As the Covid plague starts a 3rd wave around the planet, as uneven vaccination rates undermine global health, as the wealthy nations stockpile and the poor countries dig graves, as mutations render the vaccine less effective – dumb Kiwis are slathering like feral dogs to open a new infection field by allowing the dirty Aussies here so fucking Quenstown can get some time on the slopes booked in bra!
Mean times on the skis bra with powder fresh crisp crust to carve with first tracks bra!
Fuck skiing, fuck skiers and most importantly, fuck Australia.
Why the fuck after all we have been through would we willingly open ourselves up to infection from fucking Australia when we are still so far away from 75% herd immunity and barely have the vaccine in any Kiwi arms?
Let’s look at the winners and losers of this insanity.
WINNERS
Covid Virus – The Virus can’t believe its luck. All it has to do is wait for dumb Kiwis to be sick of not being able to fly to Bangkok and we will do the rest to ensure the bloody virus gets a holiday as well!
Queenstown – This venal capital of white privilege who have locked domestic Kiwis out of their little tower of babel has now forced the Government into opening our borders to Covid infection so they don’t lose all their Gold Card bonus points.
Death Cult Capitalism – They have had such difficulty forcing the slaves to work during a pandemic but are now gleefully trying to unpick Kiwi’s expectations of safety so they can get back to making money while we die.
Australian Government – They get to shift attention from their rape scandal by stomping their feet to get a travel bubble.
National – This has been National’s position on the border in 6 frames…
LOSERS
Jacinda – This is all risk for Jacinda. If the virus comes back and we are forced into lockdown, no one is going to give 2 shits about Queenstown’s fucking ski season!
New Zealand – WHY THE CHRIST ARE WE OPENING OUR BORDERS WHILE THE VIRUS IS STILL RAGING AROUND THE PLANET AND WE ARE NO WHERE NEAR HERD IMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!!!
CONCLUSION
To push the above point, WHY THE CHRIST ARE WE OPENING OUR BORDERS WHILE THE VIRUS IS STILL RAGING AROUND THE PLANET AND WE ARE NO WHERE NEAR HERD IMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!!!
No one is going to thank Jacinda if this turns to custard. My honest belief is there will be no bubble until we have a far higher vaccination rate in NZ and Australia and that won’t be until the end of the year.
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The pattern is becoming familiar with Labour.
1. The opposition bang on about a situation real or imagined that is not happening fast enough, big enough or at all. Think poor MIQ security, lack of staff testing, poor demarcation between those who have just arrived and those isolated, travel, etc, etc.
2. The government tell us they are already addressing that situation but don’t deal with it and see if the noise stops.
3. Bang on some more as percieved problems continue.
4. Government repeats step 2 but buys time.
5. Announcement that the government are addressing the percieved situation.
And the cycle continues.
And just note, National banged on about pre travel Covid tests to ensure no virus would be imported and low and behold two months in under that testing regime, infected people continue to bring the virus in! Just like before.
Australia want this because their right wing conservative government need our money, pure and simple. Newstalk ZB want it because wealthy arseholes want more money and their brand and hosts hate Jacinda. National want it because they see an outbreak of this disease as politcally advantageous.
Trouble is none of those reasons are justification for the huge risk we now face. And sadly, Labour lacks confidence in its own reeasoned decision making.
Expect a new outbreak anytime and expect Auckland to bear the brunt of it. Guaranteed.
There are deeper concerns here than the threat of death (if that’s possible).
There is growing evidence of long term neurological damage in some Covid survivors.
There are folk who caught the virus in the first wave a year ago and are STILL to recover their sense of taste and smell. The virus is known to damage the olfactory bulb of the brain, which may make the patient susceptible to nasty neuroinflammatory diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimers etc. Apparently 5% of Covid patients hospitalised may have some degree of stroke (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300254806/covid19s-striking-impact-on-brain-includes-inflammation-blood-vessel-damage).
This is a very nasty disease. It is NOT like ‘flu. You do NOT want to catch this irrespective of your age/health.
