Daily Archives: March 13, 2022

Fiona Luo says she has no plans to get her Covid-19 booster before June.

My main concern is how safe and effective the booster would be, the 30-year-old Christchurch woman said.

I have weighed up the pros and cons of getting a booster and getting infected. I chose to wait and see.

The Chinese saleswoman got two vaccine doses as soon as they were available the first one at the end of July, and the second eight weeks later.

But after seeing some of her friends in New Zealand and overseas who were infected and had mild symptoms during the Omicron outbreak, she has been less keen to get her third dose.

READ MORE:* 'I was quite shocked': Asian community falls behind in race for Covid boosters* Omicron NZ modelling: Hundreds of thousands of cases with peak possible in mid-March* Covid-19 NZ: Record day of boosters following Omicron outbreak, but half a million eligible people still haven't got one* Covid-19: How NZ's booster roll-out is tracking with Omicron on the doorstep

My vaccine pass will expire at the end of May. I will wait till then, Luo said.

It doesnt matter if I got Omicron before that. That means I shall not need a third jab.

Getty Images

Despite leading the way with the roll-out of first and second doses, the Asian community in New Zealand is falling behind in the race to get Covid-19 booster shots.

Luo is not alone. Hesitancy, scepticism and misconception towards booster doses are common among Asian communities in New Zealand.

Despite leading the way with the roll-out of first and second doses, the Asian community is falling behind in the race to get Covid-19 booster shots.

As of March 8, 72.5 per cent of those eligible for a booster vaccine have had it including 59.9 per cent of eligible Mori and 59.5 per cent of eligible Pacific peoples.

In the Asian community, 66 per cent of those eligible in Canterbury have had their booster shot, double the 33.1 per cent in early February.

Supplied/Stuff

Lifeng Zhou, board member and chair of Asian Caucus of Public Health Association of New Zealand, says he is concerned the Asian community booster uptake is lagging.

Epidemiologist and board member of Public Health Association of New Zealand Lifeng Zhou said he is concerned the Asian community is lagging in booster uptake, but a closer look at different age groups and sub-ethnic groups should raise much more concern.

The latest data has revealed big differences exist between various age groups and sub-ethnic groups in the Asian community, he said.

Among all ethnic groups, 87 per cent of over-65s had their booster as of March 6, while the booster rate for Asian New Zealanders in the same age group was just 78 per cent.

In the Asian community, 71 per cent of Chinese over-65s have had the booster, compared to 82 per cent of the eligible Indian population, and 92 per cent of Southeast Asian population in the same age group, said Zhou.

The older members of the Chinese community have the lowest booster rate.

Once they get infected, they are more likely to go to the hospital, go on a ventilator or even die.

Omicron outbreaks have happened in Hong Kong and New Zealand at roughly the same time, however Hong Kong has a higher death rate.

One reason for the high Covid hospitalisation and death rates in Hong Kong is the poor vaccine roll-out to its elderly population.

This is a warning for New Zealand. We need a more targeted booster strategy, especially for the elderly.

Language barriers to vital Covid and health information have made older Chinese people prone to misinformation.

Among older Chinese-New Zealanders who are not fluent in English, the main news and information source is WeChat, a major Chinese social media platform.

False and misleading content about Covid, vaccines and its side effects are rampant on the communications and social app, causing fear and panic, he said.

Zhou said the Ministry of Health should communicate with the Asian community in a language and culturally appropriate way.

The number has caught up recently. But there is much more we can do to encourage members of the Asian community to get the booster, he said.

Official information about Covid in Chinese, especially the practical, how-to information, is usually not available, or not on time.

Supplied

The Asian Network director Vishal Rishi says the current Omicron outbreak in the Asian community is another barrier to increase the booster uptake.

The Asian Network director Vishal Rishi said his organisation had worked closely with the Asian community in the past four weeks to encourage more Asians to get boosters.

Weve been using newsletters and popular social media, including WeChat, Facebook and WhatsApp, to reach people who speak a language other than English, he said.

But the current Omicron outbreak in Auckland has been another barrier to increase the booster uptake.

Lots of people whose families are self-isolating are not getting out to get the booster, as they are already testing positive (for Covid-19), he said.

Should I get the third dose? I have been asked this question countless times within the past few weeks, Auckland virologist Yi Ge said.

Yes, you should get it before it is too late. Thats my answer.

Booster vaccine hesitancy among the Asian community varies at different age groups.

Older populations are more worried about the vaccines side effects, while the younger ones overlook the long-term effect of Covid-19.

Some people stay home all day, and assume they could avoid getting infected. They simply dont realise how infectious Omicron is and its long-term effect, said Ge.

It is like wearing your safety belt.

It will reduce your chance of being badly injured or dead, but will not prevent you from having a traffic accident. The vaccine is highly effective in reducing severity of disease and hospitalisation for those infected with the SARS-CoV-2.

