‘Almost scandalous’: Kiwi scientists fume over anti-lockdown letter in top medical journal
An anti-lockdown letter in one of New Zealand’s top medical journals by “Covid Plan B” academics has drawn the scorn of the Ministry of Health’s top advisers.
The letter to the editor in the NZ Journal of Primary Health Care from academics of several top universities claims New Zealand is “one of few countries chasing elimination of Covid-19” and that it is “stamping out livelihoods and lives”.
The co-authors of the letter include two University of Auckland senior lecturers in public health, an AUT University professor of public health and a Victoria University law professor.
Among the disputed claims in the letter are that a safe and effective vaccine is “at best four years away” and income loss to Kiwi workers through the elimination strategy will result in a “330-fold greater loss of life” than less-severe flattening-the-curve approaches.
The realisation by those in NZ who make money from hyper tourism, exploiting migrant workers and exploiting international students is that the NZ domestic population are more than happy to keep the borders shut to stave off the images of pandemic that are coming out of Europe and America.
This means the Death Cult Capitalists have to scare Kiwis into seeing the economic damage as greater than the public health carnage. Expect the Death Cult Capitalists to get more and more shrill as their wealth starts to become impacted by the border shut down.
The one thing the Death Cult Capitalists have gotten right is the time frame to herd immunity. The issues of rolling out this vaccine to everyone will be a huge challenge that will need to become an annual ritual requiring 75% to gain herd immunity. The logistics of that are huge and we will be lucky to reach 75% globally by the end of 2022, so the economic damage won’t really start healing for another 2 years and we will continue having the borders closed.
IF we are lucky, it could easily be 4 years.
This requires a strategy from the Government that is far larger than what they have so far come up with, and if they can’t get a vision that is articulated up quickly enough, the frustration of those haemorrhaging economically will turn septic.
We are not out of this pandemic yet, we are barely at the mid point.
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“Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows” ….
“And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast”
Everybody knows – Leonard Cohen https://youtu.be/Lin-a2lTelg
And don’t forget: ‘Everybody knows that the captain lied’ !
Leonard knew.
This looks like the paper that the letter to the editor refers to:
https://www.publish.csiro.au/hc/Fulltext/HC20132
I admit I was surprised by the logical fallacies that roll through the argument after the first sentence. These people are supposed to come from an establishment that was once advertised as “teaching people how to think, not what to think”. Scandalous is one way of putting it. It’s also irony in bad faith.
If they weren’t making a political statement, it could be said that had they understood their opening sentence, “New Zealand is one of few countries chasing elimination of COVID-19.” they could have written something useful and worthy of the universities and professions they represent. Instead, in this paper NZ is compared to everywhere that isn’t similar to NZ, covid is compared to diseases that are not similar, vaccine research is misrepresented, time frames are mismatched, opinions on what the economy is switches back and forth based on personal preference, likelihoods are taken as certainties, and time itself ceases to exist or influence anything. The reduction to and extrapolation of life as a mere statistic by so-called professors was never more amusing, or depressing. Over 65’s are written off faster than you can say “dude, who stole my retirement?”. The simplistic theoretical maths was startling. I think before we get into any hate speech laws, we should draft the Misuse of Science Act 2020. One of the most overt political flags was the suggestion that Jacinda tell the public that NZ isn’t chasing elimination anymore (since it was suggested that there was a backroom suggestion we already aren’t), and that NZders should go out into the world like nothing is happening, contracting and spreading the virus through our “strong” younger citizens, thus protecting the olders via relative herd immunity.
Personally, I’m losing the will to care what happens, which might actually be their goal. That’s some of why it is, academically speaking, “scandalous”. The initial urge to laugh at what appears to be the spectacle of right wing nutters having a public meltdown over reality not conforming to their views hides something more dangerous. Because this paper isn’t in good faith, because it isn’t just a “devil’s advocate” examination of events free from our usual idea of morality, it breaks the code of academic freedom, and if someone had the time to spend to investigate it, it probably breaks the law too. In an era when people are losing their careers for tweeting a genuine opinion, these people will walk free from an actual crime.
The CSIRO was once an organisation run by scientists but no longer.
Abbot sacked the top 118 scientist in the first round the put his moles in to weed out any sypathisers to the CSIROs mandate.
