Whanganui letters: Vaccination pass doesn't mean people don't have Covid

A reader believes the idea of vaccine certificates has no validity as a protective measure. Photo / Bevan Conley

The idea of vaccine certificates to prove your vaccine status, and restricting access to some places to only those with the certificates, could have some validity as a protective measure.

It would make sense, especially where the vulnerable like the elderly and immune compromised are, to know whether the people around you may have Covid. It makes less sense in everyday situations like cafes and hairdressers.

Since the vaccinated catch and spread Covid, clearly vaccination status does not tell you whether the people around you may have Covid.

So the idea of vaccine certificates, and the restrictions of those who don't have them, have no validity, in my opinion, as a protective measure.

And our government knows this.

So, why?

KA BENFELL
Gonville

A Christian response

A group of five church ministers have come out saying Brian Tamaki shouldn't be in prison or charged and that Christianity in New Zealand is under threat as a result. As a Christian, I find this very misleading and even scurrilous.

No one in a democratic country, including church ministers, is above the law. Tamaki's predicament is his own doing. It is not because he opposes the Government, but due to his continual defiance in breaking the law around preaching anti-vaxing and mandates and breaching his bail conditions. Worst of all, preaching about blowing up schools that were used as vaccination centres for children. How do the five ministers feel about this?

To me, getting everyone vaccinated, boosted and following rules designed to protect us is more a Christian response than what Tamaki preaches.

My punishment for Tamaki would be community service, assisting at vaccination and testing centres and working as an aide in hospitals, witnessing the suffering of those with the virus, proportionally mostly those who haven't been vaccinated.

Tamaki definitely is not a martyr. Neither should he be seen as being punished due to his political beliefs.

He isn't.

KEN CARVELL
Whanganui

We own our waters

All credit and support are due to Rob Vinsen as he demands disclosure and debate about Three Waters. It is the duty of elected leaders, both local and national, to disclose information and enable discussion.

In the Covid crisis, as neither politicians nor scientists can know or guess what will happen, we may admit executive power, but must not let emergency be the occasion for dictatorial process in any other matter.

The Government may protect, but does not own, our waters. Nor is it timely for the Government, under cloak of health and welfare, to make differences between us who claim much or however little, or no, Pacific ancestry.

JOHN TRIPE
Whanganui

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