Ministry of Health immunisation programme equity group manager Patricia Joseph said the Ministry was working with the Ministry of Ethnic Communities to ensure ethnic community leaders and organisations are resourced to help increase vaccine uptake amongst their communities.

A new series of videos in Mandarin and Cantonese have been recorded to promote booster uptake, and will be published online shortly.

Read more here:

Why Asian Kiwis are hesitant to get the Covid-19 booster - Stuff

Walking through rows of white-netted grapevines, Andrew Barnes pauses to lift the fabric and pick a syrah grape. Originally, his idea had been to simply plant a few vines in his back yard. Id always wanted some grapes on a property, he says.

But the project snowballed: he leased one vineyard, then two. We realised suddenly that we were producing a huge amount of wine it had gone from being what was having a few grapes on the property to a wine lake, Barnes says with a laugh, looking around at the hillside of vines. Im flippin hopeless it goes out of control.

Barnes, one of the pioneers of the four-day week, has an apparent penchant for projects that metastasise far beyond their original boundaries. As with grapevines, so with the four-day week.

What began as an experiment with one of his own businesses in 2018 has expanded into a rapidly multiplying series of international pilots in Ireland, the US, UK, Israel and Australia-Pacific regions, working with universities around the world to study the results. 4 Day Week Global, the non-profit Barnes co-founded with Charlotte Lockhart, is expecting to run trials with 300-500 companies internationally this year.

Today, he is speaking from one of his vineyards on Waiheke Island, a tiny island off the north-eastern coast of New Zealand. On the scale of a globe, its a speck of land off the coast of a dot, and it is from here that Barnes hopes to transform the world of work and wrench the world of employment away from the deadlock of 40 hours.

Theres a lot of naysayers, he says. But theres now a lot of evidence to say this works so whats to be lost in trying? Because you know, nobody ever advanced humankind by saying its not gonna work.

Around the world, the four-day week movement has been gathering steam. Barnes was at the vanguard back in 2018, after reading an Economist article saying many workers were only productive for 1.5 to three hours a day. It struck him that by clawing back even one extra hour a day, the company would be more productive.

Barnes decided to trial reduced hours for all 240 employees at one of his businesses, trusts firm Perpetual Guardian. He instituted an 80-100-100 rule: 80% hours, to accomplish 100% of the work, for 100% pay. The experiment worked. Productivity rose, staff were happier. He made the change permanent.

Since then, the idea has only grown in popularity. Microsoft Japan trialled the concept in 2019 and said productivity jumped by 40%. Unilever New Zealand announced a year-long trial of the four-day week in 2021; by the end of the year, it had opted to extend it. In Iceland, trials of a 35-hour work week run by Reykjavk city council and the national government included about 1% of Icelands working population. In Spain, the government accepted proposals for a pilot where the government would support a national private-sector trial of the four-day week last year.

Barness conviction has only solidified over time if implemented properly, he says, its a no-lose proposition. A National Business Review rich-lister with a reported net worth of around $180m, he is adamant that its as much a business priority as a social one.

Right at the heart of this is a rational business decision, he says, as well as being probably one of the most socially responsible and environmentally responsible things you could do.

Gregarious and expressive, Barnes speaks with the conviction of an evangelist. His own approach and motivations were partly forged as a young investment banker in the UK, working punishing hours in a brutally competitive sector. In the years since, little seems to have changed at those firms last year, a leaked internal survey from Goldman Sachs reported inhumane, abusive conditions and 100-hour weeks. In his memoir, Barnes denounces a culture that treats people like race horses: whipping them to do your bidding, running them down until they flame out.

His own great conversion moment came in Sydney, where he had reached the coveted level of executive director at enormous global financial services group Macquarie. He loathed it. Walking along the city shoreline, a line from Nick Hornbys book Fever Pitch kept running through his head: You cant remember whether lifes shit because Arsenal are shit, or the other way around.

I hated my life. I hated everything, Barnes says. The question was, why do I hate Sydney? Do I hate Sydney because Sydney is awful? Or is Sydney awful because my life is awful?

He concluded it was the latter. Barnes left investment banking to take time off, and vowed not to replicate the culture at Macquarie, which he said encouraged overwork. Going forward, he says, I adopted a philosophy that said: I would think about what Macquarie would do, and then do precisely the opposite.

Now, Barnes is seeking a revolution of the week as it currently stands. He sees it as a tired, unimaginative hangover of early 20th-century assembly lines. An arbitrary construct based on repetitive manufacturing, he says, leaning forward at one of the vineyards outdoor tables to run off a string of rhetorical questions.

What Henry Ford did in the 1920s even then, why was it relevant to office work? Why was it relevant for agriculture? Why was it relevant for anything? Barnes asks. We decided to have a working week of 40 hours per week who decided that was it? Why is that the pinnacle of human achievement?

