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Make a handy seed tray that can also double as a mini propagator. Finish in Resene Waterborne Woodsman Silvered Grey for a sleek look. Find out how to create your own with these easy step by step instructions.
Cornhole is the perfect game for summer entertaining and the matching scoreboard helps you see who’s winning at a glance.
Finish in contrasting Resene Lustacryl colours or choose complementary colours to suit your home.
Find out how to create your own with these easy step by step … View moreCornhole is the perfect game for summer entertaining and the matching scoreboard helps you see who’s winning at a glance.
Finish in contrasting Resene Lustacryl colours or choose complementary colours to suit your home.
Find out how to create your own with these easy step by step instructions.
It’s World Tourism Day—before you pack your bags, make sure you consider travel insurance!
Why travel insurance? Your holiday is precious and you’ve worked hard to save for it. Check out why travel insurance should be on your holiday checklist!
I am a volunteer with the Coastguard.
If anyone has a 30m retractable, wall mounted garden hose real set and you have no need for it. I would really appreciate it if I could take it off your hands for this amazing Charity.
Please Text me John Hawke 021804922
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At Topline, we’re excited about the announcement of a new metal roofing product, Maxam™, made by one of our leading roofing supply partners, COLORSTEEL®.
We love working with the latest and greatest in technology and roofing solutions. The benefits pass onto our customers – and this new … View moreAt Topline, we’re excited about the announcement of a new metal roofing product, Maxam™, made by one of our leading roofing supply partners, COLORSTEEL®.
We love working with the latest and greatest in technology and roofing solutions. The benefits pass onto our customers – and this new pre-painted metal roofing and cladding material is no exception.
Benefits of Maxam™ Roofing & Cladding:
Application – Suitable in most environments
Durability – Enhanced corrosive resistance
Adaptable – Range of profiles available
Pre-painted – Full range of COLORSTEEL® colours
Longevity – Increased, up to 50-year warranty
Our roofing team undergo specialist training to ensure we understand any new roofing material; added assurance our roofers have the expertise to supply and install COLORSTEEL® Maxam™ roofing and cladding, whatever the environment.
For more information, read the full blog here or contact our team:
www.toplineroofing.co.nz...
Getting a flu jab is not a silver bullet for avoiding the dreaded influenza – something Anna Murray found out the hard way a few weeks ago. So, why doesn’t the vaccine always work? She spoke to an immunisation expert to find out.
September came, and so did the flu.
I had smugly and … View moreGetting a flu jab is not a silver bullet for avoiding the dreaded influenza – something Anna Murray found out the hard way a few weeks ago. So, why doesn’t the vaccine always work? She spoke to an immunisation expert to find out.
September came, and so did the flu.
I had smugly and successfully dodged the usual ills and chills all winter. But as soon as spring arrived on my doorstep, so too did influenza.
I felt many things over the 10 days my body fought the lurgy. I felt weak. I felt exhausted. I felt hot and cold with raging fevers. I felt random pains in my joints.
And I felt quite annoyed that I’d had my flu shot this year and thought I could skip all this.
When a flu jab fails
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Now, with just the remnants of a cough left to remind me of that horror couple of weeks, I feel a bit stupid for thinking my flu jab would act like bulletproof armour.
Because as Principal Medical Advisor at the Immunisation Advisory Centre Dr Nikki Turner told me this week, no vaccine is going to protect 100% of people 100% of the time.
There are several reasons why a person who has had a jab still winds up getting the flu.
Sometimes this comes down to the educated guess work that goes into the composition of the flu shot each year.
The flu vaccine has components of four different types of influenza in it – two types of Influenza A and two types of Influenza B.
“Each year, there’s a decision made for the southern hemisphere and then for the northern hemisphere at predicting what the most likely circulating strains will be,” Turner said.
“So, every year they rejig the flu vaccine based on what they think will be the most likely circulating strains.”
Sometimes, the vaccine is not matched to the strain that winds up circulating.
“That’s not happened this year,” Turner said.
But even with a flu vaccine in the community that matches the circulating strain, New Zealand has had a big flu season.
ESR surveillance shows hospitalisations of people with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) were higher over July and August this year than previous years.
