News from Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific Islands

Hutan said:
There's also content on herd immunity:
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Seems a bit weak and sidesteps the main problem with herd immunity: it's based on lies, and the people suffering the consequences are not supported. It's an economic strategy, one that aims to keep full employment and, most of all, make sure the rich don't lose any money from it. In fact COVID led to the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history, so the rich really like it.

It would be one thing if the concept was "look, this will be bad, but having to weigh the pros and cons, the benefits of herd immunity outweigh the negative consequences, so we will pursue this strategy, but know that a lot of people will die, and a lot of people will be ill and become invalid, and they will be supported, at enormous costs that will be borne for at least a generation".

But this has never been the case, and we can't even know how bad it will be one way or another. Instead the public lie is that everything will be peachy, only people on their death bed, who are basically dead already, will suffer, and then elves and fairies will rise from the spring wells and lead everyone into a happy dance. Now the same "get infected people, get infected with viruses as many times as you can, they're good for you" is being applied to other pathogens, especially ones that don't cause massive acute illness, like measles and polio. This will happen, it's already baked in.

There are a lot of people who look smugly at how it went "well" with COVID, but if the upfront cost of 20-30M dead and 100M+ disabled, and all the costs associated with it, had been known, almost no one would have accepted it. It would have been considered monstrous. Even extremely low-ball estimates of 10K+ dead were dismissed as alarmist. But because it happened, in the distant past of just a few years ago, everything has been memory-holed, and because of that almost no one who needs help is getting what they need.

But of course since this is what happened, the next time will be the same. Governments will know that they don't even need to ask for forgiveness, because the only people who will demand it will be completely un-peopled, no one will listen anyway. Not even the medical professionals.

COVID was a gamble. Not everyone agrees that the price to pay was worth it, and for those who think it was, it's mainly because the main impacts they endured were the "lockdowns". But this is a psychopathic way of making such decisions, and it's completely dishonest. It dishonored the medical profession, which it turns will follow most monstrous orders that they are given, and completely de-fanged all the public health tools to deal with future pandemics. From this point on, there is only one politically viable strategy: gamble on the fact that it won't kill too many, and that the long-term impacts are mostly of the discriminated type that can be swept under the rug. Basically, the Fight Club calculation of whether the costs of doing something outweigh the costs of doing nothing, entirely ignoring the human impact.

If the next pandemic virus is one that can kill 30% of the population, this is how many people will die. It's almost guaranteed. And if it can in addition to that disable half the population, then so it will. Not making this clear is a terrible indictment of how such decisions are not made with consideration to life and health, but strictly about stock market performance and election cycles.
 
rvallee said:
Seems a bit weak and sidesteps the main problem with herd immunity: it's based on lies, and the people suffering the consequences are not supported. It's an economic strategy, one that aims to keep full employment and, most of all, make sure the rich don't lose any money from it.
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Herd immunity can be achieved under certain conditions, we’ve done so for polio, measles etc.

It’s correct that it was probably not possible for covid - and we knew it.
 
Utsikt said:
To be clear, I was mostly thinking about herd immunity through effective vaccination.
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Fair enough but I think the context was sampling allowing herd immunity from infection?
I didn't look at it in detail but it seemed a bit tone deaf on that issue.

Edit: I had a look at the quote which seemed be talking about herd immunity through infection. And it shouldn't be saying that some committee thought it was a bit dodgy. It should be saying that no sane person should ever have suggested this (which I realise has implications for my ex-boss Patrick Vallance).
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Fair enough but I think the context was sampling allowing herd immunity from infection?
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Yes, I forgot the context so I also didn’t clarify enough in the first comment.
Jonathan Edwards said:
Edit: I had a look at the quote which seemed be talking about herd immunity through infection. And it shouldn't be saying that some committee thought it was a bit dodgy. It should be saying that no sane person should ever have suggested this (which I realise has implications for my ex-boss Patrick Vallance).
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It does say it’s «scientifically problematic and unethical», but I agree that stronger words are warranted. It’s a clear breach of human rights, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it could be argued that it’s a crime against humanity (although you’d have to frame it as a systemic attack).
One approach to developing herd immunity is to allow the disease to spread in the population without using tools such as quarantine, or lockdowns. This approach has drawn criticism from the World Health Organisation who noted that, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, attempting to reach herd immunity simply by exposing a population to the disease was “scientifically problematic and unethical” and that “Allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical (WHO 2020b).
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This approach has drawn criticism from the World Health Organisation who noted that, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, attempting to reach herd immunity simply by exposing a population to the disease was “scientifically problematic and unethical” and that “Allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical (WHO 2020b).
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It's interesting to read the reactions on this here. Those words from the WHO seem to me to be a lot more than 'some committee thought it was a bit dodgy'. It's really strong language for a government report - and probably more convincing to the target audience than a statement from the authors of the report would be.

The report the excerpt is from is on ethics in epidemics. It's not a review of the best approach to managing the outbreak of Covid-19. I read the excerpt as being very negative about a herd immunity approach in many situations but encouraging policymakers to think through the consequences and the uncertainties for the situation before them. There is information in the excerpt about the many things that can prevent useful herd immunity from being achieved (most of which won't be known about at the beginning of a serious epidemic) and the harmful consequences that can come from not achieving it - including overwhelmed health systems, high rates of death and higher health care costs forever.

