Over Easter I relistened to Jim Mora’s RNZ interview (17 May 2020) of Johan Giesecke, “world leading epidemiologist” and Professor Emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. In the period April to June 2020, Sweden gained notoriety for its divergent public health policies with respect to the management of the Covid19 pandemic. People – including me – widely pointed to Swedish authorities then as being more concerned about retaining a pretence of their economic normality rather than caring about people’s lives.

Swedish exceptionalism became a thing, again; this time seemingly for all the wrong reasons. Hitherto ‘progressive’ New Zealanders had regarded Sweden as an exceptional policy exemplar; now it seemed to be an outlier of classical liberalism.

Here are two summary measures of pandemic and post-pandemic mortality; comparing Sweden with Finland, Germany, New Zealand and Japan:

We note that all these countries have rising populations of older people, so some increase in deaths was to be expected in all of them. Sweden had covid vaccination rates comparable with these other four representatives of ‘the rest of the civilised world’, so differences in vaccination uptake cannot explain its mortality difference.

It’s worth relistening to this Giesecke interview, now with the perspective of hindsight. The context is that, in the contest (as it was then framed) of Sweden versus the rest of the civilised world (with the World Health Organisation settling on the counter-Swedish majority view), Sweden has come out a clear winner. The scandal is the failure of ‘the rest of the civilised world’ to acknowledge the statistical reality.

(Note that I use ‘civilised world’ with mock irony. In New Zealand at least, few politicians or high-profile commentators believed that there could be anything New Zealand authorities could learn from the experiences of West Europe, South America, or Africa; instead, the policy elite contemptuously assumed such countries to be ‘basket cases’. See the use of this phrase in 1980s: Days of greed and glamour, NZ Herald, while noting that we are still waiting for a balanced history of the ‘Muldoon Years’ referred to.)

Highlights from the 2020 Interview, and the interview itself can be heard here, and read in synopsis form: Johan Giesecke: Why lockdowns are the wrong approach, Radio New Zealand, 17 May 2020.

Relating to points not covered in RNZ’s synopsis, Giesecke draws a direct comparison with Finland, which was pursuing a public health policy very close to New Zealand’s. His concern – shared by Finland’s state epidemiologist – was that the authorities’ actions were creating a significantly vulnerable population in Finland.

Giesecke, from that May 2020 perspective, mentions that if a good vaccine would come quite soon then New Zealand’s outcome might be better than Sweden’s. The irony is that, while a good vaccine did indeed come quickly, New Zealand’s authorities were slow to embrace the vaccine as the answer; having already decided that New Zealand had eliminated the virus as per the China policy. Then, after New Zealand’s people were vaccinated, the government doubled down on the lockdowns, not at all trusting the vaccine to work as a substitute for lockdowns. (Indeed, New Zealand only abandoned its border-quarantine policy in 2022 because that policy failed on its own terms. Had the border policy been implemented without error, New Zealand presumably would have followed a set of draconian restrictions through 2022, with a timeline similar to that of China. New Zealand’s border mishaps proved to be a blessing in disguise.)

In mid-2020, Johan Giesecke’s main expectation was that the mortality experience of all countries in the OECD (essentially the rich western plus the rich eastern countries) would all be about the same; and that Sweden’s major benefit would be in its substantially lesser disruption to normal life.

Where Giesecke was wrong was that the OECD ‘WHO countries’ (a label for the ‘civilised world other than Sweden’) ended up with substantially higher increases in deaths than did Sweden; he was wrong in a way that favoured Sweden rather more than he had expected.

The pandemic has nevertheless had an adverse impact on Sweden’s mortality. Sweden did experience the West European surge in deaths from respiratory illnesses late last year. Its people no more live in a bubble than do New Zealand’s. Overall though, Sweden got the win-win outcome: fewer deaths, and less social and economic dislocation. (David prevailed over Goliath.)

A very basic summary of the difference between the Swedish and the Goliath approaches is that Sweden focussed on its people whereas the prevalent strategy focused too much on the virus; the world by-and-large pursued a strategy of covid exceptionalism. (One consequence of covid exceptionalism was that a death clinically ascribed to Covid19 became a more noteworthy death than most other deaths.) Sweden focussed on having people with good levels of immunity, whereas in 2021 much of the rest of the world went down the unhelpful path of obsessing over the various mutant variants of the novel coronavirus.

Giesecke clearly had a better understanding the history of human coronaviruses than most other epidemiologists; these are viruses for which specific immunity is short-lived, from which we top-up immunity naturally through living our daily lives in a normal manner, and for which vaccine-conferred immunity would also be short-lived.

Sweden understood the science better; indeed, the interview tells us that there was a substantial scientific contest of interpretations of the evidence in Sweden, a good sign that actual science was taking place. Not only did a number of Sweden’s scientists prove to be among the better predictors of the future, people such as Johan Giesecke were also much more prepared to offer humility to their own people and to the world if they had got it wrong.

I am still waiting for our authorities – including the scientists – to do a proper retrospective comparison of New Zealand (and other countries, as in my table above) and Sweden. I am still waiting for a little gracious humility from our authorities in Aotearoa New Zealand. Humility is an important characteristic of civilised behaviour.

In the middle of the interview, Jim Mora noted: “Our readers are quite fascinated with Sweden; I think the world is”. When and why did that fascination stop? Or is it just that Goliath’s information mediators stopped being fascinated when the ‘contest’ moved in David’s favour?

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

The chart above shows New Zealand’s aggregate weekly deaths from 2015. The normal winter experience is obvious, with 2015 to 2019 influenza peaks mainly in July and August, though in late June in 2019.

New Zealand is different from most European countries in that it has significantly faster population growth. (Although Scandinavian population growth is above average for Europe.) Thus, I have plotted a ‘black line’ to show normality; what mortality would have been like in New Zealand in 2022 had there been no covid pandemic, and no other unusual events impacting on mortality. (Note the dark blue segment that shows the 2019 Christchurch Mosque murders.)

(Note that New Zealand has a rising mortality trend, regardless of covid, due to: a rising population, an aging population; and also possibly due to increases in other ‘lifestyle’ chronic health problems such as diabetes. In Eastern Europe, where Covid19 has had its biggest demographic impact, the first of these three factors did not apply; so its projected mortality, had Covid19 not happened, was essentially the same as its actual 2015-19 mortality. That probably means that covid’s impact there was overstated, given East Europe’s increasing paucity of young people due to emigration and low birth rates, and its increasing recent exposure to chronic ‘lifestyle’ conditions. Demographics were dynamic long before Covid19 struck.)

While its not clear yet whether 2022 peak mortality will be as much above normal as it was in the 2017 influenza season, the important information shown is the extent to which mortality in New Zealand has been above normal since February. There was no simple mortality wave during and immediately after the March Omicron-covid wave. Rather, what we are seeing is a process in which many people who might otherwise have died in 2020 or 2021 have instead died in 2022, nudged in many cases by a covid or similar infection.

This next chart compares New Zealand with Finland, in the period from March 2021. This is excess deaths, not aggregate deaths; that is, this chart only shows deaths above the relevant ‘black lines’.

The first thing to note is that, for these countries each with about five million people, there is a degree of random ‘noise’ in the variation of weekly deaths. Having noted that, the most prominent feature of the chart is Finland’s long period of excess deaths in 2021 and early 2022. (Finland’s apparent mortality lull in the peak winter months is misleading; these are seasonal peak mortality months, so the extent that the deaths last winter were above normal was ameliorated by the high normal for that time. To some extent, covid deaths replaced influenza deaths.)

Finland is a country that took substantial public health measures to combat Covid19, so the deaths in 2021 can be to a large extent understood as postponed covid deaths. Except that very few of these excess deaths, especially in the third quarter of 2021, were actually diagnosed as covid deaths. The lack of diagnosis of covid may have been due to a lack of testing, on the supposition that the pandemic was over. Or it could be due to high rates of death from covid but not of covid; ie deaths arising from the massive disruption to normal life due to the public health measures, or from lower levels of general immunity to respiratory infections on account of distancing, masking and reduced contact with travellers.

