New Zealand appears terrified by the latest variant of COVID-19.

Omicron has been shown to be highly transmissible although, sounding like one of the original Transformers, it is potentially less harmful than Delta and is still ultimately COVID.

Indeed, Omicron is effectively the same Coronavirus infection you have been fighting for the past two years, just weaker.

The problem, as always, is the way our officials pervade fear through all media outlets.

Sounds awful; more transmissible, may not be able to be controlled by the vaccine and – although preliminary research has found Omicron is ‘less likely to cause severe symptoms, including death, than Delta’ – COVID Omicron sounds essentially like a watered-down, vaccinated version of COVID Delta.

‘Omicron is spreading throughout the world much faster than Delta…’

Let it; the world is eventually going to succumb to COVID-19 and if Omicron does not plan to kill as many as Delta would have, I say let Omicron take control.

Message to National Media: Please, quit scaring folk with your sombre daily talk of ‘New Cases of COVID’ and ‘National Spread of COVID’, ‘COVID … COVID … COVID…’; it is unnecessary, we are now officially 90% vaxed thus COVID numbers are irrelevant and do nothing but unsettle people – talk about COVID Hospital Admissions, talk about how ill COVID is making the unlucky few, talk about how tired healthy people are of hearing about COVID because seriously, nobody cares anymore for your sensational scaremongering.

Omicron, the less-harmful Transformer, you deserve about as much regard as the piece of shit I just flushed down the toilet.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Moran Meets

Photography by Dee Eye

New Zealand’s struggle with COVID-19 continues to make increasingly less sense.

While the rest of the world has been ravaged by the COVID pandemic, accepting this new virus as part of life, in New Zealand, we are still feverish in our denial that we have lost the Coronavirus battle.

The New Zealand Government months ago assured the people that, once we reached the fabled ‘90% vaccinated’ mark, COVID would lose its hold over us and life in Godzone could return to normal.

Yeah, that was never going to happen.

According to some sources, the nation’s eligible population – this number keeps changing, mind you, as a broader populous is continually being included in the stat – reached 90% double-vaccinated last week; according to other sources, New Zealand’s double-vaxed populous has been at around 89% for over a week now.

The point is, Jacinda and her elected government of political losers tim-walkers-election17-ii/  are so focused right now on public perception, how they appear in the eyes of the rest of the world that, although it’s not official, nothing short of COVID elimination is going to suffice for our beloved Cindy.

The reason this is such a ridiculous – nonsensical – strategy is this: PM Ardern, for how long do you need to be able to show the world that you achieved ‘COVID-negative’ status before you reopen your borders to the world and allow your prized Dictatorship to become again COVID-positive?

There is no sense in fighting a virus that, within years, will have been through 90% of the world’s population.

We’ve done as you asked, Jacinda, now how about keeping one of your promises and allowing us to get on with our lives?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Labour Intensive

Photography by Percy P Shinn

Presumably an effort to appease New Zealand’s anti-vax malcontents, Government is now considering offering incentive to the remaining unvaccinated.

In New Zealand the COVID vaccine is cost-free thus has no disincentive and surely, the incentive, in which the vaccinated 80-or-so percent have been revelling now for months, is increased likelihood of continued good health.

Uncertainty surrounding the stability, credibility, also efficacy, of the vaccine is preventing a minority from accepting it; odd, given that anyone who is not dead must be aware that, since the COVID-19 vaccine was pervaded throughout the world (admittedly, causing harm to an unfortunate few), people have basically given up on ‘suppression’ of the virus.

New Zealand Government’s most overused idiom, new ‘cases of COVID’ have never been higher than they are now so, yeah, we are relaxing restrictions because, that’s right, most people don’t care because they are vaccinated.

Most people did not waste time holding out to be tangibly rewarded for simply being looked after because, well, most people are not dicks.

A common anti-vax protester slogan – ‘Keep Your Hands Off Our Kids!’

Great, but we’re not worried so much about your kids, it’s you, the negligent parent, who needs vaccination, not your kids; hell, leave your kids at home, well away from Government hands, for all we care, it is you who is threatening our country’s prosperity.