It's not true to say that a herd immunity approach to managing epidemics is always the ethically wrong thing to do.

Not all epidemics are wildly dangerous or poorly understood. We regularly have epidemics of the cold virus which are managed (or probably more accurately ignored) with a herd immunity approach. Flu is another example where a herd immunity approach is typically used - we vaccinate the vulnerable. That example is a more difficult balance and it may be possible to argue that herd immunity is unethical even with relatively mild flu strains and certainly for more deadly strains. For sure the status quo affects what management approach would be tolerated.

An epidemic of measles in a neighbouring country would not necessarily require widespread lockdowns or total border closure in NZ because a lot of people are already vaccinated with a vaccine that gives good protection and, in an outbreak, more people could be convinced to get vaccinated to bring immunity up to the required very high levels to reliably stop transmission.
 
Hutan said:
It's interesting to read the reactions on this here. Those words from the WHO seem to me to be a lot more than 'some committee thought it was a bit dodgy'. It's really strong language for a government report - and probably more convincing to the target audience than a statement from the authors of the report would be.
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My reaction is biased by the fact that my life was destroyed by covid after my government let it loose and encouraged people to get infected to create immunity, and they have since denied the existence of LC and my suffering.

The scales of the harm that has been caused warrants stronger critique than being «scientifically problematic» and «unethical».

I know that it’s stronger language than what they usually use, but that doesn’t make it strong enough. I’m not willing to accept a watered down description because people don’t like criticising each other in official documents. It’s orwellian-esque doublespeak to not clearly express the atrocities that have been committed.
 
From a public FB post from M.E. Awareness NZ today (I don’t know how to link FB posts, so just copying the text here)

Media events on May 12. The first item is described elsewhere as a mini documentary

I don’t know anything more about any of it
Starting at 5 AM, TVNZ+ will release a powerful piece by Zoe Madden-Smith on the devastating reality of severe ME/CFS (featuring Dr. Anna Brooks, Rhiannon Purves, pwME, and Glenys Rumsey, parent of pwME).
https://www.1news.co.nz/

Then, on Breakfast on TV1, Glenys Rumsey is joined by Fiona Charlton, ANZMES President to share crucial insights with the hosts.

(Breakfast runs from 6am to 9am. The segment is expected to be around 8am.)

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/breakfast

*** Send your comments, support and feedback to TVNZ+ so that they know how important and big the issues are for the ME/CFS community. ***

Send to breakfast@tvnz.co.nz or comment on Breakfast or tweet @breakfaston1.

There will also be coverage from Lisa Davies on the 1News at Six.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/one-news-at-6pm

#WorldMEDay #MECFS #InvisibleNoMore
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That's an impressive effort, well done to Zoe Madden-Smith and all who worked on that project, Rose Silvester, Anna Brooks, the women with ME/CFS (Rhiannon Purves, Tammy Rumsey) their families, notably Glenys Rumsey, and a friend, Holly Jackson. Especially good to get it out on 12 May.

I think we, who are so close to this, can be too accepting of the status quo. Treatment of people with ME/CFS is a travesty.

I can't tell if it will make a difference though. I don't know that there is anything about ME/CFS that can be said or shown that will convince people that the disease is not just a problem that could be fixed by psychological therapy - until the biological mechanism is known. I'll be interested to hear how it is received by people who don't know much about ME/CFS.
 
Hutan said:
I'll be interested to hear how it is received by people who don't know much about ME/CFS.
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That was a deeply affecting watch. I’m still reeling. My husband only read the article about the piece and decided not too watch, too upsetting

As for how it plays to a general audience, I don't know. It's hard to imagine anyone remaining unmoved by it but who knows. I did wonder if it would have been even more impactful had they screwed down a bit on the it's-not-psychological angle. Maybe just left the bit about that ME/CFS outbreak being declared hysteria without looking at a single patient, simply on the grounds of it affecting mostly women. Mention that the illness has been ignored and belittled ever since, resulting in patients still getting ‘have you got boyfriend trouble’ comments from doctors, in 2025. And leave it at that. Viewers can draw their own conclusions

The main story is plenty powerful in itself. Three very severely ill young women, two of them without family able to look after them. All of them failed by the system. Parents of one of them take action, modify their home into a care home at their own cost and take in not just their own daughter but the other two as well. There’s potential for a full-length documentary in that story alone

Huge thanks to all who contributed to this video. And Glenys and Dave, if you're reading this, your generosity is incredible!
 
Ravn said:
Maybe just left the bit about that ME/CFS outbreak being declared hysteria without looking at a single patient, simply on the grounds of it affecting mostly women. Mention that the illness has been ignored and belittled ever since, resulting in patients still getting ‘have you got boyfriend trouble’ comments from doctors, in 2025. And leave it at that. Viewers can draw their own conclusions
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Yes, it was a shame that the RNZCGP's view that there are differing views on how ME/CFS should be treated got air time.

I hope Glenys and Dave get lots of support.
 
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