Jacinda Ardern deflected when asked about the difficulty of filling mass vaccination slots in South Auckland, and Dr Nikki Turner, director of the Immunization Advisory Centre, on the AM show did the same, refusing to answer Bridge’s question “Should we be worried that 85% of Group 3 is not vaccinated?”
“I think the focus for us now is to just get out and vaccinate as fast as we can, and as safely as we can as many people as possible. So, we need to continue to vaccinate Group 3 alongside broadening… the difference now is we have good supply of vaccine and we should continue to have good supply of vaccine.”
Newshub
Finally, we have a good supply of vaccines but still can’t achieve timely distribution. Why?
Ardern’s loyal media support her Covid-19 narrative to “lock down until we are vaccinated” approach despite the Californian experience indicating rising Covid-19 cases in more highly vaccinated areas with lessening cases among the unvaccinated.
“We will be having to manage covid-19 for months, until of course there is a vaccine and that will be many months,” she said.”
Jacinda Ardern March 2020
Months could turn into years. Despite media endorsement, the harsh economic realities of lockdown and the government’s snail-like vaccine rollout indicate Ardern followers may have quietly parted company with her, accounting for the apathetic 15% response from Group 3 qualifiers.
South Auckland politicians blame the lack of vaccine response on not enough messaging in Maori and Pasifika languages. On the AM show, Dr Nikki Turner agreed, citing a range of reasons and suggesting the new approach including “…different ways of supporting communities to get vaccinated, Maori services, Pasifika services, in ways that we’ve never done before” to turn the tide. The thinking that Maori and Pasifika cannot smell the effluent flowing from a bull’s rear end, as well as anyone else, is laughable.
The elephant in the room is our total reliance on vaccination to reopen borders.
The government website Unite Against Covid still claims “Having both doses of the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at protecting you against falling seriously ill.”
That was true in November 2020 when Pfizer released the 95% efficacy rate following their BNT162b2 trial on 43,000 participants but it is scarcely applicable today against the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta “variants of concern” (WHO) and the Eta, Iota, Kappa and Lambda which are “variants of interest” to WHO.
How long were the participants of the original trial protected? Pfizer hasn’t coughed up that number and experts are suitably vague suggesting “at least six months” of protection which explains Pfizer’s suggestion of a third vaccine shot in the US and for the elderly in Israel.
Israel trialled the Pfizer vaccine early and at 4 July had achieved 56% of the population vaccination rate for two jabs with 61% of its population receiving one jab.
Compare Israel’s 61% to New Zealand where 18.5% of the population had received at least one jab at 21 July.
Despite vaccination, serious Covid-19 cases in Israel are rising.
“The number of serious coronavirus cases in Israel has risen by almost 50 percent since last week, Health Ministry data released on Sunday showed, as the delta variant continues to spread across the country.”
Haaretz
Some Israeli experts say this discouraging data should be taken lightly because more long term data is needed and that is certainly true. Despite Israel’s high vaccination rate, it has not kept the elderly safe from serious Covid-19 cases.
The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines were wowing Israelis with sky-high effectiveness rates until the rise of the Delta variant. But according to data recently raised at a top-level Health Ministry meeting, the immunization’s effectiveness in preventing serious illness is now at 80% for the general population and 50% for the elderly.
Israel’s national research body for epidemiology, the Gertner Institute, conducted the research, and Dr. Amit Huppert from its bio-statistical unit told The Times of Israel that policymakers should pay attention.
The government “should not be panicked but should take the data seriously, as it’s a warning that should not be ignored,” he said. “Most of us did not believe a month ago we could be in this situation.”
Times of Israel
Pfizer suggests a third shot for the Israeli elderly, but at the same time a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has “identified several [18] drugs that could potentially help treat, if not “cure”, people who develop COVID-19.”
“We should never be in a situation where in our arsenal we only have one firearm,” he [Prof. Shy Arkin, a biochemist] said. “If we only have one and we rely solely on it, and then there comes a time that it fails, we will be in a very precarious situation.”
Jerusalem Post
In support of the NZ government’s singular approach to ending the pandemic, AM show hosts Ryan Bridge, Mark Richardson and Amanda Gillies suggested ways to address vaccine reluctance.
BFD Partial Transcript
Bridge:
“Just a suggestion, when it comes to the immunisations, or the vaccines, what if we jabbed everybody at the Bledisloe Cup and you got a free ticket… if you get a jab on your way in, then the ticket is free?
Richardson:
“Yeah, handy but I still don’t think motivating. I think I’ve come up with some pretty solid policy actually, in terms of incentives. It’s a little bit negative reinforcing but I think what will actually get people off their backsides, more than a free beer or a joint, is if you tell people… you come up with a list of things you can and can’t do if you’re not vaccinated.
Once your number has come up, once your group is able to get vaccinated, if you are not vaccinated you can’t go to the pub. You can’t go to a sporting event. It’s unfair on those groups we don’t have a supply for, alright, but if you in… over 60 now, you get a month to do it. If you’re not vaccinated – fully vaccinated – in that time frame, you don’t get to do stuff, you don’t get to enjoy the freedoms.”
Gillies:
“I would have to… it’s the passport, that’s what I reckon we should have – the Covid passport and it’s your (pointing at Richardson) way to get into things, to carry on living life, and I think that is the right incentive because you just miss out on the other stuff.”
Bridge:
“You do.”
UK media celebrity and fully vaccinated Piers Morgan acted irrationally when he contracted Covid-19 and raged – not against the vaccine – but against the unvaccinated!
Media with views like his and AM show hosts, Ryan Bridge, Mark Richardson and Amanda Gillies might feel more at home in China, North Korea or Iran where government edicts go unchallenged. Ardern can applaud such loyal devotion but their lack of public duty of care is breathtaking.
Where is the discussion on effective and safe Covid-19 treatments? Where is the discussion on vaccine safety and efficacy based on recent overseas data?
Perhaps the public is more aware than either the government or its sycophantic media realise, and this factor might be a motivator in vaccine hesitancy.
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