The Nats new leader has finally put some runs on the board.
Speaking to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce he stated the obvious, namely that it’s totally untenable to keep our borders closed until either/if a vaccine is developed or every country has eliminated the virus.
I pointed that out on this site a week back and offered a simple health passport solution. Imposing 14 days confined to a hotel room is untenable and unnecessary.
Now while I say Muller was stating the obvious, it certainly needed to be said from someone in his position.
I asked what is the government’s Plan B, so silly is the current situation. One is left with the sense the Government doesn’t have one. A cynic might even say they prefer maintaining a sense of crisis given the political polling benefit it’s reaped to date with easily panicked people.
When sometime in the future there’s an enquiry into the handling of this virus, a necessity as it will happen again in the future, I have no doubt the outcome will be it was a massive over-reaction.
The evidence is clear. Primarily it’s killed nursing home occupants, that is folk in their 90s suffering dementia thus unable to look after themselves.
In New Zealand 19 out of the 22 deaths were in nursing homes and nearly all in their 90s.
The other 3 victims were older people, over 60 with serious health conditions.
In Britain and the USA, apart from nursing homes, it’s bowled over the obese, mainly poor people with unhealthy life-styles.
In short and with the benefit of hindsight, the vulnerable were plain two months into the lockdown. Life should have gone on and attention focussed on those vulnerable categories without creating a contagious panic.
If the government remain stubborn while National flogs this theme, we’ll definitely see a change of government. For by then the actual cost of this man-made economic disaster will be evident for all to see and more particularly, feel.
The Prime Minister reacted to the Muller emergence saying it’s dangerous to open the borders. No it’s not, that is with a health passport scheme in place which we could actually issue similarly to visas.
As for dangerous, so too is driving and kills circa 350 people annually. But we don’t hide under our beds in panic, rather even 350 annually, a large number of whom are hoons, are very long odds indeed. So too with the virus, given sensible precautions. Locking visitors up for 14 days imprisonment is ridiculous. It’s overdue for some reality.
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Given the likely theory that, like SARS-1, the lab-engineered COVID-19 is unstable in the wild and has mutated back to something resembling the seasonal ‘flu and given than only one of the current 22 known cases is in hospital, we should be able to open the borders with the proviso that all inbound travellers return a negative test before departure and that the small number who then test positive on arrival are isolated for 14 days.
If we isolate the vulnerable and continue to follow the 2 metre rule, there should be a low risk of infection regardless of the availability of a vaccine as there seems to be little or no cases caused by casual contact e.g. supermarkets.
I also think that we should consider adhering to the above every seasonal winter ‘flu season to potentially prevent 500 or so deaths per year and loss of productivity despite the existing vaccination protocols.
Totally agree Bob.
Attended a lunch in Napier last Friday where he spoke for 20 minutes without notes.
He covered this topic very well.
The fact is that like measles and dengue fever we will never “ eliminate “ it as Jacinda has clearly stated but must learn to live with it.
Regrettably, I believe he has let his supporters down by suggesting that he could work with Peters.
This is despite the fact that the National caucus voted to decline NZ First as a partner in February.
Immediately after National polled 42% and NZ First plummeted to 3.5%.
Giving NZ First oxygen is most certainly costing 10’s thousands of National voters who are clearly opting for ACT.
Great !
We need a party with a spine and principles to keep National honest.
I live in Napier and I have seen no hoardings for a national candidate any where . Who is the candidate ? . Stuart Nash has hoardings every where the picture makes him look like mr bean
Andy, you haven’t been reading the local rag.
Katie Nimon is the very attractive and intelligent candidate with a large sign in Carlyle Street.
Apparently dozens are due to go up next week.
Completely agree with all of your comments John!
Absolutely agree Bob. Thousands of jobs depend on the border reopening. In the meantime the Govt has us under house arrest in our own country basically refusing us permission to leave for warmer climes. Why we can’t at least have to and from travel with the Pacific Islands where Covid is eliminated is beyond me. Why if you go to Samoa where they had zero cases would you need to quarantine for 14 days upon return?
As for Winston Peters, there is no chance he would ever go with National. We were burnt last time when he defied political convention and went with labour. The best thing is no one vote for him/his party and they disappear into the wilderness. Remember they are still at 2%.
Bang on bob , 500 suicides a year no one other than mike king wants to talk about too , let the virus run n get on with life . As for cementing victory in election , all national or any party has to do is say they are going to drop the price of tobacco to $1 a gram . This Wd be half price and guarantee any smoker at least $50 extra cash a week , just like a solid tax break ….the fact is there are still 315,000 smokers , and all of a votable age , who I guarantee the majority of which will get behind the political party promoting this . That’s approx 10-20% of the voting public
Todays announcement is further proof that this government have their heads firmly buried in the sand, Queensland has today announced an intention to cautiously open their borders to other states excepting Victoria.