And it’s not just the elderly with weaker immune systems having to go to hospital. Friends of friends my own age [redacted] have had to be hospitalised with their flu symptoms this season.
Different outcomes for different people
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Sometimes, people’s immune systems respond well to the flu vaccine, and sometimes, for a variety of reasons, they may not, Turner said.
For example, very elderly people often find their immune system doesn’t make as many antibodies ready to respond to the flu virus.
Other times, Turner said, the flu jab has done its job simply by keeping people from becoming severely ill. Contrary to my opinion that my flu jab had done absolutely nothing for me this year, it probably did create enough antibodies to stop me from winding up in hospital.
Despite briefly flirting with going to the after-hours clinic when my fever hovered around 40 degrees and wouldn’t come down, I ultimately didn’t need to burden an already stretched healthcare system with a hospital visit – and I can probably thank my flu jab for that, Turner said.
“Sometimes, you’ve got antibodies, and it stopped you getting severely sick - but you still get sick,” she said.
“Most of the time, for most of us, [the jab] does reduce the severity [of the illness], but for some people, for a whole lot of reasons, it just doesn’t work.
“We do know flu vaccines are never 100% effective all of the time – they vary from person to person. In younger, healthier people they should be more effective, but they’re still maybe 60 to 70% effective, so you’re talking about 30 to 40% of people who had the vaccine that it may not be effective in.”
Hospital admissions in Auckland this winter have been higher than last year as warnings go unheeded.
Turner said there are many factors that can determine how well a flu vaccine works for someone.
“We know stress affects it, we know poor sleep affects it, we know people’s housing conditions affect it,” she said.
The amount of virus you’re exposed to can also be a factor, which could be why my partner managed to dodge the flu this time while I suffered for days on end, Turner said.
“You might have got a greater inoculum [amount of viral particles that begin infection] than your husband,” she said.
“If you got a whole lot of virus at once, your antibodies are working really hard to knock it out, but there’s still too much virus – whereas maybe your husband got fewer virus particles at the same time.”
So, what to do to protect from flu?
===========================
The moral of the story here is that people can’t rely on the vaccine alone to stop getting sick with the flu, Turner said.
“Vaccines are just part of the protection against severe flu,” she said.
“They are definitely not perfect. We’d love better vaccines, but for the time being, they’re still better than not having them.
“We still need to protect ourselves in many other ways.”
Turner said this might mean trying to reduce exposure to the flu through winter and spring, including staying home if you become unwell.
Turner said she was also sad to see the end of the mandatory use of masks in certain circumstances.
“Personally, I'd be saying to all of us, if you're on the train or in a crowded place at the start of the flu season, wear masks, keep away from crowded places,” she said.
“And if you are exposing yourself to people who have problems with their immune system or very elderly people, think about protecting them.
“We also need the social protections around us, all the things we learned through Covid and we're now forgetting rapidly. Vaccines are only part of a bigger strategy.”
Improving the flu vaccine
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Meanwhile, scientists are still trying to make better vaccines, Turner said.
“For years, they’ve been trying to make one vaccine to cover all flu strains. They haven’t cracked that one, but that would be great; that’s the holy grail of flu vaccines,” she said.
Adjuvanted vaccines have also become available for older people, whose immune systems don’t respond as well to the regular flu jab. The adjuvant helps drive a stronger immune response.
“There’s a whole lot of other fancy new technology out there to try and improve flu vaccines,” Turner said.
“Because flu vaccines are really, really old. They've been around for years and years and they work, but they're not brilliant, they don't work for everybody. We do need better vaccines.”
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Red Cross Dominion is feeling all things floral ready for Spring 💐
From ornate homewares and decor to the perfect Spring outfit- we have something for all!
184 Dominion Road 📍
Open 7 days a week 🗓️
Mon-Sun: 9am-5pm
Free parking 🅿️
Premium care just meters away form our village. Join our caring community, where passion thrives. Trust Terrace Kennedy House for exceptional care and meaningful connections.
They are 11 weeks old
There are two girls and one boy. We've called them Honey, Heather and Horatio, but of course you can choose your own name.
They are sweet and very bright - they are playful, but also love cuddles.
