Government’s approach not so hard or early for vaccination

Dear Uncle Norm,

Why all the fuss about having no Covid vaccinations until late March? Most weeks New Zealand has zero community cases, so letting countries with bigger problems go first is the correct moral course. Also, Medsafe worked day and night to ensure our vaccine will be safe.

Roberta Balmacewen

As of February 2, 72 of the planet’s 195 countries had begun vaccinating their citizens. (Source: Our World in Data). These include Nepal, Morocco, the Seychelles, and North Cyprus.

Presuming our Government does meet its late March start target, New Zealand may still end up near the bottom quartile of countries vaccinating, and be the last developed nation.

The assertions that we’d be near the top of the vaccine queue are exposed as egregious bunkum.

Any government’s very first job is (like the military’s) protecting its people. We have thousands of border and quarantine workers who daily face infection risks, and elderly who are vulnerable to any serious outbreak. We should at the very least have been able to quickly protect those Kiwis facing immediate danger.

Medsafe ruminated on much the same data other countries got. Yes, we’ve successfully used isolation to keep Covid at bay. But gradeA spin doctoring should not hide how slow we’ve been to get on board with the superb work of the world’s vaccine research teams.

Within a year of Covid’s spread, science has delivered seven vaccine answers. And already 72 countries are streets ahead of us using them. Repeat after me Roberta, ‘‘Seventytwo’’. And still counting.

Dear Uncle Norm,

Our leaders talk about using new technology to lead business out of Covid.

I suspect we forget too many of the old solutions we came up with via our No 8 wire practicality. If we combed through these it may prove very productive and save us reinventing wheels.

Arthur Cog Miller’s Flat

Here’s a Kiwi No 8 wire story to illustrate your point.

In 1958 the hula hoop craze swept the world. The American firm WhamO used newfangled Marlex plastic to make most of the 100 million idiocies sold.

A Dunedin sports shop decided they could beat the fancy Yank imports, with a sneaky No 8 garden hose solution. They’d chop the hoses into lengths, wedge a piece of wooden dowel between the ends, pull them tight over the dowel, and Bob’s your auntie — a hoop.

But what if the dowel flew out just when Uncle Hubert was about to beat his PB of 68 spins?

Enter Christopher W. James, until recently an Andersons Bay wolf cub. With the rest of the staff busy doing old sports shop things such as puffing up footballs, James was hired at (we believe) sixpence per completed hoop.

A studious boy, he gravely contemplated the design problem. Then, pulling out his cub’s penknife, he carved clever counterdirectional notches into each dowel. The C.W. James Notch made it impossible for the hose to slip.

The Dunedin outfit sold cartloads of hula hoops but sadly, the No 8 wire genius of Christopher W. James was lost to industry. It became a lawyer.

Dear Uncle Norm,

I can’t decide whether I’m amused or offended by the racial contortions in Netflix’s period drama, Bridgerton.

Bridgerton is based on a Regency bodice ripper by romance writer, Julia Quinn. Her story, set in 1813, did not contain the group of black aristocrats Netflix invents for its TV series. The Netflix Queen Charlotte is black, as is the heartthrob Duke of Hastings, his adviser Lady Banbury, and many of the extras seen in Charlotte’s ultrasnooty court.

What’s your opinion of this travesty?

Geraldine A’Court

Geraldine

Slavery was at its peak in Regency times, and a chunk of aristocracy’s wealth came from Britain’s exploitation of its coloured empire.

Today, mobs cheer as statues of alleged slavers are toppled. Would the outrage of these people be quelled by a virtuous television world in which the downtrodden are reimagined into a colourblind aristocracy?

One Bridgerton scene has the black Duke and his mentor gratefully discussing how George III’s marriage to Charlotte has made their status possible. Another moment has the toffs dancing a gallant minuet — to a Taylor Swift tune.

The producers have found themselves a historian who suggests this black Queen Charlotte was conceivable. Her forbear, King Alfonso III of Portugal, may have had a Moorish mistress. 450 years earlier. Honestly.

Bridgerton ticks many bingeviewing boxes, but we watch knowing it’s a lark that may turn the mind to marmalade. (Somewhere around episode five, I found myself with a cognac in one hand and a doughnut in the other).

The Australian’s Luke

Slattery wrote the best critique of Bridgerton I’ve read: ‘‘Imagine a World War 2 film in which a cast of Orthodox Jews plays Hitler’s henchmen. It’s that degree of nuts.’’