I think it would be fair to hypothesise that the persistently high rate of excess deaths in New Zealand in 2022 suggests that New Zealand is now experiencing something akin to what Finland was experiencing in its last autumn and winter.

The above chart shows Sweden and France. These are the two countries in North/West Europe which least show the Finland mortality pattern, and are almost certainly the countries which retained and then attained the highest levels of general immunity. In Sweden’s case it was due to a public health approach that emphasised private responsibility over public mandates. In France’s case, the stronger public mandates did not linger on beyond the emergency periods.

Both countries had significant Covid19 mortality in 2020; they were hit full-on by the first and second waves. But both seem to have suffered only minimal amounts of waning general immunity as the pandemic progressed; and both suffered much less covid mortality in late 2020 than many other countries (with the USA coming mostly to mind).

The final chart shows Germany and Denmark. Both of these had low levels of pandemic mortality in 2020, due to substantial mandated public health measures; much lower excess mortality than Sweden and France in 2020. But both also show the Finland pattern in late 2021, and in 2022 to date.

Another point of interest is to see how swiftly the arrival of the Omicron strain in Denmark curtailed winter deaths there. Omicron arrived just as the Delta-covid wave was peaking; whereas in Germany the delta-wave had peaked a month earlier. We may note that all five European countries shown here suffered substantial Delta-covid mortality around November-December, although Sweden much less than the others. This was almost certainly due to waning immunity from vaccinations, and the public health authorities being initially slow to understand the issue, and slow to make booster vaccinations available.

In Germany in particular, we see a substantial summer-wave of pandemic mortality in 2022. There is a clear pattern. Countries which tied down their populations the most in 2020 are experiencing these significant late bouts of pandemic mortality.

All this suggests that New Zealand still has a long way to go to return to some kind of demographic normality. This coming summer, excess pandemic (or post-pandemic) deaths, if they happen, will be exposed for all to see, because they will not be mixed in with deaths from ‘winter viruses’.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Respiratory Virus Hospitalisations in Counties-Manukau, as reported by Stuff

The chart above splits the patients in Middlemore Hospital into the different categories of Severe Acute Respiratory Illness. The vast majority are what in the past we have called ‘common colds’. There is no indication that any of these ‘colds’ are due to human coronaviruses other than the Covid-Omicron. Indeed, as well as ridding us of Covid-Delta and its ancestor variants of the original SARS-Cov2 virus, Covid-Omicron may well have sealed the fate of the human coronaviruses which previously caused about 15% of all ‘colds’.

We do not know what percentage of covid hospitalisations end up becoming deaths. (My guess is that about half of covid deaths occurred in people’s homes, including age-care facilities.)

It is likely that the deaths associated with the 93% of SARI hospitalisations which were not covid are a relatively low number compared to covid deaths, mainly because a large proportion of these other cases will be children. But it is appropriate to remind ourselves that, in normal times, about ten percent of all winter deaths are attributable to ‘common colds’, and that this figure will be higher this year, maybe 20% of all winter deaths.

Recent Changes to the Reporting of Covid19 Deaths

The recent changes have been very confusing to media trying to report these. But I will summarise the three main measures, using data from Tuesday 26 July until today.

• Deaths of people who became Covid19 cases within 28 days of their death: 154
• Deaths of people for whom Covid19 was the principal cause: 90
• Deaths of where Covid19 was the principal or a contributory cause: 130

The last of these has become the favoured measure of the Ministry of Health. It is important to note, however, that because of times required to verify that Covid was the underlying or a contributory cause of death, this last favoured measure is not as up-to-date as the first (previously favoured) measure.

To impute weekly deaths (and allowing for lower weekend reporting) we should scale-up these four-day totals by 50%: giving 231, 135, and 195.

Then, to convert them into weekly deaths per million in the population, we must divide by five. That gives, for each measure:

• 46 per million
• 27 per million
• 39 per million

These last three numbers should be seen in the context of this Worldometer screenshot (22 July 2022) which showed New Zealand last week as the country with the world’s highest Covid19 death rate.

Based on the above calculation, New Zealand’s current comparable rate of Covid19 mortality is 46 per million (up from the 34 per million shown in the screenshot). And even if we use the much more conservative measure above (27 per million), that’s still the same as the number given for Malta, and well above the high numbers for Taiwan and Australia.

And we know that significant numbers of people are also dying from the other SARI viruses. SARI deaths would appear to be being substantially downplayed by the Ministry of Health.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Kathryn Ryan: “Why is there a six-month gap between boosters?”
Siouxsie Wiles: “I can’t answer that for you. It doesn’t make sense based on the data that we have. … In Israel they got it at least four months after, for the over-60s at least. It was really good at preventing hospitalisations and deaths. … I would have thought that, based on that data, we would have been looking at four months. … I’m not eligible for that [just announced] booster dose. If I were I would be getting it.” Science: Covid vaccines saved millions, RNZ Nine-to-Noon, 29 June 2022.

As an over 65-year-old, I belong to a covid-vaccination priority group. So do my parents-in-law. I got my third (‘booster’) vaccine dose in February. I could have had it in January, but waited so as to be maximally protected for the Omicron-wave which was forecast to take-off in late February or March. And I waited, to give me a five-month gap between my second and third shots, which seemed to be about optimal. I am now waiting to be able to get my fourth shot (‘second booster’).

Late last month I was happy to hear that second boosters were being offered to priority groups, such as older people; though I wondered why it took the government until the end of June to authorise these vaccinations. After all, there was not a supply problem. I presume there was some official awareness that the school holidays were less than two weeks away, and that a new wave of covid was starting. An important feature of school holidays is that people travel (eg through busy airports); and in the winter school holidays travel is based more on whanau than on tourism. To put it bluntly, July is one month in which children visit their grandparents, or vice versa.

I sought to get a vaccination on 28 June, because I was travelling the coming weekend. My plan had been a mix of long weekend and whanau visiting prior to the school holiday rush. But I was politely turned down. I would have to wait until August. Indeed, when early this week I sought to make a booking for August, the bookings at my local health centre were full-up until and beyond my six-month due date.

The Media and the Booster

On Morning Report this morning (Auckland pharmacist seeing high demand for Covid-19 boosters), Susie Ferguson asked pharmacist Vicky Chan: “What about people who are heading off for holiday or anticipate being at larger gatherings. Are they quite keen to get their fourth shot?” Chan answered that “many had not quite met the criteria for their second booster, so we have to politely reject them.” Unfortunately Ferguson did not pursue this point further; rather she then went on to ask about those younger people who are not so much an issue at the moment.

At about the same time on Morning Report, Kathryn Ryan was promising that, in the next hour, she would ask an expert to get to the bottom of this issue. It seemed that, finally, I would get an answer as to why I and my parents in law are not able to access vaccine protection these school holidays.

I was disappointed with the subsequent interview on Nine-to-Noon (New Omicron wave: Why second booster is only for over-50s). The website headline and synopsis indicate that I should not have been too hopeful. The synopsis says: “As Omicron case numbers and reinfections rise, could the country benefit from making a second booster shot more widely available? The answer from one immunologist is a firm, ‘no’.” The interviewee was Dr Nikki Turner, generally known as a strong advocate for vaccination as a public health measure.

Kathryn Ryan starts: “As Omicron case numbers and reinfections rise, should the country benefit from making a second booster shot more widely available and shortening the six-month timeframe? The answer from one immunologist is a firm, ‘no’. … At the beginning of the year the six-month timeframe was shortened first to four months and then to three so that more of the population would be boosted before its peak. So is that option being considered again now, and if not, why not?”

