Worzel's World: Covid hits home

 

News reports have been full of the latest in the very long-running Covid-19 (or is it now Covid 21) virus pandemic saga. The Government panic that led to lockdowns and various other restrictive curbs on liberty for a fortnight to ‘flatten the curve’ is now well into its second year, making it quite possibly the longest fortnight in recorded history. A fortnight it must be though as our ‘I cannot tell a lie’ Prime Minister said it is so.

The most recent hullabaloo concerns a so-farunnamed woman who allegedly tested positive for the virus. She visited an incredible number of shops and cafes throughout Bream Bay, Maungaturoto, Mangawhai, and Matakohe townships. It seems on the face of it that having this killer contagion did not at all put her under the weather. Although we know that no one would do such a thing on purpose, it is almost as if she made a conscious effort to get about as much as she could in as short a time as possible. She may not require a doctor but she may need to attend a Shopaholics Anonymous meeting, if there is such a thing. So far there seems to be little or no community transmission. We must assume that as busy as she was, she was asymptomatic, and as the World Health Organisation has already stated, transmission by asymptomatic carriers of the virus is so rare as to be negligible. Neither her husband nor her hairdresser have tested positive.

A friend downloaded and printed the list of dates and venues visited by this later-day typhoid Mary, and I can declare that more by good luck than good management I did not visit any of these places on the days noted. In fact, it was really by way of bad management as I had intended to stop in to the Maungaturoto 4 Square on the day mentioned but forgot to do so. As I write there are emergency testing facilities set up throughout the district and if we follow overseas trends then an increase in testing will be followed by an increase in cases. It seems that New Zealand, as elsewhere, is using the Kary Mullis devised PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test, a test that its inventor expressly noted should not be used for diagnostic purposes. Sadly, Mullis died in 2019, some months before the outbreak of the disease that is blamed for forever altering life as we know it. No medical testing is foolproof, and there is much debate as to what percentage of false positives are being returned by the PCR testing regimen. Try as I might I am unable to ascertain how many cycles of amplification the PCR test is subject to here in New Zealand. According to many experts, including US Covid guru Dr Tony Fauci, amplification of samples by more than 35 cycles will inevitably lead to large numbers of false positives.

In May 2020 during the first national lockdown we saw the passing into law of the ‘COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill’ under urgency. This Act endeavoured to confer upon the state totalitarian-like powers with the legal right (although perhaps not the lawful right) to circumvent human rights legislation which frames such rights as freedom of travel and freedom of assembly. This new Act had a 90-day sunset clause as is usual for temporary or extreme legislation. In order for the Government to continue to operate without regard to our legal rights, a fresh state of emergency needed to be declared every three months after the initial legislation was passed. The courts have determined that the Government decreed lockdown was in fact illegal for an initial nine-day period. I have asked several policemen how the investigation into these illegalities is progressing, and when we might expect the perpetrators to be brought to book and face prosecution. None have been able to enlighten me. Since then, in an astonishing sequence of coincidences with near clockwork regularity, just prior to the 90-day expiration date of this draconian legislation there is always another emergency needing to be declared. The next expiration date is on February 7. There is much in modern life that is extraordinary and it is so very hard to predict tomorrow in such unpredictable times. But I don’t much believe in coincidence, and so much that is bewildering has transpired over the last year that I do not think there is much that can surprise me. However, I will as usual watch with both interest and scepticism. I think you should too. Oh, and just for the record, this was written on January 26, 2021.

„ Feedback? Email profworzel@gmail.com