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Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Mike Hosking: Is the vaccine worth risking your career for?

 

The great mystery for me of the vaccine mandate is, just what is it about the vaccine that would lead you to voluntarily want to quit your job? 

I get it if you're 22, your job sucks, you're on minimum wage, you don’t really know what you want to do in life, and the benefit still offers an element of appeal. But the mandates around teaching and healthcare are different, aren't they? 

Firstly, you are qualified and you studied. To study you had to dedicate yourself, you clearly wanted to do this. And yet a jab is the difference between you following your dream and being unemployed? You are not going on welfare, it's a world away from where you were financially. 

So, what is it about the vaccine that is so all consuming you'd run yourself into financial difficulty to avoid it? 

There, I assume, remain the two groups. The flat out anti-vaxxer and the ones who are yet to be convinced. 

How is it in a place like New South Wales, a place not dissimilar to us, has gone from a resistance level of about 29 percent down to 4 percent? They're closing in 95 percent first doses, that's not a lot of resistance left. Yet here we seem stuck at about twice that. 

Is the mandate being overplayed? Is it possible that by the end of this week we will actually find out the numbers of teachers, nurses, and midwives quitting isn't actually that big at all? Will there be a few last-minute hold outs that, when push came to shove, acquiesced? 

For those who are in the "I don't like getting told what to do “ camp, I fully get it. But in life there all sorts of judgement calls you make. 

There are lots of things we don’t like to do. A lot of us don't like change, a government, or new rules, but we put up with it. We accept that picking your fights is a skill. We give things the weight they deserve. 

Sometimes we'll quit work, but it's mainly when we have options, an out, or an alternative.  

What alternative do the unvaccinated have? What was the point of years of training for a job you’ve just quit so you can be unemployed and unvaccinated in a world that, rightly or wrongly, has decided your view is wrong? 

How many restaurants do you want to be banned from? How many flights do you want to miss? How many shops do want to banned from? How many jobs won't you have? 

That's a hell of a hassle for a point of view.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.

13 comments:

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

Sensible commentary.
I have a problem with mandatory vaccination as it violates a person's right to refuse medical treatment, but I also acknowledge the duty of the employer to protect persons with whom the employee comes into contact.
My wife and I held out against covid vaccination until it effectively became an imperative. As soon as we became residents of the Turkish Republic we went to a private hospital and had the BioNTech jabs. Neither of us had any side effects whatsoever. It nonetheless gave us a good excuse to grumble into our beers those nights.
Be practical. It makes life so much easier.

Janine said...

What the media do not understand that to many the vaccine is a symbol of a government they detest. A government wielding unnecessary power . So Mike it's not simply about the vaccine per se. All these protests which, despite the abysmal media reporting, have been and will be well attended in the future are about democracy. "So what price democracy?". Democracy is priceless. I don't feel you grasp that.

You and your media mates are barking up the wrong tree. Covid and vaccinations are merely a symbol of our loss of democracy. You should be supporting your fellow New Zealanders. Not everybody is ruled by money.Sigh! I have been double vaccinated but this is the choice of the individual. Not YOUR choice for them. Not MY choice for them.

I have still to see you meaningfully reporting in depth on Three Waters, He Puapua and the divisive new health structure. Concentrate on that and you will be doing your fellow citizens a great service.

Anonymous said...

Mike, you’ve missed a group.
Not like you.
Yes, maybe there are some “anti-vaxxers”.
Yes, maybe there are some “yet to be convinced”
But maybe, just maybe, there are some sensible people out there who have cast a wider net than relying for their information on our Jacinda led MOH and our Stuff & Nonsense fact checkers.
A group maybe, who HAVE been convinced that caution is warranted, despite the costs.
For those who want to see, there are problems looming with this new mRNA technology that will make the American opioid crisis look like child’s play.
Did the Pfizer whistleblower who’s testimony about their ‘research’ methods recently published in the British Medical Journal, affect you?
Did the FDA’s Dr Rubin’s comment during the hearing to consider approving pfizer for thr 5 to 11 year olds, that the only way to find out what and how severe pfizer side effects were in kids was not to demand research answers BEFORE letting loose but to inject all the children and THEN see what happens, register with you?
Have you followed the concerns of Dr Peter Doshi, editor of the BMJ? Do you think he raises reasonable points?
I would suggest a more revealing and insightful, but more difficult, question to for you to ponder may be this:
What is it that these people are observing, that I am not, that is so important that they are prepared to risk everything to act in accordance with their observations?
Within months, all vaccinated New Zealanders will need to review the latest evidence on both the efficacy and the safety of the pfizer vax and either commit to it again, or reject it.
So much new data is coming out.
Safety signals are flashing.
This shouldn’t be surprising.
How lucky (how convenient?) that exactly when we need it, the (almost) PERFECT vaccine falls in our laps.

