by that vile name LEPERS.
Over the decades or longer the name LEPER has acquired connotations of vile despicability which the name still carries. I realize that leprosy was found to be, in the age of science, a curable disease which has now been all but wiped from the face of the earth, by vaccination, in those areas which would be still susceptible.
So the name LEPER is now freely available to apply to those holding out from vaccination.
(Incidentally, landlords should be called by that more descriptive Russian term: KULAKS.)
Isn’t it interesting how some familiar partisan commentators deliberately sideline the main thrust of the article to have yet another tiresome swipe at the government? It may make them feel better about themselves, but adds little to the serious dilemma which would face any government in the current circumstances - how to deal with non-compliant citizenry. There are no easy answers to this quandary. Encouragement and rational self-interest has rightly persuaded the majority of people so far, but any government other than a genuine dictatorship would struggle to know how best to compel the recalcitrant irrational minority.
It could respect the Bill of Rights and carry on with leading the best it can.
Your assuming the government is obliged to meet some set of arbitrary standards. It can lead for what it sees as the best outcome: If that means to them coercing everyone to get vaxed that's on them or they could change the goals and accept those unvaxed might have worse time during covid but society gets to be a little more liberal. The is more to leadership than preventing every possible covid death.
You're right. There's no perfect solution.
I think the decisions made by the Gov't so far have been, on the 'macro' scale, pretty good. But there's an increasing air of confusion, uncertainty, and disingenuousness creeping in. As others have pointed out, we've gone from 'no one will be punished for not taking the vaccine' to 'you won't be able to have a normal life unless you take the vaccine'. What is needed is an honest admission of the necessary compromises from the Gov't. Either: "You don't really have choice. It's not good that we have to be authoritarian, but there it is. You don't have a choice." or alternatively "You have a choice, even though we think it's foolish. Hundreds of people will die because of this choice, but we think coercion is worse overall. Do what you think is ethical." Just make a decision and treat us like adults.
There are x3 groups of people yet to get vaccinated (other than those who have a medical exemption)
1. The Ignorant - ''I choose what goes in my body, there isn't enough evidence, I'm not at risk'' - no vaccine no hospital bed for Covid illness is the answer for this group. Be sick at home and don't take beds of people who need them in our under funded hospitals.
2. The Stubborn - ''the government wont tell me what to do'' - next time drive through a stop sign without stopping, the government is responsible for that sign telling you to stop. Kill yourself but possibly killing others is an incredibly selfish a risk to take.
3. The Lazy - KFC vouchers are the answer.
Are still a great threat to others. Much like drunk drivers may not kill themselves but we still regulate them against driving and putting other people's lives at risk. Except viruses are an even greater threat to those unlucky and those medically vulnerable (which also includes those in high stress fitness roles).
Does not mean you cannot catch the virus again. The idea that the immune system has a perfect memory and can always work perfectly or adapt to new variations is a known flaw. Please stop parroting the garbage tripe. ALL human immune systems vary in capability and protection (especially as we age, the shingles is a perfect example of immune system weakening against a virus you have "natural immunity" to but cannot stop from falling severely ill hence people are vaccinated even though they had some immunity at one stage because their immune system is like all others a flawed system).
You might want to look up the term parroting (common verb and phrase). It does not mean to be a member of the parrot family (if I associate you with a parrot it would be a step down for the birds as humans are far more self and socially destructive,... closer to the cannibalistic chickens).
Yeah spare a thought for those of us who have tried to do our bit and wound up with nasty side effects from the vaccine.
Since my first dose approximately three weeks ago I haven't had a single day where I've felt normal. My heart rate is all over the place, blood pressure is through the roof, and I've been completely wiped out in terms of energy no matter how much I sleep.
The week before I took my first dose I ran a half marathon distance one night, just because I could.
Yesterday I went for a 5km jog and felt like I was about to keel over and die.
It's impacted my personal life (can't do the sports/fitness pursuits I once did) and my business (I have fallen behind on work from being too tired to complete everything, as well as being in and out of the doctor's, blood test place etc).
I'm feeling slightly better each day now - but terrified that I've got to back and do it all over again or I'll be shut out of society for my own good ... because apparently it's better for a 28 year old to wind up with these sort of side effects than risk the alternative.
If I dropped dead tomorrow from these side effects, nobody would bat an eyelid. If I caught Covid and died, I'd be headline news.
For what it's worth, I still am on board with vaccination and think it's a good idea. Almost everyone I know has seemed to avoid significant side effects thus far (apart from one friend who has experienced what I've had but to such an extent that she's been in and out of the ER several times) and it's clear that it works to mitigate the risk of severe illness or death.
