I’ve recently read calls for high profile figures in New Zealand to endorse the new COVID vaccines, as a way to reassure the portion of the public who currently feel unsure about the vaccines’ safety. It’s been suggested that public figures such as Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield and others might want to allow the media to record them being **immunised **against COVID. Personally I think that, at least for those who are conspiracy minded, watching those who are supposedly a part of the conspiracy be injected is probably not going to be very convincing.

I’ve also heard the idea that famous Kiwi sports figures might be a better group to take on this task, given that so many in our country look up to them. It’d be nice to see sports personalities make up for some of the damage to health literacy that others in the sporting world have caused, with their reckless endorsement of useless supplements and dangerous treatments. Sir Colin Meads’ thumbs up for Te Kiri Gold, a bleach based "cure" for cancer, and Sir Bob Charles’ hawking of deer velvet, spring to mind.

Thankfully we now have another kind of endorsement of the COVID-19 vaccines - an inverse endorsement, I guess you could call it. Hannah Tamaki, the wife of "Bishop Apostle" Brian Tamaki of Destiny Church, has stated publicly that she won’t be getting the vaccine (opens new window) after the two of them were hauled over the coals (opens new window) in the media last week for skipping town just before Auckland went into lockdown on Sunday. Given the lack of public support for Brian, Hannah, and their shoddy excuse for a church (which, let’s be honest, appears to be nothing more than an ATM for the Tamakis), I’m hopeful that Hannah’s public shunning of the vaccine will just drive more people in New Zealand to be vaccinated.