The decision to move to an immediate Level 3 lockdown over Auckland and Level 2 over the rest of the country for 3 days with the 3 Covid cases found in the Community was the right move.
We didn’t know the strain, but the limited contact the positive cases had suggested something far more contagious and that could be the UK or SA strains, so caution was wise, especially as it has turned out to be the UK strain.
However, nerves are frayed, people have barely recovered from 2020 and are emotionally stressed out, frustrations at the Auckland border this time were apparently far more vocal and angry.
The Political Opposition has channeled that frustration and have been far more critical of the Government this time so there are numerous political threats to Labour over the decision to go into Level 3.
Vaccine roll out: Criticism that we hadn’t received the vaccine for frontline staff earlier has evaporated with the first 30 000 doses touching down in Auckland 9.30am yesterday but the far greater challenge of rolling out the vaccination to everyone with the infrastructure for annual shots required alongside any new vaccine for new strains comes with a billion problems of its own. Getting that right matters.
Business: Hospitality has barely gotten up off the floor and they take a blow like this. Expect the Business Community to be very vocal over the instability these events cause and louder still for compensation. If Grant can feed the later he won’t have to listen so much to the former.
Double Standards: The sense that the Government allowed the Big Gay Out to occur because that’s their electorate could become a source of contention that can be fanned into something ugly.
National & ACT criticism of MIQ: National and ACT have lashed criticism on the latest Community cases and sheeted the blame directly back at the Government holding up report after report that have been damning of MIQ safety practices.
Qanon lunatics: NZ Qanon lunatics comparing Jacinda to Hitler protesting outside her electorate office in the middle of a Level 3 Covid lockdown is a reminder that sometimes evolution doesn’t work. These lunatics are out online spreading disinformation and playing up all the usual claims of Jacinda’s Socialist Secret Police marching us all into forced vaccinations camps. It would be funny if these clowns didn’t believe it with all the fervour of religious zealots. The SIS should be looking into these people urgently.
A larger crisis: Ultimately the biggest political danger to Labour is if this is the beginning of a far larger cluster that will see the country locked down for longer, especially if incompetence is proven as the reason. Kiwis are a fickle herd at the best of times and can turn like sheep in a paddock if they feel their self sacrifice has been mistreated by incompetence, the gratitude vote of 2020 will quickly swing the other way if a Level 4 lockdown is imposed because of a fuck up at MIQ that the Government had already been warned about.
So what will save the Government from these political threats?
The actual strain isn’t on our books so the virus has managed to get here via some method we can’t spot yet, which gives the Government breathing space in terms of MIQ blame, but the trust Jacinda has built with middle NZ runs incredibly deep and as frustrating as these shut downs get, we are all interconnected online and can see the devastating impact Covid is happening elsewhere.
We are living in the shadow of a global mountain of Covid dead and that reality melts most criticism.
As long as Jacinda is the best chance of keeping that horror from our shores, New Zealanders will forgive many mistakes along the way.
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Honesty is starting to fray too.
At the 1.00pm Sunday briefing, it was identified by the PM and Bloomfield that the woman infected worked in a role at Sky Chefs that was virtually frontline, doing laundry for the airlines vis a vis whatever had been in direct physical contact with our Covid imports. And because of that she had last had a Covid test in 18 Jan 21.
Clearly a journalist thought that a very long gap between tests and questioned Bloomfield who was quick to point out they had regime of fortnightly tests and that the patient went on leave on 05 February. I’m guessing he prayed journalists couldn’t do math and he was right.
No test on Feb 1 or the 2nd at the latest, why? That precise question was not asked and therefore no requirement to explain.
I assume these basic questions were asked by Bloomfield et al before the briefing given the situation was unfolding the previous day.
But as it turns out, no mandatory restring regime was in place at Sky Chefs. They were voluntary. Hence no test after almost 3 weeks.
And no one asked but airline staff do not go into quarantine. They are up to their eyeballs with infected passengers. If this thing slipped past the border then it’s no wonder. And i assume this state of affairs exists to satisfy the airlines bottom line.
This should not be a game of cat and mouse with the PM or the Director of Health but its sure as daylight looking that way.
Ommissions are just as dishonest as lies.
Dearest PM. Do NOT lose our trust being clever!
Yep. Bloomfield is a man clearly under pressure. And who wouldn’t be in his position. I’d say he was one of the better senior public servants however – sometimes failed by one or two over-ambitious underlings in his own empire, and a number of others in associated fiefdoms dealing with the pandemic. And there are quite a few – the very innovative, and business-oriented Ministry for Everything for starters. I’ll never vote for Labour again until they realise where the roadblocks and uber-operative bullshit artists are, and start to pull apart that bugger’s muddle. They won’t, of course – it’s too convenient at the moment for various Munsters of Her Madge’s Gummint, and worse still – it might mean they have to have a go at that useless tit running the SSC (oops …. PSC) who’s no doubt spending more time contemplating retirement and the New Year’s or Queen’s Birthday Honours list (possibly both).
“We are living in the shadow of a global mountain of Covid dead and that reality melts most criticism.
As long as Jacinda is the best chance of keeping that horror from our shores, New Zealanders will forgive many mistakes along the way.”
And nobody can deny JA has done incredibly well with any sort of credibility. Most of the rest of the Whurl is incredibly envious.
But there’s another thing that’ll figure come next election, and one Labour’s political rivals will play on (with good reason).
