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Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Mike Hosking: Better late than never for the Covid rules


It had been a while since I'd watched a Post-Cabinet press conference, but there I was yesterday, watching the current Prime Minister end our Covid response.

The seven days isolation and the masks that we are supposed to have been following, are now gone.

The irony being, until a week or so back I had no idea they were still in place because I suspect, like most people, I haven't thought about Covid for ages.

I haven't thought about it because I have personally disliked most of what this country has done and was more than happy to put it behind me.

The sadness of yesterday's post-Cab was Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Covid and the man in charge of MIQ was busy thanking people for all their efforts and busy spruiking how wonderfully we had done and how many lives we had saved.

How well we had done is open to a tremendous amount of interpretation. As for saving lives, that’s guess work. You can't put a number on things that never happened.

The most important part of the whole Covid approach is not what happened in a condensed, intense period of time, but rather what the cost of that attitude was and is.

What is the price we paid and are still paying?

Is it the people who can't access health care because too much of it is a complete mess?

Is it the people who died, or have had their lives curtailed? Are their stories offsetting the so-called lives we saved?

The MIQ as a seed of an idea wasn’t the end of the world but the execution was exactly what this Government will be remembered for; a complete balls-up, highly political and dangerous in its largesse. The Wiggles were let in but relatives of the dying were locked out.

"Be kind". If I never hear that again it won't be too soon. Remember the teddy bears in windows? It was pathetic.

Neighbours dobbing neighbours in for standing too close together in fresh air on the street - it smacked of a control regime and that is the worst of this all.

Because that’s exactly what it was . This Government used fear to control us. It was an overbearing arrogance, mixed with incompetence, with rules that were bewilderingly stupid and often pointless.

All the while they were telling us how brilliant they were and how lucky we were. As I have said all along, each country and its Covid experience was as a result of sheer luck and who was running the place when the virus arrived. Some got relatively lucky. We didn’t.

The reason this Government is about to lose the election is because, put simply, they don't have a clue.

Not now and, tragically, not even close during Covid, when it really would have made a world of difference.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.

5 comments:

DeeM said...

This kind of crap sums Labour & Hipkins up perfectly.
The last to realise his useless policy has been ignored by the vast majority for over a year now. Except those occasional poor souls who still wear face masks on their own in their car or out walking on deserted streets. They're beyond help.

He must know, surely, that nobody cares about this announcement and that he just looks like a dick, turning up 12 months late for his own party.
Actually, I'm not sure he does.

Erica said...

This is about disingenuous as thanking a person for turning up to their own funeral.
Roll on the exposes of all the disastrously wrong things about the whole covid
affair. Also the complete corruption of all the agencies involved some of whom have made billions of dollars dispensing products, they willfully knew were neither safe nor effective. Meanwhile there are those multitudes who are permanently disabled or dead from the vaccines themselves.

Anonymous said...

It waa a total fraud from day one.

Richard Compton said...

And Mike you missed the poor sods who went for a week's holiday in Oz (and others needing to get home) who were locked out overseas for months. Some of those folk would have done it really hard. Fortunately I have "family" in Oz.

RC

Anonymous said...

Listened to your interview with Chips yesterday morning. My goodness what an embarrassment. This guy is supposed to be PM of our country. His only saving grace is at least he fronts up to be embarrassed publicly unlike his predecessor.