Western societies have made various unsuccessful attempts to dislodge their routines from what historian David Henkin dubs our recalcitrant calendar unit. The Soviet Union spent more than a decade experimenting with the nepreryvka, a five-day week without shared weekends. Post-revolution, the French attempted a 10-day week as part of a broader project to de-Christianise the calendar. Both failed to stick. The 40-hour working week, moored within its seven-day cycle, has proven startlingly stubborn.

Any fundamental change to the way we arrange working time can be hard to get ones head around, says Dr Laura Giurge, an assistant professor at London School of Economics, who studies time, wellbeing and the future of work. The long-term benefits of just trying it can really outweigh any potential cost. So I think [the barrier] primarily could be psychological. Its just the inertia: Oh, Im not gonna try because what I have now is doing OK.

For some managers, maintaining the status quo seems easier than having to establish new ways of measuring what a productive worker really is. Weve seen leaders staying a little bit in the past, she says. Because its really hard to measure performance nowadays. They continue to rely on old metrics of performance, such as valuing long work hours or instant responsiveness as opposed to really focusing on what people actually do, and whats the quality of the work that they do.

Giurge is a research affiliate of Oxford Universitys wellbeing centre, where she works as part of the academic board for 4 Day Week Global, to assess the effects of their trials on productivity and worker wellbeing. She says theres still more research to be done on increasing productivity in fewer hours. But broadly, the indications are positive.

Being able to disconnect from work and disengage from work and recharge is really beneficial not just for our wellbeing but also for productivity, Giurge says. We come back more engaged, we come back with more energy at work, and were less likely to make mistakes and were more motivated to put effort into the things that we care about.

Thats all very well if youre drafting wills, or staring at a computer screen all day, or, for that matter, a CEO speaking from one of your sunny vineyards on Waiheke. But what about nurses, cleaners, shopkeepers and waiters those for whom its harder to imagine 100% of work being accomplished in 80% of the hours?

One of the criticisms of the four-day week is the extent to which the conversation has been dominated by the white collar sectors, the desk workers, those who tend to have existing layers of wealth and privilege. Barnes argues the potential for reduced hours is not restricted to white-collar workers it just requires assessing different workplaces at systems level.

In things like retail, hospitality, its the two dynamics youre looking at: do you get better output? But also, does your cost base change as a consequence of not having turnover, sick days, somebody not showing up You have to look at it in the macro, he says. Businesses currently lose huge amounts of money to staff turnover and burnout, sick days, disengaged employees, errors and duplicated work.

Studies have found, for example, that the full cost of replacing a nurse was between 30% and 130% of their salary. For other employees, Gallup puts the cost at between 20% and 200%.

With the pandemic knocking the traditional workplace off its axis, reduced hours feel increasingly like an idea whose time has come. Four-day week has been given rocket fuel because of Covid, Barnes says. There were two obvious effects: firstly, an enormous number of workers were sent to work from home and time in the office was suddenly and forcibly disintegrated as a proxy for productivity. The second was that workers, freed from constant supervision, still seemed to do their work.

[It addressed] two of the big issues we always faced, says Barnes. How do I measure output? And how do I trust my workforce? Well, you sort of had that answer.

The third effect has been dubbed the great resignation: workers in the US left their jobs at historic rates toward the end of 2021, with a record 4.5 million quitting in November. In the UK, nearly 1.2m jobs were open, with many employers struggling for applicants. The reasons are complex, but the pandemic highlighted modern works unsustainable qualities burnout, stagnating wages, lack of childcare, the need for work-life balance.

Some employees are now in a position of market power and demanding better. But most of the sweeteners that businesses offer employees gym memberships or foosball or training or free lunches arent highly motivating, Barnes says, because what appeals to one worker leaves another cold. Time, on the other hand, he says is endlessly personal: a person can use it for family, for hobbies, for rest, for side-hustles, for education.

When you give people back time, you individualise the incentive, he says. What Im doing is Im giving you the time, when you want it, so you can do the things that matter to you. And you cant put a price on that.

Increasingly, it is the value of these things that Barnes seems fascinated by. In his own life, he has reached what might be considered capitalisms heights: multimillionaire, serial entrepreneur, owner and director of global companies. But over time, it seems he has become increasingly convinced that those ends might not really what most of us are seeking.

His own work and success, he says, has come at a cost: two marriages, and children living on another continent. He launches into another string of rhetorical questions: Is that good? Can I get that back? And why because I decided that working was more important than absolutely everything else. Is it?

He answers himself: Not really. From amid the sunshine, the vines and luxury, he will keep working to extend to others the luxury he now particularly values time.

Continued here:

The New Zealander trying to revolutionise the working week: Its a rational business decision - The Guardian

It was an overheard conversation between two England fans last November, before the home Test against Australia, which underlined the shifting attitudes to Irish rugby.

Why doesnt Stuart Lancaster come back to England and take a real job in the Premiership? asked one supporter. His companion balked at the notion. Why would Lancaster want to leave Leinster he is basically coaching the Ireland team? he replied, pointing to his phone where Irelands win over New Zealand was unfolding.

