Covid-19 vaccine to be FREE as soon as 'available and safe', Governor-General says on behalf of Ardern
It was also confirmed that planning for quarantine-free travel zones is currently underway with the Cook Islands, Niue and Australia. The Speech from the Throne is written by the Prime Minister and delivered by the Governor-General. One of its purposes is to lay out Government's direction for the term and what it will focus on. The Governor-General said the Government's objectives were to keep New Zealanders safe from Covid, accelerate the economic recovery and to "lay the foundations for a better future". "For those countries where the virus is successfully managed, the Government will look for opportunities for freer travel. We will look to continue to advance these opportunities, but with safety as our priority." Dame Patsy then said that the Government was "hopeful that 2021 will be the year of the Covid vaccine". "Recent news of the progress in vaccine development is welcome and a bright spot on the horizon," Dame Patsy read. "This will be a central focus for the Government next year. "The Government is working to deliver effective and free vaccines to New Zealanders as soon as they are available and safe to administer." The Government has agreed to buy vaccines from Pfizer and Janssen, subject to the successful completion of clinical trials and passing necessary approvals in New Zealand. Last week, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said they had not yet decided whether it would be free, the Spinoff reported. In the Speech to the Throne, Dame Patsy said New Zealand "faces the greatest public health emergency since the global flu pandemic a century ago". "The ensuing economic shock represents the largest global downturn since the Great Depression," Dame Patsy read. She said the health risk posed by the pandemic was greater now than when New Zealand first closed its borders. "We have more freedoms, are a more open economy and have saved more lives than nearly every other country we normally compare ourselves to. We can rightfully be proud of our success to date as a nation, as a team. But we cannot afford to be complacent, nor stand still. "We must keep going." The speech committed the Government to "being a Government that will govern for all New Zealanders" "It does mean it will have a focus on the things that matter most, it means it will be listening to New Zealanders, being pragmatic, doing the things it said it would do and focusing on lasting change.
"We can recover and we will recover. We can be better than we were.
"This Government’s mission is to make it so."
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Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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