Why we can’t ease the quarantine requirements here as well beggars belief, part of the rationale for this is most likely self induced.
There should be an immediate ban on anybody from high risk areas transiting onto flights from low risk areas and increasing the likelihood of transmission. eg passengers from India joining flights in Brisbane bound for Auckland.
This is pretty basic risk analysis stuff.
Then people coming in from say, Brisbane who have only been in Queensland or a Covid free Pacific nation could be at least be given the option to self isolate.
Self isolation can be under a close monitoring scenario, but given the failure to get much right so far, it might be too much to expect.
How they haven’t considered this is unbelievable, the risk is absolutely minimal and the cost benefits considerable.
Interestingly, Bob, the average weekly morbidity rate in The UK, the only country who’s data one can trust, is now below the 5 year average. Rationale? Those who were nearing he end of like have just happened to end it a few months or a year or so earlier. I’m picking that the morbidity rate will only be very slightly higher when extrapolating the data over 2, 3 and 5 years.
It’s not so simple, basically the intent is right but the tests aren’t much chop. That said it’s freeking daft to bankrupt the country over a disease that is largely not dangerous
Everything is so god-damn simple and obvious when the answer to all problems is just the conviction with which you are hitting those keyboard keys.
I’m pretty sure there must be some law that covers the fact that no-one has a mortgage on ” being right “!
Who in their right mind would follow medical advice from a politician?
Covid-19 survivors have been left suffering with lung and heart damage, some have suffered strokes, while others have even been left with brain damage. Other survivors are left with crushing fatigue and a long road to recovery. This has led some experts to claim that there will be a new ‘post-Covid disability’. Some have been left with a deadly heart condition. Patients have mild, moderate and severe illness. Large numbers of patients will have physical, cognitive and psychological disability post-critical illness that will require long-term management. There is a growing number of reports that even people with mild illness, who didn’t go to hospital, are experiencing long-lasting symptoms. Some people infected in February or March are still being ambushed by extreme fatigue, headaches, sudden breathlessness and problems concentrating or doing even light exercise.
This isn’t limited to 90 year olds, but also includes any age group, healthy and active.
God is punishing us for voting for Jacinda Ardern
Lets be clear, most deaths in NZ are the result of health professionals incompetence. They failed to properly isolate rest homes and they repeatedly failed to properly monitor the boarder. Every case is their fault. To remedy their errors they lockdowned the whole country which was by virtue of luck successful. Then they messed up the boarders again! Ashleys a good talker (not manager) and David Clark could not manage or control anything.
Remember “1984”. The people need to be controlled by fear to maintain political power.
And a certain amount of health department incompetence is great to keep the fear levels up.
Makes you wonder where the controls actually are amidst the bullshit, smokescreens and panic.
As soon as the elimination strategy was announced, CAKE FACE predicted:
1. Labour will win the next election by a landslide.
2. Every single country in the world except New Zealand will open their borders. Most of them will do so in the next three months.
3. In three years’ time, our border will still be effectively closed.
4. NZ will be hurtling towards Third World status at an alarming rate.
Be kind!!!
PCR is not accurate enough. Serology is ok at +8 days post infection. But the tests have been banned by the MoH because a small minority of scheisters in the USA and China were selling fakes.
The answer lies in Metabolomic testing. The tech is out there, but we need the FDA to approve the data bases. However self interest, patch protection and outright corruption in Medicine is keeping the tech from rolling out.
Intl students and anyone else who is prepared to be bored for 2 months on a slow cruise could quarantine while they travel from whatever port. Test every bugger as the get on the ship. At risk populations would travel at their own risk.
The other alternative would be supplement them Chemokine suppression , and cytokine mitigation products. There is a heap of science that explains how Vit D, Zinc, and a number of other immuno-modulation phytonutrients interact with the immune system to balance the cascades, and minimise the over shoot of a cytokine storm, and the endovascular inflammation that nCoV2 causes.
The infantile coalition will lose face if they now back down and accept the fear mongering over reaction was a cock up. Most people don’t know they have had Covid. If it was smallpox with a 30% mortality rate the panic would be understood. The testing is unreliable. All vaccines are unsafe, as found by the US Supreme Court in 2011. As Sir Bob suggests, look after the vulnerable, continue with basic safety, and open up the world.
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