The Pacific Election 2023 debate kicked off today with one of the most pressing issues for Pacific communties — an amnesty for overstayers.

The Dawn Raids apology was two years ago, and weeks out from the election, the Labour Party has announced it would offer a lifeline for long-term overstayers in New Zealand.

It followed anger from Pacific community leaders, disappointed it had not happened in all the years following the apology.

On the panel were Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni, National’s Fonoti Agnes Loheni, ACT’s Karen Chhour and Teanau Tuiono from the Green Party.

Labour’s Sepuloni said the amnesty announcement was not an attempt at baiting voters.

“You have to think about everything that has been expected of Immigration New Zealand in the last couple of years and the immense pressure that they have been under,” Sepuloni said.

An amnesty would be granted “in the first 100 days if we are re-elected,” she said.

Green support for amnesty
The Green Party would also suppport an amnesty for overstayers.

“Amnesty for overstayers is more than timely. It is late,” said Green Party Pacific Peoples spokesperson Teanau Tuiano, criticising Labour for taking too long.

The Pacific Issues Debate. Video: RNZ Pacific and PMN

Meanwhile, both National and ACT would not back an amnesty.

National leader Christopher Luxon had previously said it would send the wrong message and encourage “rule breakers”.

National’s Pacific spokesperson Loheni said the the Dawn Raids was no doubt “discrimination and abhorrent”.

But, she took the side of people “working hard to go through the legal steps to become residents”.

Health
Around 40 percent of New Zealanders — and half of Pasifika people — cannot afford dental care.

The Green Party plans to make dental care free for everyone — paid through a wealth tax system, which the Labour Party had already ruled out.

However, the Labour government said it would provide free dental care for everyone under 30 years old.

Dental care in New Zealand is free until a person turns 18 years old. But this excludes orthodontic care, i.e. braces because it is classed as “specialist dental care”.

National’s plan to tackle the health crisis was to attract an overseas workforce and plug the nurses and doctor shortage within New Zealand. Loheni reiterated her party leader’s stance and refused to back “race-based” policies but did acknowledge the hardships Pacific people faced.

“The numbers are grim for the Pacific. We need to get more of a workforce here,” Loheni said.

“The health system is in absolute crisis. We are 4800 nurses short. We are about 1700, GP’s short and about 1000 midwives short,” she said.

ACT Party candidate Karen Chhour said, “I’m hearing all around the country and especially up north and just the lack of GPs up north.”

Chhour said it was about helping to “ease pressure off hospital services” and “investing in the front line services”.

Two thirds of students experience poverty.

“Why would you go into university to study medicine . . . we would pay this through a wealth tax,” Greens Tuiano said.

This policy is expected to provide a guaranteed income for students or a person who has fallen out of work to help them get through university.

Labour said it would address health inequities because Pacific and Māori people were more disadvantaged.

“It has been incredibly ugly on the campaign trail . . . the level of racism that is resulted because of the rhetoric around measures like this, when they are purely equity measures and they should be embraced by everyone,” Sepuloni said.

She said seen since 2019, around 1000 health scholarships had been given to Pacific people.

Housing
One in 10 Pacific (11 percent) children live in damp and mouldy homes, where they are 80 times more likely to develop acute rheumatic fever, which can lead to heart disease and death.

Sepuloni said: “We have increased that by 13,000 homes, stopped selling them off. We have got 2700 Pacific people signed up with our programme that provides them with support to pathway into home ownership . . .

“Some of our Pacific populated areas are getting investment that they never had before. Like the NZ$1.5 billion we put into put it for housing revitalisation.”

But ACT’s Chhour hit back and said the “government should be held to the same account as landlords”.

“Kāinga Ora is one of the worst landlords in some cases where they do not meet those standards and where they have got extra time to meet those standards,” she said.

Green’s Tuiono said prices for rentals needed to be capped to protect tenants.

“There are 1.4 million renters within New Zealand and many of those people are our people.”

National’s Loheni said she “grew up in a state house with a crowd 15 people. One of my sisters has lived with asthma her whole life and it put her behind in school”.

She said under the Labour government “rents have gone up $180 per week.

“Unfortunately, we still need social housing, emergency housing. We have got 500 people living in cars at the moment. So we got a priority category to move those people who have been living in cars further up that social housing list.”

Education
Pasifika students face significant achievement gaps and underfunding, while teachers struggle with complex job demands and mental health issues.

“The government has failed our students,” Loheni said.

Loheni got emotional during the debate when sharing the declining pass rates of some Pasifika students.

“Only 14.5 percent Pasifika students reach the minimum curriculum for maths compared to the rest of the population of 41.5 percent,” she said.

“Please don’t say it’s covid because why is it Pasifika students, the lowest of all groups, and nothing has been done.”

Sepuloni defended her party, and said it had invested $5 billion into the education system – mainly “towards pay for teachers”.

Chhour said there’s a lot of pressure on teachers.

“Not only are they teachers, social workers, kids have been through a lot. They have effectively had interrupted education for the last three years.

“A lot of them are feeling anxiety about whether they agree with your exams. A lot of them are suffering from mental health issues . . . so teachers are dealing with all of this on top of actually trying to educate our kids.”

She said under the ACT party, they wanted to “bring back” charter schools and partnership schools for young people “who didn’t quite fit into the education system”.

Greens’ Tuiono said the government’s payout to support teachers was “vital”.

“I talked to some teachers where their pay rise hasn’t kept up with inflation for 10 years.”

Crime
Almost half of our Pacific children are likely to live around family violence. Pacific children are twice as likely to be hospitalised due to assault, neglect and maltreatment.

Sepuloni said it was about addressing “intergenerational impacts”.

She said sending more young people to prison was “an opportunity for gangs to actually recruit once they’re in there”.

Instead, a programme they had put in place addressed this issue and had seen more than 80 percent of young offenders not go on to reoffend.

“It actually requires full wraparound support for not just them but for their siblings and their families.”

Loheni said the National Party would address the rise of RAM raids and through “social investment,” and planned to put young people through military and cadet training, which studies had previously shown to be ineffective.

“We do have policies around military academies where they are going to have wraparound support, note that they do work.”

Tuiono disagreed. “Locking them up into boot camps that just won’t work.”

“We also have to address those underlying drivers of poverty because if you have the stable home life, there’s food on the table, you know the family can afford to keep the lights on, that helps to stabilise our families.

“That’s what we should be doing,” he said.

Climate change
National plans to “double renewable energy, help farmers clean up in the areas and invest in public transport,” Loheni said.

Sepuloni said Labour was “action oriented” and their “track record” with the Greens “goes to show that we have been able to reduce carbon emissions”.

Tuiono said “a vote for the Greens is a vote for climate action”.

“We have got some money set aside to support our towns and our councils to make their towns and councils more more climate resilient.”

ACT’s Chhour said the party would be looking at how “we’re building our infrastructure and adapting to climate change”.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Young families are the clear target of Labour’s election-year Budget, but its flagship promise – cheaper childcare – will not kick in until next year.

The 2023 Budget — billed as a “no frills” affair — is set against a volatile economic backdrop with the government now forecast to return to surplus a year later than expected.

In a statement, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said his first Budget would provide relief from the sharp cost of living without exacerbating inflation “as tax cuts would”.

“Budget 2023 isn’t fancy, nor should it be . . .  it’s a carefully calibrated package that deals with the here and now pressures, while also laying the foundation for real long-term benefits.”

‘Support for today’
The Budget extends cheaper childcare to parents of two-year-olds, giving them access to 20 hours a week of free early childhood education (ECE). That support currently kicks in for children from the age of three.

For eligible families, the extension could save them more than $130 a week in childcare costs for an extra year.

They will have to wait, however, until March next year — critically after the election — for the $1.2 billion package to come into effect.

Speaking during the lock-up at Parliament, Finance Minister Grant Robertson told RNZ the delay was primarily due to administrative reasons.

From July this year, public transport will be made free for all children under 13 and will remain half-price for passengers aged 13 to 24. That initiative is costed at about $327 million over four years.

The existing discount on bus, train and ferry fares will expire for most other people at the end of June, except for Community Service Card holders. As signalled, the accompanying fuel discount will finish at the same time.

Most prescription medicine will be made completely free from July, with the government scrapping the current $5 charge at a cost of about $619 million over four years.

‘Building for tomorrow’
The government has committed $71 billion of infrastructure spending over the next five years — that is money for building schools, hospitals, public housing, roads, etc. The spend is up about 60 percent from the $45 billion spent over the previous same period.

On top of that, another $6 billion has been set aside for a National Resilience Plan with an initial focus on future-proofing road, rail and other infrastructure wiped out by extreme weather.

Three new multi-institution research hubs will be set up in Wellington at a cost of $451 million. Each will focus on a different subject: Climate change, health, and technology.

A new 20 percent rebate will be made available for game development studios who spend at least $250,000 a year in New Zealand as an incentive to keep them from moving abroad. Individual studios will be eligible for up to $3 million a year in rebates.

Tax, tax, tax
As promised, the Budget does not include any major new taxes or tax cuts, but it does increase the trustee tax rate from 33 percent to 39 percent — in line with the top personal tax rate.

Revenue Minister David Parker said the discrepancy was currently allowing super-wealthy taxpayers to funnel their income through trusts to avoid paying their fair share of tax.

Both Inland Revenue and Treasury had recommended the change when Labour introduced the new top personal tax rate in 2021.

