Some good news from Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic and unexpected drop in the number of people dying in New Zealand. A leading Whanga¯ rei funeral director says he’s never seen anything like it, with monthly deaths down by as much as a third compared to last year.
The lockdown is thought to be the main reason behind the drop in mortality, because it protected the frail and elderly from influenza viruses that normally circulate during winter. Closed borders help too, because Northern Hemisphere visitors can’t bring in new strains of the flu.
Gary Taylor, general manager of Morris and Morris in Whanga¯ rei as well as funeral services in Kerikeri, Kaitaia and Dargaville, said the immediate effect of the lockdown was that people couldn’t have funerals, but then he noticed fewer people were dying anyway.
Taylor, who is also president of the NZ Funeral Directors’ Association, said the effect varied around the country, but overall he estimated 20 per cent fewer people than usual had died during the Covid period.
He believed measures designed to combat Covid-19 had also stamped out the flu virus, usually a significant cause of death among the elderly and those with serious health conditions.
That appears to be borne out by district health board figures showing 292 confirmed cases of influenza last year in Northland. So far this year there have been only 23 positive tests for the flu, and not one since the lockdown.
Taylor said it wasn’t just the flu.
All forms of respiratory illness had decreased.
”We’ve seen hardly any in the last two or three months. Just by locking people down initially, then keeping rest homes under pretty close hygiene rules, people are not succumbing to those normal ailments,” he said.
Up-to-date Northland statistics were not available but Auckland deaths in March, when the lockdown began, were down almost 9 per cent on March 2019, followed by a 4 per cent drop in April, Taylor said.
A post-lockdown ”catch-up” saw deaths increase by 15 per cent in May.
The decrease was most dramatic in winter. June deaths in Auckland were down by 33 per cent, July by 10 per cent, and August 33.5 per cent.
Taylor believed the effect was less pronounced in Northland, but followed a similar trend.
The absence of overseas tourists was another factor, with the number of foreign citizens dying in New Zealand down by about 50 per cent. Kiwis too were suffering fewer serious injuries as people travelled less and were more cautious, he said.
Taylor said he’d never seen anything like it. The last big worldwide event, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, affected many aspects of life, but did not change deaths.
”This is the first time in my lifetime, and in the living memory of some of the elderly in our profession, that we’ve actually seen the number of deaths decrease because of an external force,” he added.
”When a pandemic comes along your natural instinct is to expect more deaths. We’ve had exactly the opposite.”
However, the 3500 New Zealanders who died during that period could not have “meaningful” funerals due to Covid.
”We hear a lot about the 25 people who died of Covid, but very little about the 3500 whose families just had to wear it and move on. That’s not good for them at all,” he said.
Northland DHB respiratory specialist Fiona Horwood said Whanga¯ rei Hospital had been busy over winter but it would’ve been a lot worse without Covid-19 restrictions.
Statistics NZ figures show that 21,762 New Zealanders died to the end of August, down about 7 per cent on the same period last year. In Northland, there were 387 deaths to the end of June, down 4.4 per cent on the same period last year.