The Daily Blog Open Mic – Wednesday – 19th August 2020

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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Thankyou Steve Kilgallon – you deserve a promotion to NEWSROOM
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122467368/vicious-cycle-why-are-some-indian-migrants-so-badly-exploited-in-nz

    Just a few excerpts …..

    “Then there are offshore education agents, which the government could require to be licenced.” (Basic stuff really)
    It could also make course providers in New Zealand do more to prove their worth” (Calling NZQA’s “Comms people” )

    (AND it could at least use foreign media in an applicant’s country to warn of charlatans, and stop removing a presence in the countries being targeted in a way NZ Post would be proud of.)

    ” …. if you’re going to promote a pathway to residency, then have a genuine pathway to residency, rather than one where you have to be exploited.”

    “If the [government] are taking in students, they have to think of their futures too – not just the money you are taking from them…,” says Bhavdeep Singh. “If you can’t afford to settle that many students, why are you taking them in? ”
    – “It is embarrassing: Today I would have to tell people I spent $30,000 to come to New Zealand to work
    for five years for $10 an hour and not earn anything. Now I have to start again.”
    – “Bhavdeep Singh laughs at the business courses he studied. “The education I was getting here I can
    compare to like my tenth grade school.” ”

    (Some courses would have been better to have been called “Howto Suck Eggs” for the bargain price of
    NZ$30k)

    To which I’d add: Ensure immigrants use good Immigration Advisors who act on behalf of the immigrant (such as those quoted in the article) rather than in their own self-interest – such as the ‘vertically integrated’ ones MBIE once promoted who happened to be running a shitty PTE on the side, or a tinpot security firm, or labour hire company, or even an orchard or (in the past) a bloody beauty parlour. (Your own Companies Register might provide a clue as to who they might be)

    And of course the article focuses on Punjabis predominantly, but a similar situation applies to immigrants from other regions.

  2. The pandemic is over

    In a stunning display of shoulder shrugging, Megan Woods has told the public that the illegal dissemination of personal health data by a First Security staffer (in reality a prison guard) is at worst “behaviour well below what is accepted” (RNZ, n.d.). Woods goes on to explain that this privacy breach was “an operational issue to be dealt with by MBIE”. As far as I know this isn’t a pandemic lockdown based on spread of infectious business practice, this is a health crisis. This data breach was therefore of health data, the most personal of information, the breach of which is the most harmful to citizens and for which there should be the highest legal ramifications (this is more than your garden variety domestic voyeur wishing to rifle through your life and undie drawers, there are some sick people out there who see any ‘other’ as a threat and do act on their delusions). We know that politicians can be adept at standing at a lectern for half an hour and moving their lips without saying anything, but this is not the time for a word salad excuse to cover one’s reputation, for politics as usual, to shift blame or to lessen the seriousness of the situation. Either the people in managed isolation are there because of a medical crisis with potential harm to life, in which case they deserve all of the safeguards of doctor-patient privilege and protection of the state, or the people in quarantine are there as a money making venture overseen by some back alley jackboot outfit monitoring the caged animals, and who delegate the welfare of our people (zookeeping) to distracted, half trained guards who can’t put their phone down. If this whole managed isolation is operating within a business model rather than a health crisis, then this pandemic is over.

    RNZ. (n.d.). Megan Woods discusses isolation facility privacy breach. Retrieved from
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018760049/megan-woods-discusses-isolation-facility-privacy-breach

    • Oh blah blah. You are suffering something and lashing out. I feel deeply sorry about that (no kidding) but this is a crushing disease and everyone has been blind-sided by it. And you would be right about the pandemic being over if it was being handled by business – right for the wrong reasons. They would just refuse to take any responsibility for anything that didn’t have a profit at the end of it, and any precautions would be examined to see if they were a ‘restraint to business’. So STFU until you have some intelligent and practical things to say Jody, and think about yourself kindly as a person trying to bear up under difficulties then about other people the same, it might be a new experience for you.

    • That contribution looks a bit like a Business Management assignment essay I once had the misfortune to have to read. Well done! Proceed to an entry level position at Treasury or MBIE, or send your CV to the nearest corporate HR ticket-clipper. The pickings are good.
      Could do better on referencing though. The date retrieved has been omitted

  3. Our letter to Government today on Covid 19 way to fix it.

    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2008/S00232/ceac-throws-urges-govt-to-do-serology-covid-19-tests-on-border-and-isolation-workers.htm