The trustee tax hike is estimated to raise about $350 million a year, beginning in April next year.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Political Roundup: Labour’s decaying policy on free universal dental care

Grant Robertson has once again ruled out implementing a popular Labour Party policy: free universal dental care. He did so yesterday on RNZ’s Morning Report, citing the cost factor. The Acting Prime Minister suggested that spending on dental care wasn’t a priority for the Government and that the health budget had more important areas for funding.

Robertson’s continued stalling on free dental care essentially contravenes his own party’s policy. At the 2018 annual conference, Labour agreed to implement free universal dental care for all adults – extending that available to those under the age of 18 years. This decision was made when the party was only one year into government. The announcement was greeted with great enthusiasm.

Four years later, Labour’s dental policy seems to be decaying, almost rotten. Behind the scenes, officials have worked on the policy and come up with ways to implement it. But the politicians lack the will to prioritise the spending.

Although Robertson cites a $1bn price tag for universal dental care, there have been suggestions of ways that the policy could be incrementally introduced, beginning with either low-income adults or a younger population. For example, if the Government wanted to start by extending free dental to those up until their 27^th birthday, the Ministry of Health has estimated it would cost just $148m, and they have come up with many other ways in which various other groups could be cheaply afforded free dental.

Increased dental funding would be popular

There is no doubt that the policy is extremely popular – with numerous surveys showing that the public wants free dental implemented. A 2020 Colmar Brunton survey showed that 64 per cent of the public backs free dental care. The most recent poll, carried out by Newshub’s Reid Research in May, asked “Do you think the Government should subsidise dental care to make it cheaper for adults to go to the dentist?” 84 per cent say yes.

At the time, the Minister of Health, Andrew Little responded by saying, “It’s an area we need to give attention to at some point” and that “there is a lot of room for improvement” in government funding of adult dental care.

Yet Labour’s shifts on this have been only tiny so far – increasing dental grants available through Work and Income. This is an improvement for those that can access them, but is no substitute for the proper reform promised by Labour.

Universal dental care back is on the agenda

The policy of free universal dental care is back on the agenda after the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (Toi Mata Hauora)  – the union representing dentists – released a report this week recommending that the free and universal policy be implemented as soon as possible by the Government. The union complained that although Labour had committed to action back in 2018, there has been “radio silence since”.

The union’s report, “Tooth be told”, showed that unmet dental treatment had become so bad that out of 11 comparable countries, New Zealand now fared the worst. The report showed that unnecessary tooth decay is leading to a quarter of million New Zealanders having teeth pulled each year. This is because 40 per cent of New Zealanders can’t afford to go to the dentist. And it’s getting worse – there has been a 31 per cent increase in those needing hospital medical interventions as a result.

Some dentists have been speaking out about this recently. For example, last week Timaru dentist Fraser Dunbar went on TV3’s The Project to describe the heartbreaking job he has of taking out people’s teeth in hospital due to people not being able to afford to go to the dentist.

He says there has been a large increase in people in their 20s needing all their teeth removed. Dunbar said that “it’s not unheard of for him to take out 100 teeth in a morning at the local hospital” and that this includes “three or four patients getting full clearances”.

The release of the report was also supported by the Auckland City Mission (Te Tāpui Atawhai) because the issue relates so clearly to inequality and poverty. Because private dental treatment has become so prohibitively expensive, the problem feeds directly into overall inequality.

According to the report, 42 per cent of adults cannot afford dentist visits. And of course, for some ethnic minorities, it’s much worse – 53.7 per cent of Māori adults and 51.5 per cent of Pasifika don’t access dental care under the current system.

The dental problem is therefore its own “crisis”, and a key part of the overall inequality crisis that the Government is failing to combat. And this “crisis” categorisation was borne out earlier this year when the international website for dental news, Dental Tribune International, reported, “New Zealand’s oral health crisis rages on”. And it’s not just related to the Government’s lack of funding, but also to a declining dental workforce – New Zealand now has one of the smallest per capita dentist and dental specialist workforces in the OECD.

Cheaper to provide full universal dental care

The Salaried Medical Specialists union argues that the Government is misguided in taking a short-term approach of rejecting free, universal dental services on the basis of the price tag. The union says that the opposite is the case – that the price of neglecting this area of healthcare is actually producing greater costs for the taxpayer and society.

The union argues that any large expenditure on dental health will yield significant savings in the longer term. The head of the union, Sarah Dalton, says that by spending on dental care, “there’s a whole bunch of way more serious, way more expensive conditions, health conditions that would disappear”. Alternatively, chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease end up costing much more to deal with down the track.

In fact, the New Zealand Dental Association has carried out a cost-benefit analysis, using Treasury tools, and found that the Government would get back an extra $1.60 on every dollar spent on extended dental care.

The problem, however, for Grant Robertson and Labour is that such wins for the public would be further down the track than the next election, or even the one after that. So, the politicians have clearly done their own cost-benefit electoral analysis and decided not to invest, even if it would be a sensible way to reduce misery and inequality.

In this sense, the unheeded case for free, universal dental care is a clear case study illustrating the decay of the Labour Party as a force for progressive change. Unfortunately, the rottenness in both dental health and politics seems set to continue.

Further reading on universal free dental care

Background reading:
Bryce Edwards: Is it time for Labour to introduce public dental care?
Bryce Edwards: The missing election policy on free dental visits
Bryce Edwards: Pulling teeth – the fight for free dental care
Bryce Edwards: Time to campaign for free universal public dental care

New material today:
RNZ: Single-step move to universal dental care cost-prohibitive – Grant Robertson
Will Trafford (Te Ao – Māori News): Dental access stats worst for Māori; terrible generally
Jayden Holmes (Today FM): Dentist worried too many desperate kiwis pulling own teeth out
No Right Turn: Grant says “no” again

Other items of interest and importance today

RMA, HOUSING
Luke Malpass (Stuff): It’s not Three Waters, but David Parker’s RMA reforms hit a lot of the same nerves
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Overhaul of ‘broken’ resource rules set to ‘tame’ planning departments, speed up builds
1News: Govt vows cheaper, faster resource consents in ‘broken’ RMA overhaul
Geraden Cann (Stuff): Industry supportive of RMA reforms but concerns remain
Russell Palmer (RNZ): RMA replacements find few fans on cross-benches
Brent Edwards (NBR): Opposition parties signal they will change new planning law (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Industry to be consulted in RMA spatial plan reform (paywalled)
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Resource Management Act reforms: key elements (paywalled)
Anne Gibson (Herald): Resource Management Act reform reaction: what experts think
James Perry (Te Ao – Māori News): RMA reforms to save millions but critics say still wide of the mark
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Resource management: Planner sceptical about Government’s proposed RMA reform
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Government brings Resource Management Act replacements to Parliament
Brent Edwards (NBR): New legislation to replace RMA should be law next year (paywalled)
Bernard Hickey (Interest): New regime to replace RMA to take 10 years to bed in, cost $3.891b and create benefits of $10.039b
Piers Fuller (Stuff): The Wellington car park that’s going to be turned into 280 homes
Miriam Bell (Stuff): More pain, less gain in store for home sellers, CoreLogic says
RNZ: More houses likely to sell at a loss, Corelogic says
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): House price fall ‘biggest since REINZ records began’
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): REINZ figures: House prices plummet 12.7% in Auckland, whopping 17% in Wellington in year
RNZ: House prices drop amid market hesitancy
RNZ: Housing affordability crisis continues to grow in Queenstown Lakes
Maria Slade (NBR): Housing projects face winter of discontent (paywalled)
Kate MacNamara (Herald): Ballooning manager class at public housing agency costs $103m per year (paywalled)

PARLIAMENT, ROY MORGAN POLL
David Farrar: Roy Morgan poll October 2022
Richard Harman (Politik): Luxon’s low point (paywalled)
Matthew Hooton (Patreon): Māori seats will decide it (paywalled)
Johnny Blades (RNZ): MPs warned of ordeals ahead amid disinformation
Audrey Young (Herald): Judge issues new decision after getting law wrong on parliamentary privilege (paywalled)
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): ‘A good day for democracy: Labour and National agree to change Māori electoral rule
1News: Māori electoral roll: Changes on way after Labour, Nats agreement
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Electoral review does not go far enough to address inequities, Māori advocates say
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): National MP advertising on What’s On Invers, the ‘anti-vax’ website blacklisted by RNZ
Jonah Franke-Bowell (Stuff): Slanted signs show ‘the status quo must go’ – Hamilton West by-election candidate

ECONOMY, BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): ‘Time for a tax-free threshold’: Should we give low-income earners a break?
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Economy: Grant Robertson says ‘tough 2023’ ahead amid warning ‘soft landing’ for economy looking less likely
Joseph Los’e (Herald): The Māori economy is booming and will be worth $100 billion by 2030
Cameron Bagrie (BusinessDesk): Why pain and hardship are on the way (paywalled)
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): Chances of a soft economic landing get slim: Westpac (paywalled)
Dita De Boni (NBR): To the ‘Taxpayers Union’: Cry more (paywalled)
Brigitte Morten (NBR): Social Insurance Scheme could be the sleeper of 2023 (paywalled)
Ian Llewellyn (BusinessDesk): Threat of petrol price intervention is needed, says Treasury
Eric Crampton (Stuff): We all turn a little bit crazy when prices rise in a crisis
Herald Editorial: Prices surge as energy companies reap dividends (paywalled)
David Williams (Newsroom): Power discord: The battle over NZ’s biggest water take
Logan Savory (Stuff): Economist: Smelter closure impact would be ‘far less pronounced’
Damien Grant (Stuff): Bank profits aren’t the problem, the Reserve Bank is
Ben Gracewood (Spinoff): I would simply fix banking in New Zealand
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): RBNZ still mulling ‘material’ anti-money laundering breach by ANZ NZ
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): Gender and ethnic diversity on boards improving globally, report finds
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Union reduces university staff pay demand to match inflation rate
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Teachers ‘insulted’ by govt offer of $6000 pay increase
RNZ: WINZ and Defence Force partner to place job seekers with employers

