October 11, 2021
Davis tries for more awhi on Covid message
Te Taitokerau MP Kelvin Davis says there’s no point finger pointing about two women who breached the Auckland boundary for a jaunt through Northland, and what’s important is to find out where they went – and get everybody vaccinated.
Northland was put into level 3 lockdown Friday night because one of the women who tested positive for Covid was refusing to say whom she visited, and the other has still not come forward.
Mr Davis says Northland’s three MPs hosted a Zoom meeting yesterday for the region’s iwi, community, health, business and sports leaders to discuss how to manage the lockdown while getting vaccination numbers up.
He discovered his blunt messages to the vaccine-hesitant don’t work, as they’re looking for empathy rather than facts and figures.
“I’m a politician. People probably see me and just go ‘politicians want to ram stuff down your throat,’ so it’s about if I can’t get the right message, who is someone who can have the conversation with the person who is vaccine hesitant,” Mr Davis says.
He also softened his opposition to iwi road checks, saying if people feel they will make a difference, give them a try.