Why Labour must urgently gain vaccines for frontline workers before March

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The only thing lethal enough to kill Coronovirus is bleach and Mike Hosking

National, ACT take credit for COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins’ confirmation of early vaccine request

Opposition parties are taking credit for COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins’ confirmation that the Government has requested a small number of vaccines be delivered early to New Zealand. 

National and ACT have been piling pressure on the Government to explain why New Zealand has not yet received any coronavirus vaccines despite Bloomberg data showing 51 countries have already administered them. 

Hipkins told The AM Show on Monday that New Zealand will receive its first shipment of vaccines before the end of March for border workers. The general population will start receiving jabs in the second half of the year. 

This has real political dimensions as well as public health and economic ones.

The math doesn’t lie.

The new UK strain is so many times more contagious, that their current level 4 lockdown procedures which would see a 30% reduction of transmission for the older Covid version would in fact see a 30% increase of transmission for the new mutation.

Mathematically for every 1000 Covid patients through our quarantine, 1 is going to get through.

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We aren’t publicly doing enough in the Track and Trace front to give us enough warning when someone comes into a hospital sick and the far quicker transfer of the new strain means it will be well away in the Community before we are even aware of it.

Labour’s political success has been built from Jacinda’s handling of the pandemic, but it will evaporate if the virus gets lose inside NZ and the blame is pinned on incompetence.

Waiting until the end of March when the math tells us there is likely to be an outbreak well before then is a huge gamble.

People will demand to know why the vaccine wasn’t available earlier.

Chippy should be moving heaven and earth to get those bloody early vaccines in as soon as possible.

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30 COMMENTS

  1. Also concerning was one returnee who said frontline staff are not even close to wearing full protection when doing the initial tests. How easy is it going to be to bring this disease home with them?

    Hopkins and the invisible Megan Woods need to know, first hand, what is going on at quarantine centres. Taking the MoH’s reassurances at face value has proven flawed. In other words, stop reacting to fuck ups then going in to cover up mode, and anticipate. FFS! NZ may not do a second major lockdown so well again, nor can we afford one.

  2. The devil is in the detail. I’m assuming Squealer and St Ash are hiding behind Medsafe because the muppets fucked up our supply agreements.

    IF the vaccine is successful (we won’t know for another month or so) watch for Europe, North America, Australia and wealthy Asian nations somehow get more doses and ourselves less. Money, Power and Influence talk – (little) Aotearoa has none.

  3. If there is a second lockdown particularly if any word of incompetence gets out I reckon there will be nowhere near the level of compliance from the public that there was the first time around..

  4. If the vaccines haven’t been approved and aren’t safe then we need to wait, far better to stop those coming in from countries with the new strain if not at least reduce the numbers as other countries have done. To say we can’t stop people from coming home is utter bullshit, we have done it before and we can do it again, if and when we need to.
    Many of us have whanau members living in Australia that we haven’t seen for ages and they can’t come home because of the costs. Rushing is not good, reduce the risks by reducing the numbers entering is better. NZers have had plenty of time to get themselves home while some may have legitimate reasons. Sometimes we have to be a bit ruthless and this is the time.

    • Agreed covid is pa. Offspring, siblings nieces nephews some having started their families during this pandemic. postponed nuptials etc etc. Despite the barriers we have zoom we have messaging, we have the most superior communications network available to humankind we should be thankful. And we should not rush anything.Close the borders now.

  5. The vaccine has been ‘made’ too soon. It takes much longer to produce a safe vaccine. As a retd NZ Registered Nurse, I will avoid having vaccine the vaccine ‘at all costs’. Mercola.com is a source of knowledge about the ‘ins and outs” of the COVID-19 VACCINE & there are plentiful others – SEARCH. Hundreds of medical doctors world-wide have strenuously advised AGAINST having the vaccine injected into one’s body. I receive regular weekly emails from some of those doctors. Keep in mind that the fatality rate of the COVID virus infection is LESS THAN 1% world-wide – far less than the “usual” flu. Most deaths are the result of co-morbidities – heart disease, diabetes, obesity, & & &.

    • Mercola is writen by a natural health doctor who believes that Bill Gates has put a micro chip,into the covid vaccine so that everybody can be tracked.
      It is a good job you are retired as I would hate for you to be in control of my care when in hospital.
      If you do not want to vaccinate yourself I hope you do not take up a bed in hospital from someone who needs it who are sick from a problem that could not be prevented

    • Thank you Isabel I think you are right and I agree vaccines take a long time to develop as does good medications they require gold standard clinical trial testing.

    • The claim that the death rate is lower than for flu is true only for 1918.

      Many nations are having total death rates higher than for a long time.

      People with the co-morbidities have not died at this rate since 1918 etc.

  6. Why the big rush for vaccines? We don’t know yet that they actually work or how safe they are. Did you read about the problems in Norway? We are lucky because we can wait and not find out that the solution was worse than the problem. These things have been rushed through in the UK and USA because they are desperate. We aren’t so we can afford to wait. Whipping up hysteria is not helpful.

    • Those that died in Norway were on deaths door when they were given the vaccine. It was a waste of a precious commodity.
      I am 72 and have had a good life which I would like to carry on but I would rather see young family people get the jab in front of me .
      Why the rush. Well there is a limited number of ICU beds and if they are taken up with a person with a problem that could be avoided by a vaccine then another sick person cannot get the care they deserve.

