Covid Watch

National has released its plan to end lockdowns and get Kiwis back to New Zealand without having to go through MIQ. They say if 85% of the eligible population, is jabbed, tested and vaccinated, then travellers from overseas will be allowed to come back to New Zealand. 
National Party Covid spokesperson Chris Bishop says “Covid’s out there in the community. That's the reality. It's here. So we're saying let's move away from elimination.” 
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Do you ever wonder why you bother to obey the rules when so many don't?
The latest one is the top cop who was driving a private car, but in full police uniform. He was driving iwi contacts he deals with through his job.
A second source said the office was "doing a favour" for those contacts. 
It was revealed last night that the man crossed the border earlier this month, while Auckland was still under stringent alert level restrictions and formal exemptions were needed to leave the area.
One source said the officer was challenged by police staff manning the southern border - but they reportedly allowed him through after he insisted, they couldn't say no to him.
He told them that he could cross the border because he was an essential worker.
However, it is understood the trip was not considered official Police business and police have confirmed no exemption was given for travel.
And then you have the Tamakis.
The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner met virtually with the Destiny Church boss over his plans for an anti-lockdown rally.
Can you believe it? Auckland Mayor Phil Goff certainly can't.
This is doing my head in.  If you're Māori, if you're a gang member, if you're an entitled, narcissist twit like the Wānaka runaways, like Brian Tamaki, you stick two fingers to everyone and go your own way. 
I don't like the rules either, but we have been told that we will get out of Level 3 if we obey them.  But if people are going to break the rules - with official sanction - I don't know how much longer the Government can expect wholesale public compliance. 
Like I said when the Wānaka runaways were exposed, good people don't break the rules - but they do have a breaking point. I am very close to reaching mine.

In further uplifting news, we have yet another alternative coming today in how to handle the Covid mess we are currently being damaged by.
ACT yesterday rolled out their eminently sensible series of ideas based around the broad theme of wellbeing as opposed to pure health. How ironic is it that ACT is out empathising Labour?
A centre right party has more interest in the wellbeing of us all, as opposed to the left-leaning party that has caused millions in damage by making health, and health alone, the centre piece of decision making.
For ACT, Level 4 is gone, MIQ expanded, and home isolation is rolled out. All the stuff that many have been arguing for months, the sensible stuff that if this Government started work before 9am and had an ounce of organisational skill, would have rolled out an age ago.
Elimination is gone under ACT, you are isolating the medically vulnerable, those who test positive and recent arrivals, and the rest of us get on with it.
David Seymour talks of the mental anguish and kids who are stressed. None of this has been taken care by the Government with their one size fits all blunderbuss of a policy. And we haven't even mentioned the billions in business carnage and closures.  
National, with their policy release, will follow it up today with the temptation of Kiwis offshore being able to be home for Christmas if you're double jabbed.
It's a policy and an invite for the Government to adopt it. It gives weight to the power of the vaccine. Under the Government's MIQ system you can't get in to get home, and even if you can, the fact you are double jabbed means nothing. That’s how nonsensical the whole policy is.
Between rapid tests, vaccines, home isolation, and tech there are no reasons, and haven’t been any reasons, why we can't do things dramatically differently. Doing them dramatically differently will have a vastly better, fair, and more equitable outcome.
Here's another irony. None of this is radical, it's not revolutionary, and it's not magic. It's what a lot of the world has been doing for ages.
The Government's time on this is fast running out. Never underestimate the power of Christmas and the emotional pull a home country has at that time of year. National and ACT offer real options for real movement and real reunions.
Labour offers the Hunger Games. It's the stuff that swings polls, turns tides, and nails coffins. Labour's ineptitude laziness and lack of delivery is coming back to haunt them.
The more alternatives, the starker their lack of planning and delivery looks.

Mark Mitchell and Stuart Nash joined Mike Hosking to discuss this and the week's politics news.