Regarding prospective incentive, piquing interest was $100 in further cash pay-outs, also electronics because, you know, can’t put a price on life and all that.

Realistically, most of these people are dickheads; I know their kind, too, contrary for the sake of being different, causing a problem just so they can feel important.

I am done with this; these shitheads don’t want to get onboard with the rest of their nation, they’re willing to die for their cause, whatever – Government, fabricate a legal document, supplanting all that Hypocritic Oath bullshit, have these idiots sign it, fine, if they contract COVID-19, they can deal with the virus’s full extent, they can do it devoid of hospital care, so New Zealand can go forward – preferably without its populous of malcontents.

Over 18 months now, I have been estranged from the life I was building for myself in Asia; seriously, by year’s end, if we have not progressed as a nation, if we are not past this pointless talk of ‘lockdowns’ and imaginary ‘border control’ with some impending ‘traffic-light’ system, you better believe, I’m going to come out whooping some anti-vax butt.

Look at the bigger picture; see the world, not just yourself.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Pass Toff

Photography by Gut Tin Cranky

Here’s a worrying trend: the only thing keeping up with inflation in New Zealand right now, is the property market.

Gosh, that’s like taking two boots to the face in one kick.

Which do we consider is the more devastating blow; money in New Zealand becoming worth progressively less, or the fact that buying a house in New Zealand now requires more worth-less money than ever?

This issue began with a misunderstood, undervalued and underappreciated, minimum wage; for whatever reason, many young Kiwis leave school with few qualifications thus, often while they get their life sorted or begin the process of working their way up to bigger things, they will take a menial job at a lower wage.

Minimum wage.

Here is the misunderstood part: there is nothing unfair about the minimum wage, it is simply a low wage intended for inexperienced workers reflecting their lack of formal education and/or qualifications.

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a lot of money and, certainly, it is not supposed to result in financial freedom; it is supposed to be a safety-net for those folk who are still young enough to have minimal expenses and who are unable or just unwilling to dedicate themselves to the forging of a career through years of study and/or training.

Problem with the Government right now, in fact, problem with every bloody Labour Government in memory, presumably an effort to elicit that ‘younger-working-class’ vote, they seem forever to be raising the minimum wage.

As somebody I know once pointed out, all that is achieved by raising the minimum wage is the increasing of inflation; it sure as hell doesn’t making living easier, anyway – all it effectively does is increase the cost of living.

How can successive Governments not understand this?

They have Economists, Finance Ministers, and other currency-savvy people on their team; how can they not comprehend an aspect of currency which I managed to glean in Fifth Form Economics class (which was, incidentally, the one School Cert subject I did fail)?

Seemingly, in New Zealand, we like to compare ourselves to big sister in the west, Australia; problem there is that she has over five times the population that we do, thus she has over five times the commerce, five times the cashflow, five times the everything, so how the hell can this whinging piss-ant of a younger sibling ever be expected to live up to big sister?

We can’t, we need to stop trying; need to stop thinking we need to.

Here it is, guys, a basic formula that, even as a snotty-nosed fifteen-year-old on the way to failing School Cert Economics, I could understand; bigger wages lead to bigger consumer demand which leads to bigger living costs which lead to bigger housing market which leads to bigger requirement for money which leads to bigger demand for increased wages…

Bigger, Bigger, BIGGER, BIGGER!

…Cool it, minimum wagers, either do the work and secure a higher paying job or simply, learn to live within your means, stop demanding; stop complaining and be happy.

Easy.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by D Marn Ding

Photography by Fie Nance-Sez

You are free but still under strict regulation, you can do whatever you need but only if it complies; you are not infected with whatever it is that has the rest of the rest of the nation in mortal fear, yet you are being forced to play by the same silly rules as they are.

It is basically what I’ve been preaching all along; in New Zealand, Government control, for a while now, has been out of control.

Supermarket staff who refuse to bag your goods ‘due to COVID’, after handling them all throughout the checkout process and after supermarket shelf-stackers have handled them while doing God knows what else to them; extra packaging of products – for what?

