Bloomfield targeting 90% vaccination rate for "all groups"; Another 26,125 Māori in Auckland need to be vaccinated to get to 90% there; That's 14 more 'Super Saturdays' worth
Bernard there is no way the “loonies “ should hold back reopening, ensuring disadvantaged communities are given every opportunity to vaccinate, fair enough, but the anti vaxers are something else.
Just had my anti vax sister tell me that a doctor in Ireland is having to treat vaccinated people with unusual cancers, which he can’t report in mainstream media because it is so controlled, these lunatics have a serious mental health issue which is not going to be resolved with a 100 vaxathons.
Thanks Tony. I understand that totally. My level of grumpiness with anti-vaxxers is off the chart. I had to hold back from rage tweeting on Saturday on seeing the thousands protesting at Auckland's domain. But I also agree with Ashley Bloomfield that the majority of non-vaxxers are either hesitant, or just don't have access. A lot of us, and I include myself, often do things on the spur of the moment or because it's easy and there and all my mates are doing it. I think the hard core anti-vaxx brigade are less than 100k. That leaves room to get to 90%. I think we should spend that time. Apart from anything, it may force a bunch of people to get involved to convince the hesitant to get on board.
I didn't write above, but I think that includes being much more aggressive and focused on the vaccination drives, the vaccination mandates and the vaccination certificates. It beggars belief that the buses were only sent out a few weeks ago, that we still don't have certificates, that we don't have widely available fast tests, and that NOTHING has been done to prevent Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and TikTok from weaponising and hyper-spreading the anti-vaxx message through their algorithms prioritising engagement over public health. I'm no fan of the Govt on this, particularly this year.
But Aotearoa-NZ has prioritised the majority over the minority for 200 years, and it has hurt us all. We should reach back fast and hard so we can all open up safely as soon as possible. But I can't see that being right now. Welcome all your thoughts.
Fair comment Bernard, I was just expressing my exasperation at being harangued.
I absolutely do not want to see what happened with the Maori death rate (10x the European death rate) from the 1918 pandemic replicated today.
Given that the government was very aware of previous pandemic experience not prioritizing Maori from the beginning of the vaccination drive was a serious error of judgement, they let themselves be guided by a political aversion to the racist pushback on any supposedly special treatment for Maori.
We saw something similar under the Clark Labour government’s response to the foreshore and seabed debate, which caused lasting bitterness from the Maori community.
FYI to paying subscribers. This one has wide public interest and I'd like to open it up to all. But I welcome your views. It's yours. Your call. Just hit the like button or comment here. If I get more than 10% of subscribers saying open it up, I will. And then you can all share it. cheers
People were sold on lockdowns because the metric that mattered was deaths. Data shows those over 65 who are Maori and Pasifika are over 85%- 90% jabbed. There is no social licence to continue lockdowns to protect a 22 year old who refuses to get vaxxed from long covid. It will be awful for race relations dragging on lockdowns into Christmas and beyond.
Appreciate the knock on effects with the vaxxed having their own medical treatment disrupted but so be it.
NSW shows that when you give people a target, people get vaxxed quicker. Seymour is right 1 Dec freedom day should be the headline from today’s 4pm - Internal and external borders gone.
I think there is a bit of inner conflict going on here between the urge to have an influence on the wider discussion on the one hand, and to earn a living on the other. Perhaps decide ahead of time that some certain percentage of newsletters will be PSA's (put it to the vote though) and stick to that. Otherwise in the future go to a voluntary contribution system.
Thanks John. Yep. You've nailed the conundrum. I appreciate the feedback. I've penciled in my head one of the five Monday to Friday should be open. Welcome feedback on that.
