Sir Bob Jones: COVID Hysteria

To date over 40% of our population have now been infected with covid and circa 1500 currently cop it each new week. Some die, some suffer a nasty flu-like reaction, others are virtually unaffected. Mask-wearing is now almost unknown.

As with the rest of the civilised world, we’ve learnt to live with it and get on with life, just as we’ve always done with numerous life-threatening risks, be it driving, swimming, physically demanding sport and so on.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: How Coercion Compromised the Vaccine

The fight over the COVID vaccines has become an epic struggle. It’s not just about who should get the shot and how many shots. The fight ever more centers on issues of effectiveness and safety of the product itself.

One group is convinced they are very dangerous for many people. The other side says that the people who say this are crazy, ideologically motivated, and spreading misinformation. Truth is, they say, these vaccines saved a million lives, are perfectly safe, and everyone should accept them, by force if necessary, including a booster and a fourth dose.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: Forget About COVID, They Say

Earlier this year, a phrase was trending because Bari Weiss used it on a talk show: “I’m done with COVID.” Many people cheered simply because the subject has been the source of vast oppression for billions of people for two years.

There are two ways to be over COVID.

One way is to do what the memo from the consultants of the Democratic National Committee suggested: Declare the war won and move on. For political reasons.

Deaths attributed to COVID nationally are higher now than they were in the summer of 2020 when the whole country was locked down. They are also higher now than during the election of November the same year. But today we are just supposed to treat it for what it is: a seasonal virus with a disparate impact on the aged and frail.

Guy Hatchard: What does it mean to be a politician going down with the ship?

Today Jacinda Ardern had her booster shot and warned us all to do the same. 

If I was charitable I might say that she must be unaware of figures from overseas including Denmark, the UK, Israel, and USA which call the effectiveness of the booster into question. 

Even the CEO of Pfizer admitted to the media this week that his shot was all but ineffective. More than this, is she also unaware that boosters carry a greatly elevated risk of adverse effects? And further, has she informed herself of the UKHSA figures which show that within a few weeks of receiving the booster, the unlucky recipient is more vulnerable to Covid than before the shot?

Ross Meurant: There Is No Democracy Without Debate

Germany’s President Steinmeier, said he felt it was his duty to “call for public debate over serious questions.”  He argued that “there is no democracy without debate.”

Addressing the issue of the issue of compulsory vaccination, President Steinmeier said this applied to times of crisis as well. (1)

In a previous post, Rights Denied, (2) I raised the question of being, shut out of public debate.

In particular I focused on the issue of this Labour/Green government elevating Maori above all other ethnic communities which make up New Zealand and provided specific examples of esteemed academics being vilified and blacklisted (‘scuse the pun) from public discourse.  Hon Dr Michael Bassett and Professor Liz Rata – being two of the most profile.

Matt Ridley: The Government is still fighting the wrong war on Covid-19

Here we go again, fighting the last war. Because governments are perceived to have moved too slowly to ban flights when the delta variant arose in India, we jumped into action this time, punishing the poor South Africans for their molecular vigilance. But nothing was going to stop the delta going global, and the latest set of government measures to stop the spread of the new omicron variant are about as likely to succeed as the Maginot line was to stop General Guderian’s tanks.

The cat is already out of the bag. Just because we can take action does not make it the right thing to do.

This pandemic has mocked public-health experts. They told us to wash our hands and then realised it was spreading through the air. They told us masks were useless and then made them mandatory. They sent Covid cases to ordinary hospitals where they infected patients.

Ross Meurant: Jacinda’s Humanitarianism Policy Exposed

The KLOCHKOV family: mother, father and two kids aboard their 20-meter yacht, escaping from the clutches of COVID, arrive in the Southern Pacific.

A family of four, been at sea several weeks with no sign of the virus having infiltrated their “bubble”, find themselves near New Zealand – just as the sea water converter on board, breaks down.

No water.

The KLOCHKOV family seek permission to make landfall in New Zealand to take on board – water.  Topping up the food stores was also on the agenda.

To their shock and dismay, agents of the great humanitarian, Jacinda Ardern, said:

NO ENTRY.

Matt Ridley: Dismantling the environmental theory for Covid

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With a laboratory leak in Wuhan looking more and more likely as the source of the pandemic, the Chinese authorities are not the only ones dismayed. Western environmentalists had been hoping to turn the pandemic into a fable about humankind’s brutal rape of Gaia. 