He had a point. Irish rugby has had some vertiginous highs in the professional era but often failed to sustain them: now, it is in a position to be one of the pre-eminent forces in European rugby for years to come.

READ MORE:* Kiwi Jamison Gibson-Park named in Ireland's Six Nations squad * Kiwi Jamison Gibson-Park: There is something special happening in Irish rugby* Ex-England coach open to linking up with All Blacks slayer Andy Farrell with Ireland

Is it an exaggeration to call Ireland the New Zealand of the north? Not especially. The countries have always had similarities in population size and their attitudes towards bigger, bolshier rivals but those shared attributes tended to stop when it came to the actual rugby.

No longer. Take coaching talent. English coaches are now seeing Irish rugby as the ideal environment to hone their skills not just Lancaster, but his former assistant Andy Farrell, now leading the Irish national side, and Graham Rowntree at Munster.

Similarly, English clubs are recognising Irish talent can make a difference to them from Jerry Flannery, who was a forwards coach with Munster before playing a significant role as lineout and defence coach in Harlequins Premiership win last season, to Johann van Graan, who will take over at Bath after his stint with Munster.

Ramsey Cardy/Getty Images

Andy Farrell and Mike Catt, along with other English coaches, see Irish rugby as the ideal environment to hone their skills.

It would seem the current Irish model is creating better coaches, whether they are Irish or not.

The other telling observation in that conversation at Twickenham was the strength in depth of the playing pool in Ireland. The country may have a population just short of seven million, when Northern Ireland is included, but there is a steady stream of talent.

Irish Rugby's centralised model helps it is not dissimilar to New Zealands as it encourages players to work towards a collective goal, and concentrates the best facilities and players into four provincial pools, all fed by schools whose facilities would be not far off those of a professional set-up.

No wonder Mike Catt has players looking so fluent there are riches of talent. Hugo Keenan, who starts at fullback this weekend, is a wonderful example of a Leinster academy player who went to sevens and is on track to be of the stars of the 2023 World Cup.

There is still the argument that Irish rugby, particularly in Leinster, is still too dependent on private schools and even 15 years ago that is how Irish rugby's fanbase was often confined, with the notable exception of Limerick.

Peter Morrison/AP

A jubilant Ireland team enjoy another victory over the All Blacks at their fortress stadium in Dublin last year.

But that has not been true for some time: Munster's Heineken Cup wins in 2006 and 2008 proved to the rest of Ireland the feel-good factor that could be generated from on-field success, while the 2009 grand slam and 2016 win over the All Blacks took the sport to a new level entirely.

Slowly but surely, rugby has become Ireland's national obsession, a sport where national team press conferences make the evening news bulletins in the days building up to a big match, and big ticket retailers such as Aldi are happy to pump in sponsorship cash.

Not everything is perfect, of course. World Cup success remains maddeningly elusive and there are significant issues with the funding afforded to the womens game.

But even that offers a glimpse of the potential in the sport: the fallout from the women not qualifying for this years World Cup made the top stories on state broadcaster RTE, and became part of the national conversation.

This level of cut-through would be almost impossible in England, where the sporting marketplace is so much more crowded, especially with the omnipresent Premier League.

None of this guarantees that Ireland will win at Twickenham, or that they will make the final stages of the 2023 World Cup. But whatever happens, Ireland will be talking about it and working out how they can become even stronger.

Read more:

How Ireland's smart thinking made them the New Zealand of the north - Stuff

Former West Indies all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite has accused England skipper Joe Root of disrespect to the home side after he played on until five balls remained, when it was no longer mathematically possible to take six wickets.

Thanks to West Indies middle-order batters Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder, the hosts managed to keep the England bowlers at bay with unbeaten 38 and 37, respectively as they safely batted out the final day of the opening Test to take the match to a draw at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium here on Sunday (IST).

Set an unlikely victory target of 286, and having lost four wickets to be in dire straits at 4/67 at the start of the last session, Bonner and Holder defied the England bowlers for more than two hours in an unbroken fifth-wicket partnership of 80 off 35 overs to see the hosts to safety at 4/147. Both consumed 100-plus deliveries each as England bowlers were left frustrated.

But with only five deliveries of Jack Leachs final over remaining on Day 5 and with it being mathematically impossible to take six wickets -, Root offered to shake hands with the rival team skipper to call off the match.

Brathwaite opined that Root should have shook hands much earlier to accept the draw but the England skipper played on until five balls remained.

In my opinion it did (go on longer than it needed to). If I were (West Indies captain) Kraigg Brathwaite or any of the other senior players in that dressing room I would have found it a bit disrespectful that in the last hour, with two set batsmen batting the way that they were and the pitch offering nothing England felt as though they could get six wickets in the last 10 overs going up until five balls left," Brathwaite said on BT Sport.

