Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
Much of the focus this week is on the protest at the Parliament grounds in Wellington, and the escalating numbers of Covid cases, with the widespread community transmission of the Omicron variant.
The solution to the Omicron spread is being vaccinated and boosted, if you're able, and following all the precautions we've developed, that, so far, have provided to be successful during the pandemic - limiting contact, social distancing, mask wearing, getting tested.
Unfortunately, the excision of the protestors and how it will end, like a cancer, is much more uncertain.
Protest from overhead - from NZ Herald/George Heard
It won't have escaped anybody's notice, in New Zealand, that there's a fairly prominent and prolonged event happening in Wellington, our Capitol, at the Parliament grounds and surrounding areas. The protest, or occupation, has now been going on for nearly two weeks, with no end in sight. Currently, there's around 1,000 people protesting, around 800 vehicles blocking central Wellington streets, and about 750 tents pitched.
There are strong parallels with the Canadian protest. This morning I read PZ Myer's Pharyngula blog piece which described the situation in Canada - and I was struck by the parallels with the situation in Wellington:
It's a perversion of the concept of freedom. Freedom from responsibility? Freedom from criticism? Freedom to spread disease? Freedom to foul your diapers and let nanny change them? Freedom to believe and act on conspiracy theories?
From my reading of social media, there is massive frustration in the wider population about how the situation is being handled by The Police. In the early days of the protest there were quite a few arrests, but they were quickly scaled back - apparently due to lack of processing ability! Now, protestors have set up their “Camp Freedom” with their own security guards, and infrastructure - such as kitchens, entertainment, laundry, showers and toilets. They also have a communications team that handles liaison with the media. There's a sense that the camp is going to be around for some time - with herbs being planted in box gardens.
It's quite shocking how quickly the situation has changed. When Mark wrote his newsletter last week, he talked about how he'd personally visited the protest and talked to a few people. Were he to try the same thing this past weekend he'd most certainly have been turned away or at least have encountered a lot more opposition.
I watched TVNZ's Q&A Programme where Jack Tame interviewed the Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster. I felt some sympathy for Coster - clearly the situation as it stands now is bad, and in hindsight, could have been shut down earlier. But, as we all know, hindsight is a wonderful thing - and it's very easy to slip into making judgements about what should have been done with the benefit of future knowledge. (Where are the psychics in this? Did they make any predictions?)
On the other hand, as I highlighted above, there are strong parallels to international protests - the Canadian one being the one that feels most familiar. (Coster highlighted differences being that we don't have people sleeping in their trucks. Well, surprise!, it's winter in Canada where the temperature is currently well below zero, and it's a balmy summer in Wellington - but I digress!) The protestors were even making comparisons to the Canadian protest in their social media posts - something that our police should have picked up on.
The Police are in a very difficult position. They draw parallels to the Springbok Tour protests and their handling of that back in the early 1980s, and the protests at Bastion Point in the late 1970s.. (I was at the beginning of my high schooling at the time, but was a fairly nerdy, naive teenager from a fairly politically conservative family, so it didn't feature much on my radar.) 40 years on, the view is that it was handled badly, and police are now wary of repeating that situation. Policing is done at the consent of the populace, and it's very easy for their reputation to be badly eroded - especially in the age of social media, and everybody having a phone out and recording video.
I think that we all have the right to protest, but my feeling is that this has gone well over the limits.
The protestors claim, publicly, that this is just about ending mandates - restoring freedoms, but in reality their demands are much wider than that. They want an end to all Covid health restrictions - ending MIQ, opening borders, stopping testing and contact tracing. The fringe elements of the crowd want public executions of politicians and journalists, and even an end to government itself. It's an importing of American fringe right wing ideas and conspiracy theories.
All of this is driven massively by misinformation. If you've had a look at any of the livestreams from the event, you'll have seen the signs - talking about Ivermectin, that the media or the government is the virus, that vaccines don't work.
I've written many times in past newsletters about the groups that are promoting this misinformation - such as Voices for Freedom, and The Hood NZ. They must be rubbing their hands in glee at the current situation - seemingly having appeared to have “won”.
It's certainly not clear how this is all going to end. Even Coster, in his interview on Q&A was unable to give the likeliest scenario he thinks will eventuate. There's talk of the protest continuing for months, though obviously overseas protests have not lasted that long (the Canadian protest lasted 3 weeks).
At this stage, with the Omicron variant of Covid running rampant in the country, there's a high likelihood of many in the camp becoming sick, especially since most of them would be unvaccinated. While we shouldn't wish illness on anybody, it might well be a bit of a wake-up call for particular fringe elements that claim that the virus doesn't even exist!