Chris Hipkins went on a mad rant at yesterday’s briefing about how the government was the sole source of truth. It was quite extraordinary:
But there was also a problem with that exhortation and that was that the claims that Pakuranga College had a student with the Chinese plague, were false.
The one source of truth claim was shot down in flames.
Bloomfield said Mt Albert Grammar, Taeaofou i Puaseisei Preschool, Glamorgan School in Torbay and Auckland’s Southern Cross Campus were closed after confirmed cases were linked to them.
Bloomfield also wrongly said that Pakuranga College was closed and was linked to a new case.
Pakuranga College principal Mike Williams was later told that it does not have a Covid-19 case at the school despite the announcement.
He said the error caused “huge stress in our community” and left him with no confidence in the health system.
“If that’s how their system is, it’s no wonder we’ve got Covid,” he said.
“It doesn’t give you any confidence, does it? Can you have confidence in the Ministry of Health any more? No.”
Williams said he did not know whether Bloomfield confused Pakuranga College with another school or not.
“The Ministry of Health system must be really bad, or he can’t pronounce Maori words properly, I’m not sure,” Williams said.
Williams was in a Zoom meeting when Bloomfield mentioned the college in his 1pm press conference, and his phone and emails “started going off”.
“Even my DPs [deputy principals] were asking, ‘why didn’t you tell us?’ I said I would have if I’d known!”
The Principal has a very good point. This was especially bad after Chris Hipkins went on his mad rant about being the one source of truth.
The week ends badly for the government who are supposedly campaigning on their brilliant plague response.
On what we have seen this week I think they will be praying hard that things improve otherwise their campaign is shot to all hell.
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