Bernard, Jim Mora's Sunday Morning yesterday had a very good interview with Dr Will Rush who is an Emergency Medicine consultant dealing with the current continuing influx of Covid19 patients in a London Hospital. He forecasts a grim picture of what will happen to the NZ health system if we open up too early based on what is happening today in the UK, e.g. in Wales it takes 30 minutes to get through to a 999 (=111) operator to request an ambulance
"That's (a return to level four) something that has been proposed, not just by Dr Jansen but by others. It's something we've actively considered and importantly I've asked for advice from my team, but also from the public health teams on the ground in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and that's informed our advice to the Prime Minister. Cabinet will be considering that this afternoon and the Prime Minister will be making announcements later in the day."
It seems fair to assume at this point that if they were to go with a 'circuit-breaker' it would be with the goal of scaling back community transmission to buy more time to vaccinate, rather than to attempt full elimination again, right?
Thanks Bernard. I thought the recent research had shown that Long Covid in young people wasn't actually that common (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58410584) and so I would be interested in how we get from 50k young Māori at risk of getting COVID to 'tens of thousands of young Māori potentially facing long covid'.
It's really hard sitting in Auckland, double vaccinated, and hearing we need to wait for the rest of NZ to get their rates us before we can see our families again. My husband missed his mum's funeral because of this. It's just too cruel to even imagine and this sort of thing is happening every day.
Why not put all of NZ back into level three and open the internal border? Surely that would encourage some of those sitting on the fence in the rest of NZ to get out and get vaccinated. At the movement the consequence for those choosing not getting vaccinated is almost nothing because Aucklanders are stuck holding the fort for the rest of NZ.
Fair points Ashleigh, although opening the internal borders would see hundreds of thousands flushing in and out of Auckland weekly. It would spread fast.
I sympathise with the "right thing to do" being to protect all sectors of the community however that is political suicide as the upside in terms of L1 lack of restrictions to carrot the impacted populations to comply just doesn't exist. Unfortunately the southern suburbs will likely have 3-5 weeks (the double dose date from Super Saturday) and a pile of cash for outreach and thats it before D Day.
Being the first Prime Minister in history to cancel Christmas is not something I think the PM will shy away from on principle, however how much weight the caucus can throw around given the differing emphasis from Hipkins and Robertson at the podium last week is an unknown question.
The key takeaway from the presser at 4pm (and one I hope a journalist will push to clarify) is how long the Auckland border can remain. If its publicly signalled thats going down for Christmas this is likely to be the scare that the wait and sees in the rest of NZ need to get Vaxxed.
Hi Bernard. I feel that the time is coming when the government not only will but has to open it up. If anyone wasn't aware about the importance of vaccination surely last Saturday would have informed virtually all the waverers, so if the government doesn't do it now it never will. There needs to be a minimum of 3 weeks for those who have just had their first jab (perhaps a second super-Saturday for that?) and then a couple of weeks after that to allow it to work (according to the Health Department) before opening up at the beginning of December.
Incidentally, for most vaccines (and there doesn't appear to be anything to the contrary regarding Covid vaccine), a person vaccinated with just one dose will get a temporary but reasonable resistance to infection two weeks after that event that wears off after a few weeks/months, and then a secure protection 3 or 4 days after their second jab.
Perhaps the Govt needs to say we are opening up at X point and make sure the access to the jab isn’t a issue. I believe in personal responsibility which I’m struggling to believe is a solely a right wing view. My staunch Labour supporting relatives are always going on about people getting off their arses 😀
Bernard I agree with you that the government should wait until 90 percent of Māori are vaccinated. We must do this to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The government needs to immediately fund any Māori trust or organisation that can reach the missing cohorts in the Māori population. I doubt that any self respecting 22 year old was sitting around on Saturday watching the Vaxathon. No wonder the number of first doses was depressingly low. This last push should be designed by Māori and for Māori.
Time to deliver on these words: it will not be an equitable health outcome for Māori if we give up now. I can already see the Waitangi Tribunal claims rolling in.
P.S. I live in Auckland and lockdown has hammered my business. Despite all this, I still want to wait for 90 percent for all.
