Just 10 percent of Tauranga port workers who were possibly exposed to COVID-19 after boarding a ship with positive cases on board are fully vaccinated against the virus.
The container ship, Rio De La Plata, entered Tauranga Port on Wednesday. It was given clearance to be unloaded despite being linked to a COVID-19 case – an Australian pilot, who tested positive for the Delta variant. The ship’s crew weren’t tested until Saturday and 11 results later came back positive.
Over those four days, 92 Tauranga port workers had been allowed on board and a total of 98 are now at risk and being tested. Twenty-three rapid test results have come back negative, with more expected on Monday night.
The fear was always that Covid gets into NZ via a means that is so gloriously incompetent that the voters turn violently on the Government, that moment looks like now.
The horrible level of incompetence in this Tauranga case should be sending warning signals to Wellington.
Why was it unloaded when they knew there was a Covid link?
Why were they tested so late?
Why were so many Port workers not vaccinated?
That almost 100 people could have been infected from something as contagious as the Delta variant demands an immediate political response.
You can’t have the possibility that it is here and not be responding to the incompetence already seen by the Public.
The Government must move on this.
The yawning chasm of unvaccinated workers demands understanding and once again the Unions need to be listened to.
We have dodged so many bullets with Covid, please let us dodge this one!
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Don’t you love how apparently the lack of vaccination is due to “misinformation” as opposed to a poor and feckless vaccine rollout. Even little Aotearoans won’t forgive the Blairite if covid gets into NZ because Jimmy the stevedore didn’t get his jab.
“Don’t you love how apparently the lack of vaccination is due to “misinformation” as opposed to a poor and feckless vaccine rollout.”
(eye roll)
Port workers were a priority group in the vaccine roll out, by this stage it would be highly unlikely that many have not been offered the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Misinformation is now the most likely cause of any vaccine hesitancy amongst these groups.
The Union shouldn’t be casting stones, they should have been making sure all members were vacinated; so should the port’s management and local DHB. Seems many don’t understand the meaning of ‘Team’.
It is time every one got with the programme and stopped blaming Wellington for their own ineptitude/laziness.
From the News tonight seems a lot of the unvaccinated workers work for contracted private companies and are also not union members. It must be like trying to ‘herd ants’ for the MOH, DHB, & Goverment trying to keep on top of the border problems.
Frank the Tank You jump to conclusions. Are you right? I’ve looked up the RNZ references to attempt a whole picture. My thoughts were – why were the port authorities not fully conversant with the practical and ideological details of border control? It isn’t rocket science to understand that the virus is coming from overseas, and though ships can be their own sort of MIQ, it is not to be compared with keeping people separate and under surveillance as we have done on land. The crews are worked hard, and no namby-pamby conditions for them. So 11 on the Rio de la Plata (under Singapore flag) are found to be with virus – NOW! Why not after waiting at the port under surveillance for days before the workers go on. Oh perhaps they have done so. But then why were all workers going aboard, or involved on the wharf, not vaccinated. WHY! Simple following of procedures I thought were ordered by government. But as i read on – No!
Mr Hipkins on behalf of our NZ government explains that it will not be compulsory to be vaccinated.
4/8 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/448452/port-worker-vaccinations-a-disproportionate-uptake-of-misinformation
At the moment our numbers are very good every day because there is good demand there and we are working our way through that. As we get into the latter part of the year where all those who are eager to be vaccinated have come forward and been vaccinated, the misinformation is really going to have an impact on us reaching those higher levels that we really need to get to.”
Protesters decrying the vaccine were outside Parliament today.
Hipkins said at the weekly vaccine update this afternoon the spreading of misinformation about the vaccine was reprehensible.
“The information that they are being told is wrong. People are actively lying and sharing information that is going to cause harm, potentially, to those people because they wouldn’t take up the opportunity to make themselves and their family safer … I think that’s reprehensible.”
“It is still gonna be voluntary, and I want to be absolutely clear about that, notwithstanding what people might have heard from other sources close to this building today. We are not going to be forcing people to be vaccinated…
He said he wanted to ensure all those people who were required to be vaccinated – for example those who needed to board ships or interacting with people coming off ships – but it had to be carefully balanced to keep supply chains running. Note that: ‘supply chains running’, so corners are being cut by government.
Yet Apr.30/21 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441509/mandatory-vaccination-rule-for-border-workers-to-come-into-effect
10/8 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/448825/calls-for-stricter-handling-of-foreign-vessels-after-shambolic-approach-to-rio-de-la-plata
9/8 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/448801/covid-19-no-new-community-cases-as-tauranga-port-workers-get-tested
(This is an emergency – I am down for a heart operation which I don’t want to be closed down because of a lock-down. So I’ve got skin in this game! As well as being concerned for micro and macro business and the ability for NZ as a country to stay afloat if government can’t do it’s job of making definite, though hard, decisions for the country’s economic and human wellbeing. It must get the balance right of kindness and practicality. It’s an emergency for NZ, not BAU, so now it is time to make vaccination mandatory for people in important jobs, no vacc – pack up.)
And extra info that we have all been expecting? https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/448848/covid-19-recovery-driving-contracting-surge-in-public-sector
I hope the Labour government can gather themselves together, and form policies that they push through, that are good for the NZ economy and the people, as a whole. It’s a big ask for them to do what most of us think is their task, and I hope that they concur. Thinking NZs will go along with that, and consider they need to step in and take a stronger line on matters with economic impact, as well as basic living conditions. It would be sad if we ended up with a Fijian solution, and then attracted the machiavellian powers already interfering with our politics and certain wealthy people intruding more to protect their personal investments in this country.
Everyone is asleep at the wheel, like Covid happens to other people, elsewhere. We might as well live under a rock
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