Race for the one legged gnome
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The unwelcome return to Level 4 rom the publishing of your newspaper to the collecting of your rubbish – everything was thrown into doubt this week as a result of the Government’s decision to put the country onto a Level 4 alert level. As the country was told face masks would be compulsory for over 11-yearolds in stores, and to anticipate many more Covid cases, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said officials could not guarantee the South Island was not implicated in the outbreak. She wanted the latest restrictions to be “short and sharp, not light and long” – but long is what the country got. There were long queues all over the country as people crowded into supermarkets and alcohol outlets to stock up. In Dunedin police broke up a party of 100 people at 12.30am – half an hour after the lockdown started. QLDC Chief Executive Mike Theelen said the council was well placed to
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How explorewanaka saw town on Instagram on Wednesday.
maintain essential services when the Government announced a return to level four lockdown. “Key staff continue to work remotely, and our team is on call to respond to any emergency situations,” he said. Southern Health announced its Covid vaccination programme was being suspended and it planned to provide further information about rebooking. Police said they expected people to be well aware of what was expected of them, and Alert Level restrictions would be enforced. Aurora Energy said it had no planned power cuts during the lockdown period and would continue to respond to emergency faults and carry out essential safety work. The Wānaka Sun, which is usually printed on a Wednesday evening, was geared up for an online print this week and will come out in hardcopy if circumstances allow.
The vaping creep Lauren Prebble
journalist@thewanakasun.co.nz
Vaping has been “creeping” into the school yard at Mount Aspiring College. School Principal Nicoa Jacobsen says she has dealt with cases where vapes have been confiscated from students - and adults were shocked to find their students were using vapes. A bill to regulate vape products came into effect last Wednesday and it aims to limit the sale of nicotine flavoured vape refills to specialised stores - but critics say it's a tepid action against a growing vape epidemic among youth. The Wānaka Sun understands the closest specialised retailers dealing in the product is in Queenstown and Alexandra but youths with an R18 license were able to purchase a selection of flavours at general stores.
Under the new law, liquor stores, supermarkets and dairies are restricted to stock only three flavours Mint, Menthol and Tobacco. The bill “strikes a balance between ensuring these products are not marketed or sold to young people, while ensuring vaping products are available for smokers who want to switch to a less harmful alternative,” Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall said. Vaping is advanced as an option to wean smokers of tobacco, but it is seen in the education sector as an introduction to addiction for teenagers. Nicola Jacobsenn believes there is ‘misinformation’ from the Ministry of Health around the messaging that vaping is better than smoking. “If the government is serious about New Zealand becoming Smokefree, then legislation to
stop the selling of smoking and vaping products needs to be reviewed to ensure that young people are protected,” she said. “Some young people take risks in terms of their behaviour, and one of those risks might be vaping,” she said.
While there has been an increase in vaping amongst teens, she doesn’t believe the school has a vaping culture. The government aims to ban vaping in cars carrying children by November and looks to tackle packaging by February 2022.
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