It’s interesting to note that while Seymour said we should open up the borders and don’t worry about those that haven’t been vaccinated he didn’t answer in his interview with Jack Tane what would be an acceptable figure for Kiwis to die from Covid-19 ? I also think he knows that those people who are not vaccinated wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
We saw on TV people selfishly attending a party in breach of the restrictions so in my view if they get Covid-19 they should be placed in a secure place and wait for hospital treatment based on the a MRI lottery system. As they say you need to be cruel to be kind.
Before anyone entertains the idea of return to a level 4 / circuit breaker lockdown there needs to be a way to motivate higher compliance amongst those spreading. Otherwise it won’t make any difference based on where and how cases are spreading.
In terms of rates of vaccination I would appreciate more precision about the ages that are unvaccinated. The over 50’s are well vaccinated in Maori and Pacifica, and isn’t that where the danger is?
With the imminent abandonment of the elimination policy for Covid we are going to see greater numbers of Covid infected. And here the government is going to have to make a hard decision: – do we give up on much of the hospital system’s core business of health care for the day-to-day health needs of New Zealanders to give priority to Covid sufferers, or does Covid get moved to the side and be handled apart from the rest of the health system. In days of yore leprosy sufferers were sent to Quail Island. Now I’m not advocating those in Canterbury with Covid be sent to Quail Island; rather that tents in the hospital’s car park be where they go. See overseas footage; that’s what they did.
These tents would provide a secure area for the treatment of Covid without risking its spread to other hospital patients (that’s what the surrounding razor wire fencing will be for). And the Minister’s touted surge capacity of ICU units would also go into a tent. This saves the existing inadequate number of hospital beds and ICU units for the other day-to-day health issues that require them.
On the basis that we do away with MIQ for double-vaccinated and negative test travellers, and that milked cases all recover at home, then I would repurpose the current MIQ facilities into Covid hospitals with basic supplies - oxygen, painkillers, whatever simple treatments can be provided. I also like the idea of one hospital per region being dedicated to Covid and the others maintain the ‘business as usual’ services. This would create a balance in the scarcity so that when Covid cases start to pile up they don’t jostle quite so directly with all the other services.
Of course you would have to do a few transfers here and there, but then at least anti-vaxxers would see the supply challenge more acutely.
I like your idea, and it has an added advantage that a separate facility may enable DHB's to have dedicated staff rather than the current situation where staff within a hospital move back and forth increasing the chances of cross infection.
Of course, where all these medical staff are going to come from remains unresolved. Has the government put a call out for more people to take up the nursing profession? Or will they take the cop-out approach and just tweak the immigration rules to import who we need?
Health officials have also confirmed that a staff member at Remuera Gardens retirement village in Auckland has tested positive for Covid-19. They were at work while infectious. “Public health staff are confident the risk of infection is low but, as a precaution, testing is being arranged for all staff and residents,” said the ministry. “Both staff and residents at the village have very high vaccination rates.”
Back in the first wave we had a handful dead in this sort of situation. With Delta it could have been dozens. Thankfully it won't be, because the elderly in rest homes have been vaccinated.
We should avoid selecting by skin colour at all costs. That would be a terrible road to go down. Much better in the area of health to target health / age related demographics.
Vacines are good, but mandates are not. If you force medical procedures economically or otherwise you're opening a bigger can of worms than the pandemic already is.
Bernard there is no way the “loonies “ should hold back reopening, ensuring disadvantaged communities are given every opportunity to vaccinate, fair enough, but the anti vaxers are something else.
Just had my anti vax sister tell me that a doctor in Ireland is having to treat vaccinated people with unusual cancers, which he can’t report in mainstream media because it is so controlled, these lunatics have a serious mental health issue which is not going to be resolved with a 100 vaxathons.
Thanks Tony. I understand that totally. My level of grumpiness with anti-vaxxers is off the chart. I had to hold back from rage tweeting on Saturday on seeing the thousands protesting at Auckland's domain. But I also agree with Ashley Bloomfield that the majority of non-vaxxers are either hesitant, or just don't have access. A lot of us, and I include myself, often do things on the spur of the moment or because it's easy and there and all my mates are doing it. I think the hard core anti-vaxx brigade are less than 100k. That leaves room to get to 90%. I think we should spend that time. Apart from anything, it may force a bunch of people to get involved to convince the hesitant to get on board.
