Israel is pressing ahead with its aggressive campaign of offering coronavirus boosters to almost anyone over 12 and says its approach was further vindicated by a U.S. decision to give the shots to older patients or those at higher risk.
Israeli officials credit the booster shot, which has already been delivered to about a third of the population, with helping suppress the country’s latest wave of COVID-19 infections. They say the differing approaches are based on the same realization that the booster is the right way to go, and expect the U.S. and other countries to expand their campaigns in the coming months. …
Most adults had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine by March, causing infection levels to plummet and allowing the government to lift nearly all coronavirus restrictions.
But in June, the highly infectious delta variant began to spread. After studying the matter, experts concluded that the vaccine remained effective against the virus, but that its efficacy waned roughly five months after the second shot.
In late July, Israel began distributing booster shoots to at-risk citizens, including those over 60. Within weeks, it expanded the campaign to the general population.
More than 3 million of Israel’s 9 million citizens have gotten a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine, according to the Health Ministry.
In a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, Israeli experts said that in people who had been vaccinated five months earlier, the booster increased vaccine efficacy tenfold compared with vaccinated patients who didn’t receive it.
The science seems clear that booster shots increase protection dramatically, especially for over 60s. The effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine starts to decrease after five to six months. This is significant for New Zealand as it is around six months ago we started to vaccinate our over 60s. We should now be starting to give them booster shots. Instead we are still a long way off even having a majority of the population had their second shot.
A Mt Roskill resident called 111 three times yesterday morning to report a touch rugby game involving 32 people at Margaret Griffin Reserve, with police confirming they took an “education first approach” advising the group of the level 3 restrictions.
She called 111!!!
Not once, not twice, but three times – on a game of touch rugby.
The Mt Roskill resident described being so angry she was shaking after reporting the touch rugby incident.
Similarly, I am not shy to say that there will be some extremist people present in the Muslim community, and also, there are several conservative people.
But there are many who want to be integrated, who are just like normal day-to-day Kiwis.
Why there are several conservative people present in western societies, why some become extremists, and others become more tolerant and open minded, is very hard to understand.
But one way to comprehend this is by understanding the difference between Islam (faith) and Islamism (ideology, or in other words, the fundamentalist version of islam).
By the end of 19th century, many Muslims were living under European rule, and their power was diminishing.
Turkey and Malaysia went towards secularism and reformism versions of islam. But some Middle Eastern regions went towards Islamism, and the idea that Muslims are lagging behind the west because they are not good Muslims.
In this version, they need to be devoted Muslims and reject the influence of the West in order to gain back glory.
Islamist groups (Islamism inspired) were there before 9/11, but after this incident, the rise of Islamist groups helped shift some Muslims away from their national identities, towards a more exclusive Muslim ummah one.
When some of these migrants with Islamist thinking (Muslim ummah) come to New Zealand and other western countries with preconceived conservative ideas, because they cannot change the society here by preaching or by force, they become even more conservative in their own thoughts.
They will sometimes start doing hardcore rituals with even more passion, they will meet with only other similar mindset and ethnic backgrounds.They will celebrate only their own festivals and become wary of all other thoughts.
Some will just stay in their bubbles. Some of the very conservative ones will get strongly associated with Madrassahs and mosques, thinking that this would be a salvage against all the sins they see in the society, and will save them from hell fire.
These Madrassahs have the potential to become breeding spaces for Islamist thinking where men, women and children go learn hardcore rigid Islamic beliefs. …
Not everyone is like this. There are people who don’t get into the trap of Islamism, or who were just weakly associated with political ideology of islam.
There are people who just accept Islam as personal faith, and to get connected with God. They accept science and logic, admire the west, and want to learn from them.
These people meet and greet and make friendships with all others irrespective of their religion, race or language.
These are the Muslims who become critical thinkers and free thinkers.
They become more moderate, they become more flexible, they become more integrated into society.
They raise questions on their preconceived ideas and learn.
They accept everyone and stop looking at everything from religion’s lens.
These are the people who are not fascinated by the ideas of death and afterlife. Instead, they connect with life itself and with humanity.
