Those climbing electricity costs.
Food inflation hitting 10%.
A massive spike in food banks and food parcel deliveries.
Covid resurrection killing off any attempt to boost the economy.
What is most concerning decision makers right now is the bleak future consumers and producers are predicting DESPITE wages being high and unemployment low.
It hints that the last 14 years of central banks printing money to offset a global financial collapse in 2008 has built a hollow illusion of growth that collapses in upon itself the millisecond normal financial parameters are attempted.
The ocean of debt is about to find true gravity as interest rates are forced up in a desperate attempt to stop supply side inflation dynamics, which of course will only make the situation worse.
Right now nursing and hospitality are screaming to throw open the immigration flood gates to allow offshore labour to prop up their exploitation models.
Nursing requires cheaper offshore options and hospitality is built upon exploiting overseas backpackers.
If the Government cave into these demands, the unemployment rate will suddenly explode as multiple industries fall back on cheaper labour options and they sack kiwi workers for cheaper offshore options.
In 2019, 4million tourists visited NZ as part of our exploitative hyper tourism industry – those numbers will never come back while China’s zero covid policy stands and while new Covid variants sweep around the world.
Hospitality servicing hyper tourism is dead and this all occurs as the exhaustion on our social infrastructure has reached cascade failure levels.
Covid, inflation and Government system breakdowns will be our winter of discontent.
Politically this is a nightmare.
The Woke Left who integrated social distancing and mask wearing as part of their identity are as furious with Jacinda as the anti-mandate Qanon feral lunatics and small business owners are.
Everyone hates this outcome.
Wait till food inflation hits 15% in December.
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This Government would do better during the tough times ahead if it had a reputation for competence and delivery at pace, and a reputation for reasonable honesty.
But it has no track record like that.
It would be better to promise things like tax cuts which are easy to deliver.
How often in the past have promised tax cuts actually been delivered? And those rare cases did anyone notice? Did they ever make a real difference to anyone? That would be mostly no, wouldn’t it?
Of course if you were throwing that up as a distraction from the almost total non-delivery from this “most transparent & progressive” Government ever, with a huge majority too, it isn’t exactly relevant. If you can look at our current Government’s achievements and honestly say that they met or exceeded your expectations, then they must have been pretty low expectations to begin with.
all tax cuts do is lollies for the rich the miniscule return most people will get is of practical effect…
now do tell us about ‘trickle down’ dicky….
“Tax cuts to be applied after the election” has been National’s standard, go to election promise, that they almost always fail to deliver on. Unfortunately Labour have promised little and failed to deliver almost anything, unless their goal was to create a divided society where poverty & hopelessness rule.
As to trickle down, isn’t that what you get when you see an AR?
no trickle down is what you get after a shooting spree erection dicky
Chuckle chuckle, guffaw guffaw. Did feel sad when you voted for National and your tax cut was only enough to buy a pack of gum, not the block of cheddar you were promised?
and not even a box of caps for your cap gun dicky, you must have been gutted.
Tax cuts only make a difference if you actually pay tax.
We dont want stupid tax cuts!!!!! Up the tax rates and make sure to spend our money sensibly and on useful things, eg. not on woke race-based bureaucracy for someone to ‘own’ our water systems. Just fucking upgrade the stuff and get on with it. Or not on another working group to ‘fight consumer prices’ – just fucking make it easy for Aldi to come here or for Warehouse to get into grocery. Or, just stop the stupid rail link thing that is sucking billions out of the economy for what… a few kilometers of ‘slow a fuck Sydney Fish Market tram’ track only good for a few Aucklanders???? That is Labour’s biggest biggest biggest problem over the last 5 years, They simply do not know what sensible spending means. They should all beforced to run a small real world business at profit, after spending 10 years as political science students. We’re not being governed by real people. We’re being governed by politically pre-programmed socialist close androids with no regard for the real people they are supposed to look after – West World.
@kiwibrn… ?
Tax cuts! Are you fucking kidding? Tax is meant to deliver comfort and security for the payers of it. NOT the avoiders of it. Aye Boys?