If you want to become a top team you have to think like a top team and the West Indies may not be there yet, but the mentality has to be would England not have done that if it was an Ashes Test or against India, New Zealand or Pakistan?

I think the answer is no, so why have they done it against us? The West Indies are a better team than we give them credit for, this passage of play proves it and now we have two Test matches to prove that we are better than England think we are," added Brathwaite.

Brathwaite also shared his views on Englands refusal to accept a draw on social media earlier in the day, tweeting, A bit disrespectful this," according to mirror.co.uk.

Former England batter Mark Ramprakash had a different take on the issue, though he admitted Root took it (draw) too far".

I found that very strange from England. Maybe its a mentality theyve tried to set for the tour that they are going to be hard-nosed. They took it too far though for me."

Get all the latest updates on Cricket News, Cricket Photos, Cricket Videos, IPL Auction 2022 and Cricket Scores here

View original post here:

'Would England Have Done it Against India, New Zealand or Pakistan?': Joe Root Slammed For Disrespecting We - News18

Every year it's a race against time for Hop farmers and brewers as they attempt to make beer only found in New Zealand.

Nestled away in Tasman, Hop Farm Brewery are running a complex operation.

The team produce very unique beers made with fresh hop flowers, often just hours after theyre picked.

Freestyle Hops Director David Dunbar told 1News, hops are so like any other flowers, once its picked its not going to last for very long and its really important that we treat those flowers carefully because theyre not being dried, theyre not being preserved in any way so we have to be very gentle in terms of getting them to a brewery.

The flowers are picked in Nelson and immediately flown to Wellington where they're taken to Parrot Dog Brewery.

Matt Eats, sales manager at craft beer shop Beer Jerks, told 1News they have a completely different characteristic.

"So you're getting all of those wet hop compounds that are going in, they produce a completely different flavour profile and we're really lucky that New Zealand hop farmers allow us to do this because it creates a product that's unique in the world.

Only New Zealanders get to drink these kinds of beers and they only get to drink them now, Eats says.

Within 48 hours, the flowers are ready to be made into fresh hop beer.

Sadly, the annual Bar Hop to taste test the beers is cancelled due to Covid-19 but they can still be ordered online to be enjoyed at home.

Here is the original post:

A beer produced only in NZ has flowers as the main ingredient - 1News

Its midnight in Lviv and Mike Seawright is in a hotel room, having given up the couch he slept on last night.

The New Zealander has been in Ukraine for two days, having crossed the Romanian border on foot then travelled by car to begin providing desperately needed aid to the Ukrainian people.

Thursday night, his first in the country, he was put up by locals. Now the couch is needed for their elderly parent displaced from Kyiv who left with nothing.

What sort of humanitarian would make a grandmother sleep on the floor?

READ MORE:* Russian artillery fire halts second attempt to evacuate civilians from Ukrainian city* The Cook Islands resort that is banning Russians* Ukraine under attack: How can New Zealanders help the people of Ukraine

DAVID WHITE/STUFF

ReliefAids Mike Seawright, warzone aid worker.

Its a rare light comment from Seawright who says hes been floored by what hes seen so far both in Ukraine and at its borders.

Its a statement with particular gravitas because the director of ReliefAid, which specialises in offering humanitarian help to those stuck in war zones, has seen a lot. For the past two decades he and his team have been working in conflict zones, delivering aid to more than 250,000 people.

He was heading to oversee operations in Syria when he changed course to Ukraine. There, he will be providing blankets and supplies to the thousands of displaced people sheltering in kindergartens and schools in freezing conditions, and recruiting staff to administer medical treatment.

Ukranians are doing a massive amount to help themselves, but they need help.

If donations and funding allows, his team of volunteers will also supply kits to people in the country's hotspots like Mariupol where a hospital was attacked and days of shelling have largely cut residents off from the outside world, forcing them to scavenge for food and water.

Some cannot leave and some will not leave...well be providing things, plastic, to cover blown-in windows, solar lamps and water containers.

MIKE SEAWRIGHT

Ukranians have been flocking to the Romanian border where some are waiting days to cross into safety.

Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Millions of people have fled the country and the UN has confirmed 549 civilian deaths, including 37 children. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher and a further 908 people have been injured.

Because hes only been in the country a few days, most of Seawrights observations come from what hes witnessed at the Romanian border, something he describes as a horrendous tidal wave of humanity.

The line of cars on the day he crossed stretched back three kilometres.

Thousands of people are crossing by foot, carrying children and pets. The dogs and the people are sitting out in snow, it would have been one or two degrees at most.

I heard of drivers waiting three days in their car. You think of that in practical terms: toileting, food, warmth. Forget comfort, how do you meet the basics of life?

A fenced corridor running between Romania and Ukraine is jammed with people waiting to get through. On the day Seawright crossed he and two others were the only ones heading against the flow.

Youre passing 80-year-old grandparents. I saw one woman with a 2- or 3-month-old baby crying in a pram. What is she going to do for 10 hours at the border?