The old ‘always wash your hands after touching the tap after washing your hands’ mentality.

Maintaining a sizeable gap between you and the next person in the queue, unless you know that next person or you are outdoors, because it is only people you don’t know who can transmit COVID and only indoors; we must always keep the kissing of strangers to outdoor situations.

Maintaining a ‘lockdown’ situation where, nobody really cares anymore thus just like NSW months ago the only difference it makes is to penalise those well-behaved people who do follow the rules and therefore who don’t have COVID-19; while the shithead gang members, meth dealers and prostitutes, who never cared for the rules, continue to spread this virus without concern.

Canterbury Anniversary Day, today, no COVID in the South but, like so many other southern events, our Auckland-focused government does not hesitate to further crush us with cancellation.

Government propaganda, scaremongering, has led most people into a mortal fear of COVID-19 – if it’s in the air you’re going to catch it and if you catch it, you’re going to die from it.

Realistically, statistically, worldwide, COVID hospitalises around one in a hundred people, killing one in a thousand; few months ago, New Zealand had barely 100 cases of COVID-19 and hospitals were already full.

This mortal fear of the virus, in New Zealand, has meant that, when COVID shows up in somebody’s circulatory system, although generally asymptomatic they will be, they panic; with panic comes increased breathing and with unnecessarily increased breathing comes restricted airways – causing further panic hence pointless hospital care.

Our socialist cum communist government is keeping otherwise jobless folk employed by having them fulfil meaningless tasks such as loitering around and ‘monitoring’ testing stations as others furiously fill test tubes with wastewater to test for COVID-19 while others stand guard at entrances of buildings to ensure nobody is standing too close to anybody else, then using a positive wastewater test to further scaremonger low-vaccination areas into the ‘double-shot’ culture that most Kiwis are embracing.

Health officials are complaining that people ‘positive for COVID-19 are staying home and not being tested’ but, shit man, is that not the ideal scenario – contract a virus, keep to yourself, deal with it like you would any other virus – as though the health sector are encouraging people to bring to A&E their breathing difficulties…?

So much of what is happening at the moment makes no sense and the rational thinkers among us are growing increasingly frustrated.

We need to embrace this double-shot mentality because this shit is ridiculous; most of us know it is ridiculous, too.

Worldwide, this COVID game has become more about politics than about personal health; public perception and agendas have taken priority.

Double vaccinate and let’s get this shit done.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Tu Qwik

Photography by Noah Thyme

December 26^th, 2019; flying in the direction of Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat Airport, Vietnam.

June 1^st, 2020; checking into Auckland’s Pullman Hotel, in what were the comparatively early stages of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Quarantine facility.

A disproportionately large number of occurrences took place between those two dates; additionally, that five-month stint in Southeast Asia showed me, a 36-year-old man hitherto in danger of abject stagnation, that, irrespective of one’s past or current predicament in life, with dedication and desire to seize opportunities when they arise, fresh starts are always available.

I arrived in Saigon, undertook a course, gave it everything and weeks later, emerged a TESOL graduate; I then shot up-country to the idyllic Buon Ma Thuot where, late January 2020, for the coming months I plied my newest trade to masterful effect.

COVID had arrived, seemingly focused on the larger cities, leaving our peaceful inland paradise unaffected; nevertheless, as the end of March loomed, along with my scheduled flight home, I began to experience a great sadness at leaving behind this adoptive homeland – also a girlfriend, also about a hundred townsfolk-friends, and multiple adoptive families-friends.

Via online New Zealand radio broadcasts, I was able to keep abreast of most happenings in my native land; at the time, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand did not appear any better positioned than Vietnam.

COVID had arrived, like a guardian viral angel, cancelling many international flights, including my own; I was dismayed while, at the same time, overjoyed at having more time to spend in this transcendent land with these glorious people.

Vietnamese Immigration started sending me emails politely requesting, due to my recently expired Visa, that I please vacate their country.

