St Johns spite towards unvaccinated highlights need to heal rather than hate
Paramedic sacked over jab continued to be face of St John campaigns
The St John ambulance service sacked a paramedic for refusing to get vaccinated during the Covid-19 pandemic – but then continued to use him in its campaigns and on its website.
This ongoing group punishment when Covid is no longer the existential threat it once was will only sow a bitter harvest.
If he was good enough to tick identity boxes for their promotional advertising, he’s good enough simply for being hesitant but fully vaccinated for other diseases.
Surely there is a way to find a work around on these issues now we have such high vaccination rates?
We all have friends who went down the rabbit hole and who never came back, for them the sense of ostracisation inside their own home country has become a toxic abusive relationship they can’t leave, but many were simply kiwis who for one reason or another didn’t decide to take the vaccine.
For some it was a medical reason they couldn’t take the vaccine.
For some it was a matter of principle.
For some they were frightened by misinformation and others read the information differently.
No one should be forced to take any medicine they don’t want, and any State that holds down an individual and forces medicine into them is not a State anyone wants to defend, but employment mandates aimed at stopping the spread of a novel virus were the best decision in the face of a real time pandemic.
We should have made it easier for those who refused the vaccine to access welfare and return to their jobs once vaccination numbers reached a high enough level to suppress outbreaks.
We ended up in conflict with them and that conflict has damaged those impacted by it beyond repair.
I know family who have cut each other off over it, I know friendships that will never be healed over this.
The anti-vaxxers are still clinging to media echo bunkers and holding up any cherry picked science that suddenly proves them right, is a desperate act of keeping the debate going as if it hadn’t already been settled.
And when I say settled, I mean settled.
It was the right thing to push for a mass pubic vaccination program and remove those from employment where they might have spread it, yes there will always be a small group who refuse, but everyone else needed to comply to ensure the virus was stopped.
The 5% might hate us for that, but the other 95% will thank us.
Whatever the reason to not get vaccinated, you are still New Zealanders, you are still our brothers and sisters, you are still us.
The need to find a way to rebuild bridges with the 5% of our population who feel perpetually aggrieved by what happened is a challenge when there is so much anger and fear.
But we are going to have to try or else that aggrieved 5% will turn into something more toxic.
Give this ambulance paramedic a way back.
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I still see people driving around by themselves wearing a mask. One hell of a rabbit hole. Pray for them.
Whilst out in the fresh air too. It’s a bizarre sight, that’s for sure!
I think you’ll find there are reasons they are doing that you haven’t thought of. They aren’t doing it because they are literally afraid of catching the virus by themselves in their cars. Either they have just had someone with them and therefore why would they take off their mask immediately, or they are skipping from one place to the next and it’s less hassle to keep the mask on than take it off and reset it. There is a correct way to set a mask, and often people like to check it in a mirror. Sometimes it’s easier to get set up before you get to your destination. For example, I went to get a WOF the other day and wanted to be masked when I went into the office. I know when I get there I’m immediately in the queue and have to hand the car over to the dude. I can’t be faffing about getting my mask set up, or checking in the mirror that it’s properly set(there is a big difference between a properly set n95 mask and one just slapped on). If you’re not into wearing a mask then of course this seems like an unnecessary fuss, but for those of us that do there are reasons.
Nicko Nice, Also, the busy conjunction at an ear, where mask, spectacles, earrings, and sometimes hats all converge, can require mirror- assisted masking up prior to stepping out anywhere. There’s also an art in positioning masks and spectacles so that the latter don’t get misted, while losing an earring, or just getting one tangled up, can be a micro catastrophe.
It’s also quite good practice for anybody contemplating a future career as a highwayman or a great train robber in the event of our once great island-length train services returning, and our roads not clogged by dirty great logging trucks, petrol tankers, and tiny little Asian ladies barely able to see above the top of steering wheels driving like a Sunday afternoon.
Some people are extremely vulnerable to infections, ill or symptomatic, and wear a mask to protect others.