Each has their own cute personality - Honey is an athlete, Heather… View moreThey are 11 weeks old
There are two girls and one boy. We've called them Honey, Heather and Horatio, but of course you can choose your own name.
They are sweet and very bright - they are playful, but also love cuddles.
Each has their own cute personality - Honey is an athlete, Heather is sweet and cheeky and Horatio likes to sit on boxes.
The breeder is registered with Dogs NZ and we can provide pedigree papers for the pups.
The puppies have been vaccinated and wormed.
Message me if you are interested and you'd like to come and meet them. :)
Thousands of KiwiSaver members who switched their investments into less risky funds when Covid-19 first hit still haven't switched back - and it could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There was a surge in switching from growth funds to conservative funds in March 2020, when … View moreThousands of KiwiSaver members who switched their investments into less risky funds when Covid-19 first hit still haven't switched back - and it could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There was a surge in switching from growth funds to conservative funds in March 2020, when sharemarkets around the world wobbled.
Westpac said it processed 18,140 requests to switch in that time.
Markets soon recovered, but 27%of those KiwiSaver members never switched back to more growth-focused assets, Westpac said.
Another 17% took more than a year to switch back and 12% switched back in between six to 12 months.
If an investor is investing for a long time - such as for retirement - growth funds often deliver better outcomes because they tend to have higher returns, although they are more volatile. Shifting from a growth fund when markets are weak can mean locking in losses.
Morningstar research shows that, as a group, conservative KiwiSaver funds have returned an average 4.1% a year over 10 years, compared to 8.2% for growth funds and 9.1% for aggressive.
Westpac projected that someone with $25,000 in KiwiSaver who switched from a growth fund to a conservative fund on March 20, 2020, would end up with $387,938 in 2054.
But if they had left their money in a growth fund, they would have $615,423 - boosting their final outcome by more than $225,000.
If they had shifted in March 2020 and then moved back a year later, they would have $588,955 in 2054.
Even over a shorter term, the impact can be seen. Someone who shifted on March 20, 2020 and left their money in a conservative fund would have $120,880 in 2034. If they shifted back after a year, they could have $145,693 and if they had not shifted, and stayed in growth, they would have $156,472.
That assumes that person is earning the median wage, getting a 3% pay rise a year, and making 3% KiwiSaver contributions matched by a 3% employer contribution.
Westpac head of KiwiSaver Nigel Jackson said the number of people who had not switched back highlighted the "education gap" for New Zealanders in relation to long-term saving and retirement.
"Being in the right fund is really important and being in the wrong fund will cost you money in the long term."
Westpac has now launched a new high-growth fund that will have 100% growth assets and Jackson said it would be important that investors understood the possibility for volatility, as well as the potential returns available, so that they could stick with it and not switch out at the wrong moment.
"It's one of those challenges, you can tell people it's going to happen but it's still a challenge for them when it does happen. It's critical they understand the possibility is there so they have the context. If they don't have the right information, that's the point of highest risk when they can lock in unrealised losses by transferring to lower-risk funds and experience that loss at retirement."
Westpac NZ general manager of product, sustainability and marketing Sarah Hearn agreed long-term investors who were not in the right fund would probably short-change themselves at retirement.
"The Covid-19 experience and more recent market fluctuations should serve as a reminder to regularly think about your investment goals, whether you're saving for retirement or a first home deposit. That includes checking you're in the right type of fund for you and your stage in life," she said.
"Market volatility is normal and expected. Those of us who aren't nearing retirement will see our balances affected by more economic peaks and troughs before we get there."
The latest Financial Markets Authority annual KiwiSaver report showed growth funds now represent 46% of total funds under management, with $51.4 billion invested, and a total of 1.53 million investors. This is more than double the $24.5b in 2021.
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www.1news.co.nz...
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Get painting and help Kiwi kids. Buy any Resene 60 mL testpot colour starting with the letter P, O or T and Resene will donate $1 to Plunket NZ.
Visit your local Resene ColorShop to find all the colour you need to bring out the best in your home.
Daylight Saving starts Sunday at 2 AM.
Spring forward for golden hour, warm nights, and extra time with loved ones. Don’t forget to adjust your clocks!
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