Just the facts - A closer look at the Covid-19 vaccine being rolled out across Aotearoa. How it works, why we need it and who developed it. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Mike Hosking
Mike Hosking has hosted his number one Breakfast show on Newstalk ZB since 2008.
Listen live each weekday from 6am on Newstalk ZB.
I'm enjoying the sense of boldness to be found in various parts of the world at the moment.
In Britain, thanks to Freedom Day, they're out and about enjoying their summer having run a successful vaccination programme.
The Olympics, although run in a country with a poor vaccine rollout,was determined not to let a pandemic ruin their day in the sun.
No, it's not what it could've been, but in a world where too many are driven by fear, you have to admire their bravery in forging forward, and at the end of it, when it hasn't turned into a super-spreader event, hopefully a few of the sceptical observers might note that everything doesn't have to be locked down forever in order to live with a virus that is going nowhere.
Then we have the protesters this past weekend in various parts of Australia, who are fed up with their Government and its inept attempt to face up to a virus that is hurting them in a way it never needed to because Pfizer Moderna, Oxford and co came to the party months back and all you had to do was negotiate.
Which brings us to this country and its burst bubble.
We are not going to Australia for two months, because we are as useless and lackadaisical as they are.
To be fair to Scott Morrison, he did at least have a half-decent plan at the start, he got AstraZeneca lined up in amounts that would allow them to vaccinate rapidly, and had CSL able to produce it locally. That was until various countries, most notably Germany, who upon reading some early medical data, lost ALL sense of proportion and freaked out.
The rest as they say, is history, and they've been busy on the phone to Pfizer ever since, trying to make up for lost time.
We, of course, didn't even do that. We have essentially sat here pretending there was no hurry.
You see the scandal here is that that was always a lie, there was always a hurry, because of exactly the predicament we now find ourselves in.
Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison attends a press conference in Sydney. Photo / AP
We are trapped and we are scared, and all we have at our disposal is the same plan as we did 18 months ago ... lock the borders.
The difference this time is we've had access to an answer, the vaccine is the answer.
Vaccines mean the ICUs aren't full, the very reason we locked up in the first place, people aren't dying in droves.
The sooner we get vaccinated the more we can move forward.
That was always the truth, the Government just didn't want to tell you that and, sadly, far too many New Zealanders weren't alert enough to want to hear it.
The same terrible outcomes haunt us the way they did a year and a half ago and yet now they haunt us for no good reason.
Passengers at Westminster use the tube much the same as they have over the last 16 months. Photo / Getty Images
Businesses closed, unable to trade; government aid programmes fired up paid for by yet more debt; airlines cancelling seats by the thousand; the mental health issues; the uncertainty; the hit to confidence.
Australia is living it, because of complacency, we are but one case away from the same outcome and yet none of it is now necessary.
In the early days, fear was easy to pedal because of the unknowns, today the facts are in, if you want to read them and we are now dealing with a full-blown rort.
Our vaccine rollout is a national disgrace, our lack of supply is a direct result of a lack of determination, and an abdication of responsibility to the people of this country.
England has dropped most of its remaining Covid-19 social restrictions. Photo / Getty Images
The simple truth is we don't need to be in the locked-down mess we are.
We never had to be.
Scott Morrison apologised last week for saying "its not a race" ... he was wrong.
Our Government owes us the same apology.
"We don't have Covid" was their excuse, but look at us, paralysed because we might, fear stricken because it's a couple of hours' flight away.
We are sitting ducks because we have a lazy, inept government that has the 125th worst vaccine rollout in the world.
And what makes it worse is they still insist this thing is going well, and what makes it even worse than that is there are still some suckers left here who believe it.