Masks indicate two things–intelligence and empathy–rather different qualities compared to tinfoil hat anti 5Gers and Sovereign Citizens.
Tiger Mountain, that’s the most intelligent comment in this thread.
A guy visits my work place. He seems to have contracted a cold flu that he is taking sometime to recover from. He wears the mask out of politeness not to infect others. Thanks bro.
Ethan Woke I’m jabbed, but I wear a mask on public transport, and in peopled places like shopping precincts. Recovering from long covid, I hope, and was not as badly affected as other whanau were, but I would refer not to get re- infected, as I’m need now and then to do stuff.
Some of us are immunocompromised and a: Dont want Covid (And with a mask on you do lower your viral load ie: it stops some of the particles, not all and because your dose is lower you start with a lower viral load so hopefully get less sick) and have discovered thanks to Covid, how much nicer life is not getting colds that take 4 – 6 weeks to recover from and other minor vexing illnesses which can be pretty unpleasant when you are immunocompromised.
Sloppy or arrogant branding. Swapping a photo or reprinting a revised job is not that hard!
I know a Northland Power Company that used a staff member with a facial tattoo–Tā moko–in their publicity and on the cover of their in-house magazine to illustrate how inclusive they were or something. But, they treated the guy badly when he had an illness that took him off front line duty through no fault of his own, and some of the managers turned out to be racist out in the field with others that had tattoos.
With the non vaccinated, some have pulled their heads in, and others have not. Hell will freeze over before some will accept them back. In work places they claimed it was their right to not be vaccinated, well it was other workers right to have an as safe as possible work environment. And under the Health and Safety at Work Act (2015) it is the Employers responsibility to ensure that–a lot don’t of course, but that is the legislation.
https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/managing-health-and-safety/getting-started/understanding-the-law/primary-duty-of-care/
It is individual really as to building bridges, in my region strident anti vaxxers tended to be anti 5G and Sovereign Citizen supporters already, so not much will change.
The anti- vaxxers I see online are generally into all the WEF, Trump was robbed stuff as well, so won’t be shifted. But others did have genuine concerns that weren’t properly addressed in the rush. If St John’s were sacking their PR face, they should have replaced him.
I’m not anti vax – I’m triple vaxed in fact but it’s not scientific to look at vaccination as black and white like this.
It became clear fairly quickly that the vaccine was poor at preventing transmission and infection but appeared to reduce severity of illness quite well. This also coincided with a reduction in severity of illness when Omicron became dominant.
At that point (quite early on) it was not reasonable to force people to vaccinate to protect others. Because it wasn’t.
The trouble was that just as there was a core of people erroneously believing all vaccines are bad, there are people who believe all vaccines prevent transmission of disease.
The social cost to over reaching with the mandates will be born for years to come with real pain for people pushed from work and reduced vaccination rates for other diseases where the vaccine does protect very well (eg measles).
Destroying trust in government for short term benefit was dumb.
100% keep calm
Anti vax are filth.
Spoken like a true bigot millsy.
I might not agree with them but that doesn’t make them filth.
There is little we seem to agree on but on this matter well said Millsy
@KCC Good summary, the legacy is unnecessary government overreach. It was understandable with the alpha strain and early on when it was unclear what covid was. It would be completely understandable in a future pandemic that was say, as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as Ebola.
However by the time Omicron was the dominant strain and well characterised, there was strong evidence for the vaccine’s short lived efficacy and marginal reduction of transmission. Individual risk factors such as age and underlying conditions (diabetes, obesity, hypertension age etc) were well understood as was efficacy of natural immunity.
In this situation there was a good case for vaccination of high risk groups, in alignment with the Great Barrington protocol (much maligned yet since quietly adopted by most western countries), but not of the general population nor for mandates in many if not all cases.
Over the last couple of years narratives have shifted from natural origin towards lab leak. Efficiency shifted from highly effective and the way out of the pandemic, to marginal at preventing transmission and providing relatively short lived protection. Assertions that were once politically and socially taboo are now widely accepted.