I didn't write above, but I think that includes being much more aggressive and focused on the vaccination drives, the vaccination mandates and the vaccination certificates. It beggars belief that the buses were only sent out a few weeks ago, that we still don't have certificates, that we don't have widely available fast tests, and that NOTHING has been done to prevent Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and TikTok from weaponising and hyper-spreading the anti-vaxx message through their algorithms prioritising engagement over public health. I'm no fan of the Govt on this, particularly this year.
But Aotearoa-NZ has prioritised the majority over the minority for 200 years, and it has hurt us all. We should reach back fast and hard so we can all open up safely as soon as possible. But I can't see that being right now. Welcome all your thoughts.
Fair comment Bernard, I was just expressing my exasperation at being harangued.
I absolutely do not want to see what happened with the Maori death rate (10x the European death rate) from the 1918 pandemic replicated today.
Given that the government was very aware of previous pandemic experience not prioritizing Maori from the beginning of the vaccination drive was a serious error of judgement, they let themselves be guided by a political aversion to the racist pushback on any supposedly special treatment for Maori.
We saw something similar under the Clark Labour government’s response to the foreshore and seabed debate, which caused lasting bitterness from the Maori community.
FYI to paying subscribers. This one has wide public interest and I'd like to open it up to all. But I welcome your views. It's yours. Your call. Just hit the like button or comment here. If I get more than 10% of subscribers saying open it up, I will. And then you can all share it. cheers
Open it up to all. (The article and the border!)
People were sold on lockdowns because the metric that mattered was deaths. Data shows those over 65 who are Maori and Pasifika are over 85%- 90% jabbed. There is no social licence to continue lockdowns to protect a 22 year old who refuses to get vaxxed from long covid. It will be awful for race relations dragging on lockdowns into Christmas and beyond.
Appreciate the knock on effects with the vaxxed having their own medical treatment disrupted but so be it.
NSW shows that when you give people a target, people get vaxxed quicker. Seymour is right 1 Dec freedom day should be the headline from today’s 4pm - Internal and external borders gone.
Open it up.
Yes, please do.
Its your Substack, if its a way of generating new subscribers go right ahead.....
I think there is a bit of inner conflict going on here between the urge to have an influence on the wider discussion on the one hand, and to earn a living on the other. Perhaps decide ahead of time that some certain percentage of newsletters will be PSA's (put it to the vote though) and stick to that. Otherwise in the future go to a voluntary contribution system.
Thanks John. Yep. You've nailed the conundrum. I appreciate the feedback. I've penciled in my head one of the five Monday to Friday should be open. Welcome feedback on that.
Open it up Bernard I am just enjoying my birthday present of a sub to the Kaka.
Ha! Thanks Tony. I’m glad. This is the reason I chose to do it like this. Glad to start something of a community.
Yes, please open this up to all.
Bernard, Jim Mora's Sunday Morning yesterday had a very good interview with Dr Will Rush who is an Emergency Medicine consultant dealing with the current continuing influx of Covid19 patients in a London Hospital. He forecasts a grim picture of what will happen to the NZ health system if we open up too early based on what is happening today in the UK, e.g. in Wales it takes 30 minutes to get through to a 999 (=111) operator to request an ambulance
Thanks Paul. This is the horrible detail on the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/16/ae-crisis-leaves-patients-waiting-in-ambulances-outside-hospitals-for-11-hours
FYI to all. Just seen this via TVNZ: https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/10/17/level-4-circuit-breaker-being-actively-considered-for-auckland-bloomfield/
"That's (a return to level four) something that has been proposed, not just by Dr Jansen but by others. It's something we've actively considered and importantly I've asked for advice from my team, but also from the public health teams on the ground in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and that's informed our advice to the Prime Minister. Cabinet will be considering that this afternoon and the Prime Minister will be making announcements later in the day."