Anonymous said...

How does being vaccinated protect anyone other than the individual who has been vaccinated?

The scientific evidence now is that the vaccine does not prevent us getting the virus or from transmitting it. It 'merely' reduces the symptoms of those infected.

So there is no justification for the mandate.

Ray S said...

A lot of truth in what you say and understand where the anti vaxers are coming from.
This tidbit from a report of Mahutas trip.

“We've seen rising nationalism, the undermining of democratic norms, and deepening inequalities"

I assume she is talking about other countries, not New Zealand.

Unknown said...

As our hospitals begin to fill up with the vaccine injured (as in highly vaccinated Western Australia which is "covid free" but the hospitals are overwhelmed - ref. WA Governor's tweet last week) and the vaccinated suffering from covid at what point will the government admit that their handling of this plandemic has been an absolute calamity? Those responsible, Ardern, Bloomfield, Hipkins and others must be held accountable and punished.

Alexandra said...

1. The mandates do not exclude people with health issues that make them worry about this type of vaccine.
2. Look at other countries that have vaccine passports and mandates, most of them gave the citizens options to prove vaccination confirmation or test or antibody confirmation (for those who survived Covid). There are states that started to requiere negative tests even from those vaccinated!!!
3. The teachers who are unvaccinated can teach on-line the students whose parents do not want to send them to schools, or even those who are sitting in the classroom or to prepare the teaching aids and materials, heaps of work for them.
4. The doctors and nurses can provide consultation through phone or zoom, skype, as they do in Auckland. They can monitor their (or other) patients who are isolated with Covid to prevent rapid deterioration and deaths (as happened with a man chouphing blood and waiting for some medical advice), nurses can deliver oximeters, thermometers, medicines to these patients and to call them at least once a day, heaps of work for them. By the way, wrapped in PPE, there is no danger.
5. The emphasis that this government puts on vaccines can lead to false feeling of safety, euphoria of "freedom" when people will abandon other means of protection like masks, distancing, hygiene, vitamines.
6. How does this government prepare us for the life with the virus? Where is education, where are recommendations of vitamines, zinc, oximeters, where are the emergency kits for people who cannot afford to buy them with masks, wipes, sanitisers, oximeters, thermometers, basic medicines, as they did in some states of India?
7. Why this Government ordered a new drug Malnupiravir that has not been reviewd yet, which can have some potentially harmful consequencies which has allegedly 50% efficacy against severe Covid and refuses to use Ivermectin that has been proved efficient for initial treatment of Covid in many countries?
8. The most of all we should remember that this vaccination hysteria is a way how this government cover their failure and turn the blame on others.

Alexandra Corbett Dekanova

Alexandra said...

Excuse, please, my mistakes. Wrote it in hurry.

Edster said...

Why will we never take the vaccines.. Hmmmmm let me see. Anyone ever heard of this thing called common sense? Start using that and you'll soon realize how insane this whole vaccine scenario is. You'll need to throw some research in on top of that to find out what is happening.

But just start with plain common sense and logic.
Why would I trust my government who has openly bought and paid for the media?
Why would i trust the mafia style Pharmaceutical companies. Go look up their criminal records! Why would I take an experimental vaccine?
Just the sheer stupidity that the unvaxed are somehow a danger shows how stupid this whole vaccine roll out is!

Why would I bother with a vaccine if country after country are showing the vaxed are now the ones ending up in hospital with serious health issues.

And why the coercion to take a vaccine when there are very good therapeutics that work like hydroxychloroquine. Go look at the studies done by the most prestigious health organizations in the world. Start by using duckduckgo to search for "Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients, Henry Ford Health System Study Shows"

Yet you want to believe politicians instead?

Why aren't we allowed to use ivermectin which is a very safe drug that has been used over the counter in many countries for decades, now suddenly we cant get any stock of it and doctors aren't allowed to prescribe it. How does that make sense? If it dont work then whats lost? Its like blocking prescriptions of panadol? Why would you?