There are many of these people in New Zealand society.
An angry backlash has erupted after an all-boys netball team won a state title in Queensland by beating sides made up of female players in the decider.
The Queensland Suns Under-17 team was comprised entirely of boys and won the Under-18s championship in Brisbane this week, beating regional female teams en route to the trophy. …
Netball Queensland has strongly defended the state’s decision to allow an all-boys team to take part in the state netball competition.
“We want to make clear that there is a place for everyone in our sport,” it said in a statement on Thursday.
“We stand by the decision to choose inclusion over exclusion.
I actually played netball when at university. I’m all for men and boys playing netball and all for women and girls playing rugby. No sport should be reserved for one gender.
But that is very different to not having different competitions for men and women or boys and girls. Tennis is an inclusive sport but they don’t have one Wimbledon competition – they have one for men and one for women. If they didn’t, then not even Serena or Venus WIlliams would be there. So would that be inclusive?
You can be both fair and inclusive. It isn’t that hard.
Earlier this year the Villa Education Trust applied for a Year 7 – 13 school, suited to neuro-diverse learners, non-zoned and near a transport hub in Auckland. A report for the Minister was clunked together by senior officials. In it they acknowledged all our support/demand. In it they also acknowledged the remarkable quality of the model/results through the work of staff, students and families in our schools. They then proceeded to tell the Minister to “reject the application without consultation” for a range of, largely non-sensical, reasons.
One of those reasons was the statement by Minister Hipkins that: “there are available supports for all learners in existing State schools“. A second was that a school of 480 (which 76% of NZ schools are at or below) would “not materially add to the network”.
Our parents and supporters have since been fighting to have the decision reviewed – or at the very least a meeting with the Minister (something I have been unable to get in four years – but he was frequently in touch in opposition. Chris – I feel like I have lost a friend!) The Ministry’s initial response was the bullying like attack on a family with an 8 year with autism and ADHD. This was done by a senior official with responsibility for Learning Support (I kid you not), Deidre Alderson, as timeline detailed below.
Two examples from OIA’s (and we have so many more slowly being sucked out of the vortex) highlight how these people are about self-protection and have no idea that they are actually supposed to address issues and fix/improve things.
If people have the temerity to raise an issue … most of the time they don’t reply … but this is how they plan it when they really think they ought to.
This second one is after I wrote to Alderson being absolutely stunned by her actions towards an 8yo. Note; she gets the love and care of Vinny (see below) … the 8yo doesn’t. It may also be of interest that Alderson is a former unionist who spoke out against Charter Schools. Surely someone with that much history about our model/Trust, if they had an ounce of professional integrity, would recuse themselves from any processes and decisions involving the Villa Education Trust.
Below is a timeline around the actions of officials towards and the Martin family. Note that somehow – the person who acted outside of protocol and in such a way that she devastated a family – got to be the one to tell the Minister not to meet with Mrs Martin in another official report.
The Ministry of Education had to apologise for a range of behaviours re schools in Christchurch post quakes. They have had to apologise to Taihape Area School for misappropriating a whole farm! Ironically – the Ministry of Education does not seem to learn.
ps – I am getting great demand and feedback on the all of high-schools data I have been able to process in the last month. Please email if interested.
Timeline and statements:
July 5: Deidre and Vinny Fallon lead the Ministry of Education team in the mediation over the NZHRC carrying forward a complaint about the discrimination against neuro diverse learners. The two parents associated with VET are furious given things said in the meeting … now knowing what Deidre Alderson went on to do in subsequent days against the Martin family.
July 6: VET and associated families in receipt of the DCS rejection letter that contained the statement: “there are available supports for all learners in existing State schools”.
July 6: Jo Martin directly emails Hipkins (CC Holsted/Evans) the information about paying $2,700 per term as a donation per term to provide teacher aiding for her son with autism and ADHD – because there isn’t available supports for him – in his State School.
July 7: 9:03am Deidre Alderson (a Deputy Secretary for Learning Support in the Ministry) contacts the child’s Principal and, among other statements (auditors, don’t contact the families yourself – leave it to the SENOS, etc) demands that they refuse the donations and effectively withdraws the service from the child.