First question to Dr Turner: “What we discussed with the first Omicron wave was that if we are going to reach a peak before everybody was boosted, didn’t it make sense to bring forward the booster, even if the efficacy wasn’t going to be optimal? Why is it different this time?” After a minute not addressing the question posed, Turner starts to answer as follows: “A second booster, particularly for people over 60, does add more protection … after six months, by about twice to reduce the effect from severe disease. What we see is rapid waning [for protection] from mild disease. … Our focus now is on protecting people from severe disease. … There is an important group of people whose immunity wanes earlier than six months, particularly to severe disease. Those are the ones for which a second booster is worth having.” So far nothing about why many of this “important group of people” are being (‘politely’) denied that second booster at this critical juncture in time. At this point Ryan tried to intervene, but suppressed her intervention as Dr Turner went on to talk about “other [ie non-priority] people”.

After nearly a minute, Ryan then asks: “So that’s the argument against broadening to people under 50. But I want to just examine again this question of the booster for the over 50s again. Let’s absolutely agree that the priority groups … are the priority. But if there’s not an issue with vaccine supply, the question is whether there is any benefit for the over-50s being able to access before the perceived second peak, which might be August, some modelers are saying. Now the reason to delay to the six months, do you get a better immune response? … Explain that logic again.” Turner: “Yeah, so two different questions, which age group, and second is the gap. … It was obviously [my emphasis] brought forward [in the summer] when you needed to urgently protect people. … Now we have this disease with us throughout our community going forward, for healthy people who have had the primary course plus one booster, protection against severe disease is holding up, hence the six-month gap. That does not hold for people with significant medical problems.”

Turner then goes off-track, discussing the age criterion, not the gap criterion. But note that, according to Turner, it would be “obvious” that “people with significant medical problems” should get boosted now, without having to wait six months. And presumably this also applies to those people in the priority groups (like me and my mother-in-law) who do not have ‘significant medical problems’. But the other problem on Dr Turner’s response is that she appears to believe that Omicron-covid is already an endemic rather than an epidemic disease, and that therefore there is no winter wave, either imminent or taking place right now. So Turner leaves us none the wiser about my predicament, and the current predicament of most older people; and, for that matter, and the present predicament of those grandparents and others with ‘significant medical problems’.

Ryan again: “In Israel they did [second] boost after four months, didn’t they?” Turner: “It was a mixture … but] yes.” The interview goes on for another eleven minutes, in some cases with repetition of the less important points. But even Ryan moved on, except for one brief rhetorical [and hence unanswered] question. “We heard this morning from the pharmacy, you’ve got people knocking on the door saying I’m going on holiday, I’m getting on a plane, can I not bring this forward’? It’s a very obvious question to ask, Nikki, and so it’s good to answer it.” Turner: “Yes, absolutely.” Then Ryan cut over any further answer that Turner might have given, taking the interview away from this issue.

I still have no idea why I must wait until August before I can get my booster. New Zealand is on course for more than 400 more covid deaths between now and my scheduled booster date.

Who’s Dying?

We are no longer hearing much about the demographics of the many nameless people who are now dying with or of Covid19. But, looking up the raw data on the Ministry of Health’s Covid19 website, I see that 61.5% of people dying with Covid19 have had all three vaccination shots. I also note that 63 percent of the population aged over 12 have had three shots; so, at least in the raw age-unadjusted data, the death rate for three-shot-vaccinated people is similar to the death rate for the population as a whole. While this could be interpreted as indicating that the vaccine is ineffective, what it does indicate is that most deaths are of older people (who are more likely to be three-shot-vaccinated) and also that the much of the effectiveness of vaccinations has waned. While the data does not separate people who have died recently from people who died months ago, I have noted that the percentage of deaths being three-shot-vaccinated people is rising; it was below sixty percent last week.

In addition, the website gives death percentages by ethnicity, both for people dying with Covid19 and for people dying of Covid19. Currently, 75% of deaths are Pakeha (a category which includes a few – but not many – people from Africa, Middle East, and Latin America). Thus, in the raw data, Pakeha appear to be overrepresented in the Covid19 death toll; this is confirmed by the fact that 74.5% of those who died of Covid19 are Pakeha. And it should be noted that both of these percentages have increased since last week. And it should be noted that significantly less than 75% of the New Zealand population is Pakeha. (Though it may be the case that over 75% of the superannuation-eligible population are Pakeha.) The narrative that Covid19 is mainly a Māori-Pacific problem is far from reality.

It should be a relatively easy exercise to estimate the cost in deaths this July and August that will arise from vaccine providers having to ‘politely decline’ many of their requests from older and co-morbid people for winter anti-covid boosters. I would estimate it to be in the ‘hundreds’, though it could turn out to be in the thousands.

The government cannot plead ignorance. It is fully aware of the problem that delaying vaccinations to willing vaccinees, this and next month, will cost lives.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Analysis and opinion by Keith Rankin.

Professor Michael Baker: “Societies who are using masks are doing very well, like South Korea, Japan. … And when we look at the countries which are succeeding, they are mask-using societies.” From COVID-19: Epidemiologist Michael Baker calls for Government to ‘step in now’ as cases rise, Newshub Nation, 9 July 2022.

New Zealanders, and many others, are at present immunity-compromised. Influenzas and ‘common colds’ are being experienced more severely than usual; and we are seriously short of data about cases of these illnesses, and deaths of people with these illnesses.

Omicron covid – the Delta-slayer – remains very prevalent as we move into the second half of this year. While Omicron may be called an ‘uncommon cold’, it is likely to eventually join up with the other human ‘cold’ coronaviruses, including the ‘Russian flu’ pandemic coronavirus (early 1890s) which continued to circulate as a cold virus at least until 2020.

With most of the New Zealand population not yet legally eligible for a winter booster covid vaccine, including most of New Zealand’s older population, our main defence this season is to wear facemasks in indoor environments.

There is little doubt that facemask wearing is helpful during epidemic phases of respiratory infections. But wearing masks is not costless. As occurs with other barrier methods which separate people from exposure to viruses, the lack of day-to-day exposure to other people’s exhaled air compromises our immunity to these viruses. Human coronaviruses have been long-known to be associated with rapidly waning immunity. That’s why it has been usual for many people to get colds several times a year, especially in winter.

Professor Michael Baker has long been an uncritical advocate for the use of facemasks as a defence from epidemic respiratory infection. So much so that, as a public expert, in my opinion, he has become economical with the truth.

The charts above plot Covid19 mortality following the brutal wave in the northern winter of 2020/21. (This brutality – particularly marked in Eastern Europe – would appear to be linked to compromised immunity.)

The first chart above contrasts excess (mainly covid) mortality between South Korea (cited as a compliant facemask-wearing country) and Sweden, which represents the opposite extreme re the use of facemasks. The second chart shows Austria and Norway, closer than Sweden to the European norm, but which largely dropped the use of facemasks after March 2022.

The South Korea data shows a bigger gap – than Sweden – between recorded covid deaths and ‘excess deaths’, the latter being the correct best measure of covid epidemic mortality. Second, the Korean mortality rate was significantly higher than the Swedish rate for the majority of 2021. Third, South Korea has not ‘done very well this year’! But Sweden has done very well this year.

Looking at the Norway/Austria chart, we see that Sweden performed significantly better than both Austria and Norway, in 2021 and 2022. (The exceptional month was January 2022, where Sweden’s later ‘delta-wave’ coincided with its incipient ‘omicron-wave’. We note that, in the March 2022 Omicron-peak, Sweden’s epidemic death was virtually non-existent, unlike the other three countries shown.

The suggestion is that only Sweden’s population was not immunity-compromised. And that the most mask-wearing of these countries – South Korea – was the most immunity compromised. With vaccines having been available since early 2021, the extent of vaccine-enhanced immunity was substantially a political decision. None of these four countries are known as being vaccine-averse.

Singapore and Taiwan

Above I compare Korea/Sweden with Singapore and Taiwan.

