‘Angels’ to the rescue

Meals on Wheels has been designated an essential service, delivering meals to the elderly and health-compromised.

Unfortunately 80 per cent of the drivers for KapiMana Meals on Wheels are aged 70 and over, including one woman in her 80s who has been a driver for 50 years. With regret, they had to be stood down during the level four alert but who could deliver the 75 meals a day that people depended on?

This is where a group of young players from Porirua’s North Rugby Club have stepped up. They have been doing most of the runs since March 26. On the rosters they are identified as ‘‘Rugby Angels’’ and we wish to honour their dedication and kindness.

We also wish to thank a couple who were employed by Air New Zealand and who have volunteered their services.

In difficult times like these we see extremes of human behaviour. I wanted to share the sheer goodness of these everyday heroes.

Julie Howarth, Tawa

Covid-19 has put into stark relief that it’s high time for New Zealand – its Government and citizens – to radically revise its attitude to Air New Zealand.

The reality is that there is a gulf between how Air New Zealand chooses to portray itself and what our national airline is and represents. Air New Zealand has happily aligned its brand with New Zealand’s ‘‘100% Pure’’ projected image while burning vast amounts of aviation fuel on needless personal and business travel and bringing to New Zealand hordes of low-value tourists who clutter up and defile the natural environment.

More immediately, in an astonishing act of dreadful corporate citizenship, Air New Zealand continued to operate flights out of China long after the extent of epidemic in that totalitarian state was known.

And now the national airline, having failed to maintain anything like the sort of financial buffer required to survive the drastic but entirely predictable effects of a worldwide (predicted) pandemic, is once again bust and requiring another taxpayer bail-out.

Any notion of resuscitating Air New Zealand to anything like its former bloated, self-aggrandising state must be swiftly rejected.

John George Ronaldson McLean, Khandallah [abridged]

Cook Strait sewage-dump suggestion labelled ‘‘environmental vandalism’’ outlined a call from Wellington City Council to dump sludge into Cook Strait.

The mere suggestion that this is even likely is deplorable. The attitude of this council needs an investigation and if proven correct the people involved should be prosecuted or made to stand down – this suggestion underlines exactly what is wrong with the RMA and councils being given the ability to do this.

The potential effects on the coastal marine environment, our coastline, fishery and the marine environment could be catastrophic.

This proposed action is ill-informed, and does not take into account the recent Appeal Court decision re Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd v Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board, which showed the effects of overlap into the Crown Minerals Act –insufficient information, failure to regard kaitiakitanga, failure to regard pollution from discharges.

Graham Carter, Hamilton

It is distressing to read of cancer patients having urgent scans and surgeries cancelled as the health service prepares to deal with Covid-19. At this rate Covid-19 will indeed be the cause of many more deaths, but not because of the virus.

Chris Mowatt, Tawa

I see Andrew Gunn’s Poor Mike, it’s hard work being essentially pointless (April 4) is headed ‘‘satire’’. It appears to me to be right on the button!

Lloyd Scott, Khandallah

Airways CEO Graeme Sumner has failed to grasp that the number of staff required to safely operate aircraft is not directly proportional to traffic density (180 Airways staff to be made redundant). The same facilities and staff are required for an Instrument Flight Rules flight regardless of whether there are two or 10 aircraft on the route.

If reports that up to 180 staff are to be made redundant are true then it should be noted that Airways recently had difficulty staffing some towers due to a lack of having, and also difficulty recruiting, trained staff. This is also true in other areas of Airways expertise.

I would have thought that the $70 million being made available to Airways to allow it to weather the Covid-19 crisis would have been conditional upon Airways maintaining its capability and expertise.

Since 1987 Airways has been touted as a model of what an SOE should be. It is a great pity that the current executive and board cannot appreciate that.

Howard Howard Andrewes, Southgate

Well done, Wellingtonians! Now in the second week of lockdown, the amount of rubbish washing up in Oriental Parade has very much reduced. Now you’re staying at home, you’re no longer throwing your bottles, cans, straws, paper cups, lolly wrappers, chip bags and plastic bags where they’ll end up in the harbour.

When we’re all allowed out again, can we keep up this good practice of disposing of our rubbish properly? We are saving lives now by staying home, let’s save the ocean when we’re let loose again.

Emily Mitchell, Oriental Bay

Green MP Chloe Swarbrick’s contribution to the Covid-19 discussion is her assurance that ‘‘kindness . . . is the necessary glue of communities . . . the oxygen that keeps relationships healthy’’ (April 5).

What would she know? Swarbrick is the MP lauded for silencing an interjector with ‘‘OK, boomer’’ and who, instead of admitting that it was out of line, doubled down and defended the remark with an insulting attack on an entire generation.

Looks like she’s noticed it’s boomers who are falling victim to Covid-19. Instead of insulting them again – this time with her obviously insincere homily on kindness for all – she owes us an apology. Monica Devine, Waterloo

I heard in an interview with Dr Ayesha Verrall of Otago University that it is taking on average 18 days to trace contacts of people who have Covid 19.

It goes without saying that makes the exercise almost pointless in stopping onward transmission.

We hear there are phone apps that mean that, once someone is found to have Covid-19, if they have had the phone app, then everyone else with the app they have come close to can be instantly identified. Come on, health authorities, tell us to install the app!

I installed ‘‘TraceCovid’’ with no difficulty.

Having the app operating on our phones could be a condition of entering retail businesses, including those that are currently closed down. This costs us all nothing, saves businesses and jobs, and being able to pretty well instantly know everyone who has been in contact with an infected person will save lives and win this battle.

Norman Wilkins, Petone