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Kerre McIvor: Officials prove once again we've survived by dumb, pure luck

Author
Kerre McIvor,
Publish Date
Thu, 15 Apr 2021, 4:57PM
Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield. (Photo / NZ Herald)
Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield. (Photo / NZ Herald)

Kerre McIvor: Officials prove once again we've survived by dumb, pure luck

Author
Kerre McIvor,
Publish Date
Thu, 15 Apr 2021, 4:57PM

And here we go again.

We find that a border security guard has not been tested since last November and that there is no system in place to ensure front line border workers are in fact getting their tests and their vaccinations. 

MIQ authorities have relied on individual employers and paper trails to ensure workers are complying and the PM has laid the blame fairly and squarely on the security guard involved – which has shades of the South Auckland KFC worker. 

Looking at the footage of the select committee hearing yesterday on Three, it was clear the officials at the health select committee hearing had absolutely no idea how many MIQ workers has not been regularly tested and said there are inconsistencies in the testing records and her officials were still checking the data. 

We have heard this so many times before.  The PM and the Director General of Health have given us over the past year assurances that there might have been stuff ups and there might have been human failures but protocols are in place now and all is well. 

For over a year now, this has been complete and utter BS.  I don't know how the PM can believe a single solitary utterance that comes out of the Ministry of Health or MIQ. 

The editorial from the ODT is along the same lines - like me, the writer can't believe how blasé the public is about these mistakes, the slackness the false assurances.  Maybe, the writer opines, it’s because we've dodged a bullet, that we've somehow managed to get away with it. 

We were told that all MIQ staff were being tested at least every fortnight.  Wrong.  We were told that returnees were being tested on Days 3 and 12.  Wrong.  We were told that there was sufficient PPE.  Wrong.  We were told we were at the front of the queue when it came to vaccinations.  Wrong. 

This incompetence is absolutely outstanding. The stonewalling and obfuscating from the Government is appalling. 

I think it is just there to prevent the world from seeing they haven't got a bloody clue, and I maintain, looking at this record from the past year, that it is dumb pure luck.

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