We see that these two ‘model’ Asian countries have bigger gaps (than Sweden) between actual mortality and reported covid mortality. (At least, unlike most Asian countries, these countries do count total mortality.)

Singapore, one of Michael Baker’s “mask-using societies”, clearly had a bad experience late in 2021; significantly worse then than South Korea.

Taiwan is particularly interesting; this was just about everyone’s pandemic-exemplar country in 2020. But we don’t hear it cited much any more. Of all countries in the world with a population above half-a-million (and maybe of all countries which count their deaths), Taiwan has had the highest reported Covid19 mortality in the world in the May/June 2022 period. (Taking the second quarter as a whole, Taiwan roughly ties with New Zealand for that dubious honour.) It continues to be the only country with more than half-a-million people which has more deaths than New Zealand, using a seven-day daily rolling average. The key difference this week is that New Zealand’s toll is waxing, whereas Taiwan’s is now waning.

Japan? Japan, by the way, has had very low levels of Covid19 mortality overall. But its biggest mortality peak by far was in February/March this year. We should be careful in making assumptions about the extent to which Japanese people have worn facemasks throughout the pandemic. (I know that facemasks were widely worn, especially by young people, when I was there in April 2014. I sensed that they were much less common in 2019, when the Rugby World Cup was held.) Japan never had a facemask mandate in 2021, though masks were strongly encouraged during the Olympic Games. My sense is that older Japanese people carry high levels of general immunity; indeed higher than South Korea.

Who knows what has happened in China this year?

An Experiment needs a Control

I will finish with these quotes from The Herd (2022), by Johan Anderberg:

“For every decade that passed after the Industrial Revolution, we made it easier for new infections to spread. … We kept moving into increasingly crowded cities, travelled between them, and forced our way further and further into what had once been wilderness.” [p.41]

“The countries of the world had initiated a large-scale experiment by closing down their societies. The Swedes became the control group.” [p.239] Good experimental scientists refer to the control group, rather than ignoring it when the control group performs better than the ‘treated’ group.

In the grand 2020 narrative, we did upset the “delicate balance” [p95] of modern metropolitan life by imposing protracted barrier mandates, with facemasks taking full prominence in 2021. People in New Zealand’s South Island were forced to wear facemasks in 2021 when, for most of the year, there were zero active cases of Covid19 there.

The evidence is coming in that we have been through an unfortunate and ill-monitored experiment.

The political response to the 2020 pandemic is not the only example of our cavalier lack of unawareness. We have also experimented in shovelling massive amounts of waste-carbon into our life-giving atmosphere. This has been a long-running experiment without as much as a control.

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 Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Covid-19 testing of Marshall Islanders in managed quarantine has seen the largest number test positive for covid-19 since managed repatriation started nearly two years ago.

Seven out of a repatriation group of 72 people tested positive for the coronavirus last Friday, according to a government announcement issued late Friday night.

All are in quarantine at the US Army base at Kwajalein Atoll. This repatriation group is the first to spend only three days in quarantine in Honolulu prior to departure to the Marshall Islands on Tuesday this week.

When the Marshall Islands first began allowing controlled entry to the country in June 2020, the government required two weeks quarantine in Honolulu followed by two weeks quarantine in the Marshall Islands — one of the strictest covid-19 prevention entry protocols in the world.

These strict quarantine requirements have kept the Marshall Islands covid-19 free.

“The seven positive tests represent new infections and these individuals do not pose an infectious threat to the community as they remain in secure and monitored quarantine on Kwajalein,” said Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal in statement released Friday night.

“All individuals remain asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and in addition to the protection provided by being vaccinated will also receive oral antiviral medication to prevent progression to severe forms of covid-19.”

Covid-19 prevention protocols
Marshall Islands covid-19 prevention protocols require that all people entering the country through its monthly controlled quarantine programme must be fully vaccinated and boosted. A 14-day quarantine is required.

However, due to the positive cases identified Friday, the 14-day period has been extended from Friday instead of from the group’s arrive on April 12.

“We’ve decided that every time someone tests positive in this group, the clock starts over at 14 days — so 14 days from now,” said Health Secretary Niedenthal.

“They get another test on day seven. If someone tests positive on day seven the clock starts again for 14 days.”

The seven positive cases identified Friday at Kwajalein brings to 14 the number of covid-19 positive cases in managed quarantine since mid-2020.

There has been no community transmission yet in the Marshall Islands, making it one of only a handful of countries globally to remain covid-19 free throughout the pandemic.

After more than a year of requiring two weeks of quarantine in Hawaii, with multiple covid-19 tests prior to departing to the Marshall Islands, government authorities reduced the Hawaii quarantine late last year to one week.

Hawai’i quarantine time reduced
With this group that went into quarantine last Friday in Honolulu, the Marshall Islands reduced its Hawai’i quarantine time to three days.

Two of the 74 people in quarantine in Hawai’i tested positive on their day-three tests and were not allowed to travel to the Marshall Islands.

These are the first border cases involving Marshall Islanders since November 2020. Three Americans in a separately managed Army repatriation group in January also tested positive for covid-19 in quarantine.

In January, as infections around the Pacific escalated due to spread of the omicron variant, Niedenthal warned that if the Marshall Islands got cases in quarantine, “we can’t afford any mistake. If people test positive in quarantine here, we have to be perfect (to prevent the spread)”.

Niedenthal noted that lapses in protocols governing quarantine operations in other Pacific islands led to border cases triggering community transmission.

Since it started managed quarantine operations in October 2020, the Ministry of Health and Human Services has required that all of the doctors, nurses and security personnel involved in the quarantine process live in the quarantine facility with each repatriation group as a way to prevent possible community spread in case a person tests positive during the quarantine.

That policy remains in effect with the current group in quarantine at Kwajalein.

No travel restrictions
“As these are border quarantine cases of covid-19, there are no restrictions of travel between Majuro and Kwajalein, and there are no travel restrictions between Kwajalein and neighbouring islands and between Ebeye and Kwajalein,” said the Health Secretary’s statement.

He also urged “all individuals aged five years and above (to get) fully vaccinated, which includes being boosted if eligible”.

The Ministry of Health and Human Services has provided booster shots as well as vaccinating people in the five to 11 age group since late last year.

Public health teams have been flying to remote outer islands to continue covid-19 vaccination services initially begun mid-last year to provide booster shots to adults, as well as vaccinate children.

Giff Johnson is editor of the Marshall Islands Journal. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the threats and violence against news media by protesters during the 16-day anti-covid-19 vaccine mandates occupation of Parliament grounds, and called for prosecutions of those responsible.

The media are among favourite targets of some of the 500 or so protesters still camped in front of the Parliament building, known as the Beehive, after arriving from various parts of the country in “freedom convoys” akin to those causing chaos in parts of Canada for the past month, reports the Paris-based media freedom watchdog in a statement today.

The violence against journalists trying to cover the protest had included being regularly pelted with tennis balls with such not-very-subtle insults as “terrorists” and “paedophiles” written on them, said RSF.

“Media = Fake News” and “Media is the virus” are typical of the slogans on the countless signs outside protesters’ tents.

Journalists who approach have also been greeted with drawings of gallows and nooses, as well as insults and threats of violence ­– to the point that most of them now have bodyguards, says Mark Stevens, head of news at Stuff, New Zealand’s leading news website.

‘Your days are numbered‘
Stevens sounded the alarm about the attacks on journalists in an editorial published on February 11.

“They’ve had gear smashed, been punched and belted with umbrellas,” he wrote. “Many reporters have been harassed […], including one threatened with their home being burned down.”

The violence has not been limited to Wellington.

In New Plymouth, an angry crowd tried to storm the offices of the local newspaper, Stuff’s Taranaki Daily News, two weeks ago, as reported by Mediawatch. Some of the protesters even managed to breach the newspaper’s secured doors and attack members of the staff.