Those who promote tax cuts are the enemy. Those who enable tax loop holes are crooks. GST is a penalty levied at the common person for being able to enjoy the luxury of being enslaved by capitalist fascists. Phil Goff should be in jail.
Call it what it fucking is! The fascist, right wing mantra of ‘pay less tax / Trickle down theory works better’ is a con invented by them to line their pockets at your expense.
This interview is between Russell Brand and David Sirota, one of the writers of the film ‘Don’t Look Up’ staring Leonardo DiCaprio is a good one.
“This week I spoke with David Sirota – award-winning journalist & writer and founder of Investigative News Site ‘The Lever’. We spoke about the rise of Trump in America & how Obama’s false promises & high hopes caused Americans to vote for what they thought was the solution.”
YouTube.
https://youtu.be/uZjI1TxtMkM
It appears the mega-polytech merger was a mistake/badly conducted.
And the Mahuta Family business gets more scrutiny today as well.
Another conservative who wants no change.
How do you reach that conclusion, kiwibrn?
Maybe I just want competent Ministers?
Ada – even less chance of getting competent ministers from National’s array of donkeys.
Well you can stop looking at the Labour offering incompetence and pride seem to rule with this lot
Ada What was that – is there a link above? Didn’t see it so please would you put it up I’d like to know more.
NZ still has the lowest inflation and unemployment rates in the world. Worker shortages, food prices, are a global events. Luxon if he gets in will borrow $2bn, give tax breaks to the rich and invite the property speculators in to run NZ economy.
No nothing at all.
Meh…as long as St Jacinda and her ministers keep using the inflation is due to….. ‘Bidens reason’ of Putin’s fault and everyother bad stat and headline as Covids fault, the sheeple will never suspect it’s her and her partys fault, mainly she will be believed by 35% of the voters and enough to keep her in the job and not run away due to ‘family commitments’
the reason for the inflation if you don’t intend to actually fix it is wasted breath
Given the current trajectory give or take by 2050 South Island Independence will be attained and we will tell Wellington to bugger off.
sounds good to me! NI can go do one.
The Covid everyone is experiencing and that is ALL age groups is far more mild than the old school winter colds, so although the media are busting their arses trying to hype this non event up, it’s not working. So let’s move on! Please! And we didn’t used to count colds as the cause of death with the terminally ill or people with other serious medical conditions who died, like the gross misrepresentation of people dying WITH not OF covid.
But what is real is fuel prices through the roof and if nothing else, that and the rank amateur airline behaviour who could not care less about their customers are going to kill tourism, all on their lonesomes. And to some extent our economy.
And with diesel almost matching 91 octane petrol cents per litre, because of world market prices, I can’t help but think closing our only refinery was a very stupid idea! One that had Megan Woods oversight too, not surprisingly. And that severely impacts the transport industry and then the rest of the economy. And no, cargo bikes pedalled by earth mothers wearing bad cardy’s from Grey Lynn are not going to fill the void! Sorry Greens!
Agreed that letting Marsden Point go was one of the crowning achievements of this government’s stupidity.
Ability to refine does not change the price of the crude that you are importing. If Marsden Point was still operating do you think pump prices would be cheaper? I think not or not at a material level
We would have refined crude into diesel so unless greed set in, the price was based on crude and the price for the NZ market and not what we can now buy refined diesel for from overseas speculation markets!
I have never seen it so expensive and markedly so since the refinery closed!
Word from those who worked there is that diesel would be .80c to $1.20cheaper oh and there would be bitumen for our roads and co2 for the drinks industry. Juts a couple of little facts regarding the huge economic loss closing the Refinery really is Wheel and not uninformed assumption as you have made.
Closing the refinery and the deliberate forcing of its closure by government is treason. Ardern and her economically illiterate government only serve corporate interests not ours.
What utter rubbish Shona. Refining NZ (and the investors that owned it) weren’t making enough of a margin on there investment. The government didn’t buy the refinery sure but don’t make some shit up about forcing its closure. It was corporate interests that took their money elsewhere.
OK, so you’re a free-market fan. The point is that the government failed to nationalize Marsden Point – to hell with the investors, the NZ public would have been better off if Ardern had nationalized it.
