Chief Stipe

How do you measure success

Covid 19 coronavirus: Police to patrol 'dummy run' Viaduct bar party ahead of Alert Level 2 2 May, 2020 5:00am 6 minutes to read Auckland's top police boss is working with a Viaduct bar owner who wants to host a "dummy run" party with 100 of his "best friends" when the country to moves to alert level 2. Leo Molloy's colourful guest list includes Auckland MP Nikki Kaye, former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry and Destiny Church's Brian and Hannah Tamaki, National's deputy leader Paula Bennett, Māori Party co-leader John Tamihere, band members from True Bliss and former MP Hone Harawira. As Kiwis around the country wait for bars and restaurants to open, Molloy's gathering at Headquarters has provided some insight into what could become the new normal under level 2 in hospitality. Guests will be temperature checked at the door and required to supply their names, addresses and phone numbers. A bouncer will patrol the dance floor ensuring partygoers stand 1m apart, kissing will be banned and police will do spot checks to make sure people follow the rules. Molloy is liaising with Auckland Central Area Commander Inspector Gary Davey and the liquor licensing agency to ensure the private bash can go ahead on May 15, also the date of the restaurant's third birthday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said she will discuss with Cabinet on May 11 whether the country will move from alert level 3 to 2. The Government's Covid-19 website says public venues can open but gatherings must be under 100 indoors and people must keep 1m apart. But Finance Minister Grant Robertson said yesterday that Cabinet was still assessing what can and can't happen at alert level 2. Auckland Central Area Commander Inspector Gary Davey. Photo / Dean Purcell Guidance was being reviewed and "we'll have a lot more to say about that next week". Molloy has already sent the invitations and claims to have had 100 responses. Davey told the Weekend Herald the police alcohol and harm prevention team was "ready to go on the first night" when restaurants, bars, and clubs will open again. How is your bar or restaurant preparing for level 2? Email us "Headquarters was the first restaurant responsible enough to actually approach the police and say, 'What are your expectations and how can we make this work so people aren't breaching?'. I applaud that and will work with Leo to make sure he can comply and has the best chance of complying so the party can go ahead and not have any issues." One of Davey's concerns is the challenge of controlling physical distancing. Leo Molloy with Hannah Tamaki. "They will need to identify and record the names of people that come in. The other issue is maintaining a 1m distance from everybody, which will be more difficult particularly if people have been drinking. I have concerns about anybody on the dance floor keeping their metre distance." Davey said extra staff will be rostered to make sure business owners comply with the rules and if they don't, police will "shut it down". If the party goes well, Molloy said the bar would officially open on Tuesday, May 19. ADVERTISEMENT "I wanted to do a dummy run before we can officially open, during Level 2. I have been upfront with the police because I don't want hundreds of complaints saying we are having a massive party and for the police to barge in strong-arming people. "It's better to invite people I know. With a small number, we can contain problems if they happen. We don't want a crowd of the bogans with their Lion Reds to turn up, riot, and have the place shut down." Molloy has hired a DJ for the "soft launch" and said he and his bouncers will be patrolling the dance floor to make sure guests don't get too "cosy" and stick to the self-distancing rule. He has also banned public displays of affection. John Tamihere is on the guestlist. Photo / File "Pashing is for young people with throbbing hormones who are determined to share their DNA. I'd like to think the average age on the guest list is 45+ and most of us can moderate our behaviour and wait 'til we get home." Robertson said that under level 3, there had been an increase in reports of parties. For anyone planning one this weekend, he had two messages: Cancel your plans now and be aware police will be taking a "dim view" of this activity. "Don't be an idiot, stick to your bubble and everyone will be better off." Ardern warned this week that if New Zealand moved too quickly through level 3, there would be a higher risk of a second wave. "This would be horrific for our economy." People this week flocked to fast-food outlets as we emerged from level 4, after more than a month of home cooking. Ardern warned those congregating outside takeaway shops to keep their distance. Molloy said the lockdown had had a severe impact on the hospitality industry. He felt lucky he'd managed to keep all of his 74 staff, thanks to the government subsidy. Molloy with Hone Hawariwa. Marisa Bidois, chief executive of the Restaurant Association, said its research indicated 20 per cent of businesses would probably close down over the next 12 months, affecting about 10,000 jobs. Guidelines for the industry under level 2 were still being finalised and the association was working with Worksafe and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. "Cabinet is going to meet on level 2 next week and we will be involved in writing the guidelines for the industry which the government will adopt and endorse." Bidois has also collaborated with associations in Australia, the UK, Ireland and Singapore for advice on how to prevent clusters developing. Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye said she is hoping she'll be able to make Molloy's party but it will depend on her work commitments. "I've been working 18 hour days to try and assist all those businesses in my electorate. There are about 10,000 businesses - a lot are bars and restaurants and they've been the hardest hit." Molloy is well known for taking the law into his own hands during the Covid-19 pandemic. On March 23, a pilot with an accent who claimed he was living in New Zealand was barred from Headquarters for refusing to show his passport. Molloy has also turned away patrons 70 years and over because they were more at risk of catching coronavirus, but he is making an exception for Sir Graham Henry, who is 73."He is our HQ patron and is here to raise the bar. He's a well-preserved legend so we'll accommodate over 70s if they are in good working order and don't vote for New Zealand First." But if you're an "A list" celebrity don't be expecting an invite. "I don't want to see behind the veneer of botox, Polyfilla and hair dye after seven weeks of neglect. While the rest of us have morphed into hunks, chunks, or drunks I'm picking the A-listers who will have gone into lockdown looking like Barbie and have now come out looking like Cruella de Vil."