MIKE SEAWRIGHT

More than 1000 Ukrainians have volunteered at this charity centre helping displaced families.

What was most noticeable was the emotions of those both waiting to cross and finally getting to the other side where aid organisations have set up.

The fear and the tension is palpable, you can literally see it on their faces, some are crying, many are stoic, but you can tell theyre just holding on.

Once in Romania people are weary, exhausted and grateful.

They're alive and if nothing else, survived an arduous journey, but their life will be uncertain now, and yet they're relieved.

Well-versed at operating in war zones, Seawright says the speed of the Ukranian displacement has shocked him. The UN estimates more than 5 million people could be moving in the next weeks if the war continues. He also says the world is yet to see how aid workers will be treated by Russia.

Experience has shown us they are deliberately and systematically targetted in Syria. Our offices have been bombed, two staff killed by snipers and aid convoys targeted. It starts with attacking hospitals and schools which is what were seeing in Ukraine.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

An injured pregnant woman in the Mariupol maternity hospital attacked by Russian forces.

For now the ReliefAid team has enough money to get its operations started and are hoping New Zealanders will support them with donations. Anyone who does can be assured theyll be directly assisting people who desperately need help.

Seawright urges those who cant donate to make a noise.

Scream to your MP, scream on social media, conduct a social boycott, do whatever, but speak out because this is unacceptable.

If we don't say anything nothing gets done. The war needs to stop to end the humanitarian crisis.

A Givealittle page has been set up to support ReliefAids work in Ukraine. If youd like to donate, click on this link.

Read the rest here:

'Scream to your MP': New Zealand aid worker pledges to help Ukranians - Stuff

Last updated: 9March 2022

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The following vaccines are currently available in New Zealand. They have been provisionally approved after a thorough assessment, and must give Medsafe ongoing data and reporting to show that they meet international standards.

Pfizer vaccine for people aged 12 years or older as a primary vaccination course, and for people aged 18 years or older as a primary course and as a booster.

How the Pfizer vaccine works

Pfizer paediatric (child) vaccine for children aged 5 years to 11-years-old as a primary vaccination course.

Children and the COVID-19 vaccine

AstraZeneca vaccine for use in people aged 18 years or older as a primary vaccination course or as a booster dose, with a prescription.

About AstraZeneca

Novavax has been approvedfor primary coursesfor ages 18 and over. It's a two-dose protein subunit vaccine.

About Novavax

Medsafe has granted provisional approval ofJanssenfor primary courses and boosters for ages 18 and over.

Provisional approval does not mean Janssenhave beencommitted forusein New Zealand. Medsafes provisional approval is the first step, with further consideration required by Cabinet on options for its use.

Janssen is a single-doseviral vector vaccine.

Provisional approval was included in the Medicines Act so people in New Zealand can get early access to medicines if its to meet an urgent clinical need.

It allows a vaccine to be used with conditions in place. This restricts how the vaccine is used by health professionals depending on the supporting data available at the time.

COVID-19 vaccines have been given provisional approval in New Zealand because data to support the longer-term safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines is not yet available.

After a vaccine is provisionally approved further consideration is required by Cabinet on whether to use this vaccine. Only then can the vaccine be used in New Zealand.

Medsafe isNew Zealands medicines safety authority. It evaluates applications for all new medicines, including vaccines, to make sure they meet international standards and local requirements.

COVID-19 vaccines are being held to the same standards and requirements as all vaccines before they get full approval.

Medsafe will only recommend a medicine is approved to use in New Zealand if it meets these standards. If approval is granted, it will either be full approval under section 20 of the Medicines Act 1981, or provisional approval under section 23.

Medsafe focuses on three key areas when assessing a vaccine:

Its assessment includes looking at:

Were moving quickly to make sure New Zealand gets the best protection against COVID-19, but this doesnt mean cutting any corners.

Medsafe has made changes to its vaccine assessment and approval process so its more efficient. Medsafe has been:

The Pfizer vaccine (Comirnaty) has been provisionally approved (with conditions) for use in New Zealand.

This means its been formally approved after a thorough assessment, but Pfizer must give Medsafe ongoing data and reporting to show that it meets international standards.

The process Medsafe went through to assess whether the Pfizer vaccine could be approved to use in New Zealand.

Medsafe COVID-19 vaccine evaluation and approval processMedsafe COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring process

If any of the COVID-19 vaccines arriving into New Zealand contain a new organism, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) will be involved. Theyll need to approve the import, development and field testing or release under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 (HSNO Act).

EPA have a rapid approval pathway for any vaccines that are, or contain, new organisms which includes genetically modified organisms. They can look at applications at pace where needed and are working with Medsafe and Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in preparation for the vaccines.

Environmental Protection Agency New organisms

See the article here:

COVID-19 vaccines available in New Zealand - Ministry of Health

Opinion: The Prime Ministers comments that the protest occupation of parliament was unprecedented and not the way we do things shows an ignorance of history.