However, I do wish that people like myself who don't exactly fit the risk profile for Covid and have had genuinely deleterious side effects could be shown a degree of clemency.
Come off it precious, I have been through many heart attacks when young (due to genetics & disease) and I am not going to attribute my ignorance of the exact cause of the one on a given day to something I dislike. Oh I had a heart attack start while stacking the dishwasher so they must all be banned immediately and removed from every household, while my partner then must always do my dishes because of heart attack risk (not going to happen in our household any time soon and I must still stack, unstack and scrub when I can). I had a heart attack while feeding the ducks, they must be removed from NZ shores... Lol you crack me up. I regularly skirt heart attacks every day and I know the symptoms and effects are very different to those from the vaccination. Get over yourself, get educated and hopefully get perspective of what living with the effects & risk of heart attacks actually is like.
Don't forget to FAST although chances are you do not need to and will still be reading and posting comments while hysterically claiming you are moments from a heart attack.
Here is a clue: Even symptoms prior to a TIA, a little mini stroke, will prevent you from doing that hence those truly at risk pay for heart monitors, St Johns alarms and arrange support checkups. Heart monitoring and heart health education is cheaper than a takeaway dinner so you should look into that before your next dinner out/or in (depending on city).
Exactly!
NZ must wake up. Look at UK and Singapore - yeap, they have their armors - the problem is that they are cardboard. They do not last very long and now you can see that they are pretty much useless...
NZ never had to fight for anything - therefore we do not see what is coming...
Well if we were wondering if CT was using his head more than his heart these days, at least that can be put to rest?
When other countries, even those with a fascist past like Italy, offer more choice than Labour with a Vaccine passport that the unvaxed can obtain with conditions, then that is using your head.
On the bell curve, just as you have a small % of people at one end that is trying to sabotage the vaccination effort, you also have another small % at the other end that would be more than happy to be the brown shirts of the Govts. 'get vaxed or die' campaign.
Labours campaign is moving from truly trying to prevent and protect people from catching Covid to creating division, in the name of diversity, in the name of divide and rule.
For a PR expert as Jacinda is , she's really dropped the ball on this one .... clearly the vaccine hesitant folk cannot be argued with nor cajoled ... and threats such as exclusion of their rights has the opposite effect , just causing them to get further angrier , and to push back harder ...
... the stick wont work ... but the carrot ? ... hows about a sweet $ 200 cash in the hand after your second jab ! ... we'd hit 90 % by lunchtime ....
And that $ billion given out would be spent mostly at retailers & hospitality businesses .... Ho ho ho .... Merry Christmas !
And you've been such a good little vaccinator this year, here is your Christmas present https://www.gold.ac.uk/news/the-vaccination-game/ .
Clarification, money is going to iwi leaders and the local health providers, aka lords and managers, but not necessarily to all people of a certain ethnicity or marae. Certainly not those in greatest need or at the bottom. I suspect a lot will be spent on branding advisors and designers for stuff that is barely seen or used. Toss the poor a few loaves of bread to shut them up. The real crime is that those in high iwi positions are more nepotistic than government departments, and less likely to work to the benefit of all people (especially those in their area). As has already been provably shown in the most wealthy iwi areas with the most assets and the highest paid in iwi management positions are the locations generally with terrible high rates of homelessness, poorer education outcomes and poorer job opportunities. Pity because so much wealth goes to those at the top of the iwi chain to put into their asset portfolios it would almost remind you of certain people.
The PM could decree a ‘no jab, no benefit’ statement in line with her other ‘laws’.
The problem this Govt has is they have an unrealistic vaccine aim of 90% and are tentatively waving possible freedoms under a vaccinated suppression scenario.
However in all other respects they are still madly running an elimination program.
If you think NZ will ever get a Freedom day or date you are mistaken.
Start with a few leisure activities then ramp up to exclude from all public facilities, employment, education, and health services.
We can then start to include more vaccines, until every single vaccination is included, and by default compulsory
This is the only option to actually protect society.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step. We are taking that step right now.
Is that what everyone actually wants?
My Father in law, is on the urgent list for a heart operation. He has been for over 5 months. Last appointment was a month ago when they did a lot of tests and said, he should be ready for an operation within a week. He will need to be in ICU for 3 days after. He is still waiting for the op.
This is not because Covid positives are taking up all the operation theatres or ICU. This is just utter incompetence in not investing in hospital facilities. Population under Labour rose more than National and they did nothing to improve infrastructure across the board. Coming from a loyal Labour supporter. I cannot believe how many people are falling for Jacindas spin to cover her and her cabinets utter incompetence.