So pope you are a communist?
Marsden point was built with taxpayer money. It was substantially upgraded with taxpayer money. It was given to the petrol Companies for free along with a $60m sweetener. It should be back in our hands, by nationalization if need be. Instead it is quickly being cut up and sold for scrap.
Me a communist? No way. But Peter H is absolutely right – it should never have been privatized in the first place. And any government worth its salt would move to prevent the loss of an asset that is so vital to national security.
Pope I am saying the government did not force the closure at all, investors said ‘no thanks’ I will take my money elsewhere. It’s not about being a fan it’s just saying what actually happened
Agree Shona but economics aside. The world is about to hit a severe energy crisis (with oil and electric generation most worrisome). So letting the refinery go is just more ideological hubris.
Good points Shona. Closing Marsden makes us more vulnerable and shows a sweetly, trusting nature of the directors of the refinery that supplies will be available from wherever and continue and imports will be just as good. And I think they were getting hot pants about the possibility of making batteries or green hydrogen or one of the panaceas offering.
Wrong. It would be MUCH cheaper if we couid refine crude here. Oil is no where near all time highs – in fact oil cost over US$140/barrel back in 2008 and petrol/diesel prices were definitely not where they are now! Refining capacity is the major reason petrol prices are so high.
In 2008 and we got as high 2.20 / liter at the pump. You are right, its not as high as today but in 2008 the NZD also got as high 80 cents to the USD and was generally much stronger than in 2022 were we have been as low as 62 cents. If you look at average crude oil closing prices in 2008 it was $USD 99/barrel even with the shock of $US 140. In 2022 the average is already $US 101 with a peak of $US 125. I guess we will have to see how it pans out.
I think in hindsight you are right. Locally refined would be cheaper but MUCH cheaper? I guess it depends on what MUCH means.
perhaps then we should have kept looking for oil here then instead of shitcanning that as well?
Not issuing new permits does not mean they are not still extracting here. For some reason there were two new onshore permits issued last year anyway. In addition you have to be kidding me if you think somehow, with crude prices through the roof local extraction would lead to cheaper prices. That’s laughable. It would be no different than all that milk and beef that we produce here but pay like we are importing it from mars.
Nonsense. We could be importing cheap crude from targets of enemy sanctions like Venezuela and Russia at a good discount, as every sensible government is right now.
Who, India and China?
well said X
Serious question. Why can’t we train nurses in-house in the hospitals like we used to? Take it off the territorial polytech’s mired in bureaucracy and limitations who charge like wounded bulls and stifle the supply anyway and pay trainees to learn, as you have suggested, and bond them. Earn as you learn with a world competitive wage at the end? Even provide affordable accommodation. By the way, we did this once as a nation!
It’s a very practical job that requires a lot of hands on experience required to learn. That would go a long way to sorting the problems out.
Yes, I realise Andrew Little is the Minister Health and is possibly more incompetent than Poto and thought patterns like this are beyong him, but honestly, someone surely can help him out here? This problem is fixable and the current situation is nothing less than another government own goal!
If only we had a government whose MP’s had worked for a living instead of the academic uni student twits currently, such a basic solution might be happening right here, right now!
If only we had a government whose MP’s had worked for a living instead of the academic uni student twits currently, such a basic solution might be happening right here, right now!…..
Right On @ X-ray the only time a lot of these MPs have been on a work site is for a photo opportunity while wearing a shiny new hi viz, hard hat and safety glasses!
Completely agree – thousands of nurses were trained that way. My wife was a nurse before retirement – but said in the later stages, there was more emphasis on paperwork than patient care. Meanwhile we do need to import some nurses to fill the gaps before newly trained ones come through…
So XRAY do you really think working for a living versus career politicians is the difference? History would suggest otherwise. Things were not flash for nursing under the last government either and the likes John Key “worked” for a living. Their DHB boards were full of executives that probably worked in healthcare and did f*ck all for nurses either ( aside from employing Filipino labour that come from even lower wages in the Philippines).
I am not disputing your idea for training nurses by the way. No idea if on the job training in some therapy areas is practical or not.
