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It is great to be back in level 3 and enjoying some freedom at last. Parliament was back in session albeit in a much reduced and Orwellian way, with only 10 Members including 3 from National allowed in the Chamber, required to wear masks when not speaking and sitting miles apart.
The ridiculous spectacle of the Prime Minister fumbling her mask on and off for each question was quite something to see and worthy of a medal at the virtue signalling Olympics. This is in stark contrast to the daily presser where the Prime Minister addresses up to 40 attentive media personnel without a mask and only a couple of metres from an unmasked sign language interpreter.
For context, the Beehive Theatre where the daily presser is held is a much smaller space than the Debating Chamber. The irony seems to only be missed by the Prime Minister and the media.
The Government has engendered a climate of fear in the community, whether by accident or design, it is not an environment that is conducive to a rational debate about the management of our Covid-19 response. We even see the television news journalists making a show of taking their masks off. It would be funny if it were not such a serious issue.
This is a debate we must have, but instead, there is resistance to Parliament holding the Government to account. Our vaccine rollout is still the second-worst in the developed world, but if you listened to the Prime Minister yesterday you could be forgiven for thinking it was all going well. It is not and we must remember that nobody spins it like Jacinda Ardern. In fact, she makes Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitaran seem like amateurs.
The media have embraced the spin and as Judith Collins said following her Breakfast interview with the hapless Indira Stewart, she…. “didn’t seem to think democracy required more than one party in Parliament, this is not a one party state, and nor should it be treated like that.”
We also learned this week that Marlborough has vaccinated 74% of those eligible with one dose, with 41% fully vaccinated. This is great news and is where the whole country should have been before winter.
As more regions achieve 70 to 75% of the population being vaccinated it will become very difficult to get the public to accept being locked down. This underlines the importance of a vaccination target that would enable a reconnection with the rest of the world.
I urge all those that want to, to make an appointment and get vaccinated. The National Party will continue to push hard for such a target so that we can protect as much as possible our population and return to what will be the new normal.
However, to date, the Government is unwilling to even discuss a level of vaccination that would lead to no further lockdowns. This is a strange position that contradicts their own argument to encourage vaccinations. How can you say on the one hand we all need to get vaccinated, and on the other say that they don’t see an end to lockdowns? There has to be a reward for being vaccinated in addition to the obvious health benefit. We all react better to the carrot than the stick, we can but hope that the Government finally realises this.
The topic for the Stuff column this week is;
We Need a Vaccination Target to Avoid Lockdowns, and We Need It Now.
There should be little doubt in people’s minds now that vaccines are the key to our nation’s success in this new world. Success in the sense that we will be able to reduce the chances of getting the virus in the first place or being admitted to hospital should we contract it. But also success in that businesses will be able to open up and employees will get back to work.
Hospitality, tourism, butchers, bakers and greengrocers are the obvious businesses that we think of as being badly affected by lockdowns, but there are also many more and we need to get them opened up as soon as possible.
Kiwis have had to make a huge sacrifice in the last two weeks due to another failure at the border. We still don’t know how the virus entered the community again this time. Suspicion has turned to the Crowne Plaza MIQ facility, where the Sydney returnee stayed.
Incredibly, the facility has an exercise area next to a public walkway where they share the same air. Given the risks of delta, this is amazing. Yet the facility passed all its infection control audits, as recently as June! This Government has failed to even get the basics right.
There are still at least 25 per cent of port workers unvaccinated, along with a variety of our essential workers in the Police, hospitals, shops and supermarkets that are yet to be vaccinated. We need a vaccination target to avoid lockdowns, and we need it now.
A target of between 70-75 per cent of the population vaccinated would likely mean that we can minimise or avoid lockdowns, and the economic and social costs that come with it. Auckland in particular has been yo-yo-ing in and out of lockdowns for 18 months. Parents trying to work, whilst also home-schooling their kids is not ideal, and with the Minister of Education not knowing how many kids are actually getting a full day’s learning goes to show we need our children back in the classroom.
Ultimately the buck stops with the Government. Vaccination rates have increased since we have been in lockdown, but it’s a bit late when our economy is at a stand-still, and businesses are struggling to stay on their feet.
We started vaccinating way too late and we’re only speeding up now – and we still haven’t ordered any boosters! The US is going to roll them out from next month, as are other countries – but New Zealand hasn’t got around to ordering any yet. This is disgraceful.
I continue to encourage all New Zealanders who want to get vaccinated to do so, and we can end these rolling lockdowns and move onto reintegration with the rest of the developed world.
READ FULL “STUFF” ARTICLE HERE
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