Plenty of facts to inform discussion on Covid response

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The missing parts of the writing process described today by our columnist are research and critical thinking. Being elderly isn’t an excuse for not applying some effort in this regard if you want to use your reckons to claim that politicians, medical experts and the media have been telling an “outright dirty lie”, and potentially undermine confidence in public health measures that save lives.

Vaccination is highly effective at protecting people from severe illness and death from a Covid infection — to claim it’s not at all effective is either a lie or a giant misunderstanding from our columnist’s misplaced confidence in his mathematical analysis.

Here is some more simple arithmetic: New Zealand has recorded 4119 Covid-related deaths, equating to 841 per 1 million people. In comparison the UK has had 221,943 Covid-related deaths, or 3240 per 1m people, while the number for the US is 1,159,697 deaths, or 3464 per 1m people.

Applying these Covid mortality rates to Aotearoa NZ amounts to 16,598 or 17,746 deaths; hence the informed — but conservative — estimation that our Covid response saved around 10,000 lives (12,479 on the UK rate, 13,627 by US rate).

However, if we had the same Covid mortality rate as Australia (773 per 1m people) there would have been 159 fewer deaths in NZ. It’s an interesting comparison as their response was similar, including the cost — $A311bn according to the 2021 Australian federal budget.

To further stir the grey matter our columnist should consider New Zealand’s Covid vaccine uptake percentages by age band, which show just how highly vaccinated our elderly are: in the 95-100 percent range for those aged 75 and over (and 93-95 percent for people aged 60-74). This, and no doubt similarly high vaccination rates among younger people with health conditions that make them vulnerable to severe illness from a Covid infection, has a huge bearing on the vaccination status of those who end up in hospital or die.

This essential context, and the fact vulnerability to severe illness from a Covid infection can far outweigh the risk reduction from vaccination, has been missed completely by our columnist and botched his simple maths.

Discussion of our Covid response remains important as it was such a huge deal; there are aspects that deserve praise and others that warrant criticism. There are also a lot of facts to inform the discussion — especially now, in hindsight.