John Key has never worked an honest day’s work in his life.
Agree XRAY. But remember Andrew Little is an ex trade union leader thus only capable of throwing stones incapable of managerial thought.
But Key was a financial speculator didnt care about NZ social issues.
What on earth are you talking about?
X-ray “ Why can’t we train nurses in-house in the hospitals like we used to”? Because some avaricious neo-lib government decided that they could derive an income by making the nurses pay for their own training offsite , even though on the job training produced a more professional and experienced person as well as providing an extra pair of hands in the wards. Better still, let some other country like the Philippines provide the training, then poach them.
“ A government whose MP’s had worked for a living”. Agree. Their lack of life knowledge is generally abysmal.
XRay, your description of a nursing job and subsequent training is simplistic and a little naive. Sure the patient basic cares are required however scientific care of patients is much more complicated. Who will train these nurses on the job, when nurses are always “ much too busy”. Nursing students already do practical training on all aspects of care, ie. Community health, public health, mental health etc.etc. In the hospitals and various community placements. Usually these students learn from a safety first approach prior to going into the health setting. Yes paperwork is daunting but it is both for the patients protection and the nurses protection. Nurses must not go back to the future, they need to keep moving forward. We are now in a pandemic and unfortunately no amount of nurses would have come in time to combat the serious shortage which has occurred over decades. This will pass, we are in a perfect storm, we can only hope that major lessons will be learned from this experience. Nurses from overseas need to stay as nurses for the sake of continuity, if they truly want to come to NZ this shouldn’t be a problem.
Obviously without writing an entire thesis on the subject in my original comment, I get that there is theory side to nursing and like any learn on the job model there are non negotiable classroom hours that cannot be touched by the hospital.
And I get there are a lack of trained nurses but I work in an environment where the situation is not so indifferent and frankly the more hands I can get, be it trainees or fully experienced, the better. In fact the attitude of trainees at times covers for their lack of experience because experience also brings resistance and negativity which is counter productive. It’s a toxic almost self fulfilling situation that seems to radiate from nursing at the moment, nothing is ever enough or ever right.
We’ve got a health crisis based on lack of workers at the moment, apparently, according to nursing spokespeople and I accept that, so the current learning environment plus the insufficient numbers coming through and retention means the current nurse training system and renumeration has failed the health system and the people. Something has to change and with great urgency!
XRay thank you for your considered reply, it’s refreshing on this page of late. Unfortunately we are in complicated times. Our health system and all its parts have been run down for many years. DHB CEO’s on millions of dollars a year with bonuses to basically run our healthcare like a business model and in to the ground. I am sure when the DHB model was established this was not the outcome they wanted. Yes we are in urgent unprecedented times which should have been planned for 10/20 years ago. We can now only hope that lessons are learned by the new authority quick smart before any new government quickly disestablishes it and privatizes our health care to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy.
Add a looming energy crisis, an electorate who no longer trusts the government and the potential for China to hit back at us economically and things could get a lot worse.
Jacinda had an ostensibly successful tour or two overseas but whist she was away, her government continued to show itself for the crumbling edifice it is. Chris Hipkins – the Minister for everything? Really has anyone looked at education lately and its trajectory over the last 10 years?
I would go so far as to suggest the health workers who are trying to replace NZ’s democratically elected representatives and systems with their fanaticism, alarmism and pseudoscience, are no better than treasonous coup plotters, attempting to capture society with their sick brand of medical authoritarianism, crony capitalism and warped ideology.
Oh dear Ethan Woke you seem all steamed up. Its the problem when you wear glasses and a mask I know. Please elucidate exactly what you mean by this high viz attack on some unpopular types connected with medical matters. It’s not to do with having vaxxes and wearing masks and restricted gathering numbers is it?
Yes, by September this year things might could to ahead — if things do not change.
All the top Police Superintendents have been summoned to Wellington. They have been tasked with finding a viable way to manage another ‘short, sharp lockdown’. The hospitals have collapsed and are about to implode. Effective now – educated people are being turned away and given instructions on how to manage themselves. School holidays have been ruined by the national airline being unable to cope.