ACC report that 80 people have been injured by sharp Smeg knives they got from New World coupons last year ....
... I'm petitioning Queen Jacindy to halt this gross imposition upon our stretched healthcare system by : 1 : shutting down all New Worlds across the nation immediately , pending a working group to draft up a paper recommending safer giveaways henceforth .... and...
... 2 : removal of all blades from knives sold in NZ from midnight Wednesday ...
Huh ! ... you've swallowed the New World promotional spiel hook line line and double Smegger ... ... prancing around with your Smeg passports ... and Smegging green lights ... shame upon your kind ... it's a United Nations conspiracy .... take Ivermectin to ward off the Smeggonisity desires to cut ... to slice ... to chop & dice ... you're stealing my childhood .... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ...
Good example tell me why is there no freedom to drive without a license and drive while heavily drunk and what happens to those who do. Perhaps the alcoholics with their licenses revoked can unite and create a pro-choice protest to enable them to drive with no responsibilities and no repercussions.
She's heading into full control mode & there'll be no stopping her now. The Marxist agenda is to close down capitalism & covid is such the perfect excuse. My freedoms have disappeared alarmingly over the past 18-19 months or so. Haven't yours? Yeah. Funny that. There is no intention of opening up everything from here. She's just installed a light system that has no exit.
Ah, so because I can string together a sentence that disagrees with people or points out the basics of their posts that wouldn't pass muster in a School C essay, I must be a paid shill? Sorry, just a locked-down Aucklander with little else to do with my time.
Having said that, Nissan, if you're reading, I'd love a free GTR.
Will the same impassioned arguments apply when they redefine "fully vaccinated" to include shots number 3, 4, and 5?? In 18 months time will we vilifying those who haven't had shot 5?
Asking whether this is what we signed up for is really relevant - this is not an academic question, it's happening elsewhere in the world as we speak.
Cool, so this is what propaganda and mass hysteria feels like...matches with all the history stuff I've read.
I think you'll find the group that's calling for the persecution of a minority is always the group that's, historically, in the moral, ethical, and scientific wrong.
Let’s be honest, this has nothing to do with science or medicine or the greater good, it’s just an old-fashioned witch hunt.
Doesn't matter how advanced we get most humans will always act this way given the slightest provocation, funny how quickly the veneer of civility drops from most "civilized" people.
Fascinating stuff…
Yep. But of course the media, have ignored the reality of Israel's third booster. And they have also neglected to mention that no country has actually had their health system, "overwhelmed" by Covid, even England, with 40,000 new cases a day.
As Andrew Little recently conceded that our hospitals could cope with a any outbreak, why should anyone take this useless "vaccine"?
The UK has a far better health system than ours. Also since we started cancelling surgeries and specialist appointments in the tens of thousands and preventing access to ED and widespread public gatherings there are less code blacks in the ER departments and less resources used by other medical conditions. Using your reasoning one could argue that since lockdowns have a far greater net benefit to reduce emergency presentations and accidents, alongside less surgical output we should have more of them. Obviously you also missed the known millions now disabled by covid and overwhelming the health system resources that the UK had to create new specialized treatment centers solely for the conditions.
"there are still people out there who have not heard that the Pfizer vaccine is tested"
Yes Chris, there are still people out there who can read. It is under testing, it is not tested - one of the reasons Pfizer won't indemnify.
I guess reading is difficult when sitting on such a high horse?
"Primary Purpose:Prevention
Official Title:A PHASE 1/2/3, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED, OBSERVER-BLIND, DOSE-FINDING STUDY TO EVALUATE THE SAFETY, TOLERABILITY, IMMUNOGENICITY, AND EFFICACY OF SARS-COV-2 RNA VACCINE CANDIDATES AGAINST COVID-19 IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS
Actual Study Start Date :April 29, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date :May 2, 2023
Estimated Study Completion Date :May 2, 2023
....In Phase 1 participants, SARS-CoV-2 anti-S1 binding antibody levels and anti-RBD binding antibody levels, expressed as GMCs [ Time Frame: Through 2 years after the final dose ]"
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728?term=NCT04368728&draw=2…
Man that is funny. You do not get the definition or the title. This is a case of too little education on what you are reading to understand what it is about. Step 1. Lookup the definition of the first word 'study' in medical context. Do worry we will still be laughing when you get back because your post is still there. Here is a clue: how many studies normally should occur and over what timeframe do they occur for a medication that has a new version brought to market or even for that matter a new medication. This is real easy because you can google the results for the clue and the word.
