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OPINION: Protecting all peoples under their care

Monday 18 October 2021 | Written by Ruta Tangiiau Mave | Published in Opinion

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OPINION: Protecting all peoples under their care
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Picture: Getty Images/21101701

Covid-19 does not discriminate on race, gender, age, or religion, as shown from statistics across the world but it does show up in higher numbers for those vulnerable by age and health fragility.

A mayor in New Zealand has inferred the refusal of nonvaccinated people into public areas as similar to the Jewish people in World War 2 having to wear a yellow star and others have taken it further to say Jacinda Ardern is another Hitler.  They couldn’t be further from the truth with these statements. The persecution of Jews didn’t have anything to do with threatening the public, community or country’s good health. It didn’t matter their age, gender, health or socioeconomics it was their belief, and practice of their Jewish faith that Hitler used to discriminate them from others.

Standing next to a Jewish person without wearing a mask did not mean you would catch Judaism and go home and infect others that could threaten their health or lives. Hitler convinced the German people they could have a perfect Arian race of blonde and blue-eyed persons, so long as they didn’t follow the Jewish faith. But Hitler did not stop there, he also imprisoned and genocide members of the intellectual society, or anyone even if they were blonde and blue-eyed, who was against his own philosophies, including coloured and disabled people. His agenda was to annihilate and destroy whole communities and lifestyles. He created mass execution camps where millions of people were starved to death, tortured and sent to gas chambers under the guise of having a shower. These were horrific times and Jewish people in the lead up to their deportation were labelled with a yellow star, their houses were ransacked with valuables stolen and their businesses were destroyed or taken over by others.

How does any of these compare to Jacinda Ardern asking the team of five million to stay home with their family, wear a mask in public, or get vaccinated in order to protect themselves and others from a menacing virus the same as Hitler? The difference is standing next to someone with the delta virus without either highly increases your chances of catching it and infecting everyone you come in close contact with especially your family, putting all their lives in danger. That’s the reality of Covid Delta. Granted the team has lockdown fatigue, but it has proven the single most effective way of reducing the spread of the virus all around the world. Separating or segregating infected one’s from others is not done specifically to discriminate, it’s done as a protection for everyone’s good.

In the bleak nights of London during WW2 Hitler was bombing the city every night, the citizens were asked by Winston Churchill to turn off their lights and to not have one candle burning anywhere, so that it didn’t attract the attention of the bombers and have the neighbourhood destroyed. Imagine the consequences of someone saying ‘nah I’m not going to listen to them, I’m going to express my individual right to have my light on when I feel like it. I don’t care about anyone else.’ They and their friends’ descendants would not be here today.

Barring entry due to no mask or the likely hood of a vaccination passport is like the nonsmoking law. You used to be able to smoke where ever and whenever you wanted, inside, at a bar, work, café, airplane, hospital, night and day. No one stopped you from entering a premises or told you to leave. Standing next to someone smoking, would affect you in some way. You would smell and inhale it, as it wafts over and onto you, it would get in your eyes and on your clothing. You’d go home smelling of smoke and you could die of lung cancer never having smoked a cigarette. This is what the Covid virus is like. You don’t have to talk to them, but the chances of you taking home the virus after standing close to them without wearing a mask, or either of you being vaccinated, is statistically more likely to be transmitted with this new airborne delta variant than not.

Our lives have more freedom and food during this world wide second variant than during London’s bombing raids. People had to leave their houses and run into underground shelters, or tube stations sleeping there for as long as it took. In the morning they would search through the rubble of bombed houses and shops and make the best of what was still standing and open for business. Today people complain they can’t buy KFC, or McDonalds.

Covid-19 does not discriminate on race, gender, age, or religion, as shown from statistics across the world but it does show up in higher numbers for those vulnerable by age and health fragility. Leaders who have imposed lockdowns, encouraged mask wearing and vaccinations are doing so to protect all peoples under their care, if they only chose to protect the blonde blue-eyed population then they would be like Hitler.