Fixed.

Either the TAB has realised they are losing on Fixed Odds at the American races or the "system" is not working.

30 April 2020 NZ Trainers’ Association Inc nztrainersassn@gmail.com PO Box 300-073, Albany, 0752 To the Executive and Branches of the NZ Trainers’ Association Inc Response to NZTA Letter of 22 April Further to your letter to the Board of RITA last week, the Board discussed the questions contained in the correspondance at its meeting yesterday and herewith provide information to address the relevant points as best we can. —————————— Is RITA a solvent organisation that can continue to fund its operating expenses and guarantee distributions to the codes? and When will RITA be able to give certainty to the Codes around their distributions for the coming season? The impact of Covid19 has had a material impact on revenue at the TAB and presented immediate cashflow challenges in light of product availability being down 80%, revenue down 40% and customer numbers down about 35% (when compared with pre-Covid19). This impact is evident internationally across all wagering operators and the New Zealand TAB has not been spared in this. Thankfully, we have managed to weather the first wave of financial pressure but significant work remains to be done. As you will know, we have remained operating through the pandemic which has been hugely positive and has certainly helped to mitigate our possible worst case scenario, ie that being no major sport, no domestic racing and no Australian racing. RITA have been actively engaged with the Racing Minister’s office and his officials since the onset of impacts of Covid19 in March. We have outlined the expected impact of Covid19 on the TAB business, and the resulting impacts of reduced revenue on RITA, the Codes, and all participants who derive their livelihoods from racing. While we have undertaken significant measures to reduce our costs to help lessen this dramatic loss of revenue, the scale of this event is such that it has necessitated an approach to the Government about options for supporting the racing industry going forward and included availing of the Government’s wage subsidy initiative. This process is ongoing and we expect an announcement on progress will be made at the appropriate time. We appreciate that the wider industry has also foregone revenue during this time, and that the level of stakes are of high interest, however the reality is that it is very difficult to accurately model the amount of funding we can distribute to the industry. We have, however, been working closely with your governing body, NZTR, over the past week to develop an assessment off the back of the proposed racing calendar for May to July and based on Government confirmation of our ability to resume racing. You will be pleased to know that we have confirmed total funding to the thoroughbred code for the remainder of the 2019/20 season at approximately 4.15pm yesterday afternoon, after our respective Boards met to confirm these earlier discussions and we understand that NZTR’s announcement around stakes etc. is imminent, now this has been finalised. Once a calendar has been approved for 2020/21, which we hope will be in place prior to the resumption of harness racing at the end of May, we will be in the position to indicate funding levels for next season. We appreciate that many of your stakeholders want certainty of returns from August through to July next year, but the simple reality is that no New Zealand sector can confidently predict what the next 15 months will look like. The complexities we have referred to extend past the obvious critical confirmation of domestic racing dates but also extend into the uncertainty in the reopening of our gaming operations in our TAB’s (which fund integrity), the resumption of high turnover sporting product and the continuation/resumption of overseas racing. All of these carry considerable revenue risk for us when making assumptions for the future. Unfortunately we just can’t answer these questions right at this time. What measures have been put in place to reduce costs? and Many other organisations have made public announcements around redundancies and wage reductions. We have had no such guidance from RITA on this. We have included below an extract from our industry comms dated 19 April which outlines a list of the initiatives underway as part of our ongoing review of costs. Specific actions taken to date include: ● Pre Alert Level 4 (March 22)● A total recruitment freeze and a hold on RITA’s