Stephen Rostron's provocative letter (Chronicle, August 3) argues against lockdowns, where the intention is to minimise Covid-19 infections until a vaccine is developed. He would rather that we had remained unlocked like Sweden, and attributes our lockup to panicking politicians.
I beg to differ.
Politiciansare essential when public health measures have to be paid for and put in place, and a good leader can inspire their people to do the right thing. This has happened in Taiwan and New Zealand.
However, the medical advice has to be good. Mr Rostron urges us to emulate the Swedish experiment, which was designed to produce herd immunity by allowing people to catch the virus.
This would be fine had the virus produced a mild disease like rubella but with a dangerous one like Covid-19 the herd will inevitably end up smaller. Granted, he suggests that the "old" be safely locked away for the duration of the pandemic, but unfortunately some of the freely moving young will also die.
To date, Sweden has had 76,000 cases and 5500 deaths in a population of 10 million, and herd immunity has not been achieved. As well as the heartbreaking cull itself, there is no guarantee that a natural infection gives long-term immunity. There are also worries that even mild infections could leave permanent damage.
We cannot predict the long-term future, but as one who is an "agedly high risk", I am thankful that I live here, and not in Sweden.
On behalf of all the mobility card holders in Whanganui, may I congratulate the Whanganui District Council for imposing an additional obstacle for all those cardholders who wish to visit the Davis Library during the period of the Sarjeant Gallery upgrade, three years and counting. The original car parks have been turned into a site management area and a vast hole behind the Great Wall of Queen's Park.
In their wisdom, the council has solved the problem by establishing two parks for mobility card holders just inside the road entrance to the library in the area occupied by the mobile library bus. The only problem is that by taking that option a health and safety issue has been created as the 40 or so metres to the library entrance is totally problematic for some people with a disability.
The access to the pathway from the parking area is sloping in two directions and is probably insurmountable to a person in a wheelchair. This type of obstacle is repeated twice over the length of the pathway. In addition, the pathway itself has a significant slope towards the road. The only other way is for people with mobility aids to use the left side of the road, not an ideal situation.
Why, you may ask, were the four 30-minute parks and the five-minute loading area at the front of the library not altered to enable a couple of mobility parks to be established almost directly outside the entrance? Well, it appears that the roading manager has made a decision quoting dual-carriageway and road-width regulations and will not enter into logical discussion of alternatives. I wonder if he believes that mobility card holders are incapable of parallel parking. [Abridged]
