Plus Caption Competition, Quips & Quotes and 10 Quick Questions

Although it’s understandable that health and safety have been at the fore in media coverage of the Covid-19 disease spread, it is curious that in discussing travel restrictions, no reports on the carbon-dioxidelimiting effects have appeared. I would expect that the global reduction in CO emissions has been significant and especially enlightening when comparing this emergency reduction with what a planned reduction in emissions might look like.

Recall the reduction in CO emissions in the days following the 9/11 attacks in New York City. What a promising sign it would be if a planned reduction of that magnitude was on the agenda.

Richard Keller (Lyall Bay, Wellington)

I am always interested in Joanne Black’s view of life, but having read her latest instalment ( Back to Black, March 21), I wish to point out that some of us are people with pre-existing health conditions and/or over 65, the groups for whom the Covid-19 fatality rate seems greatest. We are relying on others to help keep us safe.

New Zealand’s strength in the face of this disease is in being a collection of remote islands from which we can watch and learn from what is happening in the rest of the world and hopefully take precautions.

Those of us in vulnerable groups or who have had the appalling experience of a beloved family member dying as a result of an illness spread by community transfer can see the necessity for taking this disease very seriously, and we are reliant on the protective measures put in place by the Government and heath officials and on our communities following that advice to help protect us.

There needs to be awareness of the middle ground. Some of us are not stockpiling toilet paper and pasta, but nor are we minimising the threat to our lives.

M Cathie (Devonport, Auckland)

I’m particularly amused by the commentators berating us for the panic and hysteria over this super flu and in the same breath telling us we should be panicking over climate change instead.

Luigi Girardin (Tauranga)

With the acceptance by infectious-disease experts that flu viruses and coronaviruses causing respiratory infections are more commonly spread by touch contact than droplet inhalation, there has been an emphasis on hand washing as a control measure. To date, however, there has been a lack of important detail in the media in this regard.

Hands should be held under running tap water for 15 seconds while being rubbed vigorously together. Friction is the key to effective hand decontamination. Soap is required only when the hands are visibly soiled.

Next, washed hands must be thoroughly dried. We recommend the 10/10 procedure – that is, 10 seconds drying with one towel to mop up the bulk of water followed by 10 seconds with a second towel to remove any residual moisture. Wet or even damp hands pick up and transfer several hundred times more microorganisms than dry hands on touch contact.

The slogan “dry hands are safe hands” can often be seen alongside hand-hygiene equipment. Our research on this, carried out in the University of Auckland School of Medicine, has been published internationally and the recommendations to wash hands using friction under running tap water and to dry with care have been accepted by public health authorities worldwide

Dr Tom Miller (Mt Albert, Auckland) LETTER OF THE WEEK

There is another nasty virus doing the rounds at the same time as we are getting all this hysteria about the virus that causes Covid-19. I am in self-isolation after coming in contact with a person at work who had body fluids streaming from every facial orifice, then coming down with the same upper respiratory tract infection.

It starts with sneezing and a sore throat, leading to lack of energy and a persistent cough. There are no body aches, however, or high temperatures – although mine did reach

38.2ºC on the fourth night.

All this made me realise how unprepared we are for viruses on the loose in our communities. Other workplaces have rigid plans, but mine apparently thought it was perfectly okay for a sick staff member to remain on the job.

While I wouldn’t want to be any Government dealing with this, the focus has been very much on border control and mass gatherings to date. My experience indicates there’s probably a need for much tougher measures for workplaces and schools. Also, I can’t help thinking there is less likelihood of contracting Covid-19 or any other nasty virus if there are fewer people working in one place

I am normally against the use of a skeleton staff, but these are not normal times; and it’s more productive than there being no staff, causing businesses to collapse.

Melanie Sannum (Mt Albert, Auckland)

Linda Bryder (“Viral spiral”, March 14) said the higher death rate for Māori in the 1918 flu epidemic “has never really been explained”. May I refer her to my article in last year’s New Zealand Journal of History, “Remembering 1918: Why did Māori suffer more than seven times the death

rate of non-Māori in the 1918 influenza pandemic?”

As an academic whose doctorate was about TB in Britain, Bryder may be interested to see that part of the multi-factor explanation was the prevalence of TB in the Māori population at that time, as well as heavy consumption of tobacco.

As with Covid-19, the 1918 flu was a risk for people with pre-existing health problems. Now that we officially have a pandemic on our hands, we should all take it seriously, take prudent precautions and follow the advice of the medical experts.

Geoffrey Rice

Emeritus professor of history, University of Canterbury LANGE RIPOSTE

I would like to respond to the article by Gerald Hensley about the May 1987 Fiji coup (“Lange’s dangerous gamble”, March 14).

Hensley’s philippic against former Prime Minister David Lange is as thin as it is disingenuous. As Lange’s strategic adviser during the first Fiji coup and the subsequent hijacking of an Air New Zealand plane in May 1987, I and others knew exactly what the direction of travel was. If Hensley is still mystified, he has either forgotten or perhaps it suits a vendetta he has against the late PM.