If you look at Red traffic light settings – technically we should be there now. The only reason we aren’t is political. The new Maori Health Authority and the Maori Caucus squad will look to flex their muscles once Mahuta recovers from Covid. Grunter is ensuring his numbers are firm on the other side.
The last 2 Augusts we have been in lockdown. Bad things come in 3’s. Be prepared, the Seagull is back from leg 4 of the WokeWorldTour.
A lockdown is not going to do Jack shit and if Labour want to lock is up again, it’s all over for them. I promise. Kiss goodbye ever being reelected. The public buy in will largely cease, exceptions been in older comfortable RNZ panelists.
And who, might we ask, failed to prep the health system? Labour/Green!
People with your, previously shared opinion, don’t help Frank. All this horseshit about masks don’t work at all, or you can’t tell me to wear one blah blah! If masks did nothing at all the lockdowns in Shanghai and Bejing would not be working . Its not like the smallish numbers of cases are not being treated by humans (and not by the robots). I am certainly not suggesting their approach is practical/sustainable but it pretty clear measures such as masks must be helping. Seasonal flu is probably doing just as much disruptive damage as Omicron (whatever variant we are at now), and I doubt aerosol transmission for flu would not be impeded by mask use.
You are absolutely right it is political because the bleaters have been given enough share of voice to make it that way. Stubborn people who somehow feel like life is just so hard wearing a mask, momentarily ffs, in certain situations, then bleat about the health system not coping, or the airline due to absence of staff through sickness could pause and reflect.
Spinning wheel.
Really Keepcalmcarryon? I think its pretty obvious. If you are anti simple measures that’s fine just don’t complain when people are off in droves with sickness.
I’m not totally anti mask, I’ve seen reports saying they help or they don’t help, likely they help a little but do add a false sense of security.
They certainly are a political tool though:
when a government loses control of the pandemic and hasn’t prepared hospitals in the 18-24 months of covid freedom before a belated vaccine roll out (earned at terrible cost to employers and workers) mask wearing or not makes it all the individuals fault.
It’s especially important to scapegoat when it’s politically damaging to lock down again due to Labours own previous grotesque over reach.
So yeah, mask blah blah, how about the failing hospitals?
Wheel – if masks work you wouldn’t need 2-way masking. Think about it – it makes no logical sense nor does the virus ignoring your orifices when you eat or drink. By all means wear one – just don’t compel people to. It’s called personal responsibility.
We still have no large study come out from a reputable health agency or university supporting mask usage being effective (no one seems to want to do the study – I wonder why!) nor any medical studies to show how a first generation covid vaccine works on the current variants. I won’t be getting a second booster – I’ll rely on natural immunity.
I’ve had covid as have many. Most have had mild symptoms. It is endemic – best we move on like the rest of the world (outside of totalitarian regimes).
That’s not uncommon though is it? I am alright Jack. I have had COVID too and it was nothing, but if I can do something as simple as put a mask on in a supermarket to give the health service a break from seasonal flu as well as COVID then its no skin off my nose (unless I react to the mask of course). I don’t disagree with your point on eating and drinking because….you are not wearing a mask. I don’t need a clinical study to prove to me that the odds of an airborne pathogen infecting me are reduced when what I breath through is covered. Is it 100% effective, not at all, but putting a mask on is nothing.
THE NEW VARIENT 4.5 I think is spreading in europe and will be here soon…more serious illness, deeper in the lungs and with great potential for long covid effects, just because recent iterations have been mild-ish doesn’t mean future ones will be.
Can you point to a study that confirms your above assertions regarding the new strains?
Otherwise it is just scare porn
overview.
.https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110804098/omicron-ba5-variant-covid-reinfections
plus it can reinfect, so ‘herd immunity phantom’ is fucked good style
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/omicron-ba5-ba4-covid-symptoms-vaccines-rcna36894
this guy is generally regarded as fairly sober minded and level headed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnR917NUlNg
Umm no evidence that this variant is more virulent…..and low and behold more transmissible. Who would have thought covid would act like ever other influenza virus….