Oh alright I doubt you can get there. Try just googling the word first. It itself is the answer, my use of the plural should have given you the key and the timeframe is a trick part because they are ongoing for all medications across many conditions. Sort of a continuous data so long as there is funding thing and with Covid-19 there was a lot of funding so we already got a lot of data from hundreds of studies already completed. The vaccination type was existing for many years prior with thousands of studies. No one study is used as a definitive but the grouping of all arrives towards a recommendation and enough for registrations. Funnily enough during the pandemic it was also much easier to find test subjects... I wonder why could it be all those sick people in the tens of millions worldwide. We will have studies running continuously for a while as the vaccination exists and is needed, there are known distinctive mutations, and we have ample revenue for the studies (the vaccine is not going to be trapped in funding hell where long stretches of time, usually years, go by seeking and applying for funding to run studies). Hence also why so many sick people desperate for one medication or another complain about the time it takes to get funding for research studies, source participants and approval to be allowed for use for treatment. Study funding hell is a new level,like squid game, where sick people are made to compete about whose disease is more worthy of research funding. Wouldn't it be nice if we could fund things fast like how the countries across the world all dropped what they were doing to work towards funding and running the covid-19 vaccination studies. Imagine that happening so that patients with crippling deadly diseases are not waiting for their research to be funded for treatments to get to the next stage.
In NZ we even have other vaccination trials which you can see are not the sole determinants but contribute to the body of evidence globally. We no longer run trial studies for vaccinations that are no longer needed e.g. small pox, but also it is assumed we do not need new trials for vaccines that have been the same for decades and the virus is less frequently mutating e.g. polio (eliminated in NZ but not worldwide). Studies for new vaccinations that you may recently remember running in NZ were Gardasil, (against the virus/es causing cervical and penile cancers) which had multiple revision studies for different versions and pooled from several different groups of participants in NZ. The vaccinations were rolled out soon afterwards to teenagers in schools for free (annoyingly it was not affordable to roll out to adults for free as well and it was assumed most already were infected with the virus if they had been sexually active). The vaccine trials took a long time trying to source enough varied participants and get funding for them to run the studies and to support participants. With Covid the time barriers like getting funding for studies and enough participants were pretty much knocked down. We have way to many people at risk in the world from Covid.
The comment stream is entertaining, as usual. But I suggest CT is fundamentally correct in this article. Any community only works if it is at it's core, unified. The Government, whether you agree with them or not, has identified that it's goal is to put lives ahead of money. CT identifies the the reluctant and anti-vaxers don't trust the Government and it's information because of past treatment, but I see the Government bending over backwards trying to appease them to get them to agree to vaccinate. So maybe they just want to be treated as if they are special.
Those who refuse are putting the rest at risk, touting their rights. But in doing so they are ignoring the rest's rights not be be infected by them. Many state they would be happy to accept a higher death rate for relaxed restriction, but have they considered that they may be one of those sacrifices on the COVID altar? Are they prepared to die, or to lose a member of their family, maybe a child to COVID because of their attitude? Or worse, suffer a lifetime of debilitating effects from having caught it, but not having it kill you?
"But in doing so they are ignoring the rest's rights not be be infected by them". Then why Murray, did anyone bother to be vaccinated? Vaccinated can carry and spread Covid. The only thing that happens is that the seriousness of the infection and chance of death in a vaccinated person is reduced significantly.
Also, to say the Government has "put lives ahead of money". How do you make that conclusion? They've borrowed billions and billions. That's money. That someone has to pay back. And what about the 80k or so people that have had medical procedures put on hold because of Covid? How many of them are going to die because of the hold?
Given that sooner or later, the borders will be opened. There will be carriers coming through the border for sure. Elimination is long out the window, and NZ became a laughing stock overseas for continuing to try.
The biggest challenge NZ faces over the next 2 months is dealing with those suffering from Covid-19 that have to isolate at home as there is no room at MIQ. The risk to families of catching Covid has now increased significantly.
The problem has only been created because the government has failed to provide adequate capacity at MIQ & has been too slow to free up MIQ spaces for community Covid-19 cases. This can easily be done today by allowing returnees from overseas that are fully vaccinated & have a negative test to isolate at home.
All of this would be unnecessary if the government has ordered the vaccine earlier, allowed more than 1 vaccine to be used, increased ICU capacity by allowing more overseas nurses & doctors to come/stay here, spending a lot more on the latest drugs to minimise effects of Covid-19 etc.
Why haven’t our brightest & smartest MBA & engineering qualified people been employed 18 months ago to get us out of this mess. Total reliance on epidemiologists has been a mistake because they are not trained to make decisions based on benefit/cost ratios. This requires a much broader range of knowledge that just health knowledge.
