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| Des Gorman - Idiot |
The first sign that the Government was changing tack away from a health response driven by expert advice was when they decided to prematurely open up a travel bubble with Australia, even though many states in the lucky country were struggling with increasingly high Covid-19 case numbers.
As you may recall, the Government was soon forced to halt their ill-conceived quarantine-free trans-Tasman travel bubble, but the damage was already done. Not long afterwards the Delta variant inevitably raised its ugly head here, and has now become well established in Gods own.
In May this year, NPR reported:
New Zealand Pauses 'Travel Bubble' With Australia Amid Coronavirus Outbreak In Sydney
Less than three weeks after launching a quarantine-free "travel bubble" between New Zealand and Australia, officials in Wellington, New Zealand's capital, announced Thursday that flights from Sydney would be temporarily suspended after new coronavirus cases were detected there.
The Labour led Government had played Russian roulette with the virus and lost. Then in August 2021, the first unlinked community cases of Delta were detected. But instead of learning from this monumental mistake, which will undoubtedly cost many millions if not billions of dollars, Labour is once again throwing the dice to see if they can beat the odds.
While they ignore the advice of numerous experts, including the countries best virus modellers and our most eminent epidemiologists, the Labour Government, in all their wisdom, is choosing to instead listen to people like Des Gorman, who isn’t properly qualified to provide advice concerning Covid-19. In fact his own University recently distanced themselves from the Act Party associated “professor” because of his numerous unscientific reckons.
This hasn't stopped the old fool from continuing to advocate on behalf of the virus though.
On Monday, RNZ reported:
Vaccinated Aucklanders should have more freedoms - Des Gorman
University of Auckland emeritus professor of medicine Des Gorman said easing restrictions was the only way to maintain public compliance.
"If you leave Auckland where it is, I think you're going to have an outbreak of civil disobedience.
Gorman said despite rising case numbers, it is safe to ease restrictions.
"I think it is, providing you distinguish between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Very clearly vaccinated people are a much lower risk to the health system and so they should have greater freedoms," he said.
And here’s a brief rundown of the expert advice the Government is currently ignoring:
On Sunday, Newstalk ZB reported:
New Zealand recorded 143 new community cases today - 135 in Auckland, 6 in Waikato and 2 in Northland.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says he doesn't think a move could be justified in Auckland because the numbers are still rising very steadily.
On Monday, 1 News reported:
Covid-19 modeller Professor Shaun Hendy says the Government should consider a short Level 4 circuit-breaker for Auckland as Covid-19 cases are expected to rise in the coming weeks.
On Saturdey there were a record 160 Covid-19 cases in New Zealand followed by 143 on Sunday - the vast majority in Auckland. Hendy says he expects cases numbers to continue to rise.
Also on Monday, RNZ reported:
There are calls for shops and public facilities to open under Level 3 Step 2.
Canterbury University Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank told Morning Report any move would have consequences.
"A move to step 2 would accelerate case numbers, it's clear case numbers are still rising."
You would hope that the Government would at least acknowledge the advice from these esteemed experts. Instead, they have chosen to listen to a right-wing idiot with vested interests in seeing the virus spread. Despite Des Gorman's lack of any equivalent level of expertise, he somehow gets far more media attention than he actually deserves.
What this means is that the Labour led Government has chosen to put the bank accounts of already wealthy business owners ahead of the public's safety, which will potentially open them up to justified litigation by the families of those who pass away from this preventable disease.
Obviously we should have waited until Aotearoa reached a higher level of immunisation against a deadly virus that has now killed over five million people worldwide, particularly because case numbers here are continuing to climb. But the Government has instead bowed to pressure from those who obviously don’t have the entire countries best interests at heart...and that’s likely going to be a recipe for social and economic disaster!
