Hundreds of thousands of essential workers eligible to return to work quickly if they're a close contact of a Covid-19 case

Nicely put.

Look it would far more meaningful and impacting if they published daily, something like the dry season forest fire warnings etc, a graph of the status of our hospital services, case loads including but not limited to covid, ie is NZ in the danger zone. Of course they won’t because right from the start the government has been too frightened to actually admit any shortcomings in this regard, quite the opposite in fact if you listen to Little & Robertson. Acknowledge completely that historically,  this predicament does not lie entirely at this government’s door but New Zealanders should have been given these facts clearly and openly at the beginning of the pandemic. That in turn may have persuaded the government to move budgeting more meaningfully in this area, than cycle bridges & trains, & much much earlier recruiting health workers & clinicians with priority to return to NZ. Any reasonable NZr would understand & accept the logic of that.

Omicron is far less severe even for the unvaccinated. Given our current rates of adult vaccination coverage, the position that the unvaccinated are a lurking public health threat is increasingly difficult to sustain.

It also varies by age. An unvaccinated 20 year old is at less risk than a fully vaccinated 75 year old. Yet one can't do anything in public. Let's just reunite and get on with it.

Oh the old "the unvaccinated are holding us to ransom" argument.  Look, get over yourself.  They have the right not to be vaccinated, and if you are still scared with 2 or 3 shots, then surely you can see those shots were for nothing.

The health system will not be overwhelmed like all the chicken littles have been saying for 2 years.  It's just not a serious disease.

Thanks. Just visualised our brown cardigan brigade planners, working things out, with African swallows & coconut shells.

ps. and to paraphrase, I fart in their general direction.

I have a medical background so this isn't just an opinion piece. I have encountered similar symptoms from patients. I did a literature search and side effects such as myocarditis which are moderately serious but transient are real with the vaccine (be it 1st, 2nd or 3rd dose) and this would certainly explain the symptoms you witnessed although I am choosing this side effect more as an example. The risk of getting the same side effect with the actual covid infection rather than the vaccine prompted immune response is around 25 x more likely and usually much more severe.

Your posts show you as a data kind of person so I hope this helps you make your own informed decision. The booster offers a significant improvement in protection to specifically the Omicron variant but it is another roll of the dice in terms of side effect as you have identified.

My opinion is that while most of us probably never even got exposed to the original virus or delta, we are all likely to encounter Omicron so I chose to get boosted which is fortunate since I am mandated to.

I don't know if they are still leaving it off the information sheet they hand out but our health.govt website if you are experence "New onset chest pain, racing heart, or shortness of breath" you should "Speak to your health professional promptly...". The visit should be free.

This is way more common than you think (speaking from anecdotal experience). You can get ACC if you can attribute it to the vax. These symptoms are indicating potential permanent heart damage.

'Scan' could easily be a screen grab of a scan result , under the Scary Spiky Yellow Golden Icon.....looks kosher from a Social Distance....

Radio comment this morning that 70% of those turning up for tests had no symptoms whatsoever. That simply  confirms your point that fear has been implanted into our society by both government & media. The thing is, fear generates panic and in that regard the government may well have now, a tiger by the tail.

The Labour strategists must be faced with a conundrum. Continue with the absurd rhetoric and restrictions but distract from their appalling performance in other areas, or loosen the absurd restrictions and open up their appalling performance in other areas?

FDA approval is a long process you are correct. Much of this is to do with  the applications being processed in order of lodgement and then subsequent enquiries and further data being needed - each time a queue being formed. Fast tracking can and does occur and that is how the vaccines were able to reach us much faster. I also must pick you on "very little testing". This is a moot point as so many people have received the vaccination now, the argument about testing is no longer relevant. The vaccine has statistically been found to be very safe with an acceptable side effect profile and compares favourably with many other vaccines in this regard. In addition its huge rollout gives those statistics much greater credibility. 

Your comment also does no delineate the effect of Omicron on vaccinated vs unvaccinated only the vulnerable. Perhaps if you had quoted some statistics around this you would have undermined your own comments about the value of the vaccine?

However, I share your general frustrations and I am leaning towards a position where I feel that the public health measures are becoming impotent against Omicron' spread. Couple that with a relatively benign impact on the vaccinated, it becomes easier to conclude that the wider consequences of the public health measures are worse than the virus itself for the vaccinated. 

Hear hear!  I couldn't have said it better myself.