Church leaders are confused about how to implement the My Vaccine Pass – one sums it up saying “We are greeters – not bouncers”. From December 3, people wanting to attend church services, gatherings, hospitality events, gyms and those wanting to avail themselves of close contact businesses will need the My Vaccine Pass to prove Read more
Auckland’s move to alert level 3 has also triggered speculation about whether the national Covid-19 elimination strategy has failed or is even being abandoned. While the government denies it, others clearly believe it is at least a possibility. The uncertainty is troubling. If elimination fails or is abandoned, it would suggest we have not learnt Read more
Washington: Just when you’re feeling proud of America, she finds a way to break your heart. At the end of June, it looked like the US was about to pass a remarkable milestone in its fight against the coronavirus. After plummeting for months, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases appeared poised to drop below Read more
Church leaders are preaching the good word – this time urging people to get their COVID-19 vaccinations. Their campaign aims to fight against “echo chambers” of misinformation on social media amongst their communities. “We know that 80 percent of Pasifika communities have some sort of affiliation with churches, church communities,” says John Kleinsman, director of Read more
We tend to assume disseminating public health messages is solely the role of public servants such as Victorian chief medical officer Brett Sutton and his former federal counterpart Brendan Murphy, both of whom have become de facto celebrities during the pandemic. But to ensure vital health information reaches everyone in our community, we need a Read more
Well-known Northland doctor Lance O’Sullivan has renewed a call for benefit cuts and higher taxes for parents who don’t vaccinate their children. New Zealand is in the midst of a huge surge in measles cases, with almost 900 in Auckland, and more than 1100 confirmed cases notified across the country. Just 53 of the people Read more
In two US dioceses, the parents of children attending Catholic schools are being told they must have their children vaccinated, regardless of moral qualms. But critics say such compulsion is contrary to moral advice given by a pontifical academy. The Church has moral difficulties with certain vaccines, the cell lines for which were originally derived Read more
Kenya’s Catholic bishops have charged that a tetanus vaccine used in a national campaign has been laced with a contraceptive hormone. The vaccination campaign, sponsored by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, is aimed at girls and women of reproductive age. The bishops said four independent laboratory tests in Kenya and elsewhere showed the vaccine Read more
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has attracted attention in the past week for two contradictory reasons: the Japanese government has withdrawn its recommendation for the shot, while public health officials in the United States have attributed a massive drop in the prevalence of the virus among teenage girls to its use. The Japanese government’s decision Read more