contract with its recruitment partner put in place;● Oncourse presenters moved to present from studio● Use of non-essential contractors and casuals ceased● Staff travel and payment of certain discretionary allowances stopped (including overtime)● All non-essential expenditure ceased● Presenter-led Trackside shows cancelled● Trackside radio moved to simulcast of Trackside Television● Post Alert Level 4 (March 23 to current)● More than 3,400 leave days approved for the period through to the end of 2020 following a request for all TAB employees to use entitled annual or alternative leave● All staff asked to consider taking voluntary unpaid leave or reduced hours● Reduction in remuneration for RITA Board, Executive Chair and Executive Management Team● Trackside radio programming on AM and FM suspended on April 12● Trackside production scaled down with programming largely replaced with a live feed of Sky Australia coverage● Active negotiations with landlords, suppliers and other services to secure relief or amended conditions● Accessed the Government’s wage subsidy programme● All non-essential capital expenditure on hold through to 30 June 2020 (at the earliest) In addition to the above steps, we also informed our staff on April 20 that a deeper review of the business is underway to ensure we can respond to the impact of Covid19. We will provide information to the industry on this in due course in the near future. The RIU is considered a bloated and inefficient organisation. What steps are underway to reduce their cost to the industry? The operations of the RIU, JCA and the Racing Lab have also been impacted by COVID-19 with funding of integrity having stopped in light of there being no Class 4 gaming activity under Alert levels 3 and 4. As a result of our retail network being closed, the ongoing funding of integrity, in the short term at least, has become an additional expense that must be funded via betting revenue. In the last few weeks, these organisations have taken steps to reduce their costs and revised budgets have been prepared with significant changes, with forecasted savings of approximately $1m through the remainder of the 2019/20 season. We continue to work with these organisations to become as efficient as possible. This will be ongoing. Are RITA looking closely at a Joint Venture partner to unlock the value left in the current business? As late as mid March the Board advanced discussions to further consider potential partnering opportunities and we continue to work under the direction of the Minister in that regard. Covid-19 however has put this work on hold over the past six weeks as we (and the parties we’ve been in discussion with) have been dealing with the pandemic. It is also worth noting that any progress to actively move this forward is dependent on the progression of the Racing Industry Bill. When is the Racing Reform Bill likely to be enacted? Currently, the Racing Industry Bill has a proposed enactment date of 1 July 2020. The Bill was at the Select Committee stage when Covid-19 restrictions meant that Parliament wasn’t able to conduct normal business. The Technology and Infrastructure Select Committee’s original date for reporting back to the House was 17 April – this has now been extended to 1 June 2020. The timetable for consideration of the Bill (and all legislation) is determined by the whole of Parliament and will be subject to a range of considerations, however we understand that the passing of this Bill remains a priority for this Government. When will there be clarity regarding ownership of the TAB? We have not seen any formal proposals from the Government to determine the ownership of the TAB. This was not addressed in the Messara Report and RITA (or MAC) have not been asked to consider this issue. However, under the existing Racing Act, it is clear that the racing industry is the ultimate recipient of profits of the TAB – this position is unchanged in the Racing Industry Bill. Finally, we hope that this letter assists in answering your questions. As you know, RITA is currently meeting with your code body, NZTR, every second day to ensure it is kept up to date on all matters relating to the TAB business and the resumption of racing. Through the information arising from these meetings and RITA’s regular industry updates, we will endeavour to continue to keep your Association as informed and up to date as possible. Yours sincerely, Dean McKenzieExecutive Chair (for and on behalf of the Board) Racing Industry Transition Agency