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Paul Buchanan: On NZ foreign policy “independence.”
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Cheap limes for your Corona: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gets down to business in Vietnam
Claire Trevett (Herald): Mojito and Corona lovers rejoice – PM’s Vietnam trip opens door for more limes to New Zealand (paywalled)
Jo Moir (Newsroom): From elbowing into summits to Hanoi garden tours
Claire Trevett (Herald): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern puts Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor on stunt double duties in Vietnam
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Jacinda Ardern celebrates Xi, Biden meeting amid pageantry in Vietnam
Gyles Beckford (RNZ): PM Jacinda Ardern in Vietnam: Day of top-level meetings and ceremony
1News: Prime Minister hoping for big trade boost with Vietnam
Peata Melbourne (Te Ao – Māori News): NZ ‘puppets for the USA’ – Rawiri Waititi
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): Canada insists it is meeting its dairy trade obligations (paywalled)
Ford Hart (Stuff): Will NZ’s relationship with China be driven by fear and greed?
James Halpin (Stuff): Son of Auckland woman who raised money for Russian army dodged conscription

ENVIRONMENT
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): COP27: New Zealand blasted for ‘obstructing’ fund for climate damage
MIchael Neilson (Herald): COP27 climate change: NZ gets ‘fossil’ award at conference as new adaptation funds announced
University of Auckland’s Nga Are Whetū Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society: (Newsroom): NZ should lead the climate change fight, not just pay reparation
Rod Oram (Newsroom): Will this be the COP that loses the 1.5 C target?
Mike Hosking (Newstalk): As COP27 goes nowhere, the Govt is still lost in climate ideology
Thomas Coughan (Herald): National’s bonfire of climate policy leaves Auckland-shaped hole in targets – Labour
RNZ: Key trading partners beating NZ efforts in sustainability reporting
Richard Prebble (Herald): Human ingenuity needed to beat global warming (paywalled)
Christina Laalaai-Tausa (Spinoff): Climate change is a harsh reality in Sāmoa – and the world’s leaders need to face it
Stefan Dimitrof (Te Ao – Māori News): Investment in seed banks could pay off against climate change
Farah Hancock (RNZ): Scientist’s dairy factory concerns over unsafe drinking water

PRIMARY INDUSTRIES
Maddy Lloyd (1News): Waimate District returns record-high levels of nitrate in water
Rachael Kelly (Stuff): Will anyone from the Government meet with Groundswell NZ?
Dean Baigent-Mercer (Stuff): It’s time to resolve carbon forest conflict
Nikki Mandow (Newsroom): Dairy land being lost at 1 percent a year, Fonterra
Gerhard Uys (Stuff): No workers to harvest, so farmer sacrifices 300,000 heads of lettuce
Jacqueline Rowarth (Stuff): What impact will farming levies have in a world of growing food insecurity?

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THREE WATERS
Thomas Cranmer: Five Waters and a Park
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington mayor Tory Whanau will not renew Green Party membership (paywalled)
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Former Auckland Council mayoral staff lose their jobs
Erin Johnson (Stuff): Auckland mayor Wayne Brown disappointed alternative Three Waters proposal rejected

HEALTH
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): North Shore Hospital: Nurses criticise lack of privacy for patients awaiting treatment
Cécile Meier and Murray Jones (BusinessDesk): GPs and pharmacists in tug of war over minor ailments market
Victoria Young (BusinessDesk): We investigate the $30b business of health
Alexa Cook (Newshub): Man dying of cancer wins battle with ACC for palliative treatment funding
Ruwani Perera (Newshub): First phase of three-year project to reduce vape-related harm among young people launched
RNZ: Lead levels allowed in drinking water taps to be cut significantly from 2025
Will Trafford (Te Ao – Māori News): Seymour backs purchase of rehabilitation centre from developers
Ben Wheeler (The Conversation): 100 years after insulin was first used, why isn’t NZ funding the latest life-changing diabetes technology?
Melody Smith (The Conversation): New Zealand scored C+ for physical activity in children and teens – what’s driving this and what can be done?

TRANSPORT
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Government reaches compromise with National on electoral law change
RNZ: Plan to reduce speed limits on some highways will save lives, Automobile Association says
1News: Lowering the road toll: Advocates debate speed reduction proposal
1News: NZTA proposes sweeping state highway speed limit decreases
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Reducing speed limits is a cop-out
Quinton Hurley (Stuff): Could rail be the future for Christchurch? Maybe not, but buses provide hope
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): By the numbers: How Air NZ brings its planes in the desert back to life
George Weeks (Spinoff): ‘Free’ car parking and roads cost drivers – in stress and wasted time

IMMIGRATION, POPULATION
Maiki Sherman (1News): Frequent travellers from Samoa to soon bypass visa requirements
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Migration turnaround gains momentum
John Weekes (Herald): Brain drain gone away? New stats show more people entering NZ than leaving
RNZ: What New Zealand’s population looks like as the world reaches 8 billion people

JUSTICE, CORRECTIONS, CRIME
Tara Shaskey (Herald): Home detention for Taranaki beneficiary who pocketed $50k in Covid wage subsidy fraud
George Block (Herald): Police criticised in damning watchdog report for ‘major deficiencies’ in their handling of fraud complaints
Kirsty Frame (RNZ): IPCA calls for ‘fundamental overhaul’ of fraud investigation processes
Phil Pennignton (RNZ): Fewer ram raids despite slow rollout of police security assessments
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Grant Robertson concedes ram raid support rollout too slow, lashes out at ‘criminals’ targeting businesses
William Hewett (Newshub): Calls for better education in prison to tackle New Zealand’s ‘high’ reoffending rates

BLACK FERNS
Abbey Wakefield (1News): Black Ferns hailed by MPs – ‘Pay them well’
Herald: PM Jacinda Ardern says Black Ferns should get equal pay and opportunities
Damien Venuto (Herald): The Front Page: How much the Black Ferns earn playing for the country
Trevor McKewen (BusinessDesk): Does NZ Rugby have the same courage as the Black Ferns? (paywalled)

COVID-19
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Cabinet scrapped masks against health advice
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Daily Covid-19 cases top 4000 for first time since August

OTHER
Brooke van Velden (Herald): Why we need to protect free speech
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Teachers ‘insulted’ by govt offer of $6000 pay increase
David Skipworth (Stuff): TVNZ has already spent almost $600,000 on proposed merger with RNZ
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait (Bay of Plenty Times): Foster case of ‘Moana’ and the ‘Smiths’ unlikely to set a precedent (paywalled)

These three charts show pandemic and post-pandemic excess deaths by age group. I highlight South Korea in light of this RNZ piece of ‘journalism’. For Omicron-related deaths, look for the period from February to May 2022. I include Italy and New Zealand for comparison; Italy and South Korea were – in February 2020 – the most publicised countries other than China in relation to the beginnings of the Covid19 pandemic. (South Korea clearly was much more successful than Italy at suppressing Covid19 in the northern spring of 2020.)

As I understand it, Italy has had substantially less facemask use in the Omicron (2022) phase of the pandemic than has South Korea. New Zealand is somewhere in between, and the eventual cost in lives in New Zealand remains hard to gauge.

The RNZ article also mentioned Japan and Singapore as role models for New Zealand. To follow the ‘exemplar’ countries, look to these charts on Worldometer. (I add populations for each, because the important charts – daily cases, active cases, daily deaths – are not adjusted for population.) I’ll include Republic of China – the second jurisdiction claiming to be the legitimate government of the whole of China, though unofficially named Taiwan – one of Michael Baker’s previously cited exemplars for New Zealand.

• Japan (population of 125,670,000)
• Singapore (population of 5,946,000)
• South Korea (population of 51,361,000)
• Republic of China (population of 23,907,000)

The three countries which I have charted here – South Korea, Italy and New Zealand – all have the same life expectancy at birth: 83 years.

The Korean chart may be distorted by demographics affected by both WW2 and the Korean War hot episode of the ‘Cold War’. People there born from 1945 to 1956 have been dying in substantially excessive numbers through 2021 as well as 2022. While younger people (at least until the Omicron wave) were largely unscathed by the ‘grim reaper’, they would appear to be not immune.

In Italy young people have also been dying at alarming rates, though at declining rates since Omicron has been the dominant variant of covid. In New Zealand, so far, young people have been largely unscathed by the reaper, though they clearly have been substantial amounts of adversity.

My sense is that, as with other countries, the impact of Covid19 in New Zealand on working-age people will eventually show up; and that, whatever facemask protocols New Zealanders follow from now, the harm that will lead to younger people’s death rates will eventually lead to an ‘Italian story’ in New Zealand.

The excess-deaths approach will also pick up non-covid deaths arising from reduced immunity to all forms of respiratory illness. (See my recent One Sari Sari Night.) Probably both Italy and South Korea have already had a significant impact from these other illnesses. Acculturated (see the RNZ article) and excessive facemask use tends to reduce deaths by postponing them. South Korea – and maybe New Zealand too – may be paying a high interest rate.

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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.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/472013/habitual-mask-wearing-is-likely-helping-japan-singapore-and-south-korea-bring-daily-omicron-deaths-down-epidemiologists-say

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.

