When I first wrote in support of the approach our public health officials and our government were taking towards dealing with the Covid -19 pandemic, there were a number of people who commented that I was perpetrating a hoax, promoting fear, or even that I was somehow promoting a totalitarian state and other such conspiracy nonsense.
The news yesterday that President Trump, who has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, is now infected with Covid-19 ( along with his First Lady) should be a reminder to us all to reject stupidity remain vigilant in our fight against this virus.
No one is immune.
If we want to keep our friends and whanau safe and give our economy the best chance to recover, then it is important to follow the advice of our public health officials. Keep up regular hand washing and sanitizing, maintain social distancing whenever possible,wear a mask in public places, recording visits to assist rapid contact tracing, border controls and compulsory self-isolation.
Because, in the absence of a vaccine, these are still our best strategies to deal with this pandemic.
Take care of others by taking care of yourself.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Hmmmmm,… what about those of us from the stone age, – or more recently those of us born in 1876?
A burial or ashes for me and mine ? I do none of those things and my personal hygiene is like a Cro Magnon man. I simply avoid all you disease ridden rats. Yet you pass on your disgusting fleas and pestilence on to me. I am running out of caves to hide in yet you still want to tax me, limit my hunting grounds and curb my territory’s… isn’t it time you looked at Y O U R D I S G U S T I N G S E L V E S ?!!?
Yes, we do want to keep our families and friends safe.
But this: ‘give our economy the best chance to recover’, Bryan?
Haven’t you repeatedly written articles pointing out that the economy is unfair, toxic and unsustainable etc. Bryan?
Surely we want the present set of dysfunctional, environmentally-destructive and socially-reprehensible arrangements to collapse as quickly as possible, to allow saner, more equitable arrangements to be introduced, don’t we?
Every day, every second even, that orthodox* arrangements continue is another nail in the coffin of our children’s/grandchildren’s futures.
* as exemplified by the gross aberrations of the past three centuries years of industrialism, based on the burning of coal and oil.
Thankyou Bryan for your words of encouragement. Better to maintain good habits and to be vigilant than to adopt a devil may care stance … though even in AO/NZ I suspect there are a good number of the latter: Who me? Its only a flu bug? I’m not going to compromise my own freedom even if it means compromising the health of others. But we but are a small nation, a team of five million, isolated by geographical distance, a speck on the global stage. It’s our strength.
What amazes me in the news media images of countries like Brazil is the seemingly carefree attitude of some of its citizens, enjoying the sun on their backs and the sand between their toes. Who wouldn’t? But around these carefree souls Brazil continues to record around a 1000 deaths per day. A statistic. But who are these 1000 per day lost to Covid 19? Most certainly not those on the beaches, in the pubs and cafes, at dance raves. It need not be Brazil. Any example might do. And there I believe lies the difference with our own team of five million. Most of us care about others more vulnerable than ourselves (although plenty of evidence that Covid 19 is not discriminatory) and think of the consequences.
But then some might say its all fear mongering, a stitch up concocted by misleading modelling in the early stages of the pandemic and subsequent public health messages broadcast daily to a team, for the most part, eager to comply, and reinforced by an ongoing discourse of elimination. There is always some truth to the manufacture of compliance but I for one would rather be in AO/NZ than anywhere else (though the beaches in Brazil do look inviting).
There is evidence the ‘wood wo’s’ took a dive in the Great Plagues that rose and fell in the European Black Death pandemics, and consequently the Sasquatch populations during early European expansion into the new world with the Syphilis and Smallpox epidemics,… cross species contaminations, so to speak,… but to believe that one must also believe in the anecdotal evidence.
🙂
Trump getting the flu (possibly) isn’t news
How many Doctors die from the Flu, Ethan? I don’t know but it won’t be many. To date 1000’s of Doctors have died infected by Covid 19 in about 8 months. Just a flu aye? POTUS will get the best possible care, but you never know with this virus. It’s slams some people and others hardly effected.
And then of course there are the greatly inflated numbers of elderly that have ‘died from covid 19 ‘ tacked on their death certificates when it was in reality pre existing chronic conditions that took them out,… covid19 being a mere subsidiary opportunistic viral infection convenient to explain those deaths….
Fact remains that Malaria and other common /or garden variety diseases kills far more per annum globally. The truth is that we are not conditioned to accept such figures in the Western world with our predominately white Caucasian populations because we simply don’t give a shit about what happens in Africa and its peoples.
The Sundance. Until its drilled into our heads repeatedly… we are all brothers and sisters. And I’m not kidding around.
Dakota Sundance Song
https://youtu.be/car9pBXHXKQ?t=8
Sundance Prayer Song
Father, Great Spirit
Father, Great Spirit I am saying come, hay-hay
Father, Great Spirit have pity on me
The people, the people they want good health
Saying this, I am sending a plea, hay-hay-yo
Father, Great Spirit have pity on me
The people, the people they want good health
Saying this, I am sending a plea, hay-hay-yo
Father, Great Spirit
Father, Great Spirit I am saying come, hay-hay
Father, Great Spirit have pity on me
The people, the people they want good health
Saying this, I am sending a plea, hay-hay-yo
Father, Great Spirit have pity on me
The people, the people they want good health
Saying this, I am sending a plea, hay-hay-yo
@GreenBus: “… others hardly effected” is meaningless in the context. You mean AFFECTED. For goodness sake – use e.g. Grammarly or similar to convey what you actually mean.
Thank you, Bryan. These are timely reminders.
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