A Look at “With Covid” Deaths in the Under-60s in NZ

Intro

Recently, we have had the news that 2022 was NZ’s highest excess mortality in many years, at 10% more than the average over the last 5 year period.

Here’s a graph from Excess mortality: Deaths from all causes compared to average over previous years, by age (ourworldindata.org)

It clearly shows the over 65s are dying in their droves, but it’s a little less clear for the 15-64 group.

This has been blamed on Covid. When people show graphs showing that the Boosted have been dropping like flies, people say “But that’s because so many Elderly have been boosted!”

Aside from the fact that I clearly remember being told to get vaccinated to SAVE grandma, and that if I took it, I wouldn’t get sick and wouldn’t die, there’s something to look at there.

So, I ran some numbers.

According to the spreadsheet at the bottom of the page at COVID-19: Vaccine data | Ministry of Health NZ, there are only 4,970,098 people in the population. I assume that’s not counting the under 5s.

Anyway, from the data provided for under 60s, I got the following split:

Now it’s a simple matter of plugging the total under 60s by vaccination count into the spreadsheet, and getting the per 100k.

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For comparison I did: Overall (all “With Covid” deaths reported), Since First Vaccine on 19 February 2021, and Since First Reported Boosted Death on May 18, 2022.

Overall Covid Deaths in under 60s in NZ by Vaccination Status

This includes all Unvaccinated deaths prior to the vaccine rollout.

And per-100k. Overall, when we include the Unvaccinated who died with Covid, the Boosted and Fully Vaccinated groups fare better. Not by much, but better.

Overall Covid Deaths in under 60s in NZ by Vaccination Status since Vaccine First Available

If we now look at the numbers since 19 February, things start to change a little. We remove 27 of the Unvaccinated deaths, as they occur prior to this date.

And per-100k:

Overall Covid Deaths in under 60s in NZ by Vaccination Status since First Boosted Deaths in Under 60s Published

Last data point is the deaths in under 60s since Boosted Deaths were first published. Prior to 18 May 2022. they were mixed in with the Fully Vaccinated.

Per-100k, the Boosted are still worst off, but the 2 dose cohort has a surprising win.