“After the police intervened, [conspiracy theorist] Brett Power urged the protesters to return in order to hold the editor ‘accountable for crimes’ — meaning the newspaper’s failure to report their protests in the way they wanted,” the RSF statement said.

“The verbal and physical violence against journalists is accompanied by extremely shocking online hate messages.”

Stuff’s chief political reporter Henry Cooke tweeted an example of the threats he had received on social media:

i prefer the old “sleep with one eye open” thing personally, one has to get SOME sleep pic.twitter.com/wxh5x83Dsx

— henry cooke (@henrycooke) November 17, 2021

Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, said: “The virulence of the threats against journalists by demonstrators, and the constant violence to which they have been subjected since the start of these protests are not acceptable in a democracy.”

He called on authorities to “not allow these disgraceful acts to go unpunished. There is a danger that journalists will no longer be able to calmly cover these protests, opening the way to a flood of misinformation.”

In a recent article, Kristin Hall, a reporter for 1News, described her dismay at discovering the level of “distaste for the press” among protesters who regarded the mainstream media as nothing more than “a bunch of liars”.

“People have asked me why I’m not covering the protests while I’m in the middle of interviewing them,” she wrote.

‘Headlocks, punches’
Protester mistrust is no longer limited to mainstream media regarded as accomplices of a system imposing pandemic-related restrictions, as Graham Bloxham — a Wellington resident who runs the Wellington Live Community local news page on Facebook – found to his cost when he went to interview one of the protest organisers on February 18.

“We just wanted to show people that it is peaceful … then bang. They just yelled and whacked. They were just all on me and they basically beat me and my cameraman to a pulp,” he told 1News.

“Headlocks, punches… they were really violent.”

Protesters have been asking me all week for “evidence” of volatility towards the Wellington public so here it is. https://t.co/mhJNcXlMrF

— Kristin Hall (@kristinhallNZ) February 19, 2022

A photo of a dozen Nazi war criminals being hanged at the end of the Second World War has been circulating on social media popular with the protesters for the past few days, accompanied by the comment: “Photograph of hangings at Nuremberg, Germany. Members of the media, who lied and misled the German people, were executed.” Definitely not subtle.

Attacks against journalists have rarely or never been as virulent as this in New Zealand, which is ranked 8th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

• Henry Cooke reported an apology from some of the protesters over the “treatment” of some journalists, but incidents have continued to be reported.

Group of protest groups apologise for denying media access to Parliament grounds – but now ask we go through a liaison officer before turning up. pic.twitter.com/MIgksDJ50O

— henry cooke (@henrycooke) February 18, 2022

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The early morning action on Monday to cordon off the occupation of Parliament grounds and prevent it growing might go some way to restoring public confidence in the police, which has appeared to be eroding since the protests began a fortnight ago.

So far, police have pursued a de-escalation strategy, but there have been calls for firmer action.

The whole event has raised important questions about the relationship between the police and government, and about police independence and accountability.

With local businesses unable to trade, and the neighbouring university closing its campus for eight weeks, the political consequences are potentially serious.

From the government’s perspective, there is a direct relationship between its own public support and public confidence in the police. The political and legal impasse between the rightful independence of the police and public accountability is not a simple issue to resolve.

Constabulary independence
The relationship between the government and the police has come a long way since government minister John Bryce — armed and on horseback — led the police invasion of Parihaka in 1881. Bryce decided who would be arrested and personally ordered the destruction of property.

Supporting the political objectives of the government of the day was a function of the police. But New Zealand was not a developed liberal democracy 140 years ago.

The Wellington protest is testing police independence and public tolerance – are there lessons from Canada’s crackdown?

By 2018, that relationship had evolved enough for the solicitor-general to advise the prime minister that “constabulary independence [had become] a core constitutional principle in New Zealand”.

As Police Commissioner Andrew Coster faces calls to resign over his handling of the protests, he says using force could come at a significant cost. https://t.co/CcHepTMRZN

— Stuff.co.nz Politics (@NZStuffPolitics) February 19, 2022

The solicitor-general explained the constitutional subtleties of the Policing Act thus:

The Police are an instrument of the Crown […] but in the two principal roles of detecting and preventing crime and keeping the Queen’s peace they act independently of the Crown and serve only the law.

This is reinforced in the oath police officers swear to perform their duties “without favour or affection, malice or ill-will”.

Who is accountable?
Constabulary independence means governments can’t control the police for political advantage. At the same time, police accountability to the public is as important as for any department of state.

Independence should not mean the police can do whatever they like.

However, the lines of accountability are complex. Constabulary independence means the ordinary process of accountability to Parliament through the relevant minister, and through Parliament to the people, does not fully apply to the police.

The police commissioner is accountable to the minister for “carrying out the functions and duties of the Police”, but explicitly not for “the enforcement of the law” and “the investigation and prosecution of offences”.

As well as “keeping the peace”, “maintaining public safety”, “law enforcement”, “crime prevention” and “national security”, the Policing Act requires “community support and reassurance”.

This might help explain why, for security and tactical reasons, the police won’t fully explain their tolerance of the occupation, beyond the police commissioner saying the public would not accept the inevitable violence and injury a harder line would entail.

Despite clear public concern, the police are not required to give further explanation of why they haven’t prosecuted people for intimidation and harassment, for threatening MPs, public servants and journalists, or for failing to remove illegally parked vehicles.

Canadian comparisons
The situation in Canada may be instructive. There, the police have seemingly abandoned a de-escalation strategy that had lasted three weeks, with the protest in Ottawa cleared in the last few days.

As in New Zealand, public tolerance was low. Rejecting a claim that the repeated sounding of 105-decibel truck horns was “part of the democratic process”, a Canadian judge said: “Tooting a horn is not an expression of any great thought.”

In both countries, the protests are being viewed less as expressions of political thought than as simple acts of public nuisance. The difference lies in the Canadian federal government invoking special powers under its Emergencies Act.

The first time it has been invoked since it was passed in 1988, the law allows the government to use “special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times” to respond to “threats to the security of Canada”.

Banks can freeze accounts being used to support the protest. Private citizens and businesses may be compelled to provide essential services to assist the state — tow trucks, for example.

Canadian journalist @mariekewalsh says the “softer approach” being used by NZ police against Parliament protesters didn’t work in Ottawa with the trucker protest. #NZQandA #nzpol https://t.co/9ZHyxqOJqI…

— Q+A (@NZQandA) February 19, 2022

Political calculation
Such significant constraints on freedom can be justified only if they are proportionate to the emergency. But on Friday, the Canadian Parliament was prevented from scrutinising the decision to declare an emergency because protesters had prevented access to the debating chambers.

Ironically, the debate began on Saturday when police cleared the obstruction (without needing emergency powers) — suggesting “freedom” is a wider concept than the one protesters claimed they were defending.

The ability of people to go to work, to study, shop, drive on a public road — and (as in Ottawa) the ability of Parliament to function — are democratic freedoms the protesters are curtailing.

Whether Wellington goes the way of Ottawa remains to be seen, but the New Zealand police commissioner says a state of emergency is among the “reasonable options” being considered to stop more protesters entering Parliament grounds.

For now, the political question is what happens if the evolution from protest to public nuisance to crisis of confidence in the police continues.

Given the constraints of constabulary independence, and the democratic need for accountability, what political responses are available to the government to ensure any crisis of confidence in the police does not become a crisis of confidence in the government itself?

For both police and government, there is much at stake in the de-escalation strategy.

Dr Dominic O’Sullivan, adjunct professor of the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and professor of political science at Charles Sturt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is a dangerous anger on rapid boil at the protest in Wellington. It is a stew of dispossession and unrest alongside various delusional beliefs and violent threats.

Two weeks into the protest and the police have had to endure human waste and acid thrown at them; a car driven into them; threats of violence; chants of “shame on you”; accusations of police brutality; physical attacks and injuries.