We know that New Zealand has one of the world’s lowest mortality outcomes, so far, in the Covid19 pandemic. (So has North Korea.) It’s still far too early to access the costs incurred – loss of utility enjoyed by actual and ‘would-have-been’ New Zealand residents – and is also too early to properly assess covid’s death toll.

The above 2022 chart shows that New Zealand is rejoining the world, in having excess pandemic death. Still not high by the standards of most other countries. And the actual excess death peak in March almost exactly matches the covid-reported death peak, albeit allowing for reporting delay. So, so far, the upside and downside biases in the official Covid19 death toll for New Zealand are evenly balanced. Just as some people have died with covid but not of covid, some others have died of covid, undiagnosed. This is usual. (The ‘difference’ plot in the chart, for recent weeks, is caused by the reporting delay, and not by any net bias nor from public health quarantines.)

In addition to the recent excess deaths, the main chart feature to note is that July and August 2021 look very different from July and August (midwinter) in 2020. These deaths – matching the usual seasonal peak – have not yet been explained. While normally at that time of the year these would be influenza deaths, there were in fact neither influenza nor covid deaths in July 2021.

The second chart for excess deaths shows deaths from all seasonal causes, such as influenzas and colds. We see clearly that New Zealand is on a significant ‘excess deaths’ path this year; so far not unlike 2019, though at a higher level.

The question begged by the chart is whether excess deaths this year will reach anything like the peak of the 2017 (undeclared) influenza pandemic. And, if they do, to what extent will the excess deaths be deaths due to Covid19? And how many will be due instead to a range of other transmissible microbes, given our probable loss of ‘street immunity’ (to use a phrase from a New Zealand vet, when discussing dogs getting ‘kennel cough’ this year)? My sense is that seasonal deaths will peak at about 2017 levels. (Street immunity, by the way, should be understood to arise from diet and lifestyle as well as from regular exposure to passing pathogens.)

Note the 2021 winter peak, similar to the influenza peaks of 2015, 2016 and 2018.

The final chart shows New Zealand excess deaths by age cohort. The chart is not directly comparable with the other two, because it shows deaths over the ‘previous three months’. The chart shows that, as with other economically developed countries – eg the small countries in Western Europe – covid deaths are, like influenza deaths, concentrated among the older population. (This is unlike the United States, where there were huge percentages of excess deaths of people under 75 years-old. The United States’ data reflects huge amounts of ancillary unwellness in the middle-aged population. I heard one United States doctor mention in passing, on the Al Jazeera news, that one recent research paper indicates that 40 percent of United States covid fatalities were of people with diabetes. This seems important, though the media haven’t picked up on it.)

(Note that age data for most European countries, while important, needs to be treated with caution; that’s due to the complex demographic consequences of World War 2.)

In New Zealand, it is almost certain that many of the people who died from Covid19 this year are older people who would have died from Covid19 in 2020 or 2021, had covid penetrated the quarantine barriers in the way it did in Eastern Europe and South America. While, from the ‘annual’  and ‘overall’ excess deaths, the chart continues to show a negative overall toll, it shows that excess deaths for the last twelve months are now above zero.

Although the New Zealand’s covid pandemic mortality data is fully consistent with prosperous and relatively equal western countries, there is no guarantee that post-pandemic mortality will continue to fit that pattern. New Zealand’s population has a number of chronic health challenges; challenges which may make post-pandemic mortality more like that in the USA than in the EU. New Zealanders have not yet had their street immunity tested; in all likelihood street immunity has declined precipitously among New Zealand people, just as it has among New Zealand’s pet dogs.

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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 countries shown here have rates of Covid19 mortality comparable with each other, and – with one exception – have recent ‘excess deaths’ data.

We should note that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has just released its world Covid19 mortality estimates for the pandemic so far, suggesting a death toll ‘from’ Covid19 – ie a toll that includes mortality arising from the policy-mandated shutdowns and other measures – which is two-and-a-half times higher than the ‘official’ toll of verified deaths ‘of’ or ‘with’ Covid19. (Refer WHO puts global COVID-19 death toll at nearly 15 million, Al Jazeera, 5 May 2022.)

Netherlands

It’s common for European countries to have excess death rates at about 10 percent in 2021, while having few recorded Covid19 deaths; this is especially the third quarter of that year. And then, when a substantial wave of Covid19 hit that country, the official Covid19 statistics were slow to reflect that wave. Netherlands is an excellent example of this phenomenon.

From the outset, Netherlands was one of the more reluctant countries to properly document the pandemic. Though, unlike many other countries, it does keep timely overall death registration data. In the last month or so, Netherlands has had surprisingly high excess deaths (close to 20 percent of all deaths); comparable to excess deaths in New Zealand in the present ‘omicron’ wave of the pandemic.

The ‘difference’ plot shows two things: mainly uncounted covid deaths when the difference between the two measures of covid deaths is high and positive; and mainly the impact of public health measures (which save some deaths and postpone others) when the difference is negative. In the 2022 omicron-era, substantially negative ‘difference’ data reflects the extent which people have died ‘with’ Covid19 but not ‘of’ Covid19.

An important feature of the European covid demographics is the rapid decline in deaths at the end of 2021. While this will have been partly due to public health measures, it was probably most due to omicron-covid prevailing over its rival delta-covid, in the battle-to-the death between the variants. (To understand these viruses properly, we should see them as the mortal rivals of each other; humans and other hosts are merely collateral damage. Omicron was nature’s solution to Delta.)

Belgium

In Belgium the undercount of Covid19 deaths is markedly lower than the Netherlands, and the undercount period is shorter. Like Netherlands, Belgium has also had New Zealand levels (just under 20%) of excess deaths in late March.

Germany

German death data is a mix of Netherlands’ and Belgium’s. Germany has a smaller ‘delta peak’ than Netherlands, and, in the last month or so, lower excess mortality than both of the low countries.

Denmark

Again, there is the long covid-mortality undercount during 2021; and a dramatic mortality decline as omicron ‘kicked delta’s arse’. Mortality in the omicron-wave is low, but present; while Denmark had a huge case-count in the omicron wave, its excess mortality was very low.

Sweden

Sweden, despite large numbers of recent cases (despite much lower covid-testing rates than Denmark), shows the lowest European death rates over the Northern Hemisphere winter. No sign yet of the recent uptick in excess deaths which is apparent elsewhere. Sweden would appear to have maintained high levels of general immunity to epidemic viruses.

Israel

Israel is the only one of the countries, shown here, to have a very high peak death rate in the omicron-era. Yet Israel missed the late 2021 ‘delta-wave’, so it would seem that these deaths early in 2022 will have been mainly due to a late delta-wave that ended quickly (in early February) when omicron ate delta.

Israel’s recorded covid deaths have been more comprehensive than those in most European countries. Nevertheless, in both of its major death waves, the official data clearly lags the actual data.

South Korea

South Korea, an advance Asian country with early experience of Covid19 in March 2020, and experience of SARS in 2003, shows the same problems in recording covid deaths – in the 2021 delta period – that occurred in Netherlands and Denmark (among others in Europe).

Then after that, unlike Europe, South Korea suffered hugely during the omicron wave. The most likely reason is that public health measures taken in Korea left Koreans with a substantial overall immunity shortfall; Koreans appear to have become more naïve to this virus than have European, African and American populations.

Thailand

Finally, Thailand is one of the few Asian countries with comprehensive and timely mortality data. Thailand copped two delta waves of covid mortality in 2021. Again, like South Korea, it shows significant signs of having a particularly vulnerable population; quite different from, for example, Sweden. Looking at the Thai data, we may conclude that South Korea managed to keep covid in check in the second half of 2021, only to succumb to the inevitable in 2022.

Thailand is also showing a recent upsurge of mortality in the omicron-wave of Covid19. Its specifically covid immunity should be quite high. Yet the people in Thailand (or, maybe, Asia in general) seem to be significantly more vulnerable than people elsewhere. My guess is that there is a lack of general immunity in Thailand, and that excessive public health policy measures may be in part responsible for that vulnerability.

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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.

In a few countries – already noted – there has been a recent rise in deaths that may be due to omicron-covid. In many other countries there has not been a notable rise in excess deaths, despite rises in recorded deaths with Covid19.

Chile

Chile’s omicron-wave of covid looks more like a severe extension to its late-2021 delta-wave. The big difference is that it is now older Chileans who are dying, whereas in 2020 and 2021 there were unusually large numbers of younger deaths. Chile made a bigger effort than most to protect its older population, with (for example) a strictish prioritisation of older people for vaccination. Maybe we are now seeing that immunity has waned more in older people, because of these past measures to protect them. Or maybe, omicron-covid, which is generally mild and is well on the way to becoming another ‘common cold’ virus, has a disproportionate impact on those populations whose deaths are commonly cited as ‘due to old age’.

USA

The USA is much like Chile (and unlike most countries) in that unusually large numbers of younger people died from covid. This is less true for the most recent uptick in American deaths. While many of these 2022 deaths were due to delta-covid, the upsurge in covid deaths of older people came with the omicron wave of cases.

Israel

Israel has consistently seen more fatalities of older people, unlike these previous two countries. This seems to be especially pronounced in its latest wave. Though, as for the USA, many of these deaths will have been from the second delta-wave that saw case numbers rise markedly in December. This is of some concern, because of the proactive vaccination policies that Israel pursued.

Greece and Bulgaria

Greece, like its neighbour Bulgaria, was unusually late to get a wave of covid fatalities. This may have been in part due to significant influenza being present in both countries in February 2020. Most countries ‘paid the price’, however, in 2021.

Like Chile and the United States, they had unusually high numbers of younger fatalities. And like Chile and USA, the latest wave of fatalities seems to be more focussed on those who are older.