    Politics
    CEAC Throws Urges Govt To Do Serology Covid 19 Tests On Border And Isolation Workers.
    Wednesday, 19 August 2020, 9:43 am
    Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
    Health officials are stumped by the case and are being urged to use serology testing which could reveal if a person has had the disease even if they haven’t had a positive Covid test.
    There are so many new voices calling for Serology antibody testing to compliment the PCR test out there now not to take the advice of the scientific community now.
    CEAC Throws Support Behind Others urging Govt To Do Serology Covid 19 Tests On Border And Isolation Workers.
    This serology “antibody test” is used widely elsewhere including Australia so CEAC are stumped as to why Government have not used this more accurate test on all workers who come in contact with our borders including the truck freight industry.
    Serology antibody testing could show if a third person is the missing link between the worker and the infected woman isolating in the hotel, and a growing list of scientists are now pushing for the blood testing to be rolled out to thousands of border workers to more accurately map the spread.
    The blood test is more commonly known as a serology or anti-body test, cannot diagnose someone with an active Covid-19 infection, but it can confirm if they have had the virus in the past – even if the person was asymptomatic or had mild symptoms.
    EVIDENCE.
    TVNZ Q+A Jack Tame interviewed Professor Tony Blakely a NZ scientist at Melbourne University about how best could NZ fight the new outbreak of Covid 19 this last week, and during the interview.
    Public health professor Michael Baker and NZ scientist said the test would be useful to map how the virus spread from the woman to the maintenance worker at Rydges Hotel two weeks after the infected guest had left – and the pair had no physical contact.
    “They appear to have been infected with a Covid-19 virus of the same genetic lineage.
    “So it does suggest very strongly that that was source infection for this case, but then you want to reconstruct what happened between the person staying in the hotel and this maintenance worker being infected.”
    Doing the serology testing on all Rydges Hotel staff would show if other people who had missed out on Covid testing had been exposed to the virus, Baker said.
    “You really want to know whether other staff involved who might have been passed the virus on perhaps asymptomatically to this maintenance worker, or were they infected potentially from a contaminated surface there.
    “It has real implications for how we manage these facilities.
    “So this would be a situation where it would be justifiable I think, to use serological tests and to try and reconstruct that line of transmission.”
    TVNZ Q+A Professor Blakely stated clearly that all who are in contact with our borders, including the Ports must be tested fully for present infections with the PCR (swab test) and if the infection was over two weeks ago, he recommends testing with the serology antibody test for finding any past infections after two weeks.
    Dr Blakely reminded Jack Tame that the PCR (Swab test) was not “perfect” and 20% failed to be accurate, showing false negative results after two weeks out from infection. This was Dr Blakely’s reason for recommending the serology antibody test as well was to have complete accurate results.
    Ministry of Health clearly should be doing this now or we risk the case that we do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, – If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.
    Immunologist Nikki Moreland said the serology testing could paint a broader picture of what was going on at the border and at the Rydges Hotel.
    It would give clues about transmission where swab testing had not been able to.
    “I think it could help to understand where the virus might have been in people that we haven’t detected it with through normal surveillance mechanisms.
    “That could be particularly useful in people that may have very mild symptoms and aren’t even really necessarily aware that they’ve been exposed or infected,” she said.
    Clinical microbiologist Dr Arlo Upton said health officials might get more clues about the Rydges case and the community cluster if all border staff take the blood test as well as the regular Covid swabs.
    “Although it would be perhaps a little bit logistically difficult, it’s my belief that it would be worth offering serological testing to people who have been working around the border in recent months to provide us with a little bit more information around what’s happened with the recent issues.”
    Dr Gary McAuliffe, medical director at the laboratory Labtests agreed.
    The tests could play a crucial role in providing answers to the origins of the outbreak, he said.
    “Where serology really has its value is outside the first week or two of symptoms where somebody may not be PCR positive anymore, but serology may play a key role in picking up if someone’s had exposure in the past and helping to link back to previous cases.”
    He said the testing should be part of the government’s border control plan.
    NZ Ministry of Health/Minister need to test all road freight workers for Covid 19 now to fully secure our borders, as any infected transport workers could freely move around the country to spread the pandemic widely and destroy our community health and economic future.
    Ministry of Health clearly should be doing this now or we risk the case that we do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, – If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.
    Transport operations
    Most freight drivers manually touch the freight as it is offloaded from trucks so if any driver has Covid 19 it will be easily spread widely around the country, so CEAC calls on Government to have all truck freight operators to be tested now and every two weeks for Covid 19 to reduce community spread of Covid 19.
    Review;
    Ministry of Health must conduct full Covid 19 testing of all our citizens firstly and complete a full assessment of any presence of Covid 19 infections using both the PCR (swab test) and the serology antibody test.
    We must have mass testing of all our community firstly then use a solid controlled ‘tracing of the Covid 19’ to have a ‘robust tracing process’ to fight Covid 19.
    We are all in this together.
    Thank you for your attention; – we ask for your action to this issue of citizens concerns.

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