This is a modified version of an address made at the NZDSOS conference “Empowering Change” in Auckland, 28 September 2024.
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Some time ago I initiated an Official Information Act request, which yielded, to my astonishment, the following draft of an Emergency Address to the people of Aotearoa/New Zealand by the former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. I would like to read this extraordinary speech, slated for but not delivered, on 24 March 2020, in its entirety today.
“Kia ora koutou katoa
Today I am speaking to all New Zealanders to share extremely important news about COVID-19.
Most of us are all too aware of the information about the virus coming from Asia, Europe and the Americas. We have seen the frightening images and have heard of many deaths and have followed the measures undertaken by countries to curtail its spread. We have sat nervously from afar as these events have unfolded, and we have watched them cautiously.
However, I am very pleased to announce that all is not as terrible as we have been led to believe.
Recently one of the world’s foremost epidemiologists, Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University in California, has analysed COVID data in the United States and discovered that the case-fatality rate – that is, its danger – is comparable to that of seasonal influenza. In other words, COVID is no worse than a flu, which every year takes a toll, and which itself is part of our natural cycle of life.
What this means for New Zealanders is, frankly, that we have nothing out of the ordinary to be afraid of.
In fact, according to our Public Health Advisory Group and our Director General of Health, it is unclear that COVID meets the criteria of a true pandemic.
We can therefore all justifiably breathe a very big sigh of relief.
Our beautiful country is surrounded by the natural barrier of oceans. We have fortified that barrier by taking the precaution of closing our border while we gauge the potential impact of COVID. I apologise for the inconvenience this has caused relatives, friends, and loved ones while our embargo is in place, and for the disruption to businesses and our economy. I promise that we will make every effort to open up our borders as soon as possible, which I am confident will be before the end of the month.
Our scientific and medical experts have been working tirelessly to determine how best to manage COVID here, and they have concluded – despite the practices of other countries – that masks, distancing, and lockdowns are unnecessary.
Masks have never been effective in preventing transmission of a respiratory virus and need not be worn. In fact, they may pose the hazard of bacterial infection and shortness of breath.
We can find no scientific basis for social distancing to prevent viral spread.
Lockdowns run contrary to well-established pandemic guidelines. They amount to nothing less than imprisonment, and their impact on our economy and on the mental and physical health of our population would be disastrous. Imagine not being able to congregate at a house of worship, or visit an elderly relation in a nursing home, or attend a wedding, or get the medical screenings or the surgeries you waited so long for!
There has been much talk about the rapid development of a vaccine for COVID which uses a remarkable new biological technology. However, vaccines take many years for proper testing, no matter how fast they may be produced. There is simply no substitute for time to ensure that a medical intervention may truly be both safe and effective.
We are therefore not pinning our hopes on the premature introduction of insufficiently tested vaccines, because their long-term safety cannot be assured. And we would never contemplate mandates to coerce our citizens into receiving any medication against their will – nope, nope!
Instead, I am recommending to all of you simply to go about your lives, though I will be advising you to spend a little more time outdoors, to enjoy sunlight and sport, to eat nutritiously, and to maintain your invaluable social and family ties.
Although you may be fearful of COVID, we can also assure you that safe and inexpensive medicines long in use for other conditions are showing great promise, should treatment be necessary. Our own Ministry of Health will shortly be providing information about vitamins and other natural supplements for prevention, and we will take it upon ourselves to supply our nation free of charge with what we need, drawing from the funds we had earmarked for COVID testing, which is no longer necessary.
We initially considered attempting to keep New Zealand completely COVID-free, but we quickly realized that this would be both impossible and unnecessary for an air-borne virus comparable to influenza. Our bodies have an innate way of handling these kinds of illnesses by means of natural immunity, which provides the best defence and protection. And the sooner we get there the better for us all.
Should you become sick with flu-like symptoms, we suggest that you stay home to avoid affecting others, and to rest. Children and young people have especially robust immune systems and they are least likely to be impacted by COVID. If, however, you are compromised by other medical conditions and/or by age, we urge the usual protective measures of staying away from those who have active symptoms of a respiratory virus, and employing good basic hygiene, like hand-washing.
