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There are now almost 50 heavily researched posts on evolving aspects and topics that made up the New Zealand Covid response, If you’re looking for background, especially for anything like submitting to a Covid Inquiry, please make use of the (free!) work in this Substack to support you.
Here’s some of the greatest hits:
Behavioral nudging and advertising campaigns and costs used through the pandemic to today
Despite the fact most government agencies warned that vaccine passes and endless Covid restrictions would materially affect social cohesion - instead misinformation was weaponised to be the cause of all problems including issues with social cohesion
How vaccine passes were introduced after the PM’s chief science advisor briefed Ardern on Israel’s use of them, why boosters were never added despite Ardern and Hipkin’s saying they would be, and the dishonest way the passes ended
There’s a series of posts on masks, and how they were lobbied for with no attempt at measuring if mask mandates were working despite politicians claiming they were
The decaying advice of the official Covid advisory group that started being ignored in late 2021 (yet, they are still listed as an active group)
How the 90% vaccination target was made up due to political pressure
Why dosing intervals dropped from 6 to 3 weeks with no official advice for it - but again it coincided with political pressure
Pointless isolation and contact tracing and surveillance trials that appeased lobby groups but had no plan of ever being put into use
The circular arguments of what was labelled misinformation, and government agencies attempts to fight it through setting up bespoke teams (DART at the Ministry of Health) and getting media and consultants on board to make it into a problem
How many vaccine doses were dumped out of the total spend of $1.3 billion to purchase Covid vaccines to the end of June 2023
The issues with equity in the response, and how - despite how government framed Covid restrictions - it worsened equity considerably
The large fines and arrests for violating Covid restrictions ($15k for not wearing a mask!)
How a very small group of academics grew their modelling day by day to force a lockdown and how a biochemist was behind the Alert Levels.
The impact of the response on children:
How 12 to 15 year olds vaccination was approved in a late night email chain despite public statements that officials were waiting on more trial and safety information
The effect of masking in schools and the ridiculous lobbying by experts to re-instate masking on children in school
The impact of vaccine passes on children and how the use of vaccine passes, and mandates, all of which repeatedly went against the vaccination advisory group advice.
And there’s even more posts in the archives.
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Get in touch at my email:
nzcovidresponse@substack.com
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