Speculation

My sense is, in the coming ‘omicron-winter’ in the southern hemisphere, there will be unusually large numbers of older people dying with Covid19. More like a bad flu season than what we have seen in the above countries last year.

We urgently need to investigate death rates of older people in years following years (such as the year ended October 2020) when relatively few older people died from respiratory illnesses. And we need to learn more about the extent to which recent waves of these kinds of viruses may both protect or aggravate the life expectancy of people in the older age groups more vulnerable to viruses of the respiratory tract.

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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.

Shocking abuses against indigenous Papuans have been taking place in Indonesia, say United Nations-appointed human rights experts who cite child killings, disappearances, torture and enforced mass displacement.

“Between April and November 2021, we have received allegations indicating several instances of extrajudicial killings, including of young children, enforced disappearance, torture and inhuman treatment and the forced displacement of at least 5000 indigenous Papuans by security forces,” the three independent experts said in a statement.

Special Rapporteurs Francisco Cali Tzay,  who protects rights of indigenous peoples,  Morris Tidball-Binz, who monitors extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Cecilia Jimenez-Damary,  covering human rights of Internally Displaced Persons, called for urgent humanitarian access to the region and urged the Indonesian government to conduct full and independent investigations into the abuses.

They said that since the escalation of violence in December 2018, the overall number of displaced has grown by 60,000 to 100,000 people.

“The majority of IDPs [internally displaced persons] in West Papua have not returned to their homes due to the heavy security force presence and ongoing armed clashes in the conflict areas,” the UN experts explained.

Meanwhile, some IDPs have been living in temporary shelters or stay with relatives.

“Thousands of displaced villagers have fled to the forests where they are exposed to the harsh climate in the highlands without access to food, healthcare, and education facilities,” the Special Rapporteurs said.

Relief agencies have limited access
Apart from ad hoc aid deliveries, humanitarian relief agencies have had limited or no access to the IDPs, they said.

“We are particularly disturbed by reports that humanitarian aid to displaced Papuans is being obstructed by the authorities”.

Moreover, severe malnutrition has been reported in some areas with lack of access to adequate and timely food and health services.

“In several incidents, church workers have been prevented by security forces from visiting villages where IDPs are seeking shelter,” the UN experts said.

They stressed that “unrestricted humanitarian access should be provided immediately to all areas where indigenous Papuans are currently located after being internally displaced.

“Durable solutions must be sought.”

??#Indonesia: UN experts concerned by deteriorating human rights situation & abuses against #indigenous Papuans, incl. child killings, disappearances, torture & mass displacement, in Papua & West Papua. They call for humanitarian access & investigations: https://t.co/idEsWJDBvM pic.twitter.com/mwFQyxgkCc

— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) March 1, 2022

‘Tip of the iceberg’
On a dozen occasions, the experts have written to the Indonesian government about numerous alleged incidents since late 2018.

“These cases may represent the tip of the iceberg given that access to the region is severely restricted making it difficult to monitor events on the ground,” they warned.

Meanwhile, the security situation in Highlands Papua had dramatically deteriorated since the 26 April 2021 killing of a high-ranking military officer by the West Papua National Liberation Army in West Papua.

The experts pointed to the shooting of two children, aged two and six, on October 26, shot to death by stray bullets in their own homes, during a firefight. The two-year-old later died.

End violations
“Urgent action is needed to end ongoing human rights violations against indigenous Papuans,” the experts said, advocating for independent monitors and journalists to be allowed access to the region.

They outlined steps that include ensuring all alleged violations receive thorough, “prompt and impartial investigations”.

“Investigations must be aimed at ensuring those responsible, including superior officers where relevant, are brought to justice. Crucially lessons must be learned to prevent future violations,” the Rapporteurs concluded.

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation.

The positions are honorary and the experts are not paid for their work.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The mainstream political narrative that emerged in late March 2020 was a ‘narrative of fear’ which set up the Covid19 coronavirus as a ‘tricky’ enemy that was out to get us by finding ways through our defences; and that we had to build collective barrier defences; defences such as lockdowns, border closures, and, eventually, facemask mandates. While the lockdowns, sensibly, were time-limited (albeit extendable), the border closures and over-reaching mask mandates were time unlimited.

The one initial point of optimism from the Prime Minister was, reminiscent of when the United Kingdom entered World War One, “it would be over soon” (eg by Christmas). Total victory would be quickish, we believed, because we – as a species – can be both clever and resolute. In New Zealand in 2020 we subscribed to the mantra that ‘the team of five million’ would defeat Covid through a mix of resolution and kindness. As in the World Wars, the resolution has been largely maintained; though the façade of kindness slipped long ago, with government immigration and travel policy leading the way.

Novel versus Established Respiratory Viruses

The distinction here is critical; the appropriate distinction is the difference between the 1918 influenza pandemic – a novel virus – versus the 2019 influenza outbreak in New Zealand. And we note the distinction between the 1890-93 novel coronavirus pandemic (long assumed to have been a novel influenza strain) and its RNA descendent, the OC43 ‘common cold’ coronavirus. Covid19 was a crisis in 2020 because it was caused by a novelvirus. Omicron appears to be more like the OC43 ‘cold’, which does trigger fatal illness. (See my Respiratory Viruses: Seasonal Mortality Compared, and its follow-up with more countries, for a view of the mortality associated with winter illnesses, both epidemic – eg influenza – and endemic.)

There are two reasons why a novel virus can be a very serious public health issue. The first is that it represents an unevolved virus that has not a chance to adapt to its environment; as such, it may be ‘unintentionally’ fatal to its host population. The second reason is that the host population is unadapted to the new virus. Host adaptation comes from exposure, and may be accelerated through vaccines, when available. Host vulnerability is enhanced by adverse socio-economic factors which may be present. Inequality and performance pressure lead to socially unacceptable levels of homelessness, malnutrition, substance abuse, and ennui.

This is the usual process of a new epidemic: one or more waves of severe illness, followed by a stabilisation as both virus and population adapt to each other. In some cases, the process can be averted by very rapid political action to eliminate a new virus, as happened with SARS in 2003. It turns out that the SARS elimination response was not the best response to the new 2019 virus that was both more transmissible and less severe than SARS; the ‘cat was already out of the bag’, so to speak.

In addition to adaptation or quick elimination, some countries may be able to choose to free-ride on the rest of the world, shutting themselves off while the rest of the world adapts to the virus (including its development of vaccines), and while the virus adapts to the rest of the world by becoming less severe. This would allow a country to open-up to a now-mild virus, and with a vaccine-adapted population. This has been New Zealand’s unwitting strategy, in practice if not in intent, and it may have been successful (possibly more successful than in Hong Kong), despite overt (and misguided) policy attempts to fend off the adapted (evolved, mild) version of the virus. This free-rider strategy additionally piggybacks off the necessarily foreign acquisition of knowledge about the novel virus, and the abovementioned adaptations by both virus and host species.

Delta vs. Omicron

Omicron is the adapted and evolved version of the virus. And it’s a very interesting scientific story which has not been well told. Delta is the last of the under-evolved (and potentially lethal) under-adapted versions of the SARS-COV2 coronavirus that causes the Covid19 disease. It was always likely to be displaced, eventually, by a better-adapted variant. It is the Neanderthal of the covid world.

Take a look at SARS-CoV-2’s family tree. It’s full of surprises. (NPR – National Public Radio of USA – 9 Feb 2022). Omicron’s evolution goes back to a very early point on the virus’s family tree!

The ‘out-of-Africa’ story of omicron-covid may be remarkably like the ‘out-of-Africa’ story of homo sapiens (aka us, modern humans). We may treat the ‘under-evolved’ version of homo – homo neanderthalensis – which predominated in Europe through many ice ages for about 300,000 years as delta-homo. Modern humans may be the homo equivalent of omicron-delta. Delta-covid is analogous to Neanderthal humans, who were displaced (after a few thousand years of coexistence) – in their European and Asian homelands – by modern humans. Modern humans migrated out of Africa, as did omicron-covid.

Of most significance is that omicron-covid evolved directly from the original covid variant (equivalent to homo erectus), and not from homo neanderthalensis or its immediate predecessor variants. That’s why there were so many ‘new mutations’ when scientists compared Omicron with Delta.

This analogy between covid and homo is also useful in allowing us to be prepared for a likely but otherwise unexpectable evolutionary development. Delta-covid continues to linger – especially, but not only, in New Zealand – and intermingles with omicron-covid. Just as we now know that modern humans are in reality hybrids, fused with Neanderthal (and Denisovan) DNA, we should expect the most evolved version of covid to be a fusion – mostly Omicron RNA but with a smattering of Delta RNA. Thus, as with influenza, covid may prove to be a more formidable seasonal foe than are the other adapted coronaviruses which almost all of us (at least in temperate latitudes) have ‘enjoyed’ the company of in the past.

(The 1918 influenza pandemic’s lethal second wave was most likely due to a hybrid novel H1N1 virus, forged on the western front battlefields of World War One. The 2009 ‘swine-flu’ pandemic was due to an H1N1 variant.)

Dr Angelique Coetzee and the Political Pushback re Omicron

My concern to write this present essay was motivated more than anything by this news.com.au article that I read, courtesy of the New Zealand Herald, on 10 Feb 2022.

Before commenting on that, we may note: “Dr Angelique Coetzee became internationally known in December 2021 as the medical doctor who treated one of the first cases of the then unknown Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She was also one of the first to controversially indicate, and was later proven to be correct, that the virus caused less severe disease than other variants like Beta and Delta.” (Quoted from Daily Maverick, 21 February 2022.)