And that’s to do with Labour as a One Trick Pony. Managing COVID19 cannot be the excuse for not making any meaningful progress on housing; health; education; exploitation in all its forms; child poverdy; corrections and all areas of gummint where there’s inherent racism; growing inequality ……..
The clock’s ticking and the old ways of incrementalism and PR and spin merchants doing their best to convince the electorate that Rome wasn’t built in a day simply aren’t going to cut it. And a lot of that is coming from within the senior and upper muddle ranks of the PS, within Labour’s own ranks and all their hangers-on. The natives are getting restless and becoming more savvy to identifying bullshit and incompetence – sometimes with conspiratorial results
I saw on Facebook ex Labour MP Sue Moroney saying that circumstances have changed and it is time for the PM to institute a Capital Gains Tax on property, and build state houses in great numbers. I have seen dozens of Labour Party faithful I have known for years making similar comments.
This unprecedented MMP Majority Government has 6 months tops to show they are going to change tack and deliver something substantial for the working class.
So are we really the envy of the world or as right wing fanatic Mike Hosking reported this morning on the latest lockdown relating to just 3 cases ” We are the laughing stock of the world”.
Seems like more made up bullshit to me, the likes that got him into trouble with the broadcasting standards authority.
I struggle to understand how ten year olds learn how pandemics work yet Hosking doesn’t comprehend this?
And before the woke right go off on a free speech rant, remember the platform Hosking has and the inability to directly respond or challenge his speech based on what evidence he has that we are the laughing stock of the world.
Bert the height of stupidity is to do the same thing twice turn Hosking off and start the day with a calming cup of green tea. It will do wonders for your wellbeing . Just saying!
Is that an admission that you agree Trevor? Just saying!
If there was a REAL left wing party, Labour would NOT have the majority they have. But SADLY NZ hasn’t and probably never will have a viable alternative left wing. The rich who control our media only want the two real choices, Lab/Nats. Which are basically the same thing, only one is slightly more left in the corporatist state we live in.
It’s most probably the same in most westerns Govts.
I doubt that the reaction to a new outbreak is going to cost labour any electoral support. It is widely approved as far as I can tell.
Curious about the issue of whether the infection came from the mother or daughter. That seems to be the focus of study at this stage as they became symptomatic at exactly the same time. I would have thought that as there is supposed to be a several days delay from infection to contagion that they cannot have infected each other but must have caught the virus at the same time from the same external source. Why is this not the focus of the investigation? Who did they meet together? Or did they both catch it from a packet of frozen chicken imported through Americold?
D J S
Apparently the daughter showed symptoms before the mother. So that’s why they think there is a possibility that the daughter got it first and gave it to the mother. The tests at Papatoetoe High are aimed to see if there was earlier infection there.
Contact tracing is always part of the process.
some conflicting articles.
D J S
Meh. The Sheeple are fine – most enjoy the ‘theater’ of lockdowns. They’ll only get agitated if Beetroot hits the economic eject button and raises rates to cool down price inflation.
What is becoming worrying is that not for the first time we have limited understanding of the vector of cases. it’s not gold standard if you don’t understand how it started.
When is the NZ government going to stop the US business led witch hunt against human rights?
The Dotcom decade – and what it has cost the taxpayer
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kim-dotcom-extradition-huge-number-of-legal-hours-sunk-into-megaupload-case/STC3WBK2TRET34U36N5GQHV5XY/
If Hollywood wanted to prosecute Dotcom they should do it on their own dime. Sony knew it might be fruitless but the rest of Hollywood lobbied Biden to lobby John Key to do their dirty work for them.
How many new houses could be bought with the money spent on lawyers for offences that should be prosecuted in civil courts like copywriter infringement by the super rich not the NZ taxpayers?
Police acting illegally for foreign business in NZ is not acceptable, hopefully under Labour/Greens they bother to do the right thing and settle it. Otherwise like their love of human rights abuses in China and being the first to extradite based on illegal searches for political whims, they will go down in history as abusers.
Natz got their just desserts in the last election with so many voters now turned off their agenda in NZ as it became more obvious they were working for foreign business and political lobbying not NZ’s good.
Jacindas measure of success would be if everybody survived (it is irrelevant to her that the majority of the population are going to be living in cars or tents, it does not matter that kids are starving, she does not care that crime is increasing exponentially because people see the inequality increasing and see no hope of future for themselves….. as long as we are not getting COVID?….. and the rich homeowners and investors are getting so much richer).
“Kiwis are a fickle herd at the best of times and can turn like sheep in a paddock if they feel their self sacrifice has been mistreated by incompetence, the gratitude vote of 2020 will quickly swing the other way if a Level 4 lockdown is imposed because of a fuck up at MIQ that the Government had already been warned about.”
You nailed it there Martyn.
If it gets into the general population, it’s the end of the Ardern government. But this isn’t so much fickle as rational: The only reason she was reelected was because she managed sound so soothing and reassuring before the election. It certainly wasn’t due to policy success in any other area!
She also got in Andrew cause john left on his own accord due to him finding out how unpopular even hated he had become.
And useless he, the flag referendum, his ministers and his policies were.
Jacinda’s Socialist Secret Police marching us all into forced vaccinations camps?
It was Judith Collins’ questions in Parliament today which suggested she was the one for compulsory swabbing of people.
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