Even if ‘wet’ wildlife markets and smuggled pangolins were exonerated in this case, they argued, and the outbreak came from some direct contact with bats, the moral lesson was ecological. Deforestation and climate change had left infected bats stressed and with nowhere to go but towns. Or it had driven desperate people into bat-infested caves in search of food or profit.

Green grandees were in no doubt of this moral lesson. ‘Nature is sending us a message. We have pushed nature into a corner, encroached on ecosystems,’ said Inger Andersen, head of the United Nations Environment Programme. The pandemic was ‘a reminder of the intimate and delicate relationship between people and planet,’ said the director-general of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,’ added Pope Francis, enigmatically. ‘Climate change is a threat multiplier for pandemic diseases, and zoonotic diseases,’ said John Kerry. Covid-19 was ‘the product of an imbalance in man’s relationship with the natural world,’ said Boris Johnson. ‘Mother Nature… gave us fire and floods, she tried to warn us but in the end she took back control,’ tweeted Sarah, Duchess of York.

Derek Mackie: TVOne News abandons any pretence at balanced reporting

I usually try my best to miss the TVNZ One News bulletin because it invariably annoys the hell out of me and I start arguing with the TV. This is when my wife tells me to go away and don’t come back until I can think of something positive and uplifting to say. Sometimes, the best I can dream up, desperate as it is, is to point out that things could be much worse if we had a Greens majority government. This doesn’t impress her much. 

Anyway, last night I inadvertently wandered into the lounge and saw the pink-haired lady telling everyone at home what the Covid rules were and how important it was that we ALL follow them. There was nothing new in what she was telling us. In fact, it’s the same warnings that we get ad nauseum from the media news channels every evening in lockdown. 

That got me thinking. Why give Siouxsie Wiles her own personal slot on the 6 o’clock news when Wendy or Simon could just as easily have told us the same thing? I was about to give the 43” a piece of my mind when I got a very hard stare from the sofa. So, I decided to retire to the cupboard under the stairs and take out my frustration on the computer. 

Graham Adams: David Seymour is cast into hell - alongside Tova O’Brien

Tweets about giving Maori priority access to vaccines have blown up. Graham Adams assesses the damage.

In his epic 14th-century poem Inferno, Dante depicted sinners who questioned established religion or whose heretical views damaged the fabric of society as trapped in burning tombs in the Sixth Circle of Hell, and suffering horrific pain.

This week, Seymour found himself tormented in the Sixth Circle of Twitter after he tweeted a code that enables Māori to be prioritised for vaccination at the Trusts Arena in West Auckland, run by Te Whānau o Waipareira. The code was accompanied by the tag: “If you’re worried about vaccination waiting times, you no longer need to make an appointment. All you need to do is use this access code.”

Bronwyn Howell: Compulsory contact-tracing apps - the case of New Zealand

First published HERE by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based public policy think tank, on August 25, 2021.

New Zealand, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has received considerable international kudos for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With an elimination strategy best articulated as “zero tolerance of community transmission,” the country to date has exhibited one of the world’s lowest infection and death rates. 

By August 22, it had recorded 24 deaths (0.48 per 100,000 people) — notably few compared to the United States’ 628,503 deaths (191.5 per 100,000 people). Even the best-performing US state in this statistic, Hawaii (to which New Zealand, as a small Pacific nation, could be comparable), has a death rate of 39 per 100,000 people.

The core of New Zealand’s COVID-19 strategy is twofold.

First is a draconian border closure where entry is strictly controlled. 

Rodney Hide: Covid Reporting - Bought and Paid For

Professor Michael Baker’s recent Stuff comments appeared desperate and certainly revealing.

First, the desperate. He labelled the UK’s possible move from Covid-19 restrictions to freedom a “barbaric experiment”.

Let that sink in.

Returning to normal is a "barbaric experiment". But not locking people up, making them wear masks, not letting them hug nana, subjecting them to alert systems, track and trace, closing businesses, schools and playgrounds, etcetera. The restrictions themselves are not experimental or barbaric. But letting people go about their business is.

Professor Baker seemingly has no awareness of how messed up that sounds.

The UK Professor Lockdowns have gone further declaring more freedom “criminal”. There’s no science in any of this. There is no outline of the costs and consequences of alternative courses of action. There is only fear-inducing political hyperbole.