Gargar this is poor even by your own standards.
this guy is usually regarded as fairly level headed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnR917NUlNg
We were told recently by the Minister to wear masks as they protect the wearer. My logic conclusion to that is they can filter out microscopic viruses because why else would anyone suggest it? The point being masks filter visble particles not invisible microscopic viruses which means mask wearing is complete and utter rubbish as a defence. And strangely enough masks were not considered practical during Covid 1.0 in 2020!
I am guessing therefore our government believes greatly in the placebo effect as a management tool!
You forgot to add surgical masks were designed to protect the user from blood splatter during operations. They are practically useless. N95/KN95 masks do offer some protection although again were not designed for airborne pathogens.
There’s a video online from early in the pandemic where Nano Girl is talking to Ardern and her science advisor. She explains that masks are ineffective against airborne viruses unless you’re following the strictest of conditions.
incidentally I take it your nick raf refers to the ‘red army faction’ rather than the excellent chaps who defended the skies over the white cliffs….
Masks have improved since that time – dont you understand the progress that science makes.
The imaginary ‘lockdowns’ where everyone is still free to wander around and meet up to spread COVID for weeks at a time weren’t and aren’t lockdowns, and they won’t stop the spread of COVID. There is no chance that Jacinda goes back to her fake lockdowns. She doesn’t care how many people she kills.
Throw open the doors to immigration for Nurses and Hospitality workers but have visas only granted if pay is x amount (being an amount over current levels). That gives the workforce and forces pay up at the same time.
While that might force pay rates up, you will pay it in increased taxes for the nurses and increased prices in hospitality….
wow that sucks for rich pricks I guess
@John White
No way “rich pricks” will pay any higher taxes under a NACT coalition.
Crafty lawyers, Fonseca hidey-holes and reduced taxes if NACT are elected.
NACT raising GST and lowering taxes for the highest “rich-pricks” tax brackets, or adjusting bracket creep to help “rich pricks, won’t affect “rich pricks”, it will exacerbate inequalities.
Frank t Tank. They can’t go into lockdown for the Ireland vrs New ‘Wales’ rugby test in Wellington on Saturday…the rugby fans would riot.
Might be the only way we can get away with not losing to the Irish though.
Rugby players and officials have always been anti-Labour and pro-National – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rugby-stars-referred-to-police-for-election-tweets/WNLW4ULKFMSICW7KP4JZYUSRQM/
Rugby players and officials even stood behind John Key after his threesome! So much so, that Key’s 3-way was removed from Youtube: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/keys-botched-handshake-clip-taken-off-youtube/TU77KKVDDLZKKM63YKQTOXNIQY/
Now the only pro-govt rugby support for a Red-level lockdown would be so the third test is cancelled, and Ian Foster keeps his job for another week A red-level drawn series against the Irish would not affect Foster’s win percentage and would stop the slide of losses to inferior sides. Sam Cane would also survive as captain with Fozzie in charge.
Red-level lockdown’s 3-way benefits
A win for the nurses and doctors under incredible stress and strain.
A drawn test series for the All Blacks.
A reprieve for Fozzie and Sammie.
panzer-boi calm down, clam down, we simple don’t have enough cops and army to enforce anything.
I’d like to take a more optimistic view here. My understanding of the financial situation from a global perspective is that the regulations were changed by respective Financial Market Authorities after the 2007 global financial crisis and there was resulting pressure on governments across the world to pay back their debts more quickly and to work towards reducing the potential future debt of their respective citizens, especially throsy vulnerable ones, and most have at least attempted to bring in the appropriate measures with which to achieve those outcomes.
Everything she turns her attention to turns to shit. Can we just pay her to no longer do anything but just sit there and smile gormlessly until the next election. She is like NZ’s Mrs Bean.
Yes Mr Bean been there done that moon faced pirate
You are foolish MFP, DL is talking about John Key helping out all the financial institutions.
Don’t worry, Luxon will fix it with Tax cuts for the Rich & mass immigration?
@KiwiAntz62. You forgot Luxon’s dismantling of the welfare state and creation of a Ministry of Handmaids.