First, Lange did not trust Hensley or some of the top brass of the armed forces. They proved less than competent in the face of a dual crisis of coup and hijack. The PM took charge. He was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other top officials, who never had any doubts that readying New Zealand troops was a “risky gamble”, as Hensley would have it.

Second, to edify Hensley, with the support of the Australian Government and New Zealand’s Indian and Fijian communities, Special Air Service troops were readied to go to Fiji to protect New Zealanders in that country. Equally, such an action sent a clear message to the coup leaders – and to Fiji’s Council of Chiefs, who disapproved of the coup.

Third, Hensley contends that sending troops to Fiji would have been “a humiliating outcome that might well have ended Lange politically”. Really? Lange’s popularity soared when the safety of New Zealanders in Fiji was secured. A few months later, he increased Labour’s electoral majority in government. His actions were never a “mystery”. The mystery is why Hensley thinks there is one.

Ross Vintiner

Former chief press secretary to David Lange

Gerald Hensley makes himself out to be some kind of James Bond figure rescuing David Lange from a terrible gaffe in the wake of the first of Fiji’s two 1987 coups.

But he omits much of what was happening in New Zealand and the world at the time of the two coups. We were just about to pass the Nuclear Free Act (June 1987) and there was much concern here about pressure on us from the US. There

were even rumours that the US was behind the coups, because Fiji’s recently elected prime minister, Timoci Bavadra, headed a Labour Government and this was anathema to the US.

Also, it was well known that there were people in the upper echelons of the New Zealand military and even the Defence Ministry who were actively against the nuclear-ships policy and were therefore not giving Lange good advice. In his autobiography, Lange wrote that retired Air Vice Marshall Ian Morrison told an Anzac Day assembly that “I was an agent of the Kremlin”.

In the confusion of our Pacific neighbour’s unprecedented coup, the hijacking of an Air New Zealand aircraft by a disturbed individual was an added complication. It’s not surprising that there were some overreactions.

Hensley says Lange’s actions would have precipitated “the rashest military venture in New Zealand’s history”. It didn’t, and anyway, I would have thought the Gallipoli campaign was far and away more risky and with much more serious consequences.

Sue Rawson (Papamoa Beach) INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

New Zealand has had many women of influence who have gained national respect and certainly have my admiration and, I suspect, that of many others.

Irrespective of their political leanings, I rank former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons ( Obituary, March 21) and Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly, who died in 2016, as two of the best examples of leadership and humanity of recent times, who made our country a better place.

David Miller (Blenheim) GIVING AWAY FREE SPEECH

Refusals by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff in 2018 and SkyCity in February to allow individuals whose ideas they disagree with to speak within premises under their control are the denial of a fundamental right within a democratic society – that of free speech.

This was part of early

Roman and Greek law, the early English Bill of Rights and a declaration of the French Revolution and is part of the first amendment of the US Constitution. Evelyn Hall wrote of eminent philosopher Voltaire that, in 1732, he defended the right of anyone to speak freely, even if he disagreed with them.

One of the great legal brains of our time, long-standing US Democrat Alan Dershowitz, says that “the core values of free speech and due process are now under constant attack”. With ideology being prioritised over truth and individual opinion, he says, this is the denial of our greatest asset: civil liberty.

How correct he is. A democratic society is all about competing opinions. What a totally unacceptable situation we have witnessed in Auckland. The enforcers seem to think they know best, when centuries of history show they are wrong.

Hylton Le Grice (Remuera, Auckland)

“Hate speech” has become a byword for any opinion, view or utterance that fails to meet the strict expectations of

certain groups. The Government even proposes to legislate in order to prevent the use of hate speech. Yet the precise meaning of those two words is difficult, if not impossible, to define and appears to depend upon the subjective opinions or perceptions of narrow sections of society.

The concept of hate speech has placed a dampener on the customary right and inclination of people to say what they think, right or wrong. Fear of offending any group in society is a driving force. The tendency has infiltrated the Government, universities, and some areas of commerce.

For generations, as a result of free and open debate, society has developed and improved. If the right to free speech is suppressed or curtailed, the result will be a stagnating effect on human progress. Bill Wright (Pleasant Point)

A ROUND OF APPLAUSE

The Listener has been weekly reading for me for decades.

It is my absolute fave – up there with my Coronation Street vigils; both almost religions. It is a great comfort to people like me who are increasingly house-bound, feeding me wonderful national and global news and updates.

I have never felt compelled to write before now to applaud the work of your journalists, commentators and opinion-makers. The March 14 issue gets my vote as the best yet.

I relish Michele Hewitson’s enchanting Good Life column and delight in the caption competition, which is guaranteed to lift my spirits, keep me giggling and make me wish I had a brain like some of your contributors.

Thank you. Robert Lahman (Waikanae)