With the assistance of working groups of trainers and clubs, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) has developed a return to racing plan which includes a flat stakes level of $15,000 for all races at 13 meetings during July. A number of initiatives will also be introduced with the focus on reducing costs and spreading returns for owners. They include ensuring a wider distribution of stakes to more owners, payments will be made back to 14th, no nomination/acceptance fees for those horses which start, and meetings scheduled to be held closer to the horse population. Race programming during July only will allow for open nominations to ensure those horses wanting to race are able to gain a start. More detail regarding the racing policy can be found here. “We understand that this is a different approach, but NZTR recognised this as an opportunity to provide some innovation and flexibility around the payment of stakes to owners, trainers and jockeys during July,” NZTR chief executive Bernard Saundry said in a statement. “Confirmation of RITA’s transitional funding to the codes follows discussions with codes, and industry consultation on a draft racing calendar for a resumption of racing. The distribution from RITA reflects the reduced racing over the period and the phased return to racing for each code. “NZTR and the other codes are also working with RITA on funding and race dates for the 2020/21 season and further updates on these important issues will be provided as it comes to hand. “This has been a testing time for all our participants, and NZTR thanks you for your patience while we have worked through this process for the resumption of racing in July. “It was pleasing to see our horses back at the training track under alert level 3 this week and we appreciate the work of those at the coalface who are implementing the protocols at training tracks and race clubs across the country.”

Well I'm currently living in Northland and moved in to a new flat just before the lockdown. Unfortunately my household stuff is still in lockdown - somewhere else! I needed some "essentials" - frypan, pot, plate, bowl, knife and fork, spoon and towels. So I went online and visited the big three in this department - Briscoes, K-Mart and The Warehouse. I did the old online comparison and immediately dropped Briscoes on price even though they were still having a "Covid-19 half-price essentials sale." I wasn't really interested in their "essential" $250 coffee maker. That left K-Mart and The Warehouse. K-Mart won the day mainly on ease of use of their website and finding what was allowed to be shipped and what wasn't. Also the shipping charge of $9 was dropped if your purchases totaled over $45. Their promised delivery time of 5 days was also quicker than The Warehouse however the delivery time has now been extended to 14 business days. I made the order on 6 April and a parcel arrived on 9 April! Sweet! Uh-oh - not all items were delivered due to stock issues. Mmmm the items came from Palmerston North. Odd - when there is a K-Mart less than 3km from my front door. But then Palmerston North is a major distribution Centre in the North Island. The second parcel arrived 17 April - 11 days after order. Not a real problem as my substitute for the ordered breakfast bowl - an empty 2 litre icecream container had been working well. K-Mart must have found the bowl and other items at St Lukes in Auckland as that is where part 2 of my order originated from. I was starting to think now that the zero shipping charge was looking like a bargain! Damn it......the order was still incomplete! Not to worry - I was no longer eating with my fingers! Was getting sick of grilling everything though as no pots had arrived yet! The THIRD parcel arrived 22 April - 16 days after order. Now this parcel had tripped around a bit. It's items were picked and packed in Rosedale, Albany, North Shore. Oh well getting closer to home I suppose. Unfortunately the parcel first went south instead of north. It ended up in Whakatane for a day before getting on the right transporter to head north again! So finally I had my $45 worth of "essential" items from K-Mart delivered. You could say the first order was essential essentials. I wasn't totally turned off by my K-Mart experience and decided to order some more stuff. I was also motivated by a close friend who had agreed to come around for dinner - we weren't breaking any rules as we were both in single person bubbles. Now she is a trained chef so I would have to be on my mettle to impress her. But I was prepared after weeks of watching cooking programmes on freeview TV. So I thought I would give The Warehouse a go this time. Part of the motivation for that was they were a NZ owned company and I was getting a bit pissed off by the price gouging I was seeing at the Australian owned Supermarkets. I placed my order 27 April and paid a $5 shipping charge. I ordered some more cutlery (had only ordered single items in my K-Mart order), a roasting dish (OK I hadn't learnt that much from watching cooking programmes), a chopping board (not a good look to a chef chopping on the kitchen bench), a decent bathroom towel and hand cloth (ever hopeful), a puncture repair kit (the airbed had sprung a leak), a number of other items and one $2 9 inch tong (not classing serving dinner with your fingers!). The Warehouse site had a warning that there may be a 10 business day delivery time. That's OK it'll still be before Level-2. Again they had to split the order and send in separate orders. Seems neither K-Mart nor The Warehouse have ALL their "essential" items in one store. I mistakenly assumed again that given there was a huge mega The Warehouse less than 3km from my door that that would be where they order was fulfilled from. WRONG again! The first parcel of my order contained one item.........the $2 9 inch tongs! It was dispatched 1 May from Paraparaumu, Kapiti Coast!! I've named these tongs my Seven Fifty Tongs as they have travelled 750km to get here. The second parcel was dispatched on 4 May from Whangarei (yahoo!). Both parcel's one and two arrived the same day by motorbike on 5 May. Dinner was postponed as none of the items I really needed had arrived. Now the third parcel of all the parcels (six in total) from both K-Mart and The Warehouse is the most interesting of all. Not only the most wanted by now but also it seems the most traveled. It was packed on 12 May 16 days after order. It was packed in.....wait for it.....drum roll....DUNEDIN! It made it to Tauranga 17 May 21 days after order. It seems it wasn't supposed to go to Tauranga and its status is Delayed in Tauranga........ I know that our courier companies are under pressure - well the drivers are. I have a huge amount of sympathy for those drivers who are largely contractors. Only in the last week have I learnt that they earn between 20 cents and a $1 for each parcel. But.......surely one of our largest retail outlets can do better than this? By the way Dinner is off indefinitely - doesn't have the same appeal now that bubbles have been burst. I can now go down to The Warehouse and buy those items that are in transit but I don't really need five roasting dishes (there are 3 in storage). The Roasting Dish will be name Sixteen Seventy Eight - that's 1,678 km that its travelled......although I'm tempting fate because it still hasn't arrived!