The assertive South African doctor says: ‘”I was told not to publicly state that it was a mild illness,” she said. “I have been asked to refrain from making such statements and to say that it is a serious illness. I declined.” Asked [by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper] what she meant, Coetzee said “based on the clinical picture there are no indications that we are dealing with a very serious disease”. “The definition of mild Covid-19 disease is clear, and it is a WHO definition”.’ Coetzee was being pressured to make an unscientific political assessment that was contrary to her empirical findings.

And: “According to Coetzee, chairwoman of the South African Medical Association, she came under pressure from scientists in the UK and the Netherlands who said, ‘How can you explain that it’s a mild disease? It’s a serious illness. Look at the mutations’.”

There seems to be a popular view, a sort of Frankenstein view, shared by some career scientists, that mutations are a measure of an organism’s nastiness. While this view may reflect the “arms’ race” hypothesis, mutations in an adapted species are actually indicative of its adaptation. Thus, omicron’s mutations are a key part of omicron-covid being less lethal than other variants.

WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says: ‘”While Omicron does appear to be less severe compared to Delta, especially in those vaccinated, it does not mean it should be categorised as mild,” told a press conference. “Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people, and it is killing people. In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world.” Except that it’s not, unless you are in Hong Kong, where a positive test has so far meant automatic hospitalisation. (The latest weekly figures I have show that the number of people in Hong Kong seriously ill with covid at two per million, compared to ten per million for the world as a whole. Hong Kong’s hospitals are overstretched by admissions, not by serious illness.)

It’s clear from Europe and elsewhere (ref my Seasonal Mortality Comparedand Denmark and Israel) that the coming of Omicron has reduced deaths and hospitalisations, although many people in hospital – including those who have died there – have tested positive for covid. Having covid in hospital is not the same thing as being ‘hospitalised’ because of covid. Further, delta-covid has not gone away, so deaths that can be attributed to covid are not necessarily deaths attributable to Omicron. There is no scientific controversy about the observation that a person with delta-covid has a much greater chance of requiring hospital care than a person with omicron-covid.

The story about Angelique Coetzee finishes with: ‘A US oncologist from the Mayo Clinic this week pushed back on the characterisation of Omicron as mild. Professor Vincent Rajkumar shared data from Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organisation showing daily deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the US were higher now than any time since the pandemic began in late 2019, with the exception of two months last winter.’ My published charts, showing excess deaths, tell a different story. Professor Rajkumar would appear to have more expertise as a cancer doctor than as an interpreter of statistics. The WHO data are of deaths ‘with covid’, not deaths that only happened ‘because of covid’. My brother-in-law was very sick with covid in the USA this January. At least, as he recovered, he was informed that he had the severe delta-variant.

Delta-Covid in New Zealand

New Zealand, along with a few East Asian countries, has become a delta-variant holdout, thanks to New Zealand’s stringent policy initiates to slow down the displacement of delta by omicron.

According to ourworldindata.org, in the two weeks to January, these countries had more than 11 percent Delta:

• New Zealand (29.1%)
• Lithuania (29.1%)
• Slovakia (22.9%)
• Hong Kong (21.8%)
• South Korea (19.6%)
• Thailand (17.0%)
• Poland (15.3%)
• Germany (11.3%)

In the following two weeks, the only countries so far known to have significant Delta were:

• Hong Kong (10.8%)
• South Korea (10.4%)
• New Zealand (9.5%)

While new infections of Delta, today, are probably less than five percent of all new reported covid cases, of New Zealand’s 22022 active cases (as of 22/02/2022), at least 500 of these will have been Delta infections.

The Push to Downplay the Upside of Omicron in New Zealand

In New Zealand one major area of concern is the narrational fuzzing of the distinction between covid-delta and covid-omicron. The two variants are so different that they could be classified as two separate viruses. Indeed, the process of separate classification opens the door to the (sensible) inclusion of other human coronaviruses and influenzas in a single public health diagnostic framework. One barrier to such an evolution of the covid public health framework is the earlier mischievous and ongoing (re Ashley Bloomfield last year, and Rod Jackson this week) characterisation of Covid19 as a significantly more serious disease than influenza. (This was aways mischievous, because, as noted above, a novel coronavirus disease was contrasted, inappropriately, with established seasonal influenza strains. To slightly misquote Shakespeare [from Hamlet], “methinks the man [Bloomfield] didst protest too much”.)

There is a major ethical problem if New Zealanders with a positive covid test are being asked to assume that they have Omicron. That ethical problem is compounded if clinical information relating to patients who knowingly or unknowingly have Delta is being used to push to a public audience the counter-scientific alternative fact that omicron is ‘not a mild illness’.

Finally, for this essay, we may note this reported case: Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: Virus leaves healthy NZ woman, 36, struggling for breath (NZ Herald, 23 Feb 2022). The article says: “Before her GP called with the results the next day, she knew she had the virus – her taste and smell had gone haywire.” A red flag! Loss of taste and smell are classic symptoms of the Delta evolutionary branch of Covid19, but are not at all characteristic of Omicron. The article states: “she’s never been so sick as she was in the past week after catching Covid – despite it likely [my emphasis] being the Omicron variant, which many people think is mild.” ‘Likely’ here is based on the fact that Omicron is more prevalent in New Zealand, and not on any description of her symptoms.

This poor woman, unlike my brother-in-law, has been led to believe she has omicron-covid, not delta-covid. And New Zealand Herald readers have been likewise misled. While she may have Omicron, the symptoms clearly point to Delta.

We can do better than this. Omicron is good news – global good news, the world’s way out of the pandemic – being peddled as bad news by people who seem happy to perpetuate a narrative of fear. New Zealanders need a narrative of hope, as we move into the winter season. The actual science gives us much hope.

*******

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 first thing to note – some good news – is that the sixth wave of Covid19 is on the wane.

For the first wave, see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/. In particular, look at ‘Active Cases’ in China.

For the following five waves of Covid19, see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. In particular, look at World ‘Daily Deaths’.

Having noted these points of optimism, there are these following regional outbreaks, apparent from these two charts:

• Caribbean, especially, now, the British Caribbean, which includes continental Guyana and Belize. Much of this group (including Guyana) participate in the West Indies cricket team. Two others in West Indies Cricket, Jamaica and Trinidad/Tobago, are also highly covid-active. We may include Bermuda in this British Caribbean group. Cuba should be noted here; it has been a Covid19 leader in the Caribbean for some time now.
• Balkans. As a region (and Peru aside) the Balkans are the worst affected by Covid19 deaths per capita.
• Russia and the Caucasus. Russia, Armenia and Georgia show up. Ukraine will soon do so. Belarus, which has has been in the death zone for a while, has just started a big new outbreak. Azerbaijan is just getting over its September outbreak.
• Baltic States. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all feature in my first chart above. These are in the European Union. Lithuania and Estonia have vaccination rates comparable with New Zealand.
• Greater Malaysia. The outbreak in Malaysia these last few months has a very long tail. Brunei also shows in both charts. More concerning, Singapore , which now shows on one of the above charts, has just commenced its biggest outbreak ever, after a year of being a Covid19 poster-child.
• South Pacific. We see New Caledonia prominent on the charts. French Polynesia and Fiji still feature. French Polynesia stopped counting cases. And of course, Australia and New Zealand, while not yet prominent in the league table charts shown, are on the wax after having both seemed to be coming out of their August/September outbreaks. Oceanian populations were particularly vulnerable to respiratory infections, this southern winter.
• Others to note. The United Kingdom and Isle of Man are still showing in the ‘cases’ chart. So is Israel. These are well vaccinated, so not so prominent in the death league. But waning vaccine immunisation is likely to be a factor here. And the United States continues to show up in the death league; its mish-mash of public health measures and vaccine resistance will both be contributing factors here.

Looking at the situation in Aotearoa New Zealand today, I would like to see the whole of the North Island except Wellington moved to Public Health Emergency level 2.9 (which rounds to 3, so counts as ‘lockdown’), which is effectively what Auckland is in now. We can have a domestic land border on the Wellington sides of Otaki and Featherston. Wellington can move down to ordinary Level 2, and the South Island to Level 1.

Re domestic air travel, we need domestic red flights and green flights. Green flights would only be within the South Island, and between Wellington and the South Island.

The vaccination push needs to focus on provincial cities, towns and townships. There are vastly more difficult-to-access people in New Zealand’s North Island provinces than our politicians and bureaucrats realise. Just considering Māori regional population growth – thanks to the housing induced exodus from Auckland over the last decade, and to a return migration of Māori from Australia – true Māori vaccination rates in the North Island hinterland are even lower than quoted statistics reveal.

Viruses are better census-takers than are the New Zealand central government bureaucracies.

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.

Radio New Zealand (Checkpoint) ran stories last week about New Zealanders aged over 65 stranded in Australia who are at risk of having their pensions (‘New Zealand Superannuation’)stopped, and then having to repay the funds they received while in Australia.

There is a simple solution to the problem – to just keep paying stranded pensioners their pensions, and to withdraw any threats to require repayment when they eventually return to Aotearoa. The problem is compounded by the rigidity – and general unavailability – of Carmel Sepuloni, the Minister of Social Development who oversees the ‘benefit system’. While it is true that she appears to be perhaps the least competent of government ministers (few say it, but many think it), it also is apparent that she and certain other ministers – most notably Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi and Senior Citizens Minister Ayesha Verrall – are being closely micromanaged by their seniors. On Friday’s (17 Sep) Covid19 press conference, I waited for Minister of Finance – one of the senior ministerial minders of Sepuloni, Verrall, and Faafoi – to put the matter straight, and assure stranded pensioners that common sense would prevail. But he said nothing.