Do your research1 I have saved so much proof of the deaths and the harm the vaccines are causing. I can show you sites dedicated to the injured speaking up. Look on NZ's own medsafe site that shows over 1100 severely injured with strokes and myocardits. And remember its widely recognized that only a 5th of the injuries are reported.

Google "Leighton Baker - A chat with Jeannette Brock, ACC advocate"

I could go on and on about the reasons to not take the jabs.

Come visit me for a couple of ours Mike and by the time I have shown you the evidence I have that shows how insane this whole vaccine roll out is, you'll see it from a whole new perspective. I have real data and real info from real doctors.. Not the politicians and paid off media that your listening too.

Mike West said...


Sorry Mike but you have forgot the, for me, most obvious reason ... mine and everyone's rights.
For someone who has lived in a totalitarian country I cherish mine here in NZ.

If I was to describe a country that prevent certain people from entering. Denied travel within its borders and insisted that it the State, the media and the official state religion were the only right ones, that anyone who dared suggested otherwise were simply "black lovers" / communists and trying to destroy the country. You would quickly tell me this isn't South Africa.

Ok swop black with body autonomy and you may be comfortable telling people to be accepting of the dictates of the government... but if those dictates are against the NZ Bill of Rights then I am not!
I am 55 years old, proud NZ Citizen who came here on the work to residency skills shortage list … and now you want me to stop working because I refuse to cower to totalitarianism. So be it !

Anonymous said...

"That's a hell of a hassle for a point of view."

Yes, it is Mike. I am surprised you have not quite got it that sometimes standing up for what one believes in is a hassle. The world wars were a "hassle", but those who believed in freedom over totalitarianism were prepared to accept the "hassle" of giving up their lives.

Actually Mike, I find your comments quite appalling now that I think more about it. Perhaps your star-status life has been so privileged and hassle-free that you have lost touch with people of conviction.

Here's a reason why some people are refusing to be vaccinated (most in my humble opinion). Because the choice given to them is Pfizer, Pfizer or Pfizer (mRMA Pfizer in particular). If a non-mRMA alternative be available, the so-called anti-vaxers would take it.

So why the concern about mRMA. It's because the only source of truth has not been transparent about the deal they have struck with Pfizer (they refuse to release it). They have not also discussed the possible side-effects of the vaccine, so people have done what they should do in those circumstances - go
looking for the information themselves. And surprise surprise, they have come across all sorts of stuff and theories, including the conspiracy theories that incubate very nicely when governments pretend to be the only source of truth and are less than forthcoming with information (i.e. are as untransparent as our current government - He Puapua, three waters, COVID. etc).

Mike, you really do not get it, which is disappointing. How about saying thank you to the small percentage of the population that are prepared to put up with the "hassle" of losing their job and accepting the status of a leprae, for something they believe in because these are the very same people who will go to war to protect our country and our freedoms so that you Mike and others can live a hassle free life.

KP said...

Mike, you're jut one of the bought media pushing the Govt point of view. Surely anyone with half a brain would know that if your trying an experiment on a group of people you will need a control group to see if what you did had an effect. Why can't you see that?

So here we are, you're the experimental group, we're the control group. In 5 years I expect we will know if the vaccines were good, bad or indifferent.

However, we have tried to make vaccines for other corona virus, particularly the common cold, and all we have done is kill the participants in the trials. Some would say luckily they were cats, but this time we are trialling a completely new genetic altering system on most of the people, and if it goes wrong it will be disastrous for them. (and to a degree, very entertaining for us!)

You will find a lot of 'refusers' are more educated in the science that explains the vaccines than you would expect. They are the people who have the chance of 'informed consent', not the poor general public who have been fed rubbish from the start!

Edster said...

I have a video from Bayer that state "2 years ago who would have believed the majority would so willingly undergo a gene altering therapy" It's bizarre how a few years ago people like Mike refused to eat genetically modified corn and yet here we are, the same people are so willingly putting themselves up for the largest medical experiment in the history of man kind.

Drs are already reporting many health issues from death, to heart issues and strokes. Many reports that people having had cancer are seeing fast flare ups. And no one knows what the long term future holds health wise. Going to be interesting times ahead for the vaxed.