Markets have muted reaction to Russian invasion; US retail remains strong; global food prices rise; Aussie wages up modestly keeping RBA at bay; UST 10yr 1.98%; oil slips but gold up; NZ$1 = 67.8 USc; TWI-5 = 72.2

@VTHO.  You offer a poor excuse for bad behaviour.  But you could try to change your mind. 

Do you have some better method of keeping track of where you have been? If not, that's a good reason to keep using it. Easier than trying to remember exactly where you were last week so you can notify people if you do get it. 

Yes, the government are again a bit slow in keeping up with Covid developments and whilst I have zero respect for those that refuse to be vaccinated, we are well past the point of being able to halt Covid spread in the community via the overwhelmed contact tracing system or even the vaccination mandates (all those that are smart enough to be vaccinated will have done so by now so mandates are no longer a stick to drive people to get vaccinated).  We know Omicron can be caught by and passed on by the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated so just let those stupid enough not to be vaccinated suffer the significantly higher risk of serious illness when they catch it. I suspect that the government may well have axed the divisive vaccination mandates already if it wasn't for them not wanting to be seen to capitulate to a totally out of control rabble outside Parliament.  The Covid rules have all got too complicated but now I think the bottom line is simply to get vaccinated and boosted and to wear masks in public areas.

Good call. If you haven't scanned in, you don't get called up to self isolate. It's not rocket science.

Probably that the numbers coming into the country are restricted by MIQ spaces - if it was unrestricted there would be thousands.

But your point is valid and MIQ is starting to be dismantled beginning on the 28th, and once we get as many cases as the rest of the world it will become pointless.

NGK stop thinking so logically you're embarrassing the government. Lets be honest they just need to come out and say we letting it run, if you vulnerable, isolate for next 6 weeks otherwise lets get on with it.

Are there any contributors on this site who have caught COVID (clinically tested)? Let us know your experience?

Has anyone here tried to export houses? Apparently NZ houses are extremely valuable, I might try selling them overseas.

A big part of the reason for that is our Government has effectively shut down all mineral exploitation with no transition plan away from it, where as Aussie refuses. Under the free market successive governments exported not the products, but the factories and jobs that made them. 

So after decades of incompetent government we are in a hole that none in Wellington will acknowledge, or do anything about. Their silence on the closure of the Marsden Point refinery speaks for itself.

KW nice & concise critical point. Unfortunately that brings to mind the old slogan about in the formative years of the USA. Something like - go west young man, go west.

I think they need more regulations to hamstring their main exports.

See my post above. This is why I will no longer scan. Completely pointless.

It's at the stage now where you can assume you'll come in contact with someone infected at some stage, so you need to rely on masks, social distancing, and your vaccine and booster to keep you as safe as possible.

You have to assume if you go out anywhere now, you’re exposed to it. 

With a long incubation period of the virus, you will never know where you got it mate. All this scanning, cleaning and closing of places when someone tells a business that they tested positive is pointless because the people were symptomatic days before they get sick and would have already passed the virus.

Either do deep cleaning of business everyday at the hour or its pointless. But happy to be put straight if there is something I do not understand.

don't meet anyone, don't go anywhere, live a hermits life if you so scared of the virus. Or just get vaccinated, triple boosted and hope for the best. Any other choices except sanctions, mandates, lock downs are welcome. 

It's all but out of control, with case numbers almost certainly 10x what is being reported, as epidemiologists are saying.  Because it's everywhere, everyone is going to be exposed unless you hide.  And because it's everywhere, all the controls the government impose are now useless/pointless, the only thing you can rely on is your vaccinations and your own PPE. Locations of interest should now read: Everywhere.

Which is why they should remove the mandates which will lead to the end of the Wellington protest super spreader event, which will now be infecting the police force. 

Do you really want to be locked away for 7 days every time you share a space with a positive case?

Being categorized as a close contact won't protect you, it's purpose is to stop you going out and passing it to others.

On another note, I'm in the same situation with an infant in the house. Doesn't look like there's too much to worry about though, as NSW have only had a total of 4 deaths in the 0-4 age bracket out of about 200000 cases.

I follow Dr Robert McHugh and he believes the US sharemarket is on the verge of a rather large fall. As far as forecasters go he’s not bad and has been around for a long time.

US Colonel Lang commented: Is DoD briefing retired media talking head generals and colonels again?

After watching the vacillating performance of talking head generals on TeeVee over the Ukraine matter, the question arises as to whether or not they are being “pumped up” by the Pentagon on a regular basis. In the Rumsfeld era this was routinely done. Some people were briefed in private, but others were invited to meetings with 20 or 30 others. These were presided over by Rumsfeld himself backed up by a couple of advisers. I was invited to one of these. I asked a couple of awkward questions to which Rumsfeld replied that he did not know the answers. I was not invited again, but that was all right as a number of those briefed talked to me regularly. Kellogg, Keane, Clapper, Petraeus, etc. IMO these people are probably on the briefing list.

Remember that the terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" don't relate to lies and falsehoods anymore. They now mean "information we don't like". Keep this in mind and things start to make a lot more sense.

Unless Ukraine applies a scorched earth policy and Russia takes over some of the wheat growing area, I see Russia flogging off the wheat. Any sanctions on the wheat then it'll be sold via the backdoor. There'll be a number of sanction busters for a fee.

As it is a novel virus, it means nobody's immune system had seen it before. So different people will react differently, which is why we see such a wide array of symptoms and outcomes. 

Anecdotes of how it affects individuals aren't worth anything in terms of saying what people should expect.  Best bet for everyone is to prepare for the worst, but not be too worried about severe effects or death if you are vaccinated and even less so if you are boosted. In this way, I don't mind MSM showing someone who has had it bad.