So the Board meeting is presumably over. Well it's now at the champagne and sausage roll stage. Obviously they didn't release the half yearly report. Perhaps it's just been sent to the printers!

Like most people who have or have had a stake in the industry I've heard lots of promises but in 20 years haven't seen any changes of substance. Now 10 months since the new Board I haven't seen anything of substance again! I would have expected more especially when the Chairman of the Board and the CEO are one and the same person i.e. has unprecedented power in the history of the NZRB/RITA. So I'm not blindly having "nothing good to say" I'm commenting from a position of informed observation! Yet you keep saying "just wait" or "I've heard" but there is no evidence to back your "good" observations up. As I said in earlier posts I would have expected to see some action well before now.

Which raises the question if a business was technically insolvent should it have been eligible for the subsidy?

I'm far from saying things are "not going well." I'm actually saying they are going better than we are being told. We didn't need to go to Lockdown Level-4. Isolating the identified clusters and contacting the contacts didn't require that. I just travelled to the supermarket and back in my stretched limousine driven by my personal uniformed driver. OK ok it was the public bus but I was the only one on it and it does go from door to door! A new driver today - I like to rotate my staff. The driver and family had just got out of 14 days quarantine after getting back from England. We put them up in a hotel in Auckland. I was astounded to learn that although they had their temperature taken they weren't tested for Covid-19. This confirms my hypothesis that the only testing we are doing is RNA or Antigen. Apparently no one in the hotel was tested unless they displayed symptoms. Which seems a bit pointless when the virus can be asymptomatic i.e. display NO symptoms. That was bad enough! But then I learnt that the bus staff are stood down if they turn up with a cold even though they are segregated from their passengers by about 5 rows. I asked given they were an essential public service had they been given free flu vaccines. The answer was NO! FFS!

Exactly! What happened to the 90 day rule of change? After all they have more experience and knowledge of the racing industry than we do. They were appointed to do a job and given the support of the Minister to do it. The 90 days ended on 30 September! 150 days (I'm being kind) before Covid-19!!! We saw jack during the 90 days and jack in the following 150 days. The only thing is the last 60 days has been their hand out for the Covid-19 subsidy! So JJ Flash - they picked up a "shambles and lots of debt" but what did they do? How long does it take for these experienced and knowledgeable people to act?

Can we get back on topic? Otherwise I'll split these posts and create a new Topic. Don't mind the debate just this is the Galloping forum and Pell wasn't arrested by the RIU.

