At this point, Covid inpatients had tripled, people were dying in ambulances, A&E waits over 12 hours for thousands,....chaos.
Note the drop off in vaccine uptake:
The narrative continued throughout January...culminating in the PM issuing a statement to the House of Commons indicating they will be ending Plan B...
Arden has taken you through the worst part of the pandemic with less pain and suffering than any of us thought possible. Instead of giving her (and her team) a medal and gratitude you are..
NZ is the thorn in the side of right-wing, libertarian ideology...the proof that a considered, state response to global threats are far, far superior to a 'free-market' response (look at the US!). They would love to see NZ fall apart...
NZ Covid legends!
From my colleagues and I, I thank you and your team. Yes, you have saved 10s of thousands of NZ lives and 100s of thousands livelihoods. But more, all future pandemics will be measured against your success and the amazing achievement of the NZ...
The US, Russia, Italy, and the UK continue to lead the ‘Covid Catastrophe’ League Table. Excluding Russia, this takes Covid deaths in these countries beyond WW2 civilian deaths.
As our grandparents faced conscription and war, our generation seems too precious to wear a simple face covering when out and about…apparently it’s more of a threat to liberty than death and disability. Yes, logic takes a serious hit this week too…
Much of the scientific community railed against a wide-reaching Financial Times article:
“Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England”
As a fact, it was a bold claim. In regards to journalistic duty, there are other questions.
🧵 ft.com/content/e26c93…
In fairness to the article itself, the authors took significant effort to emphasise that even with the same mortality risk as Flu (we will come to the accuracy of that later) the overall risk of Covid remains high.
Here they provide an estimate of 50% increase in winter deaths:
Indeed, reading the article through, one could have made a completely different headline:
“Despite Covid’s falling mortality risk it still remains the most dangerous infection in the UK.”
Total number of civilians lost to Covid.
This will likely be the measure most recorded in the history books.
Note the over ten-fold difference in deaths between those who suppressed the virus prior to vaccine and anti-viral treatments being available.
There are though other impacts of Covid defining success. A big one is the impact on other healthcare services. Difficult to measure in its totality but here is overall excess deaths....
This is how many people died who wouldn't have had Covid not appeared.
While some world leaders try their best to convince their citizens that "Covid is Over", Covid remains the biggest killer of all infectious diseases worldwide.
➡️ 500K more deaths since 2022.
➡️➡️ 52K deaths reported in the last week...
A more detailed analysis carried out in the US (@cynthiaccox and co @KFF) showed Covid was the second leading cause of death in the US, even before Omicron hit in Dec '21
...and the leading cause of death in the 45-54 age group!!!
1. For the vast majority of Covid patients, the lower part of the lungs are unaffected. Most symptoms come from the infection in the upper airways, but don't affect our ability to absorb oxygen.
2. Severe Covid is defined as the requirement for oxygen...
...this means the lower lungs are affected.
[Picture shows Severe Covid. Unique pattern in the very lower parts of the lungs. The red = inflamed. Blue = normal. Where it is red, the ability to transfer oxygen into the blood is reduced]