COVID had arrived, threatening Buon Ma Thuot, forcing a lockdown and trapping me all day in the cool of indoors with my gorgeous Vietnamese girlfriend and wonderful adoptive family.

Vietnamese Immigration became less polite and, over the coming weeks, presented to me several viable flights out of Vietnam but never completely into New Zealand which, while I did accept and even pay for a few Australian-stopover flights, were always cancelled in the days before departure.

With the last of my funds now tied up with various airlines, I finally lost hope of getting home and settled in for another 12 months in Vietnam being harassed by Vietnamese Immigration.

Vietnamese Immigration then sent me another ‘urgent’ email; this one claimed there was a Vietnam Airlines plane flying right into Auckland Airport leaving Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat the coming weekend.

This latest flight plan sounded perfect; alas I now had insufficient funds to fly anywhere.

My girlfriend later listened as I explained my predicament, then without a word she disappeared up the stairs and into her mother’s room.

A few minutes later she returned, clasping a thick wad of 500 dong bills which she handed me; my wonderful Vietnamese family paid that exorbitant fare back to New Zealand so that I could be reunited with my genuine family.

(For the record, months later, I would be reimbursed around half of the money I had spent on cancelled airfares – ‘Act of God’ meant travel insurance jumped through a loophole on all losses incurred – and, months after that, through international transfer, I did pay back that family, with interest.)

The next year in New Zealand passed in a blur of hazy recollections and growing frustrations.

I had been discharged from Auckland’s quarantine facility on 1^st June 2020, and while I did communicate with Vietnam most days, I longed for my life in Vietnam, the most prosperous existence I had experienced in 20 years.

I tried everything I could to get back to Vietnam as an English teacher; according to what I was reading, even throughout COVID Vietnam was bringing in ‘highly skilled workers’ – I was aware this included native English teachers – yet the sponsorship I required continually eluded me.

Finally, October 2021, the COVID vaccine having been the source of great debate for months, I have a potential offer of employment thus hopefully the sponsorship to head back to Vietnam to resume my life of prosperity.

Early days, admittedly, and I am not typically one to go in for premature excitement but, come on; Kiwis are currently being dictated by a political party insistent on maintaining favourable public perception thus feeding their people only the sweetly embellished variety of propaganda they need to hear to maintain their own agenda while forcing parts of the country into knee-jerk overreaction every time wastewater testing turns up a snifter of COVID-19 because although at this point a health system collapse is unlikely this incumbent government political party is terrified of the national bedlam which may ensue if they are seen to be anything but the robust New Zealand Socialist Government Dictatorship they are endeavouring to embody and now Christchurch is back on the hackneyed bandwagon with its ‘cases of COVID’…

Seriously, allow me this one shred of hope, it’s all I have.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by M Buddy Mint

Photography by Dick Tater

In communist countries such North Korea or, to a lesser extent, China, national media is controlled largely by respective governments.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

New Zealand’s incumbent Government operates under socialist rule which, while not as left-wing as Communism, with high taxation and a national populous which is basically funded through the Government purse, Socialism is right out there on the left.

Remember that unnamed New Zealander who died back in May after receiving a first dose of the COVID vaccine?  No? No, you probably wouldn’t; the Government did what they could to downplay that situation, going as far as assuring us ‘there is no direct link’ between the vaccination and the death.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

I am wholly in support of this recent vaccination push and understand that, obviously, the Government is doing all they can to avoid negative publicity on the topic yet, to encourage or force media to withhold otherwise newsworthy information from the public for the benefit of their own agenda, is grossly irresponsible.

One might argue, ‘No, no way does Government hold influence over national media…?’

Take a few major New Zealand news outlets – TVNZ, Newshub, Fairfax – TVNZ is obviously state (Government)-owned and Newshub? Well, Newshub is owned by Mediaworks which, while not strictly Government-owned, like Fairfax, resides under the sheltering influence of a government umbrella.

Still not sure?