Having listened to this mask debate for months can I just say Masks do actually work!! Even against aerosolised viruses.
Yes, you need better quality masks and yes, you need strict protocols. Most people will not be able to access n95 masks or use them properly but wearing a mask is still worthwhile.
It’s all about viral load. And the amount of circulating particles. You wear a crappy mask and get Covid but because you were wearing a crappy mask you only got exposed to 35% of the 100% of circulating virus particles in the air. Therefore your viral load is lower when you get sick and in theory, you dont get as sick as if you had been unmasked. You will probably be less sick for less long so that is a win.
But where the masks particularly win is indoors where you’re on a bus for example and everyone is breathing the same air. If everyone wears a mask, the circulating particles are lessened by ??% (Figure depends on quality of masks and rigour of mask wearers) . So we do need people to wear masks, not to stop infection but to slow it a little and from a hospitalisation point of view, to slow admissions.
Omicron has been mild so far but dont be complacent. Experiences vary. I have dodged it but my daughter caught it and felt a little strange and took a test which was positive. Within 24 hours no symptoms what so ever apart from a few days lack of taste. My sister, husband and their daughter caught it. Laid up for three weeks, described as a very bad flu. Brother in Law but on anti virals? after 3 days as he was worsening.
Latest confirmed news is BA4 and 5 are significantly different from BA1 and 2 (more spreadable) and they do feature more prominently in the lungs (So mutations are now heading more in the direction of Delta) and it would appear that they do feature more severe disease but too early to be entirely sure because of where the world is with the accelerating wave. ie: More hospitalisations and ICU – is it only related to peaking infections or does it also show more severe disease?
Lots of debate about masks here. Ok how big is one of those viruses? The other day I was routering and sanding rosewood timber, wearing not a cheap blue blue mask, but an expensive n95 version. At the end of the job the inside of my mask was brown from rosewood dust. Ok, so a corona virus is many many times smaller than rosewood dust. Does that settle the mask debate? Besides that, what’s the point of being triple and now quadruple vaccinated? May as well not be.
It does settle that some idiots still dont know how to wear a mask correctly
it doesn’t stop 100percent no one ever claimed it did, but 70percent fine, 80percent better, 90percent SCORE….straw man arguments are rarely convincing cabbage
your wood dust problem is possibly incorrect fitting,
The winter (and decades) of our discontent as our once good, mostly, little country has been besmirched by lowlifes approved or facilitated by government.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/129225419/abuse-in-care-men-raped-disabled-children-paid-staff-for-access
This is the sort of country we have been. It is so bad and widespread that we can’t ask if the person is exaggerating, it has built up into too big a number of cases. Ordinary people didn’t realise that lying and callous viciousness was continuing. Neglect of right procedures and decent humanity was beyond the governments capacity, and they couldn’t wait to close down the institutions and clear them out before they had to face up to it and spend the millions on improvements and on recompense which would follow the revelations of cruelty.
No wonder we are anxious that a Childrens Commissioner be appointed. How can we stop the dregs of society being employed to look after the vulnerable and the inmates being prostituted if there isn’t surveillance. Whistleblowers could not afford to harm their own standing and retaliation that would follow reporting the disgrace and they wouldn’t be believed and their names would have been blackened and their families attacked verbally and perhaps physically.
We must have a Childrens Commissioner and the government should not be hiding behind the supposedly caring nature of Carmel Sepuloni’s cultural and religious background, virtually forcing her to bear the brunt of the bad vibes from the past bad behaviour, and the almost assured ones from the future, if she doesn’t go firmly forward to ensure a person of strength and stature morally is not appointed to oversee future care for children and parents. People need help and respect the government and they should be able so to do!
How can we remove the veneer of 100% Pure and clean us out to an acceptable level and pledge more honesty and no more ignoring festering social conditions. We at present are a mendacious disgrace and those of us who realise it have got to do something definite beyond giving to charity when our heartstrings are pulled but ignoring the base of the iceberg. The broad mass of citizens with money apparently won’t commit to caring for people who don’t match up to visions of The Truman Show type, and have a great capacity to be self-absorbed and acquisitive.