July 7: 5:05 pm. A Ministry of Education representative contacted the Minister’s office regarding the email of 6 July. The Minister throws the official under the bus by noting: “The Ministry of Education does proactively contact my office when I and the Ministry receive the same correspondence as standard practice. [i.e. they should have and they didn’t]. Hipkins has also noted: “the Ministry has acknowledged, and I have passed on to the parent, that it would have been more helpful and would have cleared up some of the confusion around this matter, had they contacted her directly.” And has had to publicly admit that some children do need assistance than the State provides and that donations to assist are fine.
July 9: Alderson and another highly paid bureaucrat, Vinny Fallon, gloat together about the effect her actions had on the Martin family and the bullying of an 8-year-old boy. Alderson even lies in the internal memo by blaming the action on the Minister.
July 16: Hipkins finally reads the email from the parent himself.
As at Stardate 26th of September … still no hint of a meeting with Hipkins.
1. Give Māori and Pacific health providers a financial incentive for every person they get vaccinated in the next six weeks.
2. Give every person aged between 12-29 a $25 voucher of their choice if they get vaccinated before December 1.
3. Allow only vaccinated people into licensed premises (and maybe park the Shot Bro bus outside a few nightclubs as an incentive).
4. Tell New Zealanders when borders will reopen. It might incentivise more people to get jabbed.
5. Stop ruling by fear. Instead, reassure people that living with the virus is possible, as long as you’re vaccinated. Take positive actions like funding Pharmac to invest in therapies proven to help fight the virus, build up our hospital capacity and workforce, use saliva testing for Covid, subsidise home-testing kits for Covid and order booster shots now.
All good ideas. I think giving a date for reopening the borders would definitely lift the vaccination rates.
He also notes that MIQ is inadequate:
MIQ, as our sole quarantine response, is inadequate. Home quarantine should begin immediately.
The South Australian trial already requires those in home MIQ to leave their phone on 24 hours a day and to agree to using face recognition and GPS technology so they can be monitored.
We could throw in the kicker that if you break quarantine you get a $20,000 fine, and time in the clanger.
Additionally, as Act leader David Seymour has been advocating, we need privately-run and purpose-built short-term MIQ facilities for workers and, in time, for tourists.
This is by no means a complete list of what’s possible. It’s simply a few ways to encourage vaccination and to allow New Zealand to rejoin the world that is opening up without us.
And a reminder of the costs of the status quo:
For those who say it’s too hard, or too risky I ask this: one day, when the largest part of the Minister of Finance’s Budget pays only the interest on the debt we are racking up now, and you can’t have the latest cancer drugs, or more police, because New Zealand can’t afford them, what will you think?
Debt attracts interest and interest rates will not remain low.
Key also skewers the current MIQ system:
You also have to ignore the deafening voices of tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are having their citizenship compromised by being stranded overseas. A very few of them manage to get back when public servants in Wellington decide whose plight is desperate enough to be rewarded with a golden ticket to MIQ. How is it that bureaucrats are deciding who gets to come home, while pretending the rest have been on an extended overseas shopping trip so deserve nothing more than being left to the mercy of a lottery?
A lottery is not a public policy. It’s a national embarrassment. Whether you get to see your grandchild, or your dying mother, or your sister’s wedding, depends on whether or not your number comes up. This is a lottery that is gambling with people’s families and futures.
The Government won’t say whether it will change the law to prevent tens of thousands of Kiwis losing the right to vote at the next election.
Currently, New Zealanders who are overseas must have visited the country once within the last three years to be allowed to vote – or once in the last 12 months for non-citizen residents. Those who fall outside that threshold lose the right to vote in that election.
With entry to New Zealand currently restricted by the clogged MIQ system, many New Zealanders overseas will lose the right to vote at the next election, unless the law is changed to be more flexible or New Zealand’s border becomes significantly more open by 2023.
That currently appears unlikely, with the Government only committing to a gradual reopening of the borders, which is unlikely be normal by 2023 – or 2022, when local body elections are scheduled.
