The above, a recent opening line in the New Zealand Herald by its Science reporter, Jamie Morton.
Plainly Jamie doesn’t read the foreign press. All year New Zealand has been a laughing stock in the British media over its closed off society and vaccine failures.
The serious media such as the Economist, in articles on dealing with covid has always politely dismissed the New Zealand hermit state approach as essentially infantile, unnecessary and hugely harmful.
And infantile it is with the government methodology more appropriate to addressing 3 year olds; e.g. “team of 5 million” (in my 8 plus decades I’ve never known New Zealand so divided and certainly not a team, particularly regarding race), but worst of all, the unbelievably childish teddy bear in the windows nonsense and “Be Kind” messages on our highways etc. It’s mind-blowing.
The out-spoken British press such as the Telegraph and Daily Mail have poured scorn on New Zealand’s covid response all year, in the process eliciting thousands of endorsing responses.
Many are abusive of the PM such as “Let’s know when St. Jacinda has wiped out flu, venereal diseases, croup, TB, bubonic plague and other diseases”.
“Jacinda is the modern day King Canute”.
“Beautiful country; daft people”.
“People in Britain and the USA would find it hard to comprehend the meek acceptance of an authoritarian police state”.
“A nation of sheep hoping for flock immunity”.
“Kiwis; Get off your knees”.
“Kiwis are supposed to be courageous, well educated and wise. What happened?”
The above are indicative of the literally thousands of similar comments but, are at the polite end of the spectrum, particularly regarding the Prime Minister.
Tune in to TV One or TV3 6pm news and it’s non-stop covid. Switch to CNN, Sky Australia, Sky UK, the BBC or Al Jazeera and covid rarely rates a mention. They got on with vaccinations (Australia excepted although at least its Prime Minister apologised to the nation for their failure in contrast to the blatant fudging and lying by our government) and are now getting on with life.
People are dying of covid abroad but nearly all are non-vaccinated through ignorance or religious belief as vaccines are now readily available, especially in Europe, Canada and Britain. In contrast we continue to cringe under our beds.
Perhaps due to our small population and isolation our media has always been obsessed with foreign media comment about New Zealand, so why have they ignored the relentless criticism?
Name another country in the world in which newspapers run a “What the foreign press said” following any events occurring here.
With the passing of time and thus perspective, our enforced hermit kingdom approach I have no doubt will be viewed as a black period in our history.
15 Comments
Mmm…Agreed. Elimination is not a viable strategy. Early treatment, immediately on testing positive, is the missing piece in our Covid armoury. Waiting in isolation, being given Panadol, until you either get better or progress to the acute stage and hospital admission, is a recipe for needless suffering, and soon overwhelmed ICU capacity. Early combination treatments using Hydroxychloroquin or Ivermectin, in combination with Zinc and Doxycycline or Aziothioprine, are proving to significantly reduce hospital admissions – and deaths -around the world.
My doctor tells me that two different Nz medical bodies have recommended against ivermectin so he won’t write me a prescription, he himself knows nothing else on the subject, just protecting his own reputation. I read the other day that Nz has yet to approve monoclonal antibodies, so I’m not sure what early treatment anyone is going to get here. Remdesivar is a joke, even the pharma studies it was approved on showed little benefit and independent work since has shown no utility in it.
I would appreciate your posting a link which evidences or even suggests such ‘proof’.
Send me an email to noble@noble.co.nz and I’ll send you a couple of links. T.
Agreed. We have to learn to live with it. Move on etc
Let’s focus on serious issues like building up our defence forces and quickly. Where is current govt’s policy on that?
Simply not true.
We never learnt to live with the Spanish Flu although my dad did all his life. We didn’t learn to live with Sars 1 Swine flu, and a dozen other nasties. We learnt to treat people with well founded treatments. Treatments that have been banned by the Agreement with Phizer the most criminally corrupt drug company in the world. Its true, go look it up. A lot of countries declined their contracts because of the demands made in the contract. Being German thugs they wanted control of countries, their sovereign wealth funds and military bases. . The information is out there to be found.
Instead we hired second rate lawyers from some useless outfit and signed up to sealing our fate at the hands of Phizer the most criminal drug company in the world.
Ask yourself why our drug buying agency was never involved in this, why Cindy gave the job to Mobie instead, Mobie being generally useless at most things it does. Dogma and control. As Bob says it is everywhere and God help anyone who offers a different opinion. This is pure unadulterated Marxism at its finest.
I think the Tremain cartoon says it all. Useless media with no knowledge of history, just social media junkies.
So who do we vote for at the next election? Even Act seem to go along with the lockdown strategy. I’m politically homeless!
Whatever Jamie Morton is on must work and I want some as no doubt it will numb out the mindless childish drivel emanating from the prime minister and the suits preserving my sanity and hopefully prevent me from the despair of watching my fellow citizens lapping it up.
Sir Robert is yet again right we are a nation of sheep and the serious overseas media is on the money.
Very good column Sir Robert. If you watched the One news at 6PM one would get the impression that the whole country is overwhelmingly happy to be locked down. The street interviewees always agree that we “have to be cautious” and the business persons are always enthusiastically optimistic. Funny how they never find someone in the depths of despair – you wouldn’t have to go far to find them.
My favourite headline came from the Telegraph ” Poor Jacinda Ardern, trapped in her arrogant Zero Covid policy”
Tony Noble is spot on. Go to Covexit.com and educate yourself instead of listening to the drivel from the pulpit of truth.
Thanks Alan, that’s some great information.
Concur. Thanks Bob. Can someone enlighten me as to the definition of a conspiracy? It seems that anyone who has a different opinion than that of the government and state media is labeled a conspiracist. I’m referring to the growing number internationally of highly regarded experts in their respective fields, GPS, virologists, et al that have formed their own opinion that doesn’t comply with the narrative. Of course the government’s would have you believe that all these experts simultaneously woke up one morning stark raving mad, have been labeled conspiracy theorists spreading misinformation, and have been shut down, shut up, threatened to have their practices closed etc etc. I thought we lived in a democracy, clearly I’m wrong.
Sadly with few exceptions our joirnalists are woke, PC, left-wing drivellers who know nothing about anything except themselves and most are on a mission to convert NZ to their own delusions about race relations, climate change, human rights and economics.
The team of 5 million is perfectly symbolic of their belief we all need to think the same as them.
Something to do with the money the press has taken from the government requiring them to be a mouth piece of the Labour Party