Despite a year of this, their are still some who remain (wilfully I suspect) determined to ignore the facts. The clamour to erode our (so far) only defence – our borders – is fraught with risk.
When we only have to wait for a bit longer to see how efficacious the new vaccines are, why the sudden rush???????
This would be a good time for Jacinda to announce lots of houses will be built. Built by Kiwi’s, not the so called builders we’ve been importing. Build affordable (that’s Queenstown out) and lock up the border as Bomber say’s till at least end of the year. Build houses Jacinda, don’t open the border. Most Kiwis would go for that.
From my experience, although limited to one house for 24 years, I totally support your sentiments concerning Kiwi builders. They are a treasure to be valued.
I fully agree GreenBus ,,, thats a far more sensible and practical course of action for NZ.
Even better we could take a stand against corruption and asset seize the needed timber from some of the Malaysian ‘Timber Mafia’ who have ‘invested’ into NZ to launder their ill gotten Billions .
If the crooks and biggest drivers of climate change ( they are destroying forests all over the world ), if they could prove their money was ‘Clean’ as opposed to ‘laundered’ they would not forfeit their loot…
…But like their 1MDB scam, there is a large body of evidence showing large scale crime,,, Some of which NZ was also involved in laundering and hiding.
Anyway ….. https://www.sarawakreport.org/2019/10/no-profits-from-malaysia-and-papua-new-guinea-but-vast-assets-in-nz/
Malaysian Colonialism in Papua New Guinea https://youtu.be/zmIQ5Yo561A
Actions speak louder than words and at the moment NZ seems to be for corruption and climate change …. watch this space though , and probably be disappointed.
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Finally and back to Covid / borders / & vaccines ,,,,, a friend pointed out to me that with the fast arrival of variants / mutations of the virus,,, all within a year. Then it looks very likely that Covid shots / vaccinations will become like the winter Flu jabs that many get.
The vaccinations will not cover all the variations and guess work over which strains to protect against will lower the overall effectiveness.
Large populations where the disease is now endemic will ensure new variants keep popping up.
Unfortunately the world may have to learn to live with this Virus, with better treatments and lower death rates filling the gaps where vaccinations do not.
Hopefully the world has learned a lesson , but I don’t think it has ,,,, for when the next more deadly virus comes rumbling down the line.
What a coward.
Brain drain exodus 2.0
And prepare for the influx of beneficiaries to NZ.
Agree 100% with Bomber. Absolute stupidity to put everyone’s safety at risk in particular the Maori and PI community.
Practically all cases of Covid are in MIQ from overseas and we want to increase the risks to the community with a travel bubble????
People looking to settle in Oz can leave now (its those looking to come back who face booking rooms in hotels).
Ha ! Are we clone-twins separated at birth @ MB?
You know why ducks can float? They keep their little bum holes clamped shut tighter than… well… a ducks bum hole.
A modest metaphor for c-19, and we so-far lucky AO/NZ’ers.
When are we going to concede that global rules of general human engagement have changed graphically? ‘Things’ are no longer the same. ‘Things’ have changed and we’re in deep shit. We, are not because we live on the largest vegetable garden on the world.
We, as a people, must insist that our borders remain closed. Isn’t the reason why we pay politicians to flounce about on six figures is to do our bidding?
But ahhh…See? CAPITALIST democracy. Money comes before humanity.
Has anyone else seen this clip? Lemmy of Motorhead talks about money and trump.
“All that money and you can’t get a smile out of the guy with a crowbar”
https://youtu.be/RrYVxiH5Vqw
Money fetishist power freaks are the enemy of us human, human-beings and we owe it to ourselves to protect ourselves from their influence.
Besides, as global heating takes hold there’ll be no snow left and Lake Wakitipu will evaporate leaving behind a big smelly ditch.