It seems fair to assume at this point that if they were to go with a 'circuit-breaker' it would be with the goal of scaling back community transmission to buy more time to vaccinate, rather than to attempt full elimination again, right?
Did circuit breakers ever work in the rest of the world?
Thanks Bernard. I thought the recent research had shown that Long Covid in young people wasn't actually that common (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58410584) and so I would be interested in how we get from 50k young Māori at risk of getting COVID to 'tens of thousands of young Māori potentially facing long covid'.
Thanks Nick. There were 305,900 15-39 year old Māori recorded via the 2018 census. Currently about 70% are unvaccinated. Ministry of Health says 10-20% of unvaccinated young people get long covid, so that's 20,000 to 40,000. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/long-covid
Thanks Bernard - I see that at least first dose rates are now at around 50% for 12 to 34 yr olds, so hopefully it continues to improve.
https://twitter.com/d_spiegel/status/1413109728029429766/photo/1
The danger of Covid goes up exponentially with age.
That y axis is log-transformed.
It's really hard sitting in Auckland, double vaccinated, and hearing we need to wait for the rest of NZ to get their rates us before we can see our families again. My husband missed his mum's funeral because of this. It's just too cruel to even imagine and this sort of thing is happening every day.
Why not put all of NZ back into level three and open the internal border? Surely that would encourage some of those sitting on the fence in the rest of NZ to get out and get vaccinated. At the movement the consequence for those choosing not getting vaccinated is almost nothing because Aucklanders are stuck holding the fort for the rest of NZ.
Fair points Ashleigh, although opening the internal borders would see hundreds of thousands flushing in and out of Auckland weekly. It would spread fast.
I agree, Bernard and obviously we don't want that. Just a very difficult time!
Hi Bernard,
I sympathise with the "right thing to do" being to protect all sectors of the community however that is political suicide as the upside in terms of L1 lack of restrictions to carrot the impacted populations to comply just doesn't exist. Unfortunately the southern suburbs will likely have 3-5 weeks (the double dose date from Super Saturday) and a pile of cash for outreach and thats it before D Day.
Being the first Prime Minister in history to cancel Christmas is not something I think the PM will shy away from on principle, however how much weight the caucus can throw around given the differing emphasis from Hipkins and Robertson at the podium last week is an unknown question.
The key takeaway from the presser at 4pm (and one I hope a journalist will push to clarify) is how long the Auckland border can remain. If its publicly signalled thats going down for Christmas this is likely to be the scare that the wait and sees in the rest of NZ need to get Vaxxed.
Cheers,
Thanks Chris. All fair comments. I agree the PM doesn't want to be seen as the Grinch who stole Christmas.
Appreciate you sticking with your gut and having unpopular opinions out loud mate.
Hi Bernard. I feel that the time is coming when the government not only will but has to open it up. If anyone wasn't aware about the importance of vaccination surely last Saturday would have informed virtually all the waverers, so if the government doesn't do it now it never will. There needs to be a minimum of 3 weeks for those who have just had their first jab (perhaps a second super-Saturday for that?) and then a couple of weeks after that to allow it to work (according to the Health Department) before opening up at the beginning of December.
Incidentally, for most vaccines (and there doesn't appear to be anything to the contrary regarding Covid vaccine), a person vaccinated with just one dose will get a temporary but reasonable resistance to infection two weeks after that event that wears off after a few weeks/months, and then a secure protection 3 or 4 days after their second jab.
Perhaps the Govt needs to say we are opening up at X point and make sure the access to the jab isn’t a issue. I believe in personal responsibility which I’m struggling to believe is a solely a right wing view. My staunch Labour supporting relatives are always going on about people getting off their arses 😀
Bernard I agree with you that the government should wait until 90 percent of Māori are vaccinated. We must do this to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The government needs to immediately fund any Māori trust or organisation that can reach the missing cohorts in the Māori population. I doubt that any self respecting 22 year old was sitting around on Saturday watching the Vaxathon. No wonder the number of first doses was depressingly low. This last push should be designed by Māori and for Māori.
