After experiencing what it’s like in Europe since May, it appears there are a lot of things being mis-reported in New Zealand. The media here seems set on promoting fear. It would be interesting to send a truly independent news crew offshore to report on what it’s really like in a more balanced way… I suspect most kiwis would be incredibly surprised.
If you doubt what I’m saying then turn on the TV and check out the full stadiums at various sports events overseas. Check out the Premier League, Champions League or the recent Ryder Cup. The All Blacks just played against the USA in front of 40,000 fans in Washington DC.
The fact is that people are living with Covid offshore and although some people, perhaps many, rightly remain cautious, life has largely returned to normal in many places. But that is not what we are being told here in New Zealand.
The erosion of our freedom of choice, freedom of speech and the loss of precious time with family and friends and all the other negative aspects of a lockdown should be balanced against the health risk of Covid. Imagine if we had invested the 1 billion plus spent each week on lockdowns on improving our health system, education or roading (we had 8 road deaths in NZ last weekend).
It seems totally insane that double vaccinated people are terrified of meeting unvaccinated people. Is that how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives? What about the people that have health issues and can’t get vaccinated? Are they going to be banished from society? (for the record I’m double vaccinated)
Finally the fact that the NZ government has now said that even if Auckland achieves 90% double vaccination that it’s people may likely still be restricted from traveling at Christmas seems like a total nonsense.
(For those overseas people reading this, Auckland already has 93% first dose and 82% second dose vaccinated – the entire country has 87% first dose and 72% double dosed). It’s also total nonsense and contradictory that double vaccinated people that have negative covid tests are being locked down for 14 days in MIQ whilst people with Covid are being allowed to self isolate in the community.
How New Zealand, a country where its people greatly valued freedom off choice… how we even got to this stage of blindly accepting this sort of unilateral rule, power and dictatorship from our government is deeply troubling indeed.
Source: Russell Coutts Page
