Fears of spiralling Covid-19 toll
Baker warns deaths may reach several thousand a year after ministry releases new data
New Zealand’s nearly 1400 virus-attributed deaths is likely still a “conservative” measure of how Covid-19 is driving up our mortality rates, an epidemiologist says.
Otago University’s Professor Michael Baker also says that if our country continued to see high numbers of people dying with the virus, the toll could reach several thousand deaths in a year — potentially adding 10 per cent to the annual mortality rate.
“That would be 10 times the road toll. So, by every indicator, this is becoming one of the most common causes of death in New Zealand.”
Earlier yesterday, the Ministry of Health published updated information revealing more than 900 people had died directly from Covid-19 in this pandemic — and that the virus had been a contributing factor in nearly 500 other deaths.
The new figures showed 1396 deaths recorded since the start of the pandemic are formally Covid-linked — with 903 listed as the virus being the underlying cause, and 493 of it being “contributory” to the death.
All but 35 of those deaths occurred within 28 days of the person testing positive. Of the remainder of the 2039 virus-related deaths reported since
the start of the pandemic, 410 weren’t linked to Covid-19, and there wasn’t enough information to establish the virus’ part in 233 deaths.
Previously, the ministry had been recording virus-linked mortalities as anyone who’d died with 28 days of returning a positive test result.
Because it might have captured recently-infected people who’d died in unrelated circumstances, such as a car crash, this method of counting has drawn criticism.
But the updated statistics — now being reported to the World Health
Organisation — confirmed the majority of those virus-linked deaths reported each day were in fact tied to Covid-19.
Baker said the ministry’s updated reporting was an “important refinement” — but the figures nonetheless painted a grim picture.
Over the past seven days, there’d been a daily average of 17 deaths confirmed as being attributable to Covid-19 — and 38 new virus-linked deaths were reported yesterday.
“I find it very concerning that the moving average has not dropped below 10 per day, since fairly early on in our first Omicron wave,” he said.
“Recently, it’s been higher than any point during the pandemic. But even if we have 10 per day, that’s still around 3500 deaths in a year, which would add 10 per cent to our annual mortality rate.
“This is going to have a measurable impact on life expectancy in New Zealand — and this burden won’t fall equally across society. We know the rate of hospitalisation among Ma¯ori and Pasifika for serious infectious disease is two to three times higher in non-epidemic times — so we’re probably going to see those inequalities reproduce yet again.”
So far, Ministry of Health data shows Ma¯ ori and Pacific people have accounted for more than a third of hospitalisations with Covid-19 — and nearly two in 10 deaths where the virus was the underlying cause.
Another major risk factor in hospitalisation and deaths was age: all but 44 of the 903 people who’d died from the virus were older than 60 — and two thirds of deaths were recorded among people older than 80.