Well, surely you heard about the Auckland schoolgirl who died just a few weeks ago, in late September, from ‘complications’ regarding the COVID shot? No? Seriously, she was 17 years old; that should have been across global headlines for weeks.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

I was made aware of another New Zealand death last night relating to the COVID vaccine – young man, tattoos, think he was an aspiring DJ – but can find no trace of the story today.

Odd.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, like many political leaders, is guilty of using propaganda for the purpose of scaremongering; COVID-19 is being portrayed by her media team as a certain death-sentence yet, we are told, all this can be avoided through vaccination.

The above is patently untrue; statistically, most COVID sufferers are asymptomatic, around 1 in 100 suffer severe illness and around 1 in 1000 will die from the virus – vaccinated people can still contract the virus, they can still spread the virus, they can still suffer from the virus, and they can still die from the virus.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

The New Zealand public is being fed propaganda by a typically mendacious left-wing government who acts as if the country is their dictatorship to run and they will dictate that country indefinitely, with all the good little Kiwi minions exalting their intrepid leader for eternity.

Realistically, Jacinda Ardern is preparing to seize the next election thus right now, public perception is everything.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

The reason, I believe, that the Government is drawing out the COVID game long after most people have lost interest and just want to get on with life – hotel conversion MIQ facilities, feverish COVID testing and pushing a vaccine that does little to stop the spread of the virus but may mitigate symptoms when you catch it – again, public perception; Kiwis are being kept in jobs and money, taxable income, is still circulating throughout the nation – for now most people feel wealthy.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

For the record, there is utterly no excuse for Jacinda’s government to cancel the South Island’s summertime events – concerts, festivals, Christchurch Cup Day – based on the presumption that because COVID is now rampant in the North and Auckland is in its umpteenth week of lockdown, given the South is around 365 days COVID-free, they must be due for an outbreak; realistically, the bulk of Cindy’s voting public are not southerners anyway, therefore it is scarcely an issue to her.

An additional two weeks…? Jacinda, clearly most Aucklanders are not playing the game anymore, so why the hell would you continue to penalise the ones who still are? Seemingly the only Aucklanders who are still endeavouring to ‘keep to their bubble’ are the only ones who don’t have COVID; the rest, the gang members (purveyors of meth), prostitutes (users of meth), they continue to do as they please.

According to what we are being told, if COVID is set free, every unvaccinated person will contract a severe strain of the virus, they will all be rushed to hospital overwhelming New Zealand’s Healthcare System, they will all be hooked up to ventilators then, (the result of sucking pure oxygen,) they will all (eventually) suffer (further) constricted airways, massive (panic) attacks and lastly, take up in a bed in ICU and probably die.

Admittedly, the above scenario would look bad for the Government but, here is the thing, it is not realistic; it would never happen.

This ensures the people of the aforementioned communist nations are told only what their governments want them to hear thus believe only the information their respective government want/need them to believe.

We are being fed propaganda; our government is feeding us a veritable cornucopia of mistruths and lies.

#stopthepropaganda

For everyone’s sake, vaccinate; if only to stop the shit dribbling from the mouths of every politician, also many newsreaders, we see.

New Zealand, please, vaccinate, because I have things to do, and this Government-enforced purgatory is shit; I’m done hearing about ‘cases of COVID’ – no one cares anymore.

Seriously, the vaccine is not going to hurt you; it’s likely going to do nothing at all, so let’s get 90% vaccinated and let’s get on with it.

Vaccinate, because this really is shit.

#stopthepropaganda

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Lion Demi-Crats

Photography by Commie Ruler

Pay attention: breathing difficulties is NOT a medical emergency.

Arrogant swine, it is not all about you; stop clogging up New Zealand emergency services just because – through doing what you wanted to do rather than what you were told to do – the bought of COVID-19 that you have caught is causing your airways to restrict thus causing in you a state of mass panic.

What do you expect the hospital is going to do for you, anyway – put you on a ventilator?

What will that do – provide you with ten times the oxygen your body needs thus giving you a nice high?

Sure, the feeling of euphoria caused by excess oxygen will, in the short term, relax you; long term, given that our everyday air supply contains ample oxygen for a typical human to breathe and survive, the result of flooding airways with pure oxygen is likely to cause an asthma or, worse, a panic attack.