I support the current law that allows overseas Kiwis to vote so long as they have been in NZ in the last three years. I don’t think someone who hasn’t been in NZ for say 20 years should get a vote. So the current law is a good balance.
But the Government at the moment is making it almost impossible for overseas Kiwis to come to NZ. They may have to wait 18 months to get a spot in MIQ. So there are NZers wanting to be in NZ, who can’t get here.
In that situation I think a temporary extension of the eligibility criteria so it is anyone who has been here in the last six years is warranted.
However electoral law changes should only proceed with consensus. So key thing is the Government should consult all political parties on the desirability of a change.
Of course Labour may be reluctant to make a change as they could be worried that all those Kiwis trapped in MIQ purgatory, could be hostile to the Government as they have such a broken system for MIQ.
Light fittings and chairs are among the items being saved from within Wellington’s 30-year-old closed central library building because of their heritage value.
Please tell me this is an April Fools joke?
The library – opened in 1991 – has been listed as a Category 1 Historic Place.
No building younger than me should be designated as a historic place. In fact no building younger than the Queen should be.
Desperation is growing for Afghan New Zealanders watching from afar as the Taliban raids homes, families go into hiding, and their calls for help from the Government go unheeded.
More than 15 former interpreters who worked for New Zealand’s Defence Force in Afghanistan stood outside Parliament on Monday, wearing medals and holding signs saying “We served now we need help”, and “Please talk to us for five minutes”.
The interpreters want the Government to move forward on immigration applications for their family members, who remain in Afghanistan. No Government ministers met the group at Parliament on Monday.
This is disgraceful. Ministers should be doing everything they can to get their families out.
A study of Ministry of Health data has shown that Covid19 lockdowns significantly increased mental distress in NZ children.
The study, published in the international Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, shows that attempted suicides in NZ children aged 10-14 years increased from a baseline of 40 per month to a peak of 90 per month following the lockdowns in 2020.
Lead researchers Dr Gerhard Sundborn and Professor Cameron Grant reviewed the last 5 years of monthly counts of hospital diagnoses for children aged 10–14 years from the Ministry of Health, with classification codes for parasuicide (attempted suicide) for all New Zealand. The data included counts from mid-2015 to the end of 2020.
This is a sad reminder that lockdowns take not just an economic toll, but a mental toll.
This is not an argument against the lockdowns. They are what I call a necessary evil. It would have been worse to have thousands dying and hospitals unable to cope. But it is a reminder they do impose a cost, and once everyone eligible has had the chance to be vaccinated, we should lift them.
I’m not surprised by the data. I have found the second lockdown to be much tougher on my mental health than the first one. The way I fight off unhappiness is having things to look forward to, and with lockdowns you can’t be planning or doing activities with the kids – camping, tramping, orienteering, holidays etc. So I’ve really struggled the last few weeks.
Even Level 2 takes an impact (far less than poor Aucklanders in Level 3 or 4 though). I hate wearing a mask. I spend half the time taking my fogged up glasses on and off. I’ve also not realised how important facial contact is to me. At playgrounds I normally interact with other parents and kids by smiling at them as our kids start playing together etc. When you’re wearing a mask, other people can’t see you’re smiling or being friendly, and you tend to have much less interaction.
So let’s hope NZ gets back to Level 1 soon, and everyone who wants to be vaccinated and is eligible gets both shots, so we can have some return to normalcy.
Former Labour Party minister Taito Phillip Field, the first MP of Pacific Island descent, has died.
Field, 68, died on Thursday morning at Auckland Hospital, Stuff has confirmed.
The Samoan-born MP served as Minister of State and as associate minister of justice, pacific island affairs, and social development, under the Helen Clark Labour Government.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday afternoon said “everyone will be familiar with the latter part of his political career”.
“But, ultimately today, his family have lost him, and the first Pacific MP in New Zealand, and so I do want to acknowledge that.”
Field was born in Apia, Samoa, in 1952 and came to New Zealand at 7 years old. His biography published by Parliament said he was married and had two children.
He was educated at Tawa College, in Wellington, and at Victoria University, before working at Treasury and as a union official.
I didn’t know he once worked at Treasury.