Meanwhile, the illegal occupiers (who refused to move their cars to a free car park) claim peace and love as the Ministry of Health reported today a record 2846 new community cases of covid-19 with 143 people in hospital with the virus.

This “protest” was from the beginning organised in part and spread by QAnon (a conspiracy group that want to hang the government literally) alongside religious groups. Also in the mix are white supremacists (Nationalist Front).

It was joined by “everyday people” annoyed with mandates they don’t want to live with.

Well, if these “everyday people” can lower their standards to stand shoulder to shoulder with violent extremists all I can say is, “shame on you”.

Deputy Leader of the House, Labour’s Michael Wood recently spoke of these threats at Parliament: “There is a river of violence and menace. There is a river of anti-Semitism. There is a river of Islamophobia. There is a river of threats to people who work in this place and our staff.”

A recent Stuff article reported that a “Labour MP says protesters have been waiting at the doors of her office at night, and are telling politicians they will be ‘lynched, hung or kidnapped’”.

Michael Wood: “There is a river of filth, there is a river of violence and menace, there is a river of antisemitism, there is a river of Islamophobia…there is a river of genuine fascism in parts of the event that we see out the front of this parliament today” pic.twitter.com/h5zJRXA5TL

— Mediaspot (@mediaspotnz) February 17, 2022

Deputy Speaker Michael Wood speaking in Parliament on February 17. Video: NZ Parliament

These underlying threads of violence give the protest its bite, if not its bark. The protest in Wellington was inspired by the truckers’ convoy in Canada and the occupation of Ottawa.

We know that this was not an organic uprising of truckles, but was rather inspired by QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy far right media platform Counterspin in New Zealand was central in the formation and viral spread of the Aotearoa convoy,

It is also, astoundingly, a protest that is preaching aroha (love) and peace. This is at odds with the Trump-loving, QAnon inspired cesspit of violence. QAnon believes that the government is full of elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and media.

They believe that politicians and journalists will be executed in a day of reckoning.

That is why “hang ‘em high” was chalked on the steps to Parliament in the first days of the protest. Many people at this protest want to see politicians and media people executed.

This protest also has the support of white supremacists with swastikas chalked on a statue in the early days.

This disgusting far-right, anti-establishment hatred has no place in Aotearoa. Yet here it is at a protest supported by thousands on the Parliament lawn.

I have protested at many events over the years in Aotearoa in the name of animal rights. Never would I stand alongside people who preach violence. And in all cases police behaviour toward myself and my fellow protestors has been exemplary and respectful.

The protest was ill-thought out in direction, leaderless, and doomed to failure. Their demands cannot possibly be met in a time of global pandemic that has brought the world quite literally to its knees.

And yet as the days tick by, yoga classes spring up alongside gardens. Food stalls and dancing, a concert, love and freedom grow like fairy tales.

It’s all a fairy tale. Make no mistake. This protest may preach peace, but its bones are evil.

— Lynley Tulloch

It’s all a fairy tale. Make no mistake. This protest may preach peace, but its bones are evil.

So where to go from here? There is no end in sight for this drama. The protesters are revelling.

The government can’t move them. Police can’t move them. The army can’t move them.

Ironically, as suggested by ex-Labour party president Mike Williams, it will be the covid virus itself that will bring them down. And that is one little virus that doesn’t care about threats of violence.

The only thing it will take notice of is a vaccine and a mask, and those are in short supply on Parliament grounds right now.

The virus doesn’t care if you are a child, or elderly, or immune-compromised or dangerously deluded. It doesn’t give a care in the world about your rights. It just goes and sticks its spikes right into you joyfully.

And so, Mike Williams is probably right. And therein lies the biggest irony of this whole protest.

Dr Lynley Tulloch is an educational academic and also writes on animal rights, veganism, early childhood, feminist issues, environmentalism, and sustainable development.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand police have moved to start clearing up the roads near Parliament in the capital Wellington, where protesters have clogged the roads with vehicles for more than a week.

But there has also been a significant increase in illegally parked vehicles in the area.

Some streets around Parliament could not be used since people protesting against covid-19 vaccine mandates clogged the roads with their vehicles, with public transport in the capital also having to be re-routed.

On Thursday, police estimated more than 400 cars, vans and campervans were ensconced in several streets alongside Parliament and today that estimate grew to 800.

The protest, which began on February 8, drew a crowd of more than 1000 people today.

Yesterday, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said they were expecting more people to turn up to the protest over the weekend, and that they would implement a traffic management plan.

Despite police previously warning protesters to move their vehicles or face towing, they did not end up acting on the ultimatum, fearing an escalation.

Tow trucks relocating vehicles
But on Saturday afternoon, tow trucks were seen relocating illegally parked cars near Wellington railway station.

In a statement, police said there was an increase of people attending the protest today, as was anticipated.

“Police cleared illegally parked vehicles on Thorndon Quay today — 15 were moved by protesters after police spoke with them and two were towed.

“Police are also noting the registration of vehicles currently impeding traffic for follow up enforcement action, and structures such as tents and marquees are being removed from any site that does not form part of the main protest area.”

The cars were parked in the median strip in the middle of the road, and appear to be relocated to the side of the road.

Over a dozen police cleared traffic in the area and directed pedestrians to move away, when a small crowd began to gather.

Further up the road, traffic cones with “no parking” signs have been laid down on the curb of Bowen Street, where many cars remain illegally parked.

Sky Stadium at capacity
Police said the parking facility at Sky Stadium was at capacity, after they had previously encouraged protesters to move their vehicles there.

But they said they had “serious concerns” about health and safety as a concert at the protest site has been planned.

“We continue to maintain a highly visible, reassurance presence on site, and staff are engaging with the public and protesters to provide advice and, where necessary, take enforcement action.”

Police said they have attended at least six medical events within the protest and continued to urge anyone parked unlawfully to remove their vehicle to allow emergency services access.

Business and community leaders have been calling for an end to the blockade, saying it was adding stress to nearby residents and users.

Meanwhile, Marlborough Mayor John Leggett said protesters in Picton had made it clear they would not be moving until their counterparts in Wellington do.

Leggett said the council had been in contact with leaders of the action in Nelson Square, who had made their position clear.

He said the Picton occupiers were linked to the Wellington anti-mandate protest.

“To put it the other way, if Wellington [protest] is resolved, we will get a resolution here, a peaceful resolution, and they’ve made it very clear that their occupation is linked entirely to what’s happening in Wellington so there needs to be some way of resolving the Wellington situation.”

Police today said they were also maintaining a presence at that protest, as well as another one in Christchurch.

1901 new community cases – down slightly
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health reported that the number of new daily community cases of covid-19 has fallen slightly from yesterday’s record, with 1901 new cases today.

There were also 14 cases identified at the border, including five historical cases.

There was a record 1929 community cases reported yesterday.

There have now been 28,360 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand since the pandemic began.

The ministry said there are 76 people in hospital with the coronavirus. None are in ICU.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Go home and take your children” — that was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s plea to protesters remaining at Parliament today.

Despite being trespassed from Parliament grounds a week ago, protesters remain on the Parliament lawn and show no sign of leaving in spite of a new record 981 community covid-19 cases today.

There were about 3000 present over the weekend protesting over covid mandates and public health measures.

Ardern announced that New Zealand would move to Phase Two of the omicron plan at 11.59pm on February 15, when the period of home isolation reduces.

She said the increase in covid-19 cases was not unexpected and the country would stay in Phase Two as long as daily cases remained between 1000 and 5000 cases.

Earlier today, Ardern told RNZ Morning Report: “I think we all want [the protesters] to leave”.

“What’s become very clear is this is not any form of protest I’ve seen before and we’ve seen a lot, you know, and I think we’ve said time and time again, New Zealand is a place where protest is part of who we are.

“Some of our greatest movements have been born of people movements, many of which have entered the forecourt of Parliament.

“But what I’m seeing, it is some kind of imported form of protest.