Keep.The.Borders.Closed. A simple protection against a terrible thing.
and I am sick of her shit
Can’t open the bubble… where will the tourists stay if the accommodation is full of the homeless? *crickets chirping*
I’m not confidently sure I understand what you’re saying, but I hope that whatever is being considered and will be ultimately chosen will support the care of our entire population, those with some, and especially those with little.
Bomber this is missing the salient point that it is far, far more likely that an outbreak will occur in/through our MIQ facilities than via Australia. Covid is effectively eliminated at this juncture in Australia as much as it is in NZ. This is a no brainer and ironically a win-win for the Blairite. When 20% of your economy is dependent on tourism and you are about to torpedo another one of your bigger industries property speculation, NZ will need the cash asap.
It becoming quite clear that the Blairite is desperately keen to keep her fortress (little) Aotearoa dream alive. The world is moving on. Once vaccine rollouts reach critical mass there will be no further arguments for containment that will sit well with the general population particularly as the gross inequality of privilege (ala wiggles, Lion King, sports stars) becomes more and more stark.
The loser here is (little) Aotearoa. Slowly but surely we are being dragged and kicked back to the rest of the world. Economic recession will just accelerate this course.
One risk is flu arriving here, via Singapore onto Oz, onto us.
Again a far, far lower risk than MIQ
The Oz border bubble is not a decision based on critical mass vaccination levels – it applies more to the rate at which we take on risk through the MI hotels.
MI hotels, sans low risk Oz incoming, will have to tighten their internal regime to manage the higher level of risk from those elsewhere (the risk is first week inmates infecting those on their second week).
At the moment we have people confined to rooms until the day 0/1 test result (flawed as some infections are not picked up until the day 3 test) and from the day 12 test till they leave (flawed as it misses day 10/11/12 infections not picked up on the day 12 test).
Once Oz incoming is excluded we have to room isolate for the first week (and move the day 7 test to day 6) – make first week to second week cross infection impossible as.
Flu risk is not negligble.
1. July we have M vaccinated tops – that leaves 4m people to test for is it flu or is it coronavirus? It strains our testing capacity and imposes risk on our ability to quickly trace.
2. Wards are full for a month or two each year with flu patients and we face a medical backlog from last years lockdown still.
To be sure, Pat O is specific about the consequences of our taking on greater risk that has consequences for those with weaker health systems – the Pacific. Their border stafff and health workers are not yet vaccinated, and what test and track capacity do they have?
The author of this piece is displaying signs of being severely mentally unwell.
I encourage anyone close to him to seek professional assistance.
We will have more spaces free to those from lockdown spread nations – so we will have to impose isolation to rooms for the first week.
The biggest loser of this Trans-Tasman bubble between Australian and New Zealand are our covid free Pacific Island neighbours.
The covid free island nations have been calling for a Trans-Pacific bubble of covid free Pacific nations with covid free New Zealand for some time.
Australia and New Zealand have had a long and shameful history of recklessly allowing infection to spread around the Pacific basin with tragic results especially for our indigenous Maori population and the indigenous populations of the Pacific Islands.
This time due to the extraordinary world beating leadership and measures taken by the Ardern Administration New Zealand has contained the virus, and is no threat to the Pacific of spreading the virus to our covid free island neighbours.
Now for the greed of the New Zealand tourist industry for Aussie dollars the hopes of the Island nations for a covid free Tans-Pacific travel bubble have been dashed.
There are two choices. We either lock our Island neighbours up even longer, or we open them up to the greater risk of the infection that we are taking.
Both options may prove devastating for our PI neighbours.
But there is an even bigger danger looming, the same venal interests that want the trans-Tasman travel bubble, want the right to import bonded cheap migrant labour to run their operations.
This is a recipe for disaster any outbreak in New Zealand would spread right throughout the Pacific..
Would we be able to offer help to the Pacific Island nations if we spread the contagion to them?
With our health system under pressure from an outbreak here it would be highly unlikely we would be able to treat affected Pacific Island casualties of the virus. the Island nations would be on their own.
Will the risk of all this avoidable death and misery be worth it?
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