At the time of his passing, I reflect again on the maxim that you shouldn’t judge someone by the worst thing they ever did, but by their overall contribution over time. My condolences to his family and friends.
Eight people have been arrested with strong links to the Mongrel Mob gang on suspicion of supplying methamphetamine in a town just north of Hawkes Bay.
A six-week long investigation run by the Eastern District Police Organised Crime Unit searched eight properties in Wairoa.
The group includes four women, aged between 29 and 42 and four men aged between 30 and 60.
This is of course the same Mongrel Mob that the Government gave $2.75 million to, to run drug rehabilitation courses.
The sick joke gets sicker.
No doubt the eight people arrested will all go on the Mongrel Mob rehabilitation course, pass it with flying colours, and use it to argue for a reduced sentence from the Judge.
Zhang’s body was discovered about 4.30pm in an area of bush off a walkway on Ōwairaka/Mt Albert, where she would often walk. …
Residents were devastated at the news of Zhang’s death. Many had taken part in a suburb-wide search for the woman, who had Down syndrome and was visually impaired.
Floral tributes have been laid at the top of Summit Rd, Owairaka domain.
Mt Albert resident Aysha Blanchard said while the suburb isn’t a stranger to crimes, she’s never seen anything happen like this.
“It’s very clear that [Zhang] was a prominent and well-known member of our community,” said Blanchard.
All homicides are terrible, and leave behind devastated families and friends.
But this particular homicide is a degree of awfulness that is hard to comprehend as Zhang was so vulnerable. The person who did this to her must be lacking in all humanity.
Since news of the death broke, I have been alternating between rage and despair. I just can’t comprehend how someone can do this.
If the person charged is found guilty, they should be sentenced to life without parole. Quite simply they are just pure evil.
Covid-19 modeller Rodney Jones, who has also provided modelling and advice to the Government, said real-world experience in countries with reasonably high vaccination rates showed there was unlikely to be that many deaths and the Government “didn’t need to scare New Zealanders into getting vaccinated”.
The Government released the modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini on Thursday showing how much various vaccination rates would protect New Zealand.
It suggested that even with a vaccination rate of 80 per cent of those aged 5 or over – 75 per cent of the whole country – New Zealand could still see close to 7000 deaths a year from Covid-19, and an over-loaded healthcare system.
Jones said this didn’t pass the “plausibility test” when compared to real-world results in other countries.
“That is 140 deaths a week. Singapore has had 11 deaths with just under 80 per cent vaccinated over the last month,” Jones said. (Singapore has a similar population to New Zealand.)
So the model says 550 people a month will die, while actual data from Singapore is 11 people a month are dying.
“If you’re going to use this model in this way it should be peer-reviewed by global experts.”
So the PM promoted a model that was not peer-reviewed. Why? To scare us all?
Jones said the country didn’t need to be scared into getting vaccinated with talk of high death tolls.
“We need a positive story. The evidence is that negative takes and the use of fear does not get people vaccinated,” Jones said.
I am 100% pro vaccination. I think we should use masses of carrots to get people vaccinated. But, I suspect like many, my first response to reading the claim of 7,000 deaths a year even at 80% vaccination rates was to get pissed off.
It’s a bit like the climate alarmists. I’ll respect people who say climate change is a serious problem and that sea levels may rise up to 80 cm by 2100. But when alarmists come along and start talking 600 cm rises, then I tune out. Alarmism backfires.
The government on Thursday announced a review covering three of his 10 years in New Zealand – the second period he spent in custody and since he was released.
It will look at the actions of police, Corrections and the SIS in their dealings with Samsudeen and its primary focus is the period leading up to his release in July and the seven weeks before the attack.
“The biggest piece of the jigsaw was completely left out,” said opposition immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford. “Immigration really is the key to finding out why this guy was still in New Zealand and why he wasn’t deported. And that is a big bit that’s missing.
It’s ridiculous to have an inquiry into just three of the agencies involved. There should be a full Commission of Inquiry headed by a retired judge to look into the terrorist attack.
As New Zealand faced the brunt of a global pandemic, the Government spent $26,000 commissioning a novel about the collapse of democracy in an association of alpaca breeders.
