Well, that's a rocky start to 2021. Not unexpected. We'll all be keeping a close eye on the government with the announcements yesterday on the new case of "community transmission".  By the way, is it just us? Or does it not seem that the people who are found to have Covid in the community always seem to be prolific travellers and visitors or various establishments?

Here's our news round up for the last week.

• W.H.O. updates its recommended testing criteria for "cases".
• Joe Biden signs the USA back up to the W.H.O.
• NSW Premier seeks further mandates.
• Our Prime Minister declares 2021 “the year of the vaccine”. 
• The Government announces a glossy marketing campaign to get to those that don't want to take the vaccine.
• Covid Response Minister casually admits that we can expect no jab, no fly restrictions on international travel.

More details on these topics below. And a reminder to be sure to have signed up to GAB (which is awesome and uncensored and quite like Facebook in how you use it) plus our back up social media channel on Telegram and make sure you're on our mailing list so we can keep in touch plus you'll receive a complimentary copy of The Real News - a publication sharing the truth that we're supporting.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is joined by her Chief Science Advisor Dr Juliet Gerrard and Dr Michelle Dickinson (aka Nanogirl) to answer some commonly asked questions about COVID-19. In this video this they talk about what people should do during the COVID-19 outbreak and specifically are advising against the general public wearing masks as a general precaution.  

"For the general public if you don't have symptoms there's no need to wear a mask."

Video was uploaded on 12 March 2020 and continues to be featured on the Ministry of Health's social media and on both the Prime Minister's and Nano Girl's social media accounts.

And check out below for Nano Girls take on masks if you can actually call what she comes up with a mask? You decide.

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Well we are coming to the end of what has been a crazy year dominated by Covid-19 and in New Zealand our elections. Now we wait to see as well what transpires in the USA in January following the evidence of fraud in their elections.

Here's just a small selection of what we've been talking about on our social media over the past couple of weeks.

• Covid Vaccines - The Facts: 
• Mask Mandate Madness
• Air NZ & Ryan Air - Advertising Fails
• Spot The Difference - Herd Immunity Definition Changes
• Lockdowns Don't Work - NZ Study Published
• W.H.O. Confirms PCR Testing Issues
• NZ Vaccine Strategy
• USA Elections

More details on these topics below. And a reminder to be sure to have signed up to our back up social media channel on Telegram and make sure you're on our mailing list so we can keep in touch plus you'll receive a complimentary copy of The Real News - a publication sharing the truth that we're supporting.

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“Government mandated lockdowns do not reduce Covid-19 deaths: implications for evaluating the stringent New Zealand response” by John Gibson. New Zealand Economic Papers, August 25, 2020.

This paper was written back in August but only published last month and came to our attention today.

“The New Zealand policy response to Coronavirus was the most stringent in the world during the Level 4 lockdown. Up to 10 billion dollars of output (≈3.3% of GDP) was lost in moving to Level 4 rather than staying at Level 2, according to Treasury calculations. For lockdown to be optimal requires large health benefits to offset this output loss. Forecast deaths from epidemiological models are not valid counterfactuals, due to poor identification. Instead, I use empirical data, based on variation amongst United States counties, over one-fifth of which just had social distancing rather than lockdown. Political drivers of lockdown provide identification. Lockdowns do not reduce Covid-19 deaths. This pattern is visible on each date that key lockdown decisions were made in New Zealand. The apparent ineffectiveness of lockdowns suggests that New Zealand suffered large economic costs for little benefit in terms of lives saved.”

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Wondering if you are exempt from wearing a face covering on public transport and on public domestic flights in New Zealand*?

Click here to request your own form.

The exemptions set out in this document are as per section 9C of the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order 2020 as amended by the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Amendment Order (No 4) 2020 (LI 2020/283).

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WOW this is interesting ...

"These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it [Covid19] has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States."

This is a statement reported in a Johns Hopkins Newsletter dated 26 November 2020. The link to the article has been deleted a few hours ago but you can still find it cached and the presentation on You Tube remains up as at time of writing.

We have written to Johns Hopkins and the author to enquire as to the reasons for the article being taken down. There is also much conjecture on Twitter about it. Johns Hopkins statement is in the pics below as are examples of the Twitter-sphere response.

If the analysis is true of the US, what does it mean about our disproportionate reaction?

The statement was made by Genevieve Briand, Assistant Program Director of the Applied Economics Master’s Degree Program at Johns Hopkins.

She critically analyses the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”

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