The image of our country as long unified and harmonious is far from the truth, you only have to look back on our long list of violent confrontations which go back centuries.

Tribal wars graduated into Land Wars, and its been every few years since that our country hasnt witnessed some sort of ground-shaping strike, lockout, occupation or full scale riot which escalated to violence.

And every time the government of the day has come out punching, claiming the mob and rabble have all been inspired by criminal elements, communists, or overtaken by imported ideologies.

READ MORE:* Politicians call for 'accountability' in wake of riot, but from where and from who?* Flashback: US wartime invasion had racist side* Battle of Manners St: US wartime invasion had racist side

One of our most destructive riots was the Queen Street Depression Riots of April 1932, where shop windows all along Aucklands main shopping street were all smashed in by a berserk crowd of thousands.

The mood in New Zealand leading up was ugly, with huge sections of the population stricken by unemployment and poverty brought on by the Great Depression.

Hundreds got injured in the fighting, and when the police got hemmed in near the Town Hall, looters ran through Queen St smashing windows and raiding jewellery stores and any other shop worth pillaging.

ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY/Stuff

Union marchers clash with police at the intersection of Cuba Street and Dixon Street, Wellington, taken May 3, 1951 during the Waterfront Strike.

Only marching sailors presenting fixed bayonets around the city streets managed to quell the riot that evening, but the following day it was Karangahape Rds turn to get all its windows smashed in. Only mounted Specials repeatedly charging into the crowds and smashing in heads with long truncheons managed to finally disperse the so-called mob.

The following month of that angry autumn, it was Wellingtons turn, the ugly mob angrily protesting in front of parliament before rampaging down Lambton Quay where they smashed every window they could.

Despite the government of the day saying the riots were caused by a small communist-inspired element, the big Inquiry that followed explained the dissatisfaction in society at the time as stemming from high unemployment (it noted the majority of rioters were New Zealand-born), the skilled new arrivals which had taken their jobs, and the increasing number of women who were entering the workforce.

A report in the New York Times, written by their reporter who happened to be visiting at the time, gave some idea of the tension which pervaded at the time; It was hard to estimate how far New Zealand came to open rebellion at this time, but one thing is patently clear, the tenseness of the situation was foremost in the minds of government officials.

Des Woods/Stuff

Soldiers from Burnham Military Camp erect barbed wire fencing at the Lancaster Park South ground in preparation for the rugby test against the Springboks on Saturday. August 13, 1981.

Causes of riots where people vent their frustrations can be many and varied.

The Springbok Tour made us examine our ties to an apartheid regime. Another full scale street battle was the 1943 Battle of Manners St, when hundreds and hundreds of US and NZ servicemen and civilians slugged it out in downtown Wellington over the night of April 3, a time when some 25,000 US troops were stationed in this country.

Right from the start, it was a classic clash of culture, many Kiwis grating the governments decision to allow such huge number of US servicemen to be stationed here. New Zealand men referred to their US counterparts as bedroom commandos, which wasnt far wrong at least 1500 Kiwi women ended up marrying US servicemen from that time.

The big brawl started when racist southern state US servicemen objected to Maori serviceman coming into the Allied Services Bar. Set on by both New Zealand troops and civilians alike, nearly all of whom were Pakeha, the brawl escalated to take over the entire street with over 500 involved in hard out combat.

Two American servicemen were reportedly killed, with scores seriously injured on both sides.

Once again, the government made sure it hardly got reported, the fatalities released as unconfirmed. The issue of US troops here was sensitive, and got people riled up, even if they were supposed to protecting us.

FAIRFAX NZ/Stuff

Maori Warden Hine Grindlay holds hands with a peace group as she tries to stop the 1984 Queen St Riot.

Another notable civil disturbance involving thousands of rioters was the Queen St riots of December 1984, which erupted out of the DD Smash and Herbs concert Thank God its Over! celebrating the end of the academic year.

After Herbs performed, and lead act DD Smash were coming on, the power went out. The 10, 000-strong crowd grew agitated as they waited and waited for the problem to be fixed, throwing things at the policemen who slowly but surely had surrounded the crowd.

Soon after DD Smash lead singer Dave Dobbyn called out I wish those riot squad guys would stop w**king and put their short batons away, the concert promoters came on to say the concert was cancelled at the request of the police. Thats when the place just exploded, the resulting rampage down Queen St causing millions of dollars of property damage, upturned cars, broken bottles and rubbish everywhere.

Since that event, police learnt that their straight in strong arm approach did not necessarily work with crowds capable of exponentially escalating their uncivil behaviour.

Once again back then, the government blamed it a small fringe criminal element working to their own agenda, with nothing to do with police brutality or tactics.

