My Mandated Experience

A Kiwi looks back, after confirmation that NZ's vaccine mandates are over

Standing together. Kiwis with different views - United

As I sit here pondering the announcement from the ‘pulpit of truth’, I feel somewhat aggrieved by it. I have struggled while observing how the mandates, and this vaccine, have affected the attitudes of New Zealanders over the past few months.

I cannot believe how New Zealand has turned, almost overnight, into this culture of discrimination, bullying, and general division which I have witnessed. Gone seem to be the days of that easy-going Kiwi “she’ll be right” attitude.

Due to the Covid Protection Framework mandates, I have lost my employment (I left on my own terms), and many friends (some in my own family). I have been locked out of society, my family lost our future home, and my children lost access to sports because I wasn't able to attend their training. I lost my basic human rights which are meant to be a fundamental and immutable part of New Zealand’s free society.

Because I am not injected against Covid, the insults hurled at me have been numerous. I don’t divulge my personal medical status on social media, so these were often said straight to my face, or in a group while people were voicing their opinions on the ‘dirty unvaccinated’. I personally have been told that the unvaccinated (such as myself) are “stealing the beds from cancer patients in hospital”, or that people who have made the same choice as me, “deserve to die because they don’t believe in science”.

I have heard or seen insulting epithets directed at unvaccinated Kiwis, including “uneducated fools”, “morons”, “evil”, “stupid pigs”, “the dirty unvaccinated” and “the great unwashed”. I was even told “It’s people like you who are holding the country to ransom through lockdowns.” Last I checked, I am sure I had no say over whether a lockdown happened or not.

I was kicked out of a cafe when I went to pick up my takeaways because I didn’t have a pass. I couldn’t have a haircut, and my name was written in a book of unvaccinated clients. I went to a business meeting with a doctor and, when I went to shake his hand, he pulled away in shock, saying that was “highly inappropriate”. I had no symptoms at the time and was simply introducing myself.

During the peak of the jab rollout, I was told by another medical professional: “It would be advisable with your health issues, for you to have the vaccine in hospital. We can then have the crash cart ready for you”. In the past, I have directly experienced anaphylaxis, seizures, tachycardia and nervous system issues from taking medications which doctors explicitly told me were 100% safe. Unless you have experienced your throat closing up, losing your sight then going unconscious, you don’t get to tell me they will have the ‘crash cart ready’ and ‘you will be fine'. You have not walked in my shoes, nor felt the severity of the reactions I have had. How can there be so little compassion for the many who could never take the risk with this medical procedure?

I know five people from my circle who were strong and healthy and are now, post-jab, severely impaired due to myocarditis, heart attacks and Guillain Barré syndrome, all of which started within 72 hours of the inoculation. As someone who has issues with multiple medications, it seems eminently sensible to take my friends’ experiences into account. Some of them can not even make a coffee without collapsing, or feeling too sick to stand for long. All were previously running businesses, working, raising children and providing for their families. However, according to ‘The Science™’, it’s just anxiety. The medical system doesn't have a place for them. The government has no formal protocols to help those who are injured by the jab which they have sought to force on Kiwis.

I am proud of myself and others who have stood in the face of this oppression and refused to buckle to something we didn't feel was right for us.

In order to be fully informed, I have read through countless peer-reviewed scientific literature from major medical journals, including:

• The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

• Ministry of Health and government data sheets

• Pfizer partially completed trial data, with its nine pages of adverse reactions which trial participants experienced

I have talked to a neurologist, a cardiologist, two GPs, and the Vaccine Advisory Committee. I have diligently researched this new technology which has zero long-term safety data on it. Yet all this study felt to be for nothing, as the government repeated over and over (almost hypnotically) that New Zealanders must “take it to save other people's lives”, no matter the likelihood of a severe adverse reaction.

I truly believe that if you want to get vaccinated, go for gold! It’s fantastic if your strong conviction is that this will protect yourself, but do not say you did it for others. Transmission occurs whether you are vaccinated or not. (Ministry of Health document confirming this).

Having been labelled an anti-vaxxer or a conspiracy theorist (my severe allergies to a large number of medications did not suffice), and being classed as someone who has no ability to understand ‘science’, has been hideous. Both my children and I have had every other vaccine. I am not “anti-vax” - an abhorrent term in the first place. As a part of the Bill of Rights created to protect every New Zealander’s freedom, we should each be able to make our own decision without fear of losing our careers or the roof over our heads. The Prime Minister herself stated in 2020, “Not only will there be no forced vaccination, but those who choose to opt-out won’t face any penalties at all”. Since November, all I have seen is the polar opposite of that statement, from government policies set up to divide this nation into two classes of people.

Being a total germophobe myself (I love me that hand sanitiser!), I’ve always respected the isolation rules and not had any interest in putting others in my community at risk. When I’ve felt even a tad under the weather, even just tired, I haven’t gone out. When my family and I had Covid recently (an experience most familiar, thanks to past flus and headcolds), we simply followed the isolation guidelines. None of us took a bed from a cancer patient or someone with heart disease. None of us went near a hospital. None of us even needed to use the medical system, apart from registering ourselves as positive cases.

My hope for the future of New Zealand is to find our way to being a nation which respects every person, no matter their race, gender, sexuality, mental health status, MEDICAL STATUS, or religion. No government-issued statute should ever again be used or allowed to define or divide us.

I believe New Zealand can be unified once again, even if it will take a process of healing to mend the huge societal chasm created by the divisive leadership that currently oversees this nation. If you are not on my side of this chasm, you may not see or feel it, but by crikey it is there. The start of this rehabilitation of NZ culture and society, built on honour and underpinned by respect for each other’s individual perspectives, will be the removal of the hideous ‘two classes of people’ that this government created, implemented and so precociously celebrated.

I don’t want sympathy. I simply stand for the freedom to respectfully disagree and to be respected for having a different opinion. I have shared my experience here so you might understand that there is a huge contingent of people in this nation who are not misinformed fools. We research. We dig deep. We used our innate human faculty for critical thinking. We have so many unanswered questions.

Differences in opinion are what make our collective humanity beautiful throughout all corners of the globe, and if we can’t learn to respectfully disagree, to accept each other’s views and opinions, then surely we have lost the foundation of a truly healthy society. Nothing good will come from that.