The key RNZ stories are these:

• 15 Sep: Pensioners stuck in Australia ask for ‘Jacinda’s kindness’
• 16 Sep: Assoc Health Minister on Covid-19 cases, pensioners in AUS (interview with Ayesha Verrall)
• 16 Sep: ‘Devastated’ woman who could not return from Australia faces pension cut

Before discussing the general issue, and how the government can easily stop this issue – and others – from festering, I should note the phenomenon of the Radio New Zealand trolls. Some RNZ programmes invite – or attract – more listener feedback than others. Checkpoint is one of the more prominent programmes in this regard. Some of the feedback, which is mentioned throughout the programme along with a brief slot just before the 6pm news, can only be called ‘trolling’; this term derives from the social media practice of posting or sending cruel messages. The RNZ trolls tends to argue along the lines of: ‘you knew the rules, you took the risk’, with maybe the addition of ‘I could have gone to Australia when you did, but chose to stay on my [trolling] couch instead’. Like younger social media trolls, these mainly older trolls are conspicuously unsympathetic to others (in a sadly self-centred way), they lack any real sense of empathy for the myriad sets of circumstances that other people face, and tend to take pleasure from the misfortune of others. Sadly, again, I believe that the present government sees such trolls as an important part of its voter base; the optics of this government – as shown through the media appearances of ministers such as Sepuloni, Faafoi, and Verrall – are that the government itself lacks sympathy and empathy.

(A big lacuna in economic theory is in its inability to address the reality that some people’s utility – pleasure – arises specifically from the disutility – pain – caused to others. Not only do we seen this generally in the phenomena of trolling and most pornography, we also see it in the way that too many people see ‘houses’ as financial levers that make themselves richer while necessarily making others poorer. Land hoarders should also be understood as trolls.)

The Rules in this Case

The specific New Zealand Superannuation problem arises in part because most superannuitants see their payments, broadly, as a ‘return on investment’, whereas the government sees New Zealand Superannuation as a social welfare benefit. Both perceptions are somewhat muddled.

Senior citizens only ‘worked for their pension’ in a collective sense; thus New Zealand Superannuation can be seen as a reward for forms of contribution other than through businesses and through paid employment. One important contribution is that of ‘failure’, in the important sense that the success of some – in businesses or otherwise – can only have meaning when contextualised against the non-success of others. A gold medallist at the Olympic Games can only succeed, as a gold medallist, because of the participation of the other competitors who ‘failed’ to win. Thus, New Zealand Superannuation works as a reward ‘without judgement’ of what a person’s contribution may or may not have been.

The government sees New Zealand Superannuation as a cash benefit that – as they also see other benefits – must be wrapped around with a set of rules. Generally, governments would like to see even more (or tighter) rules attached to New Zealand Superannuation, but are afraid to act in a way that ensures the optics of New Zealand Superannuation will make it look even more like a welfare benefit and even less like a return on investment. (This is why it is the ‘oldies’ are the group most impassioned to keep New Zealand Superannuation as it is, even though most proposed tightenings of the rules would only adversely affect ‘youngies’. The ‘oldies’ are a substantial block of voters, who, for the most part, cling tightly to the view that superannuation is quite distinctly different from other benefits.)

There are a number of completely unnecessary rules around New Zealand Superannuation that relate to overseas travel. These rules make sense from a government perspective – because governments like beneficiaries to be fettered by rules (in part because they believe that many of their electors are beneficiary-unsympathetic trolls), and because governments see superannuation as a benefit. But they make no sense from a ‘return on investment’ viewpoint.

Further, receipt of the universal pension (ie New Zealand Superannuation) enables seniors to continue with – even to extend – their contributions to New Zealand. Many do this by staying in paid work or self-employment or continuing to run businesses; they understand that they will not be penalised by having their pensions withdrawn or abated. Other seniors contribute through invaluable contributions to the voluntary sector. Many make their ongoing contributions as grandparents, which in many cases is a surrogate parent role. Further, with the globalised world that we became accustomed to in the 1990s and the 2000s (and to a lesser extent in the post-GFC 2010s), grandparents may be required just about anywhere in the world; it’s pretty much a matter of chance whether a given senior person residing ‘permanently’ in Hamilton has grandchildren in Invercargill, Rockhampton, or Saskatoon.

So, the rule that constrains pensioners from international travel is a rule that need not be there. Such a rule serves no useful purpose.

Nevertheless, given that the rule is there, what should the New Zealand government do for people caught out by the rule? The obvious answer is to suspend the rule for people caught out by pandemic restrictions, health emergencies, flight cancellations etc. There would be much political kudos arising from such application of common sense, and almost no political downside; the issue would simply drop-off the news cycle.

But no, the government knows better. Instead, they have promised to arrange a relief flight from Sydney; and they offer stranded pensioners the chance of a place in the MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine) lottery. Not only is all this very uncertain and unnecessarily stressful – indeed it may not be easy to arrange interstate travel from, say, Launceston, and pre-flight covid testing requirements are not always easy to fulfil – it misses the point that the best solution for stranded grandparents may not be to bring them home at all. If they are helping their grandchildren and adult children in places like Oamaru or Bateman’s Bay or Niagara Falls, it may be better that they are supported to stay there and continue making those contributions. And if such seniors do a few scenic trips in Australia or elsewhere, it should neither be the concern of the government nor the trolls. After all, many New Zealanders made many sacrifices in their lives so that they could retire and then go on a ‘trip of a lifetime’. Many of our ‘baby boomers’ have now had that prospect snatched away from them. Yes, they may be able to do scenic trips within New Zealand in 2022; but it’s not for the government or the trolls to control where superannuitants go to on their retirement travels. It makes no sense to say they can stay in Caroline Bay, but not the Sunshine Coast.

Was the present hiatus foreseeable?

The present rule has an out-clause. Superannuation payments may be continued if affected persons apply on the grounds that their new situation was ‘unforeseeable’ (refer to the Ayesha Verrall interview above). Now the trolls and the government say that, despite opening up green flights across the Tasman Sea with the express purpose of facilitating tourism (the main discussion point then was the economic need to host Australian tourists here), it was fully foreseeable that trans-Tasman tourists might be stranded on the wrong side of the ditch for many months or even for years.

I would argue that this was not foreseeable, given both the promotion of ‘the bubble’ and the seeming resolution of the covid crisis. There had been no ‘Level 4 lockdowns’ since April 2020. My view that the present strandings were indeed unforeseeable is confirmed by Prime Minister Ardern’s repeated claims that “Delta changed everything”, and that the much stricter level of restrictions from August 2021 was only deemed necessary as a result of a ‘Delta strike’ that she herself (and her officials) had not foreseen. (Indeed I myself am booked to visit my daughter and grandchildren in Australia this December; in early June I could not have foreseen the present crisis on both sides of the Tasman Sea to the extent of choosing not to arrange this trip. I now know my chance of being able to travel is close to nil, and I know that – even if my flights are not cancelled – I could not contemplate going in December.)

The fact that Jacinda Ardern makes such stock of her government’s inability to foresee ‘Delta’ surely means that other less-briefed people could also not be expected to foresee the predicament now faced by stranded superannuitants. The government’s inability to foresee the present situation would surely constitute legal grounds for such stranded people to claim the continuance of their pensions on the basis that – within the present rules –the circumstances they now face were ‘unforeseeable’.

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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 first two charts show official case numbers and deaths, for all countries, including the little countries that tend to dominate in the peak of the northern summer holiday season.

Chart 1 shows the countries with the highest case numbers per person – from French Polynesia (Tahiti) to Greece, plus four other countries for reference. Chart 2 shows cases in order of deaths per person.

The three top ‘countries’ are all French overseas territories, as are Saint Martin, French Guiana, and St Barth. Also listed are Sint Maartin and Aruba (and Curaçao on Chart 2 only), overseas territories of the Netherlands. Also shown in these charts are six Caribbean destinations in the British Commonwealth (the ‘West Indies’ as we know them, plus the Bahamas). Then there’s Cuba, now a popular holiday destination for Europeans. And Suriname is a former Dutch colony – and a holiday destination – in the Caribbean.

What we are seeing is a ‘colonisation’ problem, rich vaccinated people from rich European countries (a number of which are shown in grey, and the United Kingdom and United States, which have substantial case numbers but few deaths by 2020 standards. Covid19 has always been a condition of the rich which they have then passed on to the poor, especially the relatively poor people who provide services to those rich people. What is happening now is that ‘healthy’ vaccinated Europeans are infecting (with Delta) and killing the local service sector employees (and their families) in these mainly Caribbean destinations. These territories and countries are open because they are understood to be dependent on tourism from Europe (and, except for Cuba, from USA), and because this class of rich tourists is uncaring – entitled – in their lack of care towards the people whom they are killing. We look the other way, because these death zones are very small territories and countries.

In French Polynesia, 450 deaths per million people is equivalent to 2,250 covid deaths in New Zealand in just one week.

Another small tourist country to mention here is Seychelles, still among the top infection/death sites, and has been since April. In this case, as I understand it, Seychelles has become a tourism bolt hole for rich Indians, especially in the summer monsoon season.