Here's what the ministry says about Te Tiriti:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/populations/maori-health/he-korowai-oranga/strengthening-he-korowai-oranga/treaty-waitangi-principles
Time to deliver on these words: it will not be an equitable health outcome for Māori if we give up now. I can already see the Waitangi Tribunal claims rolling in.
P.S. I live in Auckland and lockdown has hammered my business. Despite all this, I still want to wait for 90 percent for all.
Gary
It’s interesting to note that while Seymour said we should open up the borders and don’t worry about those that haven’t been vaccinated he didn’t answer in his interview with Jack Tane what would be an acceptable figure for Kiwis to die from Covid-19 ? I also think he knows that those people who are not vaccinated wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
We saw on TV people selfishly attending a party in breach of the restrictions so in my view if they get Covid-19 they should be placed in a secure place and wait for hospital treatment based on the a MRI lottery system. As they say you need to be cruel to be kind.
Before anyone entertains the idea of return to a level 4 / circuit breaker lockdown there needs to be a way to motivate higher compliance amongst those spreading. Otherwise it won’t make any difference based on where and how cases are spreading.
In terms of rates of vaccination I would appreciate more precision about the ages that are unvaccinated. The over 50’s are well vaccinated in Maori and Pacifica, and isn’t that where the danger is?
With the imminent abandonment of the elimination policy for Covid we are going to see greater numbers of Covid infected. And here the government is going to have to make a hard decision: – do we give up on much of the hospital system’s core business of health care for the day-to-day health needs of New Zealanders to give priority to Covid sufferers, or does Covid get moved to the side and be handled apart from the rest of the health system. In days of yore leprosy sufferers were sent to Quail Island. Now I’m not advocating those in Canterbury with Covid be sent to Quail Island; rather that tents in the hospital’s car park be where they go. See overseas footage; that’s what they did.
These tents would provide a secure area for the treatment of Covid without risking its spread to other hospital patients (that’s what the surrounding razor wire fencing will be for). And the Minister’s touted surge capacity of ICU units would also go into a tent. This saves the existing inadequate number of hospital beds and ICU units for the other day-to-day health issues that require them.
On the basis that we do away with MIQ for double-vaccinated and negative test travellers, and that milked cases all recover at home, then I would repurpose the current MIQ facilities into Covid hospitals with basic supplies - oxygen, painkillers, whatever simple treatments can be provided. I also like the idea of one hospital per region being dedicated to Covid and the others maintain the ‘business as usual’ services. This would create a balance in the scarcity so that when Covid cases start to pile up they don’t jostle quite so directly with all the other services.
Of course you would have to do a few transfers here and there, but then at least anti-vaxxers would see the supply challenge more acutely.
Milked= mild
I like your idea, and it has an added advantage that a separate facility may enable DHB's to have dedicated staff rather than the current situation where staff within a hospital move back and forth increasing the chances of cross infection.
Of course, where all these medical staff are going to come from remains unresolved. Has the government put a call out for more people to take up the nursing profession? Or will they take the cop-out approach and just tweak the immigration rules to import who we need?
From The Spinoff
Health officials have also confirmed that a staff member at Remuera Gardens retirement village in Auckland has tested positive for Covid-19. They were at work while infectious. “Public health staff are confident the risk of infection is low but, as a precaution, testing is being arranged for all staff and residents,” said the ministry. “Both staff and residents at the village have very high vaccination rates.”
Back in the first wave we had a handful dead in this sort of situation. With Delta it could have been dozens. Thankfully it won't be, because the elderly in rest homes have been vaccinated.
Thanks John. Hopefully we can find out if the staff member was vaccinated. I’m at the 4pm presser and will update this with what we find out.
We should avoid selecting by skin colour at all costs. That would be a terrible road to go down. Much better in the area of health to target health / age related demographics.
Vacines are good, but mandates are not. If you force medical procedures economically or otherwise you're opening a bigger can of worms than the pandemic already is.