      • Young, healthy people do not need the vaccine though. This virus has an extremely low mortality rate among young people (3/100,000 – far lower than influenza). From the way you worded your comment, it’s fairly clear you don’t mean that “everyone should get vaccine except for me, so then I can’t get infected”, but there are people who see it that way. Outside of extra-ordinary circumstances, imo young, healthy people would be ill-advised in getting a largely untested vaccine for a disease that is very unlikely to kill them. See my post below (assuming it gets cleared).

  7. Why the big rush for vaccines? We don’t know yet that they actually work or how safe they are. Did you read about the problems in Norway? We are lucky because we can wait and not find out that the solution was worse than the problem. These things have been rushed through in the UK and USA because they are desperate. We aren’t so we can afford to wait. Whipping up hysteria is not helpful.

  8. Why not use hydrochloroquine or Ivermectin, they both work with non-minimal side effects (according to doctors/researchers NOT influenced by Big Pharma) and that way the front line staff will have as much protection as the rushed, over expensive ‘vaccines’, with unknown side effects, that we’re waiting for.
    It’s a NO BRAINER…….who’s being paid to over look this point?

    • Ivermectin is a treatment to moderate the viral laod replication, not a prevention of infection. A preliminary trial result suggests it warrants a more major trial. No trial backs up use of the malaria drug.

  9. Look, Ivermectin has shown to be an effective prophylactic against COVID in a growing number of studies that have gone through peer review. Front line workers could take that instead alongside Vit D3/K2. India is doing this and despite the poverty and crowded conditions they are doing surprisingly well.

    It’s concerning to see a vaccine offered as the only solution, and vaccines being falsely represented as stopping the spread. In fact there is a quote (sorry I can’t remember where it is) from one of the manufacturers confirming that their vaccine did not provide immunity, but was designed to reduce the severity of symptoms.

    Think about that – our front line staff could be vaccinated, and then transmit it to the general population. Immunity in this case is a very dangerous assumption.

    I’m not anti vaccination, but I object strongly to the way it is being represented in this case. Given that there are 5 different vaccines on their way, it’s only a matter of time before at least one of them works well so there is no need to rush.

    • A vaccine prevents people getting sick (it will end pressure on hospitals from high rates of spread). It probably will not prevent transmission (but would reduce rate of spread – as people would be less infectious and for shorter periods after exposure, maybe only infecting close contacts).

      Monoclonal antibodies given within a few days of infection realise similar results but is dependent on timing (testing).

      It seems that ivermectin might be an alternative treatment to use of these anti-bodies, as first stage trials suggest it could reduce rate of replication of the viral load.

  10. This is how Labour operates: big announcements, little action to follow.
    Listening to the news the other day….”The govt hopes to”….”The govt plans to”…the govt wants to”…
    Sadly, that’s how you get voted in these days: we hope to, we want to…it used to be “We will!”

  11. They don’t even know if these vaccines are effective against the new strains (that certainly isn’t true for flu vaccines). Worse still we don’t know if these vaccines produce ADE in those that have taken it (since this takes years to manifest, and why vaccines usually spend 5 years in clinical trials before being cleared for use). Read this wiki article, and think long and hard if you still want to take these untested vaccines:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement
    Personally, I wouldn’t touch these CoVID vaccines with a bargepole unless I was going to very likely die if exposed to it anyway – e.g. the elderly and infirm (and the Norway experience makes even giving it them dubious).
    https://news.yahoo.com/norway-adjusts-advice-vaccine-deaths-123015237.html

    • The wikileak link actually concluded with this.

      ADE has been observed in animal studies during the development of coronavirus vaccines, but as of 14 December 2020 there had been no observed incidences in human vaccine trials. Anti-vaccination activists cite ADE as a reason to avoid vaccination against COVID-19, but the expectation is that ADE would have already been observed in human trials if it were a risk

    • It’s just the same as with flu vaccines. They change each year as the flu variety spreading does.

      Just how long the vaccines developed will protect against the changes in the coronavirus is not known. Given the differences between the vaccines developed its probable that some will remain effective longer than others.

  12. As long as vaccinated people can travel freely anywhere in the world I’m in. Screw you conspiracy theorists. Have your stupid messery, alone.

  13. The problem is Pfizer is not currently supplying orders to the UK fully. They have changed their produiction to increase supply from March on, but this is reducing their short term production – so we are unlikely to get supply before the end of March and (now) maybe not even then.

    They have not sought anything from Moderna yet – maybe they should approach them (they are more costly, but way less than a lockdown via border staff).

    An alternative is to bludge off Oz in return for a border bubble, or approach India.

    • For now, our problem is that the MI hotel regime is not strong enough.

      We need to keep people in their room until at least the day 3 test result (day 4) and preferably day 7.

      If the new strain has only 2 of the 3 markers we test for

      1. those infected between getting the pre flight test and their departure may return a false negative on the day 0 or day 1 test.
      2. those infected during their travel to New Zealand may return a false negative on the day 3 test.

      The greatest risk is infection of week 2 people by week one people, so isolation of week one people to day 7 sorts that.

      There is the ongoing risk of infection via staff.

      Until they are vaccinated the best option is to place them on one month on one month off shifts. During the month on they socially isolate out of work hours – home to work and work to home.

  14. We need to close our borders to those high risk countries. The new strains are here and more are coming and more cases equals more risks, it is not worth all the sacrifices we all made. Tracing will help but our Public health systems will buckle it won’t be able to cope. And then it will have a spin on effect with many other NZers missing out on vital hospital treatment, we are playing Russian Roulette. Stop saying we can’t close our borders we can, we have done it before and we need to to protect the majority. Goods can still come in but they can be heavily monitored but no more people coming from the places with this strain. Stop now before it is too late.

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