‘Trump flags, Canadian flags’
“We’ve seen Trump flags, Canadian flags, people who are moving around the outskirts of the area with masks are being abused.

“Children and young people on their way to school are being abused. Businesses are seeing people occupy their spaces.

“This is beyond a protest.”

The Morning Report interview. Video: RNZ News

She did not believe the protest should continue and had specific concern for the children there, saying it was not an appropriate place for them.

“Do I believe that they should be there? No. Should they go home? Yes. Especially, especially the children.

Asked if it was time for an “olive branch” gesture or for politicians to meet and talk with protesters, Ardern said their actions did “not create a space where there’s any sense that they want dialogue”.

“What I have seen down on that forecourt does not suggest to me that this is a group that are interested in engaging in policy development.

Signs calling for ‘death of politicians’
“There are signs down there calling for the death of politicians.”

As for the management of the situation, that was for police, she said.

Police today were appealing to protesters to work with them to try to clear the streets of Wellington.

Wellington district commander Superintendent Corrie Parnell said they did not plan to wait the protesters out.

Police “ultimately need to be able to make all of those operational decisions,” Ardern said.

“It is absolutely for the police to determine how they manage any form of occupation or protests. And you can understand why that is a convention we will hold strongly to.

“I would hate to see in the future a situation where you have politicians seen to be instructing the police on how to manage any type of protest — and that extends to not passing judgment on operational decisions that are for them.”

Out-of-tune music tactics
Asked about tactics used by Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard over the weekend — out-of-tune music and Covid-19 vaccination ads being played to protesters — Ardern said: “I would also enforce the difference in our different roles here, the Speaker exists on behalf of all parliamentarians.

“His job is to, of course, maintain a safe place to work. Right now it is a very difficult place for people to enter and the one piece of context I’ll just give is that it has not been a silent protest.

“What I’ve heard are clear anti-vaccination messages that do not align with the vast majority of New Zealanders.

“Media, when they’ve stepped onto the forecourt, have been abused and chased and called liars.

“So some of the rhetoric and noise coming from the protest has been pretty poor.”

A discussion on Mallard’s tactics was “not a fray” Ardern wanted get into, she said.

Other covid control tools being used
As for covid-19 restrictions, Ardern said “we’ve only used what’s been necessary. That’s why we’re not using lockdowns anymore — because we now have other tools that means we don’t need to use those harsher form of measures, and we will continue to move away from them.

“But when we’re in the middle of a growing pandemic, that is not the time to move away from those things that keep us safe…

“When it comes to everything from the use of vaccine passes to the use of mandates, you’ve seen with other countries that they have been in the position to start lessening the use of those as they progress through the pandemic and got to a place where you see more stabilisation and a steady management within the health system.

“That is what we would move to as well. It is fairly difficult to put timelines or criteria on that when of course we are dealing with different variants that can come anytime.

“[I am] always loath to set up a situation you then can’t follow through on because of a changing situation, so instead I give the principle: As soon as we can move away, we will move away.

“We’ve done that with lockdowns. We’re opening the borders, we are easing restrictions that have been quite impactful for everyday lives.

“But right now, the ones we still have are going to help us get through omicron.”

981 new community cases
The Ministry of Health reports that there are 981 new community cases of covid-19 in New Zealand today.

In a statement, the ministry said the new cases were in Northland (21), Auckland (768), Waikato (82), Bay of Plenty (23), Lakes (12), Hawke’s Bay (5), MidCentral (5), Taranaki (1), Tairāwhiti (6), Wellington (6), Hutt Valley (14), Wairarapa (12), Nelson Marlborough (2), Canterbury (4), South Canterbury (1) and Southern (19).

“Once again, the further increase in new cases today is another reminder that, as expected, the highly transmissible omicron variant is now spreading in our communities as we have seen in other countries,” the ministry said.

Thirty-nine people with covid-19 are in hospitals in Whangārei, Auckland, Waikato, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch — however, none in ICU or HDU.

The average age of hospitalisations is 55.

At the border, there are 25 new covid-19 cases — eight of which are historical. The cases at the border are from India, Malaysia and 14 of them are unknown.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand covid-19 experts are nervously observing an ever-increasing number of cases at the border, as the threat of an omicron outbreak looms.

The highly transmissible variant has rapidly spread around the globe and New Zealand has dodged a community outbreak so far.

But with the escalating number of overseas returnees testing positive, there are fears a new wave of the virus could be out in the community within weeks.

Epidemiologist and University of Otago professor Michael Baker called the variant a “huge threat” and said it was not a matter of if there was an outbreak, but when.

Professor Baker was concerned there may have been undetected transmission of the virus — whether that was the delta or omicron variant — during the Christmas and New Year period.

“It will take a while for people to people to develop symptoms if they were exposed. Everyone should be aware of getting any cold or flu symptoms, which is unusual for this time of year.”

MIQ hotels well set up
A Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) spokesperson told RNZ the hotels were well set up to cater for omicron cases and a number of precautionary measures were in place to manage the risk.

This included travellers staying 10 days in MIQ and undergoing four tests during that time.

Anyone who tested positive was treated as an omicron case until proven otherwise by genome sequencing.

Despite these measures, Dr Baker was doubtful the country could make it through the month without the omicron variant escaping.

“We’re getting more than 20 cases a day in the last three days. That’s going to put huge strain on the MIQ system, as we know every infected that arrives increases the risk of border failure.”

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles, who is an associate professor at the University of Auckland, told RNZ Morning Report that rather than embracing the arrival of the new variant as some have done, Aotearoa needed to be prepared for its arrival.

‘Back to where we started’
“We’re kind of back where we started again, and what we really need to be doing is trying to delay that coming into our community for as long as possible so we can get everybody with that third booster dose and so that we can also get the vaccine rollout started and hopefully finished with our children,” she said.

“There is no controlled spread with omicron, I think it’s an absolutely ridiculous idea.

“There’s being prepared for it to come and then there’s welcoming it with open arms and all we have to look at is everywhere around the world doing open arms and it’s just not working at all.”

There were 64 new border-related cases in MIQ during the weekend, bringing the total to 227.

University of Otago senior lecturer Dr Lesley Gray said this did not bode well.

“We know that for every approximately 100 that we have in MIQ there is a risk that there might be one that might end up in the community.”

From January 7, travellers to New Zealand must return a negative test within 48 hours of their departure, down from 72 hours.

Catching virus in short time-frame
Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay had previously said that people may have been incubating covid-19 before their flight or been exposed during their travel.

Dr Gray was concerned people were catching the virus within that short-time frame.

“We do have to ask the questions of ‘how, what, when, and why’. As these people travel, they’re distanced for the most part on the planes, when they’re in airports they’re wearing masks and they have to take a reasonable number of precautions,” she said.

She urged New Zealanders to ask themselves if they were ready for an omicron outbreak.

This included having adequate supplies and a suitable place to quarantine if needed.

She said getting a booster shot, scanning in, mask-wearing, and testing were among the best tools to tackle omicron.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand police are investigating an anti-vaccine protest attended by Destiny Church leader pastor Brian Tamaki.

A Destiny Church spokesperson confirmed Tamaki visited Christchurch over the weekend to give the Sunday sermon at the local congregation.

Tamaki also spoke at an event in a central park on Saturday, which the spokesperson described as a “picnic”, not an anti-vaccine mandate protest.

They said once they learnt of Tamaki’s visit, they asked him to speak at Saturday’s event in Hagley Park.

Canterbury police district commander Superintendent John Price said enforcement action may be taken if breaches of covid-19 rules are found.

Tamaki has been charged three times after speaking at large protests in breach of Auckland’s level three rules.

At the time of the first event, gatherings were restricted to a maximum of 10 people. There were around 1000 people at the protests.

Superintendent John Price said: “We encourage individuals attending protests to conduct themselves in a safe manner and adhere to current covid-19 orange restrictions, which are there to ensure the safety of all.”

