title: A mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy - Is there a place in New Zealand?

authors: Sugimoto, Irene

subjects: COVID-19

abstract: It has been nearly a year and a half since COVID-19 emerged in New Zealand. Although New Zealand has been fortunate enough to have little to no active community cases, it is still enduring the effects of COVID-19. The COVID-19 lockdown measures and continued strict border closures has caused the New Zealand economy as well as the New Zealand population’s mental health to deteriorate. Current COVID-19 management strategies are too costly and are detrimental to New Zealand. Therefore, to minimise the damage caused by COVID-19, it is crucial that New Zealand achieves herd immunity against COVID-19 through vaccinations. However, New Zealand may struggle to reach herd immunity due to the presence of vaccine hesitancy. Accordingly, the New Zealand Government may need to introduce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy to achieve herd immunity.

A mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy would engage and limit the right to refuse medical treatment which is affirmed under s 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The New Zealand Government would need to ensure that a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy is a justified limitation placed upon the s 11 right. To do this, the New Zealand Government must balance the public health interests with the right to personal autonomy. Although New Zealand places a high value on personal autonomy, the New Zealand Government has previously overridden personal autonomy to protect the nation’s health and well-being from public health crises (including COVID-19). Because New Zealand has a precedent of prioritising the population’s well-being over individuals’ rights, it is possible for the New Zealand Government to implement a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. However, to introduce such policy, the New Zealand Government must observe the rule of law to uphold the foundation of a liberal democracy. If the New Zealand Government fails to consider the rule of law, a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy can be deemed ultra vires and is likely that public trust and confidence in vaccinations and governments will decline.

In summary, this paper argues that if New Zealand struggles to achieve herd immunity, people who can receive COVID-19 vaccinations should be subject to a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. This is because the right to exercise personal autonomy turns into a privilege from a right if it causes harm upon others. If COVID-19 vaccinations are not mandated, people who actively chose to not be vaccinated will increase the spread of COVID-19 and create significant health risks. One may argue that being vaccinated against COVID-19 comes with the risk of experiencing adverse reactions. However, such risks are small compared to the risk of contracting COVID-19 and are outweighed by the benefits associated with COVID-19 vaccinations.

text: A mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy - Is there a place in New Zealand? It has been nearly a year and a half since COVID-19 emerged in New Zealand. Although New Zealand has been fortunate enough to have little to no active community cases, it is still enduring the effects of COVID-19. The COVID-19 lockdown measures and continued strict border closures has caused the New Zealand economy as well as the New Zealand population’s mental health to deteriorate. Current COVID-19 management strategies are too costly and are detrimental to New Zealand. Therefore, to minimise the damage caused by COVID-19, it is crucial that New Zealand achieves herd immunity against COVID-19 through vaccinations. However, New Zealand may struggle to reach herd immunity due to the presence of vaccine hesitancy. Accordingly, the New Zealand Government may need to introduce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy to achieve herd immunity.

A mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy would engage and limit the right to refuse medical treatment which is affirmed under s 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The New Zealand Government would need to ensure that a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy is a justified limitation placed upon the s 11 right. To do this, the New Zealand Government must balance the public health interests with the right to personal autonomy. Although New Zealand places a high value on personal autonomy, the New Zealand Government has previously overridden personal autonomy to protect the nation’s health and well-being from public health crises (including COVID-19). Because New Zealand has a precedent of prioritising the population’s well-being over individuals’ rights, it is possible for the New Zealand Government to implement a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. However, to introduce such policy, the New Zealand Government must observe the rule of law to uphold the foundation of a liberal democracy. If the New Zealand Government fails to consider the rule of law, a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy can be deemed ultra vires and is likely that public trust and confidence in vaccinations and governments will decline.

In summary, this paper argues that if New Zealand struggles to achieve herd immunity, people who can receive COVID-19 vaccinations should be subject to a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. This is because the right to exercise personal autonomy turns into a privilege from a right if it causes harm upon others. If COVID-19 vaccinations are not mandated, people who actively chose to not be vaccinated will increase the spread of COVID-19 and create significant health risks. One may argue that being vaccinated against COVID-19 comes with the risk of experiencing adverse reactions. However, such risks are small compared to the risk of contracting COVID-19 and are outweighed by the benefits associated with COVID-19 vaccinations.

year: 2021

title: Unsupervised discretization using tree-based density estimation

authors: Schmidberger, Gabi

subjects: computer science

abstract: This paper presents an unsupervised discretization method that performs density estimation for univariate data. The subintervals that the discretization produces can be used as the bins of a histogram. Histograms are a very simple and broadly understood means for displaying data, and our method automatically adapts bin widths to the data. It uses the log-likelihood as the scoring function to select cut points and the cross-validated log-likelihood to select the number of intervals. We compare this method with equal-width discretization where we also select the number of bins using the cross-validated log-likelihood and with equal-frequency discretization.

text: Unsupervised discretization using tree-based density estimation This paper presents an unsupervised discretization method that performs density estimation for univariate data. The subintervals that the discretization produces can be used as the bins of a histogram. Histograms are a very simple and broadly understood means for displaying data, and our method automatically adapts bin widths to the data. It uses the log-likelihood as the scoring function to select cut points and the cross-validated log-likelihood to select the number of intervals. We compare this method with equal-width discretization where we also select the number of bins using the cross-validated log-likelihood and with equal-frequency discretization.

year: 2005

title: Estimated catchment loads of nitrogen and phosphorus to the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes

authors: McBride, Chris G.

abstract: The Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes are central to the identity of their region, of immense historical and cultural importance, and provide ecosystem services that underpin biodiversity, conservation and socioeconomic aspirations of the community. The diversity of water quality in the lakes reflects their catchments, which are diverse in topography, hydrogeology and intensity of land use, ranging from the largely undeveloped land around lakes Tikitapu and Okataina, to highly developed forestry and pastoral land around lakes Rerewhakaaitu, Rotorua and Okaro. Lake water quality is strongly linked to nutrients received by each lake from surface flows and groundwater springs. It therefore follows that management of lake water quality requires a good understanding of nutrient loads derived from the landscape, as does the assessment or prediction of the in-lake effects of catchment-based management initiatives aimed at improving lake water quality.

text: Estimated catchment loads of nitrogen and phosphorus to the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes The Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes are central to the identity of their region, of immense historical and cultural importance, and provide ecosystem services that underpin biodiversity, conservation and socioeconomic aspirations of the community. The diversity of water quality in the lakes reflects their catchments, which are diverse in topography, hydrogeology and intensity of land use, ranging from the largely undeveloped land around lakes Tikitapu and Okataina, to highly developed forestry and pastoral land around lakes Rerewhakaaitu, Rotorua and Okaro. Lake water quality is strongly linked to nutrients received by each lake from surface flows and groundwater springs. It therefore follows that management of lake water quality requires a good understanding of nutrient loads derived from the landscape, as does the assessment or prediction of the in-lake effects of catchment-based management initiatives aimed at improving lake water quality.

year: 2021