The hole truth
‘ We have a glaring hole in our border,” warns National MP Chris Bishop, after 98 Tauranga port workers spent time on or near a ship that had 11 crew on board who later tested positive for Covid-19. Bishop says 60% of Bay of Plenty port workers are unvaccinated. Really? How could that happen?
That “glaring hole” tells us Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and his army of health advisers are asleep at the wheel. It is reported that Hipkins has been “concerned” about the uptake of vaccines by port workers for the past two months. Why, then, wasn’t urgent action taken?
All privately employed port workers are not obliged to be vaccinated until September 30 if they want to continue working on the wharves. Once again, really? That is glacial progress, surely?
According to the Maritime Union, port workers are unusually susceptible to “misinformation”, which I think means they read a lot of Facebook. The union did make the useful suggestion that publichealth workers could have “one-on-one” sessions with the workers and convince them to get a jab.
It does raise the question of why Hipkins did not urgently organise those sessions for the misinformed wharfies? Why simply wait fretfully for the past two months in the faint hope they might change their minds and get vaccinated by the long-distance deadline at the end of next month?
If this is the situation on the waterfront, what is the state of airport-border workers? The Government has been vaccinating border workers since March and it should have ensured by now that there is not a single person working on the border who has not been vaccinated.
There is an amazing lack of urgency in the Government’s response to the Covid crisis. The slow vaccine rollout continues, with less than one million of us fully vaccinated at the time of writing.
I was recently summoned to the local racecourse to get my first jab – but why the need
Britain has managed to give at least one shot to nearly 90% of its adult population, about 47 million people.
for a mass medical production line at a racecourse? It was efficient, but you have to wonder why, only now, are GP practices finally being allowed to vaccinate? I’m sure my doctor and her nurse know how to use a needle, yet it has taken too many months for GPs to get the thumbs up to start vaccinations.
We can see in Australia the devastating effect of the Delta variant outbreak. Given the vulnerability of our borders, it’s a miracle we aren’t all sitting, staring at the walls, in lockdown once again.
Britain has managed to give at least one shot to nearly 90% of its adult population, about 47 million people, and 75%, or 39.5 million, have had both doses. You have to wonder why we have been drifting along at such a slack pace.
People are reluctant to get Covid-tested because of the invasive nature of the nasal test. The more gentle saliva tests are not being rolled out until later in the month. Why so slow?
Labour has reaped the benefit in the political opinion polls of “keeping us safe”. But what happens to that support if we become no longer safe
– if a big outbreak of the souped-up Delta variant occurs? Masks back on, keeping 2m apart when we are briefly allowed out of our homes, the economy once again choking, people becoming very sick or dying.
The stakes are incredibly high, not only for the Government but also the country. Yet we continue to muddle along. l