What have they done since they were appointed? Jack!

They could still run at a loss but HRNZ benefits. That's because they get a distribution of the Pokie money. Other than rental costs the venues themselves can't benefit from the distribution of Pokie profits. I assume HRNZ has a class 4 Pokie license. The losses that the businesses incur will be ring fenced to the company that owns them and not be a drain on HRNZ.

But wait there's more! Whoever is doing the numbers could be a GM at you know where.... Again according to the MOH (yep this was reported on their website) we have had 1,121 confirmed cases of Covid-19 1,180 have recovered. Wow that's 59 more recoveries than confirmed! Maybe Zero means minus something!

Maybe the numbers chap at the NZ Herald (or is it the MOH?) should get a job at the NZ TAB! "there were 5 confirmed cases but 6 were considered probable.." So we get minus 1 confirmed cases for the day.

Do you own the horse in both cases? That is if the horse is sold to say Hong Kong do you share in the sale?

Only if you say they are lies.

I rarely watch the TV news nowadays. For a long time I've decided to avoid it. Journalism is bad enough in this country without having it reduced to 2 minute sound bites interspersed with dubious subjective images and video. So while taking time out and watching a mindless TV programme on free-to-air (that wasn't a house buying/renovation or cooking show) I saw a news flash that "NZ has eliminated the Coronavirus say PM." That was followed by "only 6 new cases reported today." Uh?! Doesn't one statement contradict the other? I thought I'd better look a bit deeper into this "news" by going online and checking out Stuff and the NZ Herald. Why not, both news sites tout themselves as the purveyor of truth and investigative journalism. Although now that the Government has promised to flick them both a large wallop of cash Stuff has stopped badgering us with ads to "donate a dollar" to keep the "media free." It is reported that the Prime Minister said "we are following a strategy of eliminating not eradicating the virus" and that "elimination doesn't mean zero cases." Now I pride myself in having a good vocabulary, of being able to understand the definition of words and to spell correctly, but, I asked myself, aren't the definitions of eliminate and eradicate largely the same? Doesn't eliminate mean getting to zero of something? I started visiting dictionary websites and found as I thought that the meaning of eliminate and eradicate are essentially the same. Both are synonyms of the other. Both mean - to completely remove something that is not wanted or needed i.e. it means zero. As happens later in life a distant memory starts slowly whirring away in the cerebral soft drive. Haven't I read something some time ago about a system where words are given different meanings for the purposes of ideology. Suddenly the memory sprang forth. George Orwell's concept of Newspeak from his novel 1984. In Orwell's words, Newspeak was "designed to diminish the range of thought." Newspeak was characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another, the interchangeability of parts of speech, and the creation of words for political purposes. The word has caught on in general use to refer to confusing or deceptive bureaucratic jargon. Coincidentally (or not) 1984 was set in a superstate called Oceania. Which would you rather have Transparency or Truth? Can you not have one without the other? Part of the Government's strategy of so called elimination has been to "randomly" test people standing in supermarket queues to determine if Covid-19 infection is more widely spread than the identified clusters. My BS antenna immediately shot up when I heard this - my university science training started whirring. The testing was hardly a random sample of the population. For a start those people queuing at the supermarket were well enough to do so. By Level-4 standards they were super well. After all if you weren't, why risk being ostracised and snitched on by 200 people outside the supermarket when you coughed? The point is the sample wasn't random. My science brain started to go into overdrive. I asked myself what were the tests they were doing? Yes Covid-19 but what type of tests? There are four main types of Covid-19 tests: RT-PCR - the testing for the virus RNA in nasal swabs; Antigen testing - the testing for the toxin or other substance given off by the virus that initiates an immune response. It isn't the virus itself and is normally taken as mouth swabs; IgM Antibody testing - IgM is the first antibody released by the body in its immune response. The "I" stands for Immunoglobulin which is produced by the white blood cells in blood. Testing requires a blood sample; IgG Antibody testing - IgG is an antibody created by the immune system generally after IgM and after the live virus has largely gone. Again requires a blood test. Tests 1 and 2 test for live virus i.e. "you've got it." Tests 3 and 4 test for the antibodies - "you've had it." We don't actually know what type of tests they were doing but reading what