When I was at school, I suffered from asthma; I never had an inhaler like the cool kids, as an advocate of natural health my mother preferred an alternative approach…

Here is the thing, as humans, we breathe up to four times as much air as we require; generally, air carries more than enough oxygen to keep us healthy and ultimately, our bodies do not need all the air that most mouth-breathing idiots suck over their fat tongues, greedily, copiously, pointlessly, into their bodies.

…I learned how to breathe correctly; yeah, because it turns out, despite being the most rudimentary aspect of life next to the rhythmic beating of our hearts, many of us have forgotten how to properly do this.

Breathing difficulties, because this is a bodily malfunction over which we have no ostensible control, for most people, will result in moderate panic; this will undoubtedly result in increased (open-mouthed) breathing, presently followed by extreme (open-mouthed) panic along with the compulsion to breath twice as quickly (through your mouth) as one otherwise would breathe.

This might also make you wish you had taken that vaccine when it was offered.

The only reason COVID-19 is still a thing in New Zealand, despite most people who test positive for the virus presenting no severe symptoms and only being ‘carriers’ for this ‘deadly Delta strain’, is because most arrogant Kiwi hypochondriac idiots, upon discovering they are carrying this virus, rush off to the hospital to be pampered by hopelessly busy (also probably insanely frustrated) nurses.

Get the shots, get the virus; stay at home, breath calmly (you don’t need as much air as you think you do), stop being such a princess about it and stop being such a bloody burden on New Zealand’s healthcare system.

Have a happy Christmas.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Bree Zing

Photography by Wong Lee

As people around the world begin to lose interest in COVID-19 and the virus becomes in danger of falling out of vogue, New Zealand continues to strive for its magic ‘90% vaccinated’ threshold.

According to scientific research (which, as recent News broadcasts have shown, is the most effective way to start a noteworthy sentence), once New Zealand has reached a vaccination rate of 90% the virus, which was once considered tantamount to the deadliest of diseases, will effectively have its severity relegated to ‘barely concerning’.

In places like the UK, who were among the first to lose interest in the pandemic, COVID-19 has already become barely concerning and, while there are many people in Britain still dying from COVID, due to the early reaching of their vaccination target – cleverly set lower than ours so easier to reach – because the COVID-19 pandemic is now barely a concern, life as normal has basically resumed.

Taking note of the facts, scientific or otherwise, one might begin to empathise with the renegade team of anti-vaxxers within New Zealand’s bona fide team of five million; all the information we are being fed on COVID-19 through world media, including from over a year ago and until now, is reminiscent of The Holy Bible’s First Testament – so full of contradictions, fantasy and mistruths that a sceptical mind would struggle to believe it was reality – thus the people with the power later revise the original version, rescripting their premise, clearing up contradictions and making the whole thing sound less farcical, and just hope nobody remembers what was said the first time around.

The United Kingdom and its populous of over 60 million still has less than 70% fully vaccinated, but they’re good with that.

The trick there seemed to be setting low standards; the UK are still losing over 100 people each day to the COVID-19 virus, but they reached their vaccination target, so COVID doesn’t matter anymore.

Similarly, The United States of America with its populous of over 330 million has administered to fewer than 70% of its people even one COVID vaccination; yet with up to 1000 deaths per day, target reached or otherwise, the US people now seem comfortable with their defence of COVID-19.

The densely populated Asian continent, too, is still experiencing high daily infection numbers (China and Taiwan excluded as they appeared to always have control of their pandemic) yet, upon loosening of so-called lockdown restrictions, despite disastrously low vaccination rates, across most Asian countries, official daily contraction numbers have almost halved.

Similarly, Australia’s New South Wales recently lifted their COVID restrictions and, despite only around half of all Australians having been vaccinated with both shots, at this point, as above, most people have had enough of it therefore COVID is barely a concern.

International travel is resuming and, while technically COVID-19 is still far from ‘barely concerning’, it seems that most people are done being concerned with COVID-19.

