Todd Muller discovers he is resigning

Diary of the last 10 hours

7.00am

And so how are the numbers this morning? Has the beast moved among us? How many has he touched? 

None yet, waiting to see what we will see. We wait, we hope.

Michel Baker has the best crispest lowdown on the Delta variant and why containing it matters so much.

Where the original variant might have caused 10 cases, the Delta variant could cause 80 cases in the same time, which would quickly make it impossible to control without a lockdown.

The nation has been reviewing the footage and asking questions.

Question: Should we have suspended the bubble sooner earlier? Should we have been looking at Sydney and saying, yeah nah later bro?

Now that we have had a vivid demonstration that the thing really can just hop on a plane and be in Courtney Place by Saturday night, nine out of ten people would probably say oh hell yeah.

But if you’d ask the question two weeks ago, do we think we would have got so many saying yes? Let us not forget the persistent clamour we’ve been having to get ourselves open and let business get going again etc.

Our position evolves.

Question: Does Level 2 need some new rules, like say, way more mask wearing?

Oh hell yes, why not. Professor Baker knows the score, let’s listen to Professor Baker: 

If you've got someone that's asymptomatic and the virus is transmitted by aerosol, the only thing that will stop them is wearing masks.

Question: Does level 2 need some new rules, like say, compulsory QR code scanning at large gatherings, bars, and restaurants and anywhere else that superspreading happens?

Oh hell yes, why not. Dr Bloomfield knows the score, let’s listen to Dr Bloomfield:

Scan Scan Scan

There is a refrain amongst the epidemiologists: we're seeing around the world countries that have also done well are going backwards.

What probably matters most is that we keep refining, keep evolving, keep acknowledging what’s been missed, and act on that.

We can recriminate too, if that helps, I suppose. But that process of refining and evolving has carried us along very well. Our best protection is to keep at it.

And if we should find that the virus manages to sneak past our defences and it all turns to shit, well, we’ve got level 4 to fall back on to stop it in its tracks again. 

Sam Gribben writes:

Yes it's scary but the Aussie bubble is a necessary test case for our eventual re-opening, and things looking OKish.

Meanwhile, a vivid scene report from ground zero:

That is so damn evocative. The contrast, at the bottom of Lambton Quay, between daytime thronging and night time desolation is epic. That absolute emptiness of 10.00pm, man, it can feel like a plague came through.

8.21am

Poor old National Party. What in the Wide World of Sports is this that they’re doing to their poor selves now? 

It looks like some kind of terrible Reverse Houdini where you stuff yourself chained and padlocked into a sack and throw yourself into a swamp, punching yourself vigorously and repeatedly in the head as you disappear from view below the pond scum.

The torrid tale so far, as reported by Newshub and Richard Harman’s Politik bizzo:

• Todd Muller fesses up to bad-mouthing Harete Hipango for a Newsroom story 

• Todd Muller apologises to Judith Collins and caucus

• Todd Muller discovers he is resigning

• Newly-returned MP and pal of Judith Collins Harete Hipango is revealed to be the MP accused of spending taxpayer money inappropriately

• Newly-returned MP and pal of Judith Collins Harete Hipango is revealed to have done nothing wrong good lord dear me what a beat up by Judith Collins

• Twitter reads all this and says: someone in National's using dirt on Hipango to hurt Collins

• Twitter reads all this and says: National’s at war with themselves 

• Twitter reads all this and says: so what now? Do they dump her or does that, like, make it even worse? If that’s humanly possible.

I just feel sorry for poor old Chris Penk who had been the toast of social media for the past week, first for cheerfully taking shit about his ludicrous pristine double cab ute and then for unleashing a mighty zinger on poor old Winston, even if he used asterisks like he was never in the navy and is too coy to say FUCK.

He is no shrinking violet, isn't Chris Penk. He has hinted in words without asterisks that he could see himself being PM. 

Three news cycles ago, he was looking like he had just stepped himself onto the high-speed escalator. Sadly all this Houdini quagmire shit has lost him the spotlight. 

I’m no Malcolm Tucker but maybe it's time for old mate Chris to come up with another motherf**ker of a tweet.

8.22am

Hello readers of the free editions! There’s exciting stuff happening soon in this newsletter - subscribers got to read all about it yesterday. It’s all there in the archive if you want to join in the fun.

9.30am

Lining up to watch a YouTube video of a doctor who might or might not be out to lunch, given what another doctor, whose judgment I value, has said of her:

Sneering at the profession, accusing the science of being misinformation, calling the vaccine gene therapy. The most laughable “facts”. 

At the beginning of the week when I heard news reports about doctors sharing covid skepticism I was thinking: First thing I'd be doing is finding a new GP. So I'm wondering what I might be about to see. 

What I’m seeing is someone full of certitude about the Covid hoax, and she's misrepresenting the work of an accomplished academic, and lionising some mediocre writing by an unexceptional journalist, so we're not off to a great start.

But she’s also not swivel-eyed and her points are superficially cogent, so I'm not wondering how she ever qualified to practice. 

The abiding sense here is a conviction that we have been duped, that we have been made blind to the truth of things, that we are plunging headlong forward without having taken enough care. And it comes wrapped in the deepest skepticism about the vested interest of big pharma, once again up to their tricks, manufacturing anxiety for the purpose of taking great profits. 

Her eyes are not swivelling, but mine are beginning to.

I’m unswayed. The way we’re proceeding against the pandemic still seems the sanest, most prudent path. I’m not in favour of walking away from any of that. 

The pleading in earnest seems to rest upon a foundation of thought that our best protection is a healthier way of living, not drugs we don't need. Well, sure. I’m all in agreement with the relatively uncontroversial proposition that many aspects of modern living are very bad for people. The express intent of reform of the whole health sector is to bolster primary care and put us all on a better path. Wholly in favour.

But clear and present dangers militate against simply discarding the present model of treatment, which seems implicit in this argument.

All the same, I will take your invitation doctor, and I will look at your website, and make my own mind up. 

And I will try not to let my confirmation bias about protecting the greater good, and the proven harm done by Covid, and the non-swamping of our hospitals with an out-of-control deadly virus get in the way too much.

11.06am

Looking at vaccine numbers posted by Mr Henry Cooke and realising that when we talk about Group 3 we’re talking about the thick end of two million. That's nearly half the total of all people needing to be vaccinated. No wonder we have a long way to go to get to the end of that group. It will for sure take some time. I’ll remain deadly calm as I wait my turn.

12.35pm

Hello MTAF reader Sacha! Very much obliged to you for making us aware of this. It is one hell of a compelling point, made in an inspiring and heartfelt way, about the senselessness of guns and gun lobbying and carnage wrought by guns in America.

Sacha Dylan @SachaDylan

Now _that's_ activism.

The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller

INCREDIBLE: Former NRA President duped by Parkland parents into giving a fake graduation speech to empty chairs representing kids killed by gun violence who were supposed to graduate. He thought this was the rehearsal. The high school doesn’t exist. https://t.co/IFzKHkAP4Q

1.00pm

Here come da minister, here come Dr Ashley. 

How are the numbers at this hour? Has the beast moved among us? How many has he touched? 

Still zero, still  waiting to see what we will see. 

But a day with a zero is always a heartening day. 

4.20pm

A mate was enthusing the other day about Paul Rodgers.