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Mike's Minute: Govt full of hot air over Covid-19 vaccine

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Tue, 26 Jan 2021, 9:57AM

Mike's Minute: Govt full of hot air over Covid-19 vaccine

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Tue, 26 Jan 2021, 9:57AM

It honestly is of ongoing fascination to me just how our government is able to literally make it up as they go along, get caught out, spin the same BS, and not enough people seem to care.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved the Pfizer vaccine for use.

Now, according to Chris Hipkins and Ashley Bloomfield, we are in lockstep with Australia. We don't have a vaccine at all yet because we are waiting for Medsafe, our authority, to clear it here.

They are doing this under their usual procedure, although we are assured at a cracking sort of pace.

The countries that are jabbing, and have been since before Christmas, cleared the vaccines under an emergency regime.

We apparently don’t need to do that, which of course is rubbish. But that’s the line the government are running, and a lot of us are seemingly prepared to swallow it.

This is the bit I struggle with.

The government, once again, are full of it. We are not in lock step with Australia. Why? Because their jabbing starts before ours. Their first vaccinations will take place next month, will ours?

No. So, we aren't in lockstep, are we? And the TGA has done what Medsafe haven't.  So, are we in lockstep? No. So why are they saying we are?

Given we aren't, and even if Medsafe clear the vaccine this morning, where is the vaccine? Not here.

So, were we really waiting for Medsafe? No, we weren't. Was there really ever any chance that Medsafe would be the only medical authority in the whole world so far to go, "hold on, we aren't clearing this, this doesn’t look safe"?

No, there wasn't. So, why the spin? Why the endless, made up excuses?

It's already Groundhog Day this week. Yet more queues for testing, yet more fear in a community as they wait for test results, yet another slip up at the border. And despite all that, no recognition that MIQ is slack, that MIQ needs tightening, still no listening to the experts saying stop the flights, or to have isolation post MIQ, no desire for urgency, no desire to fix obvious and ongoing weaknesses.

It's just the same old crap, covering the same old butts, and making the same old mistakes.

Our complacency will be the undoing of us. Even though the government are hopeless, why are we even more hopeless by not demanding better?

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