As a global populous, we played the Coronavirus Pandemic game and we lost over five million participants; Jacinda Ardern talked about ‘New Zealand’s team of five million’ and we too played the game but as a team, our losses were negligible.

Maybe world leaders did conspire to disseminate unto the globe a toxin of unknown consequence in the form of a viral vaccine with the intention of…

Maybe I don’t give a damn, maybe I’m sick of this shit, too; I’m double-vaxed so yeah, I am now potentially one of that global dictator’s minions but hey, at least I played the game.

New Zealand’s Polynesian population, who were among the first to be offered the jab but in return offered defiance then when Pasifika vaccination rates were released as being officially low complained that they had been ‘forgotten by the Government’; seriously – pull your bloody heads in, get on with it, and just play the bloody game.

Even if the COVID-19 vaccine causes some mass extinction event, last thing I would wish is to be among the surviving 20% with all you precious bloody anti-vaxxers.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Auntie Vicks

Photography by Precious Id-Jits

By the end of the year, New Zealand Government intends to have 90% of the population vaccinated against COVID-19.

At the beginning of this mass-vaccination effort, one may recall, many people were vociferous in their denigration of the New Zealand Government, claiming ‘the vaccination rollout is shambolic/is behind schedule/is going too slow…’, when in fairness, at the time, regarding COVID-19, New Zealand was far better positioned than most; unlike much of the world, other than what we were allowing through our border, there was no COVID in the country and our comparatively sparse population meant that even if one day we did relapse, again unlike much of the world, the virus was not going to be impossible to eradicate.

Here is an interesting truth which I suspect many of our Kiwi malcontents have never considered: New Zealand is a country with so little genuine hardship that, in your mal-contented little brain, the above non-issue is of a positively ruinous magnitude; channelling a similar vein is the ‘hardship’ Kiwis face during a Level 4 Lockdown situation where, upon resumption of First World freedoms, first thing many want to do is buy fast food and coffee – not dress severed limbs of dying family members or scour rubble for loved ones’ bodies but buy takeaways – because this is the reality of New Zealand hardship.

Here is another interesting truth: New Zealand is nearing the 80% vaccinated threshold but, even with just 20% of the nation unvaccinated thus susceptible to COVID-19’s full wrath, the New Zealand healthcare system could be inundated by this illness; this reality is unlikely as it is doubtful that every unvaccinated person will contract a severe case of COVID requiring hospitalisation, but Government has to work with worst case scenarios because, should the worst happen and they were unprepared, well, we have a fair idea what the malcontents would say about that.

Yet another noteworthy piece of candour: New Zealand’s unvaccinated 20% will comprise largely ‘anti-vaxers’ and are likely that same group of mal-contented, conspiracy-forming, politically disinterested idiots who, just months earlier, were complaining about the Government making such a shambles of vaccination distribution.

Additionally ironic, those groups first approached by Government to ‘get vaccinated’ because they were more at risk of severe illness if afflicted with COVID-19 – the immuno-compromised/Polynesian/Pasifika – were largely the same groups who caused delays in the beginning of the vaccination process due to much of the Pasifika community believing that ‘God will protect them’ thus holding an ‘anti-vax’ stance which presented vaccine distributors with interminable administration woes as appointments were made for people with zero intention of showing.

Ultimately the reason 90 rather than 80% of Kiwis need to be vaccinated, after each of that remaining 20% do contract COVID and inevitably choose to burden New Zealand’s free healthcare service with whimpering pleas of breathing difficulties, is so that our country’s health system will continue to cope.

Bearing in mind the aforementioned, if much of that remaining 20% is in fact composed of anti-vaxers, this does not need to be an issue; instead of taking a vaccination shot, these people need to be offered a waiver, where their signature will declare that, should they contract COVID-19, they will stay home, they will get plenty of rest, do no heavy lifting, drink plenty of fluids and deal with their illness on their own terms.

Manmade or otherwise, this pandemic is no conspiracy; COVID-19 is a virus and we humans are adept at handling viruses.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by R D Apt

Photography by Vera S Handler