Francis Menton: Lessons In Woke "Science" - Covid-19 And Climate

Over time, I have had many posts on the scientific method, most recently in January 2021 here. You posit a falsifiable hypothesis. Then you collect and examine the evidence. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis you must abandon it and move on. Really, that’s the whole thing.

Then there is woke “science,” most visible these days in the arenas of response to the Covid-19 virus and of climate change. Here the principles are a little different. In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”

Matt Ridley: WHO Appeasement of China Makes Another Pandemic More Likely

The WHO has now wasted a year failing to investigate properly the origins of Covid-19 - first published 15 March, 2021 in The Telegraph HERE. 

It is a year ago last week since the World Health Organisation conceded, belatedly, that a pandemic was under way. The organisation’s decisions in early 2020 were undoubtedly influenced by the Chinese government. 

On 14 January, to widespread surprise, the WHO was still echoing China’s assurance that there was no evidence of person-to-person spread: “it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission,” said an official that day. Within days even China conceded this was wrong.

Lord Sumption: Mass Civil Disobedience

Freddie Sayers interview: The recently retired Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption discusses civil disobedience with Lockdown TV from UnHerd.

**

Jonathan Sumption was once the epitome of the Establishment — a brilliant barrister who represented the Government in the Hutton enquiry, Supreme Court Justice, supporter of the Remain campaign and esteemed historian of the Hundred Years’ War. But then Covid happened.

NZCPR Weekly: Propaganda Rules

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter, we question the Government’s management of the South Auckland Covid-19 outbreak, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Dr Bronwyn Howell outlines why there is no scientific justification for the compulsory wearing of face masks on public transport under Alert Level 1, and our poll asks whether you support the call for an inquiry into the latest Covid community outbreak.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Heather du Plessis-Allan: We've reached the end of a crazy political year

 

Today we are bringing you this show from Parliament.

It’s the last sitting day of Parliament before the House wraps up for the year.

Which means it’s not a bad time to reflect back on the political year, and what to expect next year.

Looking back now, it feels like there are two parts to the last year, even to the last term of government: before Covid and after Covid.

Nothing from before Covid really counts any more, does it?

Barry Brill: This changes everything!

On 6 October, the World Health Organisation disclosed its estimate that 10% of the global population may have already been infected by the novel coronavirus.

That amounts to more than 760 million people.

This new official estimate is more than 20 times greater than the number of confirmed cases as tallied by both the WHO and Johns Hopkins University – which is little more than 35 million worldwide.

This bombshell announcement reveals that Covid-19 is not, after all, the “very deadly disease” that we have been assuming during eight long months. Its case fatality rate (CFR) is a huge 96% lower than we previously thought.

Matt Ridley: What the Pandemic Has Taught Us About Science

The scientific method remains the best way to solve many problems, but bias, overconfidence and politics can sometimes lead scientists astray. My article for the Wall Street Journal... 

The Covid-19 pandemic has stretched the bond between the public and the scientific profession as never before. Scientists have been revealed to be neither omniscient demigods whose opinions automatically outweigh all political disagreement, nor unscrupulous fraudsters pursuing a political agenda under a cloak of impartiality. Somewhere between the two lies the truth: Science is a flawed and all too human affair, but it can generate timeless truths, and reliable practical guidance, in a way that other approaches cannot.

Brian Giesbrecht: Rejecting “Coronapsychosis” Could be Good for our Health

Little Belarus has been in the news due to the political turmoil following its presidential election early last month. While it isn’t high in the consciousness of most people in Western countries, it is one of the last European nations led by the kind of old-fashioned dictator who used to be common in countries like Portugal, Spain and the former Soviet satellites. In Belarus (population 9.4 million, GDP US$60 billion, per capita annual income US$19,240) that man is Alexander Lukashenko. He’s a bit of a puzzle. Although certainly authoritarian and no friend of the Western democracies, he’s also sometimes at odds with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

After the August 8 vote, the 66-year-old who’s held power since 1994 declared victory, claiming a resounding 80 percent of the vote and crushing the self-proclaimed democratic opposition led by Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya. The 38-year-old human rights activist claimed to have won the first-round voting and now, fearing for her safety, promptly fled to neighboring Lithuania. What the West should do, what Putin will do and how this will play out remains anyone’s guess. It is seemingly just another messy situation in a region that’s always been known for such sad sagas. End of story, right?