Dear Editor, in response to Prof Dunn’s letter, he acknowledges vaccination doesn’t prevent spread of virus, which is exactly why mandates and restrictions should be done away with, and in many countries, they are indeed being done away with.

That was the point of my letter. Why are any restrictions still in place, when vaccination does not stop transmission or spread? If they prevent death as Prof Dunn implies, then that is a personal decision/choice and something the individual has decided is best for him/her, not something that affects others.

Further to his point that the vaccine just stops you dying, despite the rampant spread of Covid in Rarotonga (which occurred after the border opened to vaccinated visitors), he doesn’t note that we didn’t in fact see any hospitalisations or deaths in the unvaccinated either, and it’s not just a “recidivist group of antivaxxers adhering to their own flawed reasoning”.

You’d be surprised Prof Dunn at the number of those who didn’t receive this mRNA vaccine and their occupations and standings in the community.

There will always be variants, we are hearing now of the BA.5 or ‘ninja’ variant which evades immunity despite vaccinations or previous infections. Seriously, how many repeat boosters of the same mRNA vaccine will it take?

Despite no ‘hospitalisations or deaths’ from Covid, we are seeing our health system swamped with sick people, a bad flu strain running rampant. It would be interesting to see stats on how many unvaccinated are taking up hospital beds. Stats from other countries have shown that it is those boosted who are actually making up more than their fair share of percentage when it comes to being hospitalised or worse.

As for Djokovic whom Prof Dunn labels ‘eccentric’ I think he still exemplifies an example of a prime healthy human specimen and I’m sure many would agree.

It still boils down to the fact there is no longer a need for any mandates or restrictions, unvaccinated are not the threat, and even those vaccinated are having a very good think about whether they want to get repeat boosters for a ‘vaccine’ that didn’t prevent spread, didn’t prevent people from getting sick, and whether it prevented people dying is moot when you consider how the unvaccinated are doing.

Meitaki,

Serena Hunter

---

Weather warning

This not the first time the Met Office has been clever at telling the public, retrospectively “why” and “how” the Cook Islands was slammed by bad weather – you guys are supposed to be “forecasters”, not be wise after the event.

And as to issuing early warnings, maybe you did so on some Media outlets, but may I suggest that you check the local TV weather update for Tuesday night – many people watch the local news and weather, you will find that there is no mention of the imminent bad weather. So please stop the pikika’a, and do your job.

(Name and address supplied)