Have you noticed the announcement blitz the Government is on ever since John Key’s piece got massive coverage? Hit a nerve anyone? I found it amusing how on the one hand, they called it insulting and simplistic, while on the other hand saying they were implementing a lot of his ideas.  
So, which is it? Simplistic and insulting, or good enough for you to go ahead with? 
Either way, they’ve been dragging the chain on the ideas for so long, that if anything, at least his piece elicited some action. 
Because this Government is reactive, it hates bad press. It'll be alarmed to have had a swing taken at it, given it's become used to a fawning compliant media. The fact commentators are turning will be new and startling territory.  
Combine Key’s critique of them with a bad poll result, and whammo, they’re going to start announcing some stuff. 
Watch all the announcements roll out this week; we’ve already had RSE workers, private quarantine for business trials, vaccine passport ideas and boundary exemptions for Aucklanders. 
The announcement I’m personally waiting for is the school holidays one. They surely have a plan by now, they must know what they’re doing. Here’s what I reckon will happen.  
Ideally, in their perfect ‘health first’ world, they’d want to keep Auckland in Level 3. Had they got the ongoing buy-in of lockdowns that they enjoyed last time, they would’ve gleefully kept us all locked up to keep attempting to achieve their fictitious elimination strategy. 
But polls show they’re taking a hit over it, people are sick of it, movement around Auckland shows just how over it people are, and so, I reckon they’ll drop us. Reluctantly and with caveats. I think we’ll go to Level 2 with masks, social distancing, scanning in, and the big one – no travelling. They won’t want Aucklanders roaming off around the countryside, they’ll want Tamaki Macovid staying put.  
They’ll want to give the illusion of freedom, like a trip to the hairdressers, and a few shops open, but they won’t want us to get too carried away. 
I could be wrong of course, but if that does happen, then what a bunch of hypocrites they'll be. Suddenly it won’t be about the science, it’ll be all about the sentiment.  
Picking and choosing when you listen to science is no way to treat people or their livelihoods, and hopefully people will see the charade for what it is. 
The elimination strategy they’ve fancifully been chasing will suddenly not be so important anymore; they’ll spin us a yarn about how it’s worked out just as they wanted it to, but the numbers will tell the real story. 
Watch them spin how they don’t need zero cases and they’re comfortable with a few unlinked, and all of a sudden everything we’ve been locked down for amounts to conveniently being of no importance anymore. 
It’s amazing what can happen when you know you’ve lost the room.

An Auckland medical centre is doing its bit to get 90 percent of New Zealanders vaccinated by Christmas. 
Mt Eden 575 Doctors has already managed to get that percentage of their five thousand patients jabbed, in just a month. 
Dr Jodie O'Sullivan told Mike Hosking they get a list of which of their patients have been vaccinated at 8am every morning, then hit the phones. 
"Chatting to our patients, asking them open-ended questions asking why they've chosen not to be vaccinated yet, if they've got any concerns about the vaccine, what can we do to help them." 
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A call to arms in our ongoing battle against Covid-19 - and it's all about being doubled-vaxed. 
Auckland recorded eight new cases in its Delta outbreak yesterday -- and there are currently seven unlinked cases from the past fortnight. 
Tauranga residents with symptoms are being urged to get tested, after Covid was detected in the city's wastewater. 
Auckland University epidemiologist Rod Jackson told Mike Hosking it's crucial we stamp out unlinked cases -- and we all get vaccinated as soon as we can. 
"We need vaccine passports, you can't get on a plane without being vaccinated, no essential worker should be able to leave Auckland without being double vaccinated, we shouldn't let anyone into the country unless they are double vaccinated. This is war, this really is war." 
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Calls for countries to work together on international travel. 
Different governments have varying policies when it comes to vaccine passports and border rules.  
Massey University's Paul Spoonley told Mike Hosking international clarity is needed. 
"The rules are all over the place and we've got no harmonisation and nothing to say what are we going to do country to country to identify what it is we want from people travelling internationally." 
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We had the latest round of MIQ rooms released last night - and queue another round of immediate disappointment for about 20 thousand people.  
A number of people contacted Newstalk ZB about missing out, having no hope etc.  
But one woman has had her opportunity taken away from her because of issues with the MIQ website.  
Caroline White got lucky until she didn't - she was 616th in the MIQ queue and was picking her date on the calendar when the website froze and she was booted out.  
She tried to make a complaint, but was then told that it must have been a fault with her application and nothing to do with the website.  
Caroline White joined Mike Hosking. 
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National has a plan to reunite New Zealand families for Christmas 
It's set to unveil a new 50-page plan this morning to allow safe travel in and out of New Zealand by December 
Leader Judith Collins says the current MIQ system is a "dreadful lottery". 
She told Kate Hawkesby the new system is the first immediate step towards reopening New Zealand to the rest of the world 
"It covers all of the aspects that we need to make sure that we have in place for the next twelve months at least, it is absolutely something the Government could start right now.” 
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