Vaccine Hesitancy — Why I Changed My Mind
TAAY Summer Break 2025/26
As 2025 draws to a close I’d like to thank everyone who has supported Te Aro Astanga Yoga this year. I recognise how difficult the year has been financially for many of you and appreciate that you have made the commitment to continue to practice Ashtanga Yoga with us. Te Aro Astanga Yoga is surviving thanks to you! I hope to see you all for a fantastic 2026.
Last Class 2025: Monday 22nd Dec. — Led Full Primary Series 6:30 to 8:00 am.
First Class 2026: Thurs. 15th Jan. — Open Mysore Morning Class 6:00 to 8:30 am
I hope that you and your whānau have a safe and happy Festive Season.
Mike- this is written beautifully as usual. I love the description of practising ahimsa- no matter your choice. Powerful post.
I am so pleased to read this
Covid is very deadly to us all in one way or a other
Thanks Mike for this post, totally respect your process and ultimate decision around the vaccines.
In the spirit of Informed Consent, I just wanted to make comment around a point that many in NZ may not be aware of. That is, a number of early treatment protocols for COVID have been developed internationally and shown to be highly effective for reducing mortality and severity of symptoms from COVID. Some commentators suggest the potential for reducing mortality by up to 85% if these are applied in a timely manner, therefore calling into question the need for widespread vaccination.
Some examples of these protocols are available here for anyone interested: https://faculty.utrgv.edu/eleftherios.gkioulekas/zelenko/aaps-Guide-to-Home-Based-Covid-Treatment.pdf
Unfortunately, perhaps due to their heavy investment in the vaccine strategy and philosophy of elimination, the NZ government is not taking active steps to investigate and make these treatment protocols available to NZ’ers. This has been confirmed by Official Information Act Requests, where the government has responded that they will only take steps to approve treatments like Ivermectin if they first receive an application from the drug companies who manufacture the product. As many of these drug companies are also manufacturing vaccines, and vaccines are far more lucrative, there seems to be very little motivation to approve alternative methods for managing COVID in NZ.
It has also been suggested that the NZ government’s contract with Pfizer explicitly limits their ability to promote off-label treatments, though this contract is considered ‘commercially sensitive’ so there is a distinct lack of transparency here and no real opportunity for public scrutiny.
Interesting also to observe that the NZ media has been very quick to downplay or even ridicule the potential for alternatives to vaccination. Even the NZ Medical Council has taken the position of ‘strongly discouraging’ NZ Dr’s from applying these kinds of protocols.
At the same time there are court cases and senate hearings taking place overseas with Doctors pleading to have these protocols adopted more widely and urgently, in order to save lives, Many NZ Doctors have also gone on record in the last few months around this issue, often at great personal risk. Investigating this issue in depth makes one call into question what is really going on behind the scenes.
I agree wholeheartedly with your call to ‘choose with compassion’ and as I say, I fully respect the choice you have made. From my personal point of view, this choice calls me to respond to your post as I have here. I do this because I feel the messaging we are being exposed to in NZ is at times disingenuous, lacks balance, and doesn’t give people an opportunity to make a fully informed choice around vaccination.
I really appreciate you raising this controversial topic in a post, and would love to encourage a lot more open, respectful dialog around the issue so people can learn from each other and develop a deep respect for others’ choices.
Hi Jonathan.
Thank you for the informed comment. I agree that there needs to be a lot more work done on TREATING people with the virus. However, at the moment we need to work with what we have and there is no doubt that the vaccine is saving lives internationally. I am sure this is being done along side research into how to effectively treat it so that we are not reliant on having to vaccinate, especially as the virus mutates so readily. We have yet to reach this point.
Mike
Kia ora Mike, Victoria and whānau,
I love popping in on here and catching up with you “virtually.
Thank you Mike, for your post and connection to the yoga sutras “Ahimsa”.
I hope to meet you kanohi ki te kanohi – face to face sooner than later.
Tino Aroha
Thank you so much for writing this, Mike. It is so important to hear from respected leaders in our communities, such as yours. And you communicated it so elequently. Most especially, the closing quotation I couldn’t agree more.
Miss you and practicing at your shala
Much Love and well wishes, Fatimih
Miss you too, Fatimih. Hope all is well with you and that the wind blows you back to Wellington some time.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Mike
Kia ora Kimi.
can’t wait for the kanohi ki te kanohi too.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Mike
Tena koe e Mike. Thanks for your post from Peter and I if the Kirikiriroa yoga community. We both vacinnated. I made the move after hearing stories from a kaumatua up this way about the devastating impact of the Spanish flu on their community. Thanks again for your post. Wendy and P eter