was reported and viewing the pictures of the testing we can ascertain that they were tests derived from the taking of nasal swabs. So what you might ask? Well nasal swabs were the first tests developed for Covid-19. They take samples of material at the back of the nose. The test is for LIVE Covid-19. Essentially the first tests developed looked for the signature viral RNA. (In simple terms viral RNA is like our DNA. It is the genetic signature of the virus.) The tests are called PCR-RNA or RT-PCR. They only need a small sample of the actual virus for testing and the test result can be achieved in hours. They rely on the amplification of RNA in a laboratory. There are some drawbacks however. The presence of the virus in the respiratory tract has been shown to be variable i.e. some people have the virus but it isn't present at the back of the nose. Also unless care is taken with the samples certain environmental conditions will destroy or at best fragment the RNA so it cannot be identified. The Antigen tests test for the toxins made by the virus not the virus itself. These toxins have a virus specific signature. The advantage of antigen testing is that the antigens are more stable and less prone to environmental degradation than RNA testing. Generally they are taken by mouth or back of the throat swabs of sputum. One could justifiably assume that the "random supermarket" test taken in NZ was the RNA test. So we can then hypothesise that the testing undertaken to date was for "active" cases. No mass random testing for antibodies has yet to be undertaken. So what you may well ask? The Government has been focussed on active cases and deaths. We don't know how much of the population have been infected, not detected and recovered. We are not testing for that. Data globally is starting to show a decline in the death rate. But note that that rate is being measured as a ratio of deaths to confirmed cases. Confirmed means a positive test for Covid-19 RNA or Antigens. As more antibody tests are being undertaken it is being found that the rate of asymptomatic cases i.e. those that have had Covid-19 but with no symptoms or very mild symptoms is very high. Is it likely that we have people in NZ who have had Covid-19 and not been confirmed as an official case? More than likely. Why aren't we seeing randomised testing for antibodies? It may not support the Government's narrative. Random testing of 3,000 people in New York City has shown that 1 in five (21%) or 2.7 million people have Covid-19 antibodies. That's nearly as many as the total Global confirmed cases. 12,000 people have died from Covid-19 in NYC. We know that the majority of those people had comorbidities. The death rate of people dead per confirmed cases is over 8%. But when you include the number of people that have possibly been infected then the rate drops to less than 0.5%. Now the figures are changing constantly and you may argue with the numbers used but what is clearly happening is that the more people that are tested the more the death rate drops. Shouldn't we be testing the general population more? Before we put the country in hock for generations to come. Before we are forced to change our way of life? Before we give up democracy? Before we start changing the meaning of words such as elimination and zero. Don't get me started on the inconsistency between the Politburo policy treatment of Covid-19 and influenza. Covid-19 may prove to have the same annual death rate as the seasonal Influenza. Why isn't Comrade Adern broadening Government funded Flu Vaccinations? It is free to vulnerable people and "essential workers". It costs the Phamarcies and GP's who administer the vaccine $9 a vaccine. Those not eligible for a free vaccine are charged $35. How many jabs could a trained nurse give in an hour at $26 a jab? The point is an infection of the Flu AND Covid-19 doubles the chance of serious outcomes. A shame our leaders haven't taken the Hippocratic oath as opposed to the Hypocrisy oath.

To the RITA Chairman/CEO and Board Members Now is the time to be completely transparent. If the industry stakeholders are to support RITA and the decisions made by the Board then now is the time to be transparent. You have the technology and it won't cost you anything. Switch from broadcasting the American Quarter Horse racing on Trackside and their non-existent tote pools and the Fixed Odds losses (let's face it your bookies know nothing about Quarter Horse racing) and BROADCAST TODAY'S BOARD MEETING. Let the stakeholders, whose support you need, hear what the state of the racing nation is WITHOUT the media manager syrup nor the vested interest of a few "in the know" people. Broadcast the meeting on Trackside. ;

Of course it makes sense. But you would need a different agenda for sense to prevail!

Well it is known to have a better surface in the winter than Awapuni. Wouldn't it be nice to see the Castletown Stakes back where it belongs.

What have they done in the last few months to make it so?

The jockey I feel sorry for is K Asano - apprentice. I would have loved to see him knock the premiership off.