One man who patently understood the just-under-the-surface disaffectedness of New Zealanders was then Labour Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer. Back in 1990, he introduced his Bill of Rights Act in Parliament as a safeguard to protect New Zealanders against the unbridled power of future governments, at the time saying; It is unlikely that there will be a wholesale disregard of human rights in New Zealand in the foreseeable future, but we cannot afford to wait until rights disappear before we take action, because it will be too late by that stage.

It could be argued that with these latest protests there is again a high level of dissatisfaction, especially in the provinces, a time when people have an underlying sense of being not listened to.

MONIQUE FORD/Stuff

Protesters spray police with fire extinguishers during the Parliament riot last month.

We may have survived the first stage of the pandemic reasonably unscathed, but who couldnt but note the government-inspired vilification of anyone who has dared to disagree with the mandates.

And if thew Government hasnt noticed, things have been simmering in the so-called team of five million.

The skint poor have been watching the rich get richer, struggling businesses have all but been wiped out by mandates, skilled people losing their jobs to them, expat Kiwis facing the near-impossible MIQ lottery to come home, families forced to accept their old people dying alone, the groundswell of aggrieved farmers fed up with everything from diesel king cab tax to never ending compliance issues, 1080 depriving families of clean game, even shore netters sore they are not allowed to set their nets anymore.

All of these restrictions imposed without any meaningful consultation. Exactly the way Three Waters and local democracy reforms are being foisted on us.

For the Government to claim the latest protests have gone beyond the pale advocating executions of politicians is pure bunkin. Look what happened outside the Auckland Town Hall on Bastille Day (July 14) 2012, when 10 city blocks of protestors (mobilised by Aotearoa Not for Sale) turned up to see the guillotining of an effigy of PM John Key. Believe it or not, this sort of thing happens all the time when people get angry.

Its time the Government came off its high-horse and started a dialogue with all the factions of the disaffected. Labelling them ferals and a river of filth is nothing short of an epic fail and does not address the real problems bubbling away under the surface.

Read more from the original source:

Violent clashes an integral part of New Zealand's history - Stuff

New Zealand and Australian delegations will return to Gallipoli on Anzac Day this year.

The dawn service at the Anzac Commemorative Site in Gallipoli in 2018. Photo: NZDF

The pandemic has stopped formal Australasian commemorations in Turkey for the last two years.

Veterans' Minister Meka Whaitiri will attend next month's service.

She will also visit the Mori Contingent P site at Number 1 Outpost, as well as Shrapnel Valley, Beach Cemetery, and Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery where some of the fiercest fighting took place.

"The Government acknowledges the collaborative work that New Zealand and Australian officials have undertaken with Turkish authorities to be able to bring us back together to once again commemorate Anzac Day at Gallipoli. We very much appreciate the ongoing generous support provided by the Turkish authorities that allows us to commemorate at Gallipoli in a safe and respectful way", Whaitiri said in a statement.

She said Anzac Day in Gallipoli is a significant part of the national day of remembrance and has been keenly missed by those who had expected to take part but could not.

Returned Services Association president BJ Clark said the Gallipoli services are unforgettable - like those who fought there.

"Sitting there at some unearthly time in the morning in the cold and the dark and remembering the service of those who'd come on to the peninsula - it was quite eerie, it was quite special."

BJ Clark said Covid will likely restrict numbers at Aotearoa's Anzac Day services next month.

All commemorations will be held within the Turkish Covid-19 guidance at the time and attendees will be encouraged to follow appropriate public health measures.

The rest is here:

New Zealanders and Australians to return to Gallipoli on Anzac Day this year - RNZ

This is how Jay keeps himself busy - not on the couch or the computer but in the bush reloading pest traps near his house in Piha.

"I tried out mayonnaise for a bit, they didn't seem to like it as much," he says.

The 11-year-old is a keen conservationist and knows our native species are in trouble.

"I'd really like to see our native birds everywhere again. Like have tuatara in the wood stack, and kiwi dashing across the trails at night," he says.

He's so determined to make it happen he's come up with some of his own creative designs to get rid of unwanted critters.

"My favourite one was the droppable thermal detection camera, and basically you would drop it from a helicopter and it would spring open, and it would put 1080-infused yoghurt out and then the pests would eat it hopefully," he says.

There's also the venus fly trap-inspired flower trap. One for feral cats too, with a built-in microchip scanner to release any family pets caught by mistake.

He's sent the blueprints off to the Department of Conservation (DoC), hoping he can help them reach the Predator Free 2050 goal.

"It's just awesome to see young people so passionate about biodiversity [and] really engaged in finding solutions," says DoC electronics team manager Grant Redvers.

The team's planning a Zoom session with Jay and want to pick his brain for other ideas.

"Some of the concepts he was thinking about were really in line with what some of our engineers working in this field are thinking about so he's spot on," Redvers says.

"It would be cool to have something which is similar to some of my ideas," Jay adds.

He's started by keeping his backyard predator-free. One trap at a time.

Excerpt from:

11yo Piha boy designs his own pest traps to protect New Zealand's native species - Newshub