Fire service commanders should immediately scrap the mandates for fire service personnel, before more are sent off the job.

Keeping those mandates in place poses more risk to the public from having insufficient resources to attend fires and motor vehicle crashes than any risk of catching or passing on Covid-19.

Those mandates also pose a risk to fire service staff with insufficient backup and overwork, stress, and mental health issues.

Police are no longer working under mandates and it is ridiculous to suggest that fire service personnel coming into contact with the public pose more risk that police coming into contact with the public.

Despite being triple jabbed, the Prime Minister has caught Covid as has trade minister Phil Twyford, which is overwhelming proof that being fully jabbed will not stop a person catching Covid 19.

The Prime Minister’s family have also caught it which again proves that being fully jabbed does not stop transmission.

Fire service bosses say they have ‘surge strategy’ plans in place, but those are next to useless in rural areas.

If an incident in Okaihau requires the Kerikeri brigade to attend and another incident happens in Kerikeri, sending a crew from Whangarei will be a complete waste of time.

By the time they got to Kawakawa, just over half way to Kerikeri, the building would have burnt down and any victims in it or at a road crash would have long since passed away.

Fire bosses need to grow a backbone, stop being obedient servants of the government, and do what’s right for their staff and the public – call an end to the mandates now.

If that raises the ire of the government so be it.

Mandates don’t work, they’re unnecessary, an assault on human rights that is out of all proportion to the risk, and cannot be justified. It’s time they were scrapped and fire service bosses should do so, regardless of the health order in place.

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