Ian Wishart on the Media and Covid

1 Comment

Ian Wishart is asking some good questions at the moment. This is taken from his Facebook page.

Some of my media colleagues don’t like the criticism… but again I have to call them out for leaving key facts out of covid stories.

Late this morning news broke of a “fully vaccinated” person who tested positive in Christchurch after returning from a visit to Auckland.

Initially, media reported the case was fully vaccinated. All good.

But by the 6pm news that detail was missing from stories… and curiously missing from the Ministry of Health media release.

In fact tonight you will be hard-pressed to find any current news stories discussing the vax status.

Why is it relevant? Because the patient is a mother with three children under the age of 11. It’s highly likely she was fully vaxxed less than three months ago.

This scenario of the vaccine wearing off much quicker than the assumed six months is becoming all too common – I pinged Stuff last week for telling the story of a fully vaxxed Auckland man catching covid but failing to mention WHEN he had been fully vaxxed: JUST SIX WEEKS EARLIER!

A thunderstorm always begins with a few spits of rain… and then suddenly there’s a deluge. I think a covid thunderstorm is coming and many who have been vaxxed are going to get a surprise.

The media are constantly running talking points from immunologists and science communicators assuring the public that they will get at least six months protection from the vaccine and really minimize the risk of passing it to others. Clearly the communicators are not up to speed with the latest studies. Even the CDC has admitted this week that the vaccines are not preventing spread of the virus as expected and are not good enough to end the pandemic.

And yet, the Government, the Opposition, business leaders, talkback hosts and the news media are marching in lockstep to promote vaccine passports as the key to freedom. Or is it really a pathway from the frying pan into the fire?

1.6 million Aucklanders, with Delta silently infesting them, are about to get their vax passports and be unleashed on all corners of the country… unaware that the vaccines are not going to prevent them catching covid and spreading it – clearly as early as just six weeks after the jab.

National was right. We ARE going to have a covid Christmas after all.

If there was ever a time for the media to be asking hard questions about the unexpectedly short duration of protection from the vaccine, that time is now.

I really do feel like a spectator in the crowd as the naked emperor rides past to cheers from a crowd who have been let down by news media too timid or uninformed to investigate vaccine efficacy.

Don’t get me wrong…we can’t lock down forever and as I have said before, the vaxxed should be able to avoid the worst outcomes personally (albeit despite my calculations that most of the recent NZ Delta deaths have actually been double jabbed)…. but ironically it’s the vaccinated who are about to seed the biggest explosion of covid that New Zealand has seen yet… and the unvaxxed are going to cop it. Sure, most are unvaxxed by choice, but that just illustrates how surreal this crisis has become.

The bitter irony is that we have just divided the team of five million in the name of promoting a vax passport system that even Blind Freddy can see is going to be a Christmas super spreading disaster… and when school resumes in the new year everyone’s children will become fuel and it’s game on.

I hope I am wrong, but based on the UK, Israel and the USA I am not holding my breath.

The vax will help protect you from acute covid… but it won’t prevent you passing it on when you hug grandma at the bach. If anyone reading this seriously believes their vax passport is proof of immunity I have got last week’s winning lotto ticket for sale.

And finally., just as proof that the Christchurch case was fully vaccinated… here’s this morning’s story.

Memo to news editors: publish ALL relevant facts in every story. Stop forgetting to mention that the vax is wearing off early. Stop forgetting to mention that the double vaxxed are still dying. You want public trust? Tell all sides of the story.

Grant Schofield on the Vaccine Mandates

1 Comment

Taken from Professor Grant Schofield’s Facebook Page. He is Professor of Public Health at AUT University and director of the University’s Human Potential Centre.

This post has taken me too long to get up the guts to write.

You see I’m a Professor in Public Health. One of the most important things in public health is “to do no harm”. Or at least in a more practical sense, have the good by far outweigh the harms you cause with whatever intervention you choose.

This is about vaccine mandates. It’s a complex and emotive issue.

The brutal truth is that there are no harm free choices here. All choices will have some harm.

But, deadlines are coming – here’s our Ministry of Health’s advice under public orders “Any health and disability workers (employed or voluntary, private and public) who fall under these roles must receive their first dose of the vaccine by 11.59pm 15 November 2021. They must receive their second dose by 1 January 2022.”

That’s Monday folks.

I’m not an “anti-vaxxer”. I’m fully vaccinated.

But some people will choose not to follow these orders for various reasons. Some of them may be logical based on the data that there is no protection beyond 200 days, and the data on reductions in transmission are limited, and they are concerned about adverse events.

We all make different decisions given similar data because we are all different and have different ways of weighing risks and benefits. They may see the futility of a public health system which would on current evidence have to boost every 120-150 days to maintain vaccine efficacy. Or maybe they just don’t like being told what to do, or have a more complex theory which may be spurious. Who really knows?

Anyway, the point is that there will always be a group who for whatever reason decides that, in this case, their bodily sovereignty, is sacred to them and they will refuse a public health order like this.

What this means is on Monday kids will turn up to school and their classroom teacher will no longer be there, that their mid-wife will no longer be working, that their doctor is no longer able to practice.

This will cause serious harm. It almost certainly will mean that our already overwhelmed health and education systems will not have the staff to carry out normal duties.