Destiny Church regularly meets in Christchurch’s Cranmer Square for their weekend sermon.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The US Army ignored agreed-to covid prevention rules for entry into the Marshall Islands this week and the result was the first border cases of covid in the Marshall Islands in more than a year.

Three US Army personnel tested positive for covid soon after arrival at the US Army Garrison — Kwajalein Atoll (USAG-KA) Tuesday while starting a two-week quarantine period for entry into the country.

Despite record-breaking numbers of covid cases in Hawai’i and the US mainland over the past several weeks, driven largely by the omicron variant, the Army brought in the largest group ever to come to Kwajalein in the weekly US Army repatriation groups since it started the process in June 2020.

The group arrived Tuesday this week following a one-week quarantine in Hawai’i to undergo an additional two weeks of quarantine at the Kwajalein base.

Of the 37 base workers and their families now in quarantine, three tested positive for covid. On Wednesday, Army authorities informed Marshall Islands officials of the positive cases in this group.

These are known as “border cases”.

The Marshall Islands is one of the few countries globally that has never had community transmission of covid in the two years since the virus appeared.

‘Clearly broke the protocols’
The 37 people in this weekly Army group were allowed to board the military flight to Kwajalein from Honolulu without waiting for the results from a covid test, “which clearly broke the protocols jointly agreed to by National Disaster Committee (NDC) and USAG-KA,” said Chief Secretary Kino Kabua, who chairs the Marshall Islands National Disaster Committee.

A negative covid test is required for anyone to fly from Honolulu to the Marshall Islands.

A public statement issued by the Office of the Chief Secretary Wednesday said all three positive cases are showing no symptoms and are in quarantine and isolated from the community at Kwajalein.

There were no border cases in either Kwajalein or Majuro for 14 months preceding this week’s development. This is primarily because a quarantine period in Hawai’i — two weeks for unvaccinated individuals, one week if vaccinated — coupled with three covid tests prior to departure to the Marshall Islands has ensured no border cases in the Marshall Islands for an extended period.

Last week’s Army group saw one person bumped off the flight when they tested positive for covid prior to departure from Honolulu. But this protocol was not followed this week.

“NDC had discussions with the colonel on Wednesday who stated it was a procedural error on their part,” said Kabua.

“He conveyed it was unacceptable that the situation occurred and that he had already brought his entire team to rectify the problem, including pulling back the authority to authorise the flights to his level.”

Monitoring of test results
Kabua added: “We reiterated the importance of adhering to the joint protocols and discussed additional measures to enhance collaboration at the technical-working level, especially the monitoring of test results coming out from Honolulu.”

Prior to the discovery of the three border cases, the Ministry of Health earlier this week issued a call to temporarily halt all repatriation for one month in light of the explosion of covid cases in Hawai’i, the US mainland and the world during the past month.

Hawai’i has been reporting between 1500 and 3000 new covid cases daily over the past several weeks after having only 57 cases as recently as December 7. The United States set a new record with more than 500,000 cases a day earlier this week.

The recommendation to “pause” repatriation was the lead point in a “Ministry of Health Emergency Covid-19 Resolution” issued January 3.

There is currently one Marshall Islands repatriation group tentatively scheduled for January and the Army brings in groups of its workers weekly.

The ministry recommended using a one-month pause on repatriation groups to enhance health and community preparation for the possible introduction of covid-19 omicron into the community, including vaccination, boosters and updating National Emergency Operations Centre plans.

The ministry also called on the government to “mandate covid-19 vaccination for healthcare workers, front-liners, civil servants and school aged children, including booster doses”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. Giff Johnson is editor of the Marshall Islands Journal.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As some North Island regions moved to the orange traffic light setting at 11.59pm last night, New Zealand has now found two omicron cases that were briefly in the community, and close contacts are urgently being chased up.

As a British DJ outed himself as the omicron community case identified yesterday, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday expressed his disappointment in the musician’s non-compliance with rules.

Robert Etheridge, also known as DJ Dimension, went out into the community on December 26 and 27 after 10 days of isolation but before he received his final covid-19 test result.

As such, he has faced abuse online over the matter.

“I want to reiterate my apologies to those who I have inadvertently put at risk as a result of my misunderstandings,” he wrote in an Instagram post.

“I realise the gravity of the situation and I am deeply regretful to those who have been impacted; including members of the public, event organisers and close contacts.”

Etheridge had tested negative to the virus three times before while in isolation. It was also revealed today that he completed his three-day self-isolation period (after seven days in MIQ) on Waiheke Island.

“We understand they travelled by private car and ferry to the island. While on the ferry they did not leave their vehicle and travelled straight to their accommodation.”

Race to get to close contacts
The DJ was due to play at Wanaka’s Rhythm and Alps festival but had been forced to pull out, along with another DJ known as Friction and artist Lee Matthews, who were considered close contacts.

Fourteen people who dined with Etheridge at Soul restaurant are also considered close contacts.

Eight of those people remain in Auckland, while six flew to Christchurch where they performed at the Hidden Lakes Festival on December 28. But the Canterbury District Health Board considered the risk to be extremely low.

“All identified close contacts are being urgently contacted by contact tracers,” the Ministry of Health said.

But the exact number of contacts is still being confirmed and identified, according to Hipkins.

He told media today that while Etheridge was on Waiheke Island, he had drinks on the beach with neighbours, who have been told to self-isolate.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fact that three of the case’s four Waiheke Island housemates had tested negative so far may suggest he was not infectious at the time.

“But again we will just have to await more of those results.”

However, the source of Etheridge’s infection remains a mystery because his case has not been able to be genomically linked to the other omicron cases that were in MIQ when he was there.

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles said people should be aware that the incubation period for this highly infectious variant could be longer than what they believe.

“It’s just really important that we don’t think that seven days [of isolation] is okay and that people are still cautious … After receiving several negative tests, people could still be incubating the virus and that’s what it shows us.”

Second omicron case
The Ministry of Health yesterday reported there were 60 new community cases of covid-19 and 11 at the border.

Five of the international arrivals came from Australia, two from the United Kingdom, two from Singapore, one from United Arab Emirates, and one from Ethiopia.

Surveillance testing on December 27 of an Air New Zealand crew member has returned a positive result, with genome sequencing finding it is the omicron variant.

Their infection has been genomically linked to three other omicron cases from a December 24 flight that the person worked on between Auckland and Sydney.

New Zealand-based international aircrew are mostly exempt from a 14-day isolation or quarantine period as long as they meet certain conditions.

So far for this case, no locations of interest have been identified, but there are eight close contacts — seven of whom have tested negative so far.

The case was immediately transferred to a MIQ facility.

And with positive cases reaching 33 in Rotorua yesterday, iwi-lead health provider Te Arawa Covid-19 Response Hub is stepping up its testing abilities by training more staff.

Meanwhile, across the Tasman two team players and one staff member of the men’s Wellington Phoenix football have tested positive to the virus. The team is currently based in New South Wales, where cases topped 12,000 today.

‘We need to throw everything we can at it’
In light of the cases, the National Party is calling on the government to allow people to get their booster shot sooner, bring forward the timeline for children’s vaccines, and use more rapid antigen testing.

Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop said there were people who had passed four months since their second dose and had been turned away when they tried to get their booster injection.

The booster rollout had been causing some confusion for people and frontline staff. But the Ministry of Health last week clarified that providers could give anyone eligible their booster dose if they had supply.

Meanwhile, the National Māori Authority said it was not too late to introduce tougher border restrictions.

Chairman Matthew Tukaki said the government should shut the borders to anyone who was not a resident or citizen.

“We can’t afford any more unnecessary prolonged lockdowns, so anything we can do to limit the exposure of Omicron until we can get ahead of this, then I think we need to throw everything we can at it.”

Tukaki said the government should also consider extending the amount of time people from high-risk countries spend in MIQ.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz