By early October 2021 the media started to run stories that promoted the New Zealand government’s new Covid line - ‘Two Shots for Summer’ - meant to encourage all young people to get their two doses of Pfizer vaccine in order to be able to enjoy their summer with some freedoms after months of lockdown.
One such article in RNZ began: “That’s the edgy, and somewhat boozey, tag line the government’s relying on to encourage better vaccination rates in our younger population”.
The only problem was that that was not what the government’s technical experts were recommending. In fact, the minutes from the 7 December meeting of the Covid-19 Technical Advisory Group (CV TAG) and its subsequent memo setting out their recommendations to government represented their strongest worded advice during all of 2021.
Part 2, going deeper down the rabbit hole.
Excellent work.