Actually that was one of their better grants. We own some alpacas so are quite interested in reading the novel, as I understand it is partially based on real events!
As people lost jobs in droves, almost $50,000 was given to the Comedy Trust to examine what changes need to be made to better support a more diverse and sustainable comedy industry.I’m not making this up.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Government has spent $57 billion on New Zealand’s economic recovery.
A lot of this money has been well spent – the wage subsidy scheme prevented what would have likely been an economic collapse.
But amongst the important, well-targeted spending is a smorgasbord of abject waste.
Billions and billions of dollars have been spent on projects that don’t come close to a semblance of sensible spending, let alone meeting the threshold for Covid Recovery.
Take the $18,000 for writing poetry that “explores indigeneity and love in the time of climate change,” for example.
It’s easy to take aim at the Creative NZ funding and to poke holes in what the Government’s decided to fund through its $55m “public interest journalism” fund.
And yes, although $21,800 for the writing music that forms a song-cycle from the suburban labyrinth is a relatively small amount when considering the Government’s mammoth budget, other larger projects are harder to ignore.
Some $26.7 million was spent on cameras on fishing boats, in the name of Covid recovery.
There was also $200m for the construction of a new building at the University of Auckland.
And a whopping $1.22 billion was spent on the jobs for nature scheme – as a little perspective, that’s enough to buy roughly 1000 houses in Auckland.
Are they important projects? Maybe. Should they have been the Government’s focus in these unprecedented times? Absolutely not.
Think if that money had instead been spent on doubling or tripling ICU capacity. Or getting more vaccine doses quicker. Or building more MIQ facilities.
Cabinet’s decided to allocate a further $7 billion to the Covid-19 Recovery Fund.
When added to the $3b that’s left in that fund, ministers have a tidy $10b extra to spend.
Although it’s a sixth the size of the overall Covid fund, it’s not an insignificant amount of money.
It needs to be spent properly, with New Zealand’s health care system at its focus.
That’s more hospital beds – not funding the instrumental arrangement of 10 songs for children, from ideas given by children.
More nurses – not paying for seven large domes in fiberglass for exhibition as exoplanets using satellite imagery.
More money for New Zealand’s hospitals – not funding for obscure and wasteful projects in the name of the ‘Covid Recovery’.
A man who ran over a child twice while more than four times the drink-drive limit will be on home detention despite Corrections and a judge having concerns about his ability to comply.
So why risk him driving over more children?
He’s a recidivist. How about you protect the community from him.
Edwards, 56, of Feilding, is an alcoholic with a long history of alcohol-fuelled offending, including using a firearm while drunk.
Definitely a candidate for prison.
He drove his car over a 7-year-old boy while reversing in a driveway.
Despite people at the property calling out to him, he again reversed over the boy, who suffered a broken shoulder.
He gave a reading of 1151 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. The legal limit is 250mcg.
On Tuesday last week the Herald had me as a guest on their “On the tiles” podcast where we discussed events of the week such as the in principle move to Level 3 for Auckland. The podcast is here for those interested.
Energy Minister Megan Woods has accepted a recommendation made in 2019 by the Electricity Price Review to phase out the requirement for power companies to offer “low fixed charge” electricity tariffs.
Power companies will be able to levy several hundred million dollars a year more in fixed charges as a result of the change.
But the Government expects households will see their variable power prices drop as their daily fixed charges rise, leaving ‘winners and losers’ but consumers no worse off on aggregate.
The low fixed charge tariffs are one of those things that sounded okay in principle, but actually caused more harm than good in practice.
But the Electricity Price Review concluded they were unfair, arguing the people who benefited from them most were in effect being subsidised by customers who used more power – including large families who might be living in poverty in poorly insulated homes.
Low user tariff caps were originally introduced by the Labour government in 2004 with the support of the Greens as a way to encourage electricity conservation.
But Woods said phasing them out would create a “fairer playing field” for consumers and encourage people to switch to electric vehicles and use heat pumps rather than gas to heat their homes.
Basically larger poorer families were subsidising smaller families.
Good to see the Government getting rid of this market distortion.