Our doctors and other health care practitioners have a long a noble tradition of established medical principles, such as doing no harm, treating those who are ill as early as possible, taking a patient’s individualized needs into account, and providing full informed consent for any procedures, medications or vaccines. Do not hesitate to contact them should you fall ill.
Crises create an atmosphere of alarm and chaos, which all too often leads to impulsive and irrational decision-making. We must, as a nation, avoid this trap and instead proceed with measured caution and steadfast calm.
If you find yourselves succumbing to worry and anxiety when following the news from overseas, please go to our website and its resources – which I like to think of as a ‘single source of calm’.
Though we are a small country, we are an intrepid one. In 1893 we were the first to allow women the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. But before this landmark achievement we were told the consequences would be catastrophic. Yep, yep, look at us now!
We were told that banning nuclear power would also be catastrophic, but in 1987 we became a nuclear-free zone and have still managed to thrive.
At this moment in time we are committed to the best possible way forward to protect the health of all New Zealanders. By relying on established science we will lead the way once more against the tides of fear, alarm, impulsiveness and sensationalism.
Kia Kaha!”
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Let me save all of you diligent fact-checkers out there: I fibbed.
There was never such an OIA or a speech, unfortunately. But imagine if there had been on the very eve of that first disastrous lockdown!
I am using this device to call attention to the profoundly pivotal role played by the inculcation of fear.
Fear was the fulcrum that allowed the government here in New Zealand and institutions like the Medical Council to ensure submission to their directives. It allowed for the acceptance of lockdowns, mandates, a ‘vax’ apartheid, and a curious silence among the nearly twenty thousand registered doctors about the subversion of the foundational principles of their profession. The Medical Council sent a message early on to those who challenged the agenda: shut up or we’ll shut you down. Their witch hunt continues to this day, and our politicians must be made aware of it.
It will be futile for us to rely on fear as a motivating agent: our opposition has outmanned, outflanked, and outgunned us, they are the masters of fear.
However, standing up for unimpeachable and unassailable principles is another thing. Who can argue with informed consent? With not doing harm? With individualized treatment? With prevention? With tending to the ill? With the absolute right of people to refuse any medical intervention should they decide against it?
A remarkably positive feature of the covid saga has been a rending of the veils behind which our once-venerable institutions have operated – and an opening up of new vistas in medical care outside the Big Pharma stranglehold. The opportunities for our future in light of these revelations are as marvellous as they are inspiring.
But to get there we have to fight very very smart. We face two fronts: one against the lawless ruling hierarchies, and one against the unthinking credulous masses, without which the opposition cannot achieve its aims.
We must not be seduced into believing that an appeal to the good conscience of governmental institutions will meet with success, or that justice will necessarily prevail in the court system which they operate. We must be prepared for non-compliance and its consequences, should we be faced with another salvo, and for creative stratagems to protect ourselves.
Liz Lambert and Erika Whittome, for example, through the Number 8 Workers Union have already negotiated 50 settlements with employers, involving 100 victims of mandates, for protections afforded workers under the Employment Relations Act.
Nor should we underestimate the relative disinterest and ignorance of many who, feeding on their trusted media, struggle mostly to make ends meet and who cannot believe or accept that their government would do anything but attempt to protect and help them.
We have already created a self-helping and self-supporting community, and we must make sure we can sustain communication if the usual channels are blocked. Think of it as a kind of underground resistance providing sanity and succour and medical care and advice to one another. It should be the highest priority, without which nothing else really can be achieved, and it will surely grow as the inescapable truth about disastrous governmental policies can no longer be ignored, even by ‘single source’ believers.
In this great battle, which most of us here see as global, involving many dimensions, and which has at its end, for those in power, a world of total surveillance and domination over the rights of individuals, we lead by example, with hope rather than fear, while simultaneously using every means possible to thwart those who are attacking us. The opposition is ruthless and vast, but it is not all-powerful.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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