Skip to content

Covid-19

COVID-19 Elimination Impossible

COVID-19 Elimination Impossible

Ananish Chaudhuri Simon Thornley Michael Jackson covidplanb.co.nz The recent fiasco that allowed people to leave quarantine without testing, risking the spread of COVID-19, highlights how nebulous the government’s claim of total elimination always was. The government, in projecting thousands of deaths that never eventuated, has continued with

Members Public
Ardern’s Clueless Conflagration

Ardern’s Clueless Conflagration

Here is the definition of the role of a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister determines the general direction of Government’s activities and ensures coordinated and purposeful work of the Cabinet of Ministers. The last half is worth repeating: ENSURES COORDINATED AND PURPOSEFUL WORK OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS. If

Members Public
Daily News Roundup – 22 June 2020

Daily News Roundup – 22 June 2020

Border restrictions, quarantine Tracy Watkins (Stuff): The only way to restore confidence is to order an urgent inquiry into our border failures John Armstrong (1News): David Clark is Minister of Health in name only after calamitous Covid-19 testing bungle Andrea Vance (Stuff): If there must be anger, direct it at

Members Public
The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent

We watched in disbelief as mobs looted and vandalised in America, attacking and beating people, wrecking their businesses and murdering those that tried to stop them. The catch cry is “Justice for George”, but the police officers who were involved in George Floyd’s murder have already been brought to

Members Public
Letter from the North: June 19

Letter from the North: June 19

The government stumbles from one mistake to another as we all wait for the daily corrections and U-turns on policy. It has all the hallmarks of Boris Johnson making policy up on the hoof much to the anguish of his cabinet. Johnson still looks ill, lacking his normal bounce and

Members Public
Just When You Thought It Was Safe

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

Just when you thought it was safe to go back outside, China proves itself as the country that keeps on giving. Euroweekly News reports. Over 1,000 flights into and out of Beijing have been grounded today, after the alarm was raised over fears of a new outbreak of coronavirus.

Members Public
Disconcerting Developments

Disconcerting Developments

Chris Penk The BFD is serialising National MP Chris Penk’s book Flattening the country by publishing an extract every day. Disconcerting developments It is worth remembering throughout all of this that the unbelievably cavalier attitude of the government right up to (and including) mid-March had got our country into

Members Public
Open Letter to the Prime Minister

Open Letter to the Prime Minister

The pedestal was never high enough for you, was it? You swaggered on stage and addressed the nation every day for two months convincing many that under your watch, we would be protected from the unmitigated calamity of COVID-19. You claimed that without your immediate intervention up to eighty thousand

Members Public
How Long Do We Hang Around Waiting for a Vaccine?

How Long Do We Hang Around Waiting for a Vaccine?

Now would be an excellent time for a political leader (with a steely backbone) to step forward with a COVID management plan in hand. The coalition government is completely out of ideas after promising much and delivering ineffective quarantine management and testing. Please don’t ask what happened to “test,

Members Public
We Cannot Go Back Into Lockdown

We Cannot Go Back Into Lockdown

So what happens now? Now that we know that a birthday party was held in a quarantine hotel, and the birthday child blew out the candles and pieces of cake were handed out to all party attendees? Now that we know a wedding was held in a quarantine hotel: not

Members Public
None of Your Business

None of Your Business

Chris Penk The BFD is serialising National MP Chris Penk’s book Flattening the Country by publishing an extract every day. None of your business Perhaps the most telling remark on either side of the argument about the lockdown’s length came from Labour’s minister for employment, Willie Jackson.

Members Public
Ardern Has Run Out of Options

Ardern Has Run Out of Options

“If you’re going to make a mistake, make it a good one!” Ardern’s government didn’t make just one big mistake managing COVID-19, they made several. Despite her oft-repeated claim of going hard and going early, Ardern went too hard and not early enough ensuring long term economic

Members Public
Predictions about NZ’s COVID-19 Future Proved Correct

Predictions about NZ’s COVID-19 Future Proved Correct

Alex Davis theemperorsrobes.blogspot.com Over two weeks ago in my article, “Both of NZ’s Post COVID Futures Are Bad: Part Three. Our Political and Academic Leaders Need to Admit They Made a Terrible Mistake”  published on June 3rd, I predicted that New Zealand could not keep COVID-19 out.

Members Public
The Riots That Cured a Plague

The Riots That Cured a Plague

Who knew that the deadliest plague of modern times, the Black Death of the 21st century, could be stopped by riots? After all, it was a scant fortnight ago that daring to venture outside our homes, even to take our children to otherwise empty parks was tantamount to kicking your

Members Public