Its now lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public information as the Abbot puppet cleansed climate and long term economic research data that was contrary to business aspirations.
New Zealand is in good company in attempting to eliminate the virus .
NZ has 5.2 deaths per million so far and that number could have been lower if we had been faster off the mark
Taiwan has 0.3 deaths per million and the largest nation on earth China 3.4, Vietnam 0.37. Thailand 0.85, Sri Lanka 0.4, Sth Korea 8.1. just for example and it looks like well over 2 billion are well on a path to living in a virtually covid19 eliminated society. Other countries are trying but corporate business is hampering progress and assisting a growing pool of infection.
There is no data on how long any of the vaccines can protect an individual.
Herd immunity is a myth.
SARS was halted by lockdown and confinement.
The irony here is that by allowing (promoting) increased economic activity we bring forward the time when utterly calamitous conditions prevail in NZ, and bring forward the time when the Earth becomes largely (or completely) uninhabitable for humans and most other vertebrate life forms.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/could-covid-lockdown-have-helped-save-the-planet
I guess the sabotaging of life in NZ by bought-and-paid-for academics (or are they just fuckwits?) for short-term gain will continue until the so-called education system collapses.
Daily CO2 (CO2.earth)
Dec. 28, 2020 = 414.93 ppm
Dec. 28, 2019 = 412.11 ppm
It appears the choice is:
Lockdown and elimination or flattening the curve (to quote the Sundborn paper) “through reasonable use of infection control to maintain capacity in our hospitals and intensive care, while focusing public health and infection control efforts to protect the frail and elderly of our community”.
AO/NZ’s public health response was in March to pursue lockdown and elimination. The best decision at the time given the situation (and the science)? The best decision given we are now living with the outcomes – socially, economically, and in terms of public health? The best decision for the future? Well, history will be the judge of this. That is if history will be around long enough.
In the short term (the next year or two)? Further lockdowns in the case of any community transmission? The adoption of a more nuanced strategy perhaps.
Personally, have no issue with lockdown and elimination. It’s worked for Taiwan, also surrounded by the sea and with the capability to strictly control borders. Public health outcomes a resounding success. Socioeconomic outcomes? I’ve heard little. But a very different setting to AO/NZ anyway.
It’s healthy to have debate. But worrying when the alternative is rubbished by academic peers as being (to quote Baker’s response) “poorly argued and cherry-picking evidence in a very selective way that doesn’t make any sense”.
We need to cull RNZ, as it is NOW JUST a front for the corporate industry now and widly used wrongly as a mouthpiece for corporate greed, and they are manipulsating the entire network wrongly using our tax dollars to broadcast their own policies and lies.
Hasn’t RNZ always been a front for corporate interests?
Yes and now the very same capitalists expect us to get excited about the arrest of a similar plan b agitator in China by the name of Zhang Zhan. Funny that. Anybody heard of Julian Assange? Never mind dear. Just go back to sleep…
I suspect Bomber is 100% correct on this one. Despite their best efforts I’m struggling to see a bubble with Australia for at least a further 12 months.
The real issue in 2021 will be supply chains. The majority of NZ business have got used to small ‘just in time’ stock purchases and don’t have the financial strength to bring in containers or hold larger stock lines. Add to this the gong show at our ports and our covid restrictions and major shipping and transport players might bypass little Aotearoa. This will have huge implications for infrastructure projects.
Then you have the 10 billion lying in corporate NZ’s bank accounts after Grunter decided to ‘piss it up against the wall’. LOL trying to get that back.
The government’s economic strategy best resembles kicking a can down the road with cynical monetary policy neither helping. Will 2021 be the year that the pied piper comes a calling regarding unsustainable housing prices? Will the middle/sheeple live to regret going on a ‘spendathon’ at the back end of this year? Will the middle still buy into the ‘little Aotearoa’ marketing campaign from the government if the economy gets the skids? Will there be a reaction to the exploding growth of crime and gangs in 2021 or continued indifference from the middle?
So many questions.
And the answers aren’t more overseas debt nor streamlining death cult capitalist getting richer.
Sovereign money and govt building workers cooperatives across the towns, cities and food chains.
Housing may have to be heavily regulated for families and not for investors.
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