Online comments for Friday November 12, 2021

Border confusion

Agreed. My family is looking forward to some more clarity here. The policy should allow normally resident children back in and extend to children of people who have CI work visas (there are a few teachers and doctors who need to come in for work and need to bring their kids, not many). These children will be vaccinated in the Cook Islands as soon as they are allowed to be, will be tested prior to flying and are unlikely to get gravely ill. So they actually pose very little risk to the country. – Sally Wyatt

It’s cutting probably well over half the population of tourists who would be coming to the island. I think it’s a mistake, but only time will tell. – Kate Atkenson

Good. No business will be affected. It’s only for a period of time I believe until countries vaccinate the under 12. – Maao Terehu A Onohea

Can we wait for more data before rushing to vaccinate 5-11 year olds please.

They are not the super spreaders, they are at very low risk for serious illness from Covid, children have a more robust immune response than adults.

“Making a decision for 5-11 year olds about a Covid vaccine when they have really low direct benefits from the vaccine really needs to be done quite cautiously” – Australian and NZ Paediatric Infectious Disease Group. Real world data needed to see if vaccinating that age group is worth it. How about we wait for more real world data, and how about we wait until the safety studies are complete – Pfizer’s study to “evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Covid in children 6 months to 12 years” has a completion date of 30 November 2023, with final report submission 31 May 2024. It is under emergency use authorisation only. How is the rollout to young children justified given there are risks with these vaccines? It is wrong to prevent Cook Islanders from returning home, or requiring their young ones to be vaccinated to do so, when it is still emergency use authorisation only, and many countries have not made the decision on the rollout to young children. – Serena Hunter.

Saliva testing

Needs to be done every three days. Is less accurate than NPS. Better than nothing. – Yvonne Piggott.

Marijuana

The alternative to tourism is staring us right in the face. – Cain Rakanui.

New normal

What a joke, businesses feeling relief, pay tangata whenua a proper blimmin’ wage, $8 an hour, while you make blimmin’ hundreds and pay consultants who don’t give back to the islands, come on. – Dolores Nathan.

Indian diplomat

Great news, if the government is onto it. We could boost the exports of pearls and copra which is used for food, soaps etc. India has factories that export these items and will need the raw and main ingredient like copra. – Setephano Steph Takai.