This debate has already caused substantial harm and division in our beautiful country.I believe in the context of the recent Swedish data showing vaccine waning, that it’s now obvious to any thinking person the futility of these mandates.

We can predict that the exact thing we are trying to avoid “overwhelming the health system” is exactly what we are going to do by firing health workers.

What government puts on its own handcuffs on and throws away the key?

This isn’t us.

So sorry I can’t stand by silently and watch this. I have to say something.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to pluck up the courage.

Sorry if this upsets you, but come Monday I know of real teachers, real GPs, real mid-wives, real physios, real people without jobs. Real communities without their beloved teachers and health professionals who are here to care for them. These are my communities, my friends, my school.

These are mostly not lunatic fringe anti-vaxxers. They are people often making their own rationale decision. Yes its different than mine, but it is theirs.

I fear we are choosing more harm than good, and in my field that’s just not acceptable. In fact it’s unethical and immoral.

Please think about what your thoughts are on this matter. It is really an important one for our society right now. Saying nothing when you think there will be more harm than good is complicit in supporting that harm.

Please comment, share, or do whatever you think is right here. Please if you do comment think about what you say and please confront the issues not the person.

Thanks for reading this,

Grant Schofield PhD

Professor of Public Health

*disclaimer – these views are mine and don’t represent those of anyone else, including those who employ me.

Ian Wishart’s Open Letter to The Media

1 Comment

This is why vast numbers of people think the government and health officials are idiots and we in the media are their mentally-challenged handmaid:

“The woman says from the outset the sick family relied on advice from a fragmented Covid-19 health response that allegedly never gave her father a directive to go to hospital, instead offering throat lozenges and paracetamol as treatment.”

The guy died coughing up blood because the “best” advice from officials was suck a lolly.

Where the frick was the advice on steroids, antihistamines, even scientifically proven (on human coronavirus, influenza and herpes) antivirals like Kaloba!? Or even something that at least has immune support like high dose vitamin C and zinc?

If this poor guy had tried ivermectin or hcq to stay alive the media would have smugly laughed at him whilst dutifully publishing a “warning” from Bloomfield and Hipkins reminding the public to “trust the experts”.

What an indictment on politics and health that the best official treatment for covid is a throatie.

Frankly, I have read the ivermectin studies and they’re underwhelming. However, I suspect that even ivermectin is light years ahead of a throat lozenge.

These incompetents at the ministry of health couldn’t run a Bunnings sausage sizzle.

Read More

I wonder…

I wonder. Will the evangelical thought leaders, who have in recent times become so concerned with the health of their brothers and sisters in Christ that they constantly and publically urge and shame them into getting the Covid vaccine, start using the same tactics regarding other health issues? You know, like obesity? And exercise?

Oh no, I guess that would be fat-shaming. Funny how when the propaganda is with them they are so bold. When the narrative is against them, they are like little kittens.

Update – My Letter of Exemption

Update to Original Post

The following was written and scheduled to appear on Sojournal today. Since being written, section 7A of the recent order which allowed for exemptions in a fairly broad way has been revoked. Another day, another law change around here. This government has lost legitimacy.

GUEST POST – Scott Kennedy

I’ve been trying to get an exemption from the current vaccine mandates in order to be able to continue doing the job I love. Exemptions according to the recent law can be given by suitably qualified health practitioners for ‘physical or other needs‘. Unfortunately, many GPs and health practitioners are running scared as governing bodies threaten and attempt to coerce them into refusing to grant exemptions despite the fact that the law clearly allows them to do so. Then we had Chris Hipkins making up law on the fly saying that exemptions that have been granted do not count and that there will be one central exemption process and everyone will need to follow it. Again this is not what the current law requires. Handily for the government, this centralised system comes into effect for health and education workers on the same day they are required to have had their first vaccination. How convenient. I am pushing ahead trying to gain an exemption under the current law anyway. I’ve come up against a few roadblocks thus far, but will continue to seek one. My latest attempt is to write a letter explaining my religious convictions and present this to a health practitioner. Seems a bit strange considering I am more qualified than most health practitioners I know on matters theology, but there you go!

Read More

Freedom!!!!!!!

2 Comments

I was reading a few things recently and came to understand something from a new perspective.

In the current situation sometimes I will hear someone say or imply that people wanting their freedoms are just being selfish. They are just fighting for their own freedoms. But I don’t think this is actually true.

I believe that when someone fights for freedom, whether they know it or not, they are actually fighting for freedom for everyone.

In Ethan’s post “Lessons from the Gulags” there is a very interesting quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity.

You can usually see the impact of the loss of freedom on the oppressed person quite easily. But what’s easy to miss is the impact this has on the oppressor. As Solzhenitsyn states, when you look at the soul, they receive punishment most of all.

In the Guest Post “Vaccine Mandates – A Small Business Perspective” there is a closing quote from Rosa Parks:

I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.

Rosa Parks fought for freedom for herself. She also fought for freedom for black Americans.

But what did she, and others, actually gain?… Freedom for the whole of America.

Rosa may not have intended to include those who oppressed her in the group of “others” she was wanting to be free. But in regard to the “soul” of America, that is exactly what she helped to achieve.