So one should be circumspect given the accumulating body of evidence for side effects, particularly from Germany and Japan who are actually doing pathological studies (actual science). Strangely this is not widely reported in the anglosphere. Claims like “the science is settled” could seem premature in a few years time when it is no longer taboo to report this. Australia’s own TGA report from 2021 documents a bewildering number of unknowns from Pfizer’s data yet the licensing went ahead and the rollout was stamped as “safe and effective”
To take a single example, The TGA report states that there was no data for the distribution and longevity (degradation) of vaccine mRNA meaning no data on how long it lasts in the body or where it goes.
What has since been discovered is:
– The mRNA vaccines do not provide a measured antigen dose. Different individuals produce widely varying amounts of spike protein antigen from the same mRNA dose (spike protein antigen provokes the immune response).
– The mRNA does not always disappear in hours or days as some media claimed. It has been found in the body up to 28 days after vaccination.
– The immune response to the spike protein can cause inflammatory conditions. This should be localised to the intramuscular injection site of the shoulder and can cause soreness which is common and not a concern. Instead the vaccine’s lipid nanoparticles and spike protein is frequently found systemically, that is throughout the entire body in all major organs where inflammatory conditions are not fine. This is not from inadvertent intravascular injection and is in the absence of other covid antigens so not from the virus itself.
That’s one single example arising from sloppy regulation and lack of transparency. There are many more, this story has a long way to play out.
The failure to account for different and changing risk profiles, an authoritarian one size fits all policy, sloppy regulation and narratives that have not stood the test of time are far bigger factors in the loss of confidence in institutions, media and undeservedly in vaccines generally.
mRNA vaccines (I have 3) are a completely different technology and should not be evaluated alongside other vaccines (I have all the usual ones and a few extra for travel). They are more correctly described as gene therapy but have have been conflated providing the biggest boost for the anti-vax movement since discredited links to autism. A loss of trust and confidence and a rise in measles and hooping cough and other preventable diseases is entirely predictable.
All this doesn’t touch on the impacts for mental health, child development, social polarisation and other intangible consequences of covid policy and the media environment. This most severely effects young especially children who, excepting those with underlying conditions, were in the least danger from covid itself. Another story that has a long way to play out.
Karen’s and Neils on tik tok lives matter too!!! 😀 😀 😀
The anti- vaxxers I see online are generally into all the WEF, Trump was robbed stuff as well, so won’t be shifted. But others did have genuine concerns that weren’t properly addressed in the rush. If St John’s were sacking their PR face, they should have replaced him.
I wonder how many people know of the effect that the Covid-19 pandemic had on various charities, their overseers, managers, other employees, and volunteers. It is to the extent, even here in New Zealand, where roughly half of them lost significant numbers of staff after the lockdowns and the bulk of those still are spiraling downwards due to cuts in government funding. We then are encouraged to listen to so-called experts who state that wealth should not be redistributed but managed in such a way so that the least amount of money is able to be spent on social programs. What nonsense! The need for social housing, food grants, and many other forms of assistance in our communities is at an all-time high!!!
Some of us are immunocompromised and a: Dont want Covid (And with a mask on you do lower your viral load ie: it stops some of the particles, not all and because your dose is lower you start with a lower viral load so hopefully get less sick) and have discovered thanks to Covid, how much nicer life is not getting colds that take 4 – 6 weeks to recover from and other minor vexing illnesses which can be pretty unpleasant when you are immunocompromised.
“It was the right thing to push for a mass pubic vaccination program”
No wonder there was mass resistance. I wouldn’t want to be jabbed there either!
It is outrageous that this man cannot get a job with St Johns, a good worker who had worked for them for years. The real problem was ‘THE MANDATE’ should never have happened.
All he needed to do was get vaccinated. If you hate vaccines, them you shouldnt be working as a paramedics. It simply means you hate modern medicine