The term 'Unvaccinated' is divisive hate speech.
Please use my preferred pronoun 'Repopulator'.
Thankyou for mentioning hate speech. The irony is the government's own rhetoric now is currently veering into "inciting hatred" of a group based on political opinion/health status and therefore in violation of their proposed laws...what an interesting test case?!
There would be prosecutions by the thousands just for a daily trawl through of the auckland subreddit page.
These vaccines are designed to stop hospitalisations and death, and that protection they say is long lasting. The protection from catching Covid-19 and passing it on is variable. The time since you were vaccinated is a big factor. Some of the early vaccine recipients will now have very low protection, and in some countries, they are now considered unvaccinated. I know many hesitant people are concerned about mRNA and consider the long-term effects unknown. It does not matter if a 100 billion people have been vaccinated. There is not one person on this earth that has had two shots of mRNA followed by ongoing boosters every six months for any real length of time. We can talk about this in five years when you are having your tenth shot. They say they are safe and you should be fine. If you want as near as 100% of people vaccinated, then you will have to make the thing mandatory and forcibly inject people or just live with what choices people make.
You're logic that the community will have to forcibly inject to protect the vulnerable doesnt quite follow.
I wouldn't encourage that, but I'd definitely control entry to risky indoor environments - events, workplaces etc - to the vaccinated, and prioritise ICU to the vaccinated first, so others don't bear the consequence of the anti-vaxxers actions.
Natural consequences will follow, as they have in the US.
There should be a "No jab, no care" policy. If you don't get vaccinated by a certain date (say 1 Dec), we drop all major restrictions go to a sort of level 1.5 or 2 situation across the country, then if you fall ill of Covid, you either can't access hospital care if the hospital is experiencing high demand, or you should be required to pay a high amount for the care you do receive. Chris Trotter is right, it's time to wave the stick. The whole country can't sit around waiting for the anti-vaxxers to sort themselves out, they need to take responsibility for their decisions.
Whilst I always find Chris Trotters opinion pieces an interesting read and generally well written, no one should forget that he is left of centre.
In terms of vaccination, I am double vaccinated. But I understand that there are those that do not want to be vaccinated for some reason. Some might be rational and some might be irrational reasons. But that is their choice. Chris starts with:
"Not the least of these will be the challenge of understanding what makes so many people so unwilling to do what the overwhelming majority of their fellow citizens are asking them to do".
Written like a true socialist. No one needs to understand why, that's for totalitarian socialists. Like the former Russian, Germany and China. It is none of the Government's business, nor is it anyone else's.
The problem that NZ faces, is that via Government ineptitude, we don't have the facilities or the staff for those facilities to treat severe cases of Covid (which by the way, are coming). That's the beginning and end of it.
Consider two polar opposite people. A fitness / health freak, and an overweight KFC loving couch potato. One has zero Covid risk, and one is on a path to an early death without Covid. You needle both with Pfizer as a one size fits all approach. Use the vaccine as it was designed, and give it to vulnerable people. As Hipkins said about isolating at home with Covid - not a problem as 95% of people with Covid have a mild illness.
We are surrounded by experts, but sadly humans only become truly expert with the benefit of hindsight. There weren't too many ships launched that did not have a full compliment of lifeboats after the Titanic.
Correction both are at severe risk, and unfortunately it is more likely the former with a stretched and weakened immune and cardiovascular system which will fair worse from Covid and especially more at risk of dying or getting long covid (using the existing medical research around post viral chronic illnesses that are disabling). Fitness/health freak is commonly referring to those with a self destructive obsession that becomes very deadly at a young age, heart attacks & osteoporosis before 30 (in NZ we have had many deaths before 20years old from this), whereas in comparison the overweight person, (actually even those medically obese), will provably live much longer estimated life spans and only have more concerning risks in the older post retirement age groups. Of course genetics also plays a large part but then conditions like autoimmune disorders and cancer would be worse for the person who is a fitness health freak as they are already putting far too much stress on key body systems and have far more dangerous levels of fat (protip being severely underweight or in the case of body builders with a dangerously low amount of body fat is far far more harmful hence the need for even more eating controls and resulting disorders in these groups).
If instead you had used the comparison of a balanced weight and moderate exercise person compared to someone with type 2 diabetes (weight would not be as important but the condition is more prevalent in those medically obese, also they would very likely not be eating KFC if they were managing diabetes, not unless they want to lose something vital to them) then the comparision would be closer to your desired statement goals... Or going by the original comparison are you suggesting those with severe mental health disorders, fitness/health freaks, should have vaccination priority; because they had that in Group 3. Even those cases I know and work with had vaccination priority.
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