The worst thing is that Hosking is still trying to get over the 2017 result and his bromance with Key goes on...
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Just to put this into context... countries with a higher vaccine rate and a similar population to New Zealand.
Palestine
Serbia
Uruguay
Estonia
Slovenia
Azerbaijan
Lebanon
El Salvador
etc etc.
No amount of Labour's PR spin machine in top gear, cliches around "team of 5 million", hugs and smiles can hide the facts and figures of a totally incompetent rollout thus far by the MoH and the government.
I would say NZ is in a unique situation where we can afford to hold out on the vaccine roll out. You can list other countries with comparable population all you want, but not many countries like NZ can remain in Level 1 for most of the year. Anotherwords, they're in far greater need to be vaccinated than we are.
Now let's hope those incoming flights to NZ are properly controlled and quarantined. We can't afford more screw ups.
Sure, I would be happy to help you out... here's a few more countries that are doing way better than us in vaccine rates.
Ghana
Rwanda
Senegal
Sao Tome and Principe
The above countries are constantly listed near the top of the worlds most deprived and poverty stricken countries, however their governments can still complete their vaccinations at a faster rate than the current Labour government can.
Can you please enlighten the rest of us by answering two questions in regards to the statement you made.
1. What benefit does it provide to NZ if we "hold out on the vaccine roll out" ?
2. What benefit does it provide to NZ if other countries are in "far greater need to be vaccinated than we are" ?
I for one, would love to hear your answers.
To answer your question in point :
1) There's a lot of skepticism in general vaccines (just search online); causes autism, changes your DNA, i'm not an expert in medicine but there's no shortage of this kind of information online. (how you say the Anti-Vaxxers?) They would say all the COVID vaccines had been rushed out in record time which any reliable long term study for which every vaccine in the past had done. If you subscribe to this view, then you would prefer other countries that are rampant in COVID should have their vaccines - at the minimum, it should prove the effectiveness of the drug. (Should NZ be part of the guinea pig testing too?)
2) The NZ economy is reliant on international trade if we want to maintain our current standard of living. Being a primary producing nation, we don't have the option to say "we can depend on local consumption". Who are the buyers of our products? If those countries can not recover from COVID (because of a lack of the vaccine roll out?) then our economy too will continue to lag behind. Another words, the quicker those greater nations recover, the quicker NZ can return to the economy we once had (or at least in that direction).
Your first point doesn't stand against the weight pf qualified evidence.
Your second point: the suggestion our customers will beat us to the pearly gates, thereby leaving us short if customers, is too silly for comment.
Third point - once again you have coughed up 'another words'. First time I thought it was a typo. What does it mean, or is it a mondegreen??
What I did find interesting listening to Radio talk is if for some rare reason you die from the human stage 3 trail COVID Vaccine you may not be covered by your Life insurance policy... I know ANZ insurance doesn't going to find out about my policy next week>>. I also wonder if you have other complications if my health cover will cover if they believe it was caused by the vaccine... I got very sick last time I had a travel vaccine 20yrs years ago ... and have developed many food allergies over my later years so maybe the fact of egg embryo being used in many Vaccine was the reason I got symptoms of major Egg allergy
From an economic benefit point of view, NZers getting vaccinated early would have provided a huge gigantic boost to our single biggest export industry - tourism.
"Before Covid-19, tourism was New Zealand's largest export industry, worth about $40 billion a year and directly employing 8.4 per cent (229,566 people) of the national workforce.
Without international visitors, New Zealand is facing a revenue gap of $12.9b a year."
If all NZers are vaccinated by say, end of April - NZ would be able to be opened up for international tourism and allow in visitors from relatively covid-free countries (think China & Oz) and those who are vaccinated. Think about the economic benefits.
Then, there's the international student industry - worth billions of dollars again a year.
Sadly, NZ is in the back of the queue for the vaccine - another monumental stuff-up by a clueless lying hyprocritical Cindy led government of incompetents.
International tourism is normally defined as an export industry given we are exporting an experience to foreign customers, even though this by and large must be consumed within the country. I've seen those figures before when we were researching the impact of COVID on trade, and I think they're published by the NZ government via Tourism NZ amongst other places.
@ Balance: How the hell does having an early vaccination in NZ benefit tourism from international visitors??? I can assure you, none of the airlines are going to open the door letting a flood of non-vaccinated passengers to fly to NZ. That's not how the protocol is set up. From what i'm reading, only those with the vaccinated card can freely fly in the US. Are you implying non-vaccinated visitors should come and visit NZ? Because if NZ gets vaccinated before they do, then what benefit are we seeing?
@ fungus_pudding:
The problem with qualified evidence is the stats only show those that complain and does not match those like JBmurc that may just live on life and not registered their health problems related to some vaccine (or the health / GP may not record it down as a vaccine related issue). Who knows? I do know that there are a lot of skeptics of vaccines, yes people are cautious despite the drug pharmas will say it's safe. The public wants to assume vaccines are 100% safe, but the reality is a very very small % will die and a very small % will have side effects (that may be life long). That is the risk when a drug has been pushed out in record time without thorough long term trial testing.
Doesn't take much common sense to see how important tourism was for NZ. We're not talking a mutually exclusive situation here. If you want visitors to NZ, they have to be vaccinated, not the other way around. If you want more consumers of our primary producing products, those countries too need to be vaccinated so their economies can get back to being productive ; instead of being unemployed.
Read carefully :
"If all NZers are vaccinated by say, end of April - NZ would be able to be opened up for international tourism and allow in visitors from relatively covid-free countries (think China & Oz) and those who are vaccinated."
That's the whole basis of the TransTasman travel bubble to be announced :
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...45TDS62M4FB7A/
and the recent controlled opening up of Poland & China to vaccinated visitors.
And some tourism dependent countries are already implementing the vaccination travel rules to allow in tourists :
https://www.afar.com/magazine/travel...hese-countries