More Tamakis, Vaccines and Earthquakes

Following on from last week's stories about the Tamakis saying they won't be getting vaccinated, and Ken Ring saying he predicted our recent earthquake, there have been a couple of interesting developments.

Firstly, out of over 12,000 frontline workers who have been offered the COVID19 vaccine, just 21 of them have refused the vaccine so far. I've heard horror stories of nurses in New Zealand who are against vaccination, so it's great to hear that so few of those who are doing such an amazing job at the front line have refused. The article goes on to talk about how those who refuse may be redeployed into other roles if they can't be convinced. This sounds to me like a very pragmatic way to deal with this issue. Much as it feels to me that people with anti-science views have no right to be working in healthcare, the most important reason for vaccinating frontline staff is to shore up our MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine) barrier. Holes in this protective layer would not be good, so it makes sense to remove anyone who may prove to be a potential gap in our defences. Let's hope that vaccination rates among the general public, when it comes time for that, don't drop too far below the amazing 99.8% uptake rate that we've seen so far from the professionals.

As for the Tamaki part of this equation, a week ago Brian Tamaki told a small congregation in Queenstown that the reason for the earthquake we experienced recently was that the media had “gone after him”. Now, “Bishop” Brian is no stranger to claiming that a) earthquakes are deliberately caused by his god, b) these earthquakes are used by his god as a punishment and c) Brian is privy to the reason these punishments are meted out. However, past seismic events have apparently been caused by homosexuals, whereas this time it's more personal to Brian, and we've supposedly all been punished for being mean to him.

I'm really struggling to get my head around the level of arrogance required for someone to believe that they are important enough that their god would threaten an entire nation with a long, scary earthquake in the middle of the night just for pointing out their failings.