Podcast: the detail
You may have been lulled into thinking that life was returning to normal, but as Covid-19 and the flu run rampant in the winter, it’s clear that the pandemic isn’t over for us.
It is a strange time in the Covid-19 cycle in Aotearoa.
We’ve had over a million cases. Nearly 1600 dead. Most of us know someone who has had the virus. Thousands of new cases are announced every day.
But the 1pm press conferences are gone. The models that suggested that 80,000 people could die if we took our foot off the elimination pedal have not materialized.
However, we are not out of the woods: on the contrary, the persistently high numbers of Covid-19 cases put additional pressure on a health system that is only just getting through the winter at the best of times.
And these are certainly not the best times, as Aotearoa is in the throes of an unusually tough flu season, with many sick staff, ICU beds nearly full and a shortage of critical staff.
Newsroom senior political reporter Marc Daalder says there has been a curious decline in the urgency of health authorities’ Covid-19 response.
“We’ve averaged about 6,900 cases a day for the past week,” he says.
“That’s up from 4,900 the week before. We’re up 2,000 cases per day for the past week — a significant increase.”
Daily deaths average about 14, but Daalder says we know about 20 to 25 percent later are unrelated to Covid-19.
Nevertheless, 10 or 11 deaths a day brings you to 3500 deaths a year.
That’s about 10 times the annual toll.
And while it pales in comparison to the bleak modeling in the early stages of the pandemic, Daalder says it may have tricked people — including health authorities — into thinking the virus is less serious than it actually is.
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