And another small country is Iceland. This fully vaccinated country has, at present, a delta outbreak far worse than New Zealand’s, and in the last week has had its first deaths in this outbreak. Per capita, it is the worst affected in Scandinavia, although Norway and Denmark also have very high case numbers at present. (We should note that, since the start of the pandemic, and according to ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid, all three of these Scandinavian countries have fewer excess deaths per person than does Aotearoa New Zealand.) These countries affirm that Covid19 remains highly infectious, that immunisation substantially lowers deaths, and that international travel by people from highly immunised countries is more dangerous than ever to people with low levels of immunity to Covid19.

It is important to note that the immunity in western Europe to severe illness from Covid19 is due to both a mix of vaccination and viral circulation. Even when New Zealand is as immunised through vaccination as are Europeans, New Zealand will remain substantially vulnerable to an opening up to tourism from Europe, USA, India, South Africa, and South America.

The second two charts are restricted to countries with more than 900,000 people.

Looking at death rates at the end of August, regions that show up are the Caucasian countries (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) and neighbours Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran.

Reunion, another far flung French territory, with a population (like Fiji) of 900,000, also shows up. (I visited Reunion in 1978; it’s a truly spectacular piece of real estate.)

Other important regions showing up in these two charts are southern Africa, the Balkans (southeast Europe), Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and Central America. And we note Greece, the Eurozone country with the highest covid death rate, and a country for whom the vast majority of recent deaths precede Delta. And South America – also non-Delta – still shows up strongly in the fatality data.

In Chart 3 above, we note the presence of Israel and Palestine. Many anxious eyes are looking in that direction, and the news at present is not good. Almost certainly the inequity between Israelis and Palestinians is an important part of the problem there. And, while Israel will resolve its problem, this month, through booster vaccination, it is likely that Israeli tourists are among the most dangerous for other countries to host. Lebanon, though no longer present on this chart, almost certainly continues to be ravaged by Covid19. Its economy is in a state of collapse, including three-digit inflation. We should be hearing much more about Lebanon in our mainstream news media.

Of countries with high infection rates though low death rates, the places that show up most are the British Isles (UK, Ireland, Isle of Man), and Switzerland. We also note the Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania) and Portugal (with better holiday weather this year than Greece) getting new delta outbreaks, though with indications – see Lithuania – that deaths will soon follow. Interestingly, Poland, Lithuania’s neighbour, is much less affect at present (see final section below).

Australia and New Zealand remain well below the international radar, at least in the data if not in the global news cycle. (On Al Jazeera we continue to get frequent Covid19 reports from Australasia that are mainly of novelty interest to global audiences.) Canada broadly falls in between the experiences of the United States and Australia.

India now has low rates of Covid19, with the exception of Kerala. While the statistics there understate the true picture, that understatement is almost certainly less now than it was in the peak of India’s epidemic, and is probably no more understated than many other countries. India today is like Northern Europe, highly immunised, yet dangerous to people in countries with low immunity to Covid19 and comparable viruses.

Japan is interesting, given the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Its profile is very much like that of a typical northwestern European country.

This final chart shows historical (for the pandemic) excess deaths of people aged 65-74, in a range of countries all severely affected by Covid19. (A similar chart showing England and Spain, was on this site last week.) None of what features in this chart has anything to do with Delta. France was surprisingly little impacted; eg much less than England. Portugal just had the one peak, of Alpha, which strongly coincided with England’s peak.

In the Americas, Chile and the United States feature prominently. As a region, the Americas have suffered most of all this pandemic; ironic perhaps given that Brazil is the antipodes of the source country, China (whereas China has suffered the least mortality of any large country). Chile suffered severely from the Gamma strain of Covid19, and it really shows; and despite Chile’s high and early vaccination rates, which focussed especially on people aged over 75.

Finally, we note the severity of the pandemic in northeastern Europe, shown here through Czechia and Poland. Their deaths resulted from the non-variant Wuhan strain of Covid19; and they almost certainly occurred in large part because of (rather than ‘despite’) earlier restrictive policies to keep Covid19 out of their countries. (See the timing of France’s peak mortality.)

Poland is particularly interesting here, because I included it in the third chart above, and because it borders Lithuania and Germany, both much more infected. Poland even ‘lent’ Australia much of its excess stock of Pfizer vaccine. Through herd immunity, a mix of vaccination and calamitous infection last northern autumn and winter, Poland is, for now at least, able to have normal domestic freedoms. The same basically applies to Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. No country would want to go through Poland’s experience to get to their present position. It is important, nevertheless, that we in little Aotearoa New Zealand do understand Poland’s situation, in these ‘Delta Days’.

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 United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has sent prayers for the recovery of the former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, who is critically ill with pancreatic cancer.

Sir Michael, who served as prime minister four times in Papua New Guinea, is also the founder of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). He is a figure who has played an important role in supporting ULMWP to become a member of the group.

Now 84, Sir Michael is being treated at the Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.

PNG’s The National newspaper said that Cardinal Sir John Ribat had celebrated a special Eucharist with Sir Michael and his wife, Lady Veronica, at his hospital bed.

ULMWP mengirimkan doa bagi kesembuhan mantan Perdana Menteri Papua Nugini, Sir Michael Somare yang dikabarkan sakit. #PapuanLiveaMatter https://t.co/yWfvKA9VTp

— jubi.co.id (@jubidotcom) February 22, 2021

The executive director of ULMWP in West Papua, Markus Haluk, said the movement and the people of West Papua also sent prayers for the recovery of Sir Michael Somare.

“The people of West Papua [send] healing prayers for Sir Michael Somare,” Haluk told Jubi yesterday.

Haluk said that the news of Sir Michael Somare’s health condition reminded him of the meeting between ULMWP leaders and Sir Michael Somare at the MSG forum in Port Moresby in February 2018.

‘Look to the future’
“I remember a message from Sir Somare, ‘West Papua don’t look at the past, but look to the future. I have opened my heart, you [ULMWP] are not alone anymore,” said Haluk.

Haluk also remembers that a few minutes later the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea at the time, Peter O’Neill, came to the MSG meeting venue.

ULMWP leaders were standing and chatting with Sir Michael Somare.

Haluk, realising O’Neill had arrived, wanted to turn around and greet the prime minister, but Somare prevented him.

“Sir Somare grabbed my shoulder, winked at me, telling me, ‘Don’t turn to face PM O’Neill. Later he will come in your midst ‘. I also followed Sir Somare’s body language,” said Haluk.

What Sir Michael Somare said came to pass. After Peter O’Neill greeted all invited guests, ambassadors and MSG delegates, O’Neill went to Somare’s circle with the ULMWP delegates.

“I spontaneously greeted PM O’Neill. ‘Nopase waaa… waaa… waaa…’ (Papuan greetings to an honourable figure). Sir Somare gasped at my greeting. O’Neill greeted, ‘waa… waa… waa… Thanks Bro ‘.

“Then we shook hands with PM O’Neill,” said Haluk.

‘That’s Papuan politics’
Haluk said he was very impressed with the meeting.

“That’s Papuan politics, Melanesian politics. Everything flows from our hearts. [We] understand each other, acknowledge each other. You are important to me. We both need each other. Continue to keep the fellowship alive,” said Haluk.

Haluk said the West Papuan people remember the stories and services of great figures such as Sir Michael Somare.

According to Haluk, the people from Sorong to Samarai sent prayers for the recovery of Sir Michael Somare.

“Commemorating all the great services and sacrifices for the Papuan people, from Jayapura, West Papua, we send sincere prayers for healing to Sir Somare. I hope you get better soon,” said Haluk.

This article has been translated by an Asia Pacific Report correspondent from Tabloid Jubi and published with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, widely regarded as the founding father of independent Papua New Guinea, was in a critical condition in Port Moresby last night fighting cancer, reports The National today.

The 84-year-old former politician and his wife, Lady Veronica, had been preparing this week to go overseas for treatment, the newspaper said.

A family member said last night: “It is with sadness that I advise, on behalf of the Somare family, the serious illness pancreatic cancer that has befallen our father, Sir Michael, is at a critical stage and we as a family, along with his medical teams, are giving him the utmost care that he deserves.”

The National said that Cardinal Sir John Ribat celebrated a special Eucharist with Sir Michael and Lady Veronica yesterday at his hospital bed at the Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby.

The ABC correspondent in Port Moresby, Natalie Whiting, posted a twitter message saying Cardinal Ribat had “released a statement on behalf of the family asking the public to pray for Sir Michael and advising he is receiving palliative care in Port Moresby”.

#PNG‘s first Prime Minister Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare is in a critical condition with pancreatic cancer. Cardinal Ribat has released a statement on behalf of the family asking the public to pray for Sir Michael and advising he is receiving palliative care in Port Moresby.

— Natalie Whiting (@Nat_Whiting) February 21, 2021

The family statement continued:

“After comprehensive consultation to ensure all clinical opportunities were exhausted in every jurisdiction with the competencies able to treat the critical stage of this form of cancer, the family, in consultation with the grand chief and Lady Veronica, have settled with offering the best palliative care and nutritional and dietary care in PNG.

“Due to the numerous enquiries, we thought it best to be forthright so the public knows the exact extent of this terrible illness.

“We thank the many Papua New Guineans who have sent in their well wishes and prayers for the health and wellbeing of Sir Michael and Lady Veronica.”

Sir Michael, a former broadcaster, was a key politician in the lead up to independence from Australia in 1975 and he became the country’s first prime minister.

His political career spanned from 1968 until his retirement in 2017 and he has been papua New Guinea’s longest-serving prime minister.

The ABC has reported that Sir Michael Somare, the father of #PNG independence in 1975, is critically ill and in palliative care in a Port Moresby hospital. Sir Michael has pancreatic cancer. pic.twitter.com/QJ89gPJ3Qd

— Keith Jackson AM (@PNGAttitude) February 21, 2021

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz