YOUR HEALTH
New Zealand has recorded 1409 cases of Covid-19 and that number is increasing by 15 per day i.e. ~1% daily increase in the number of cases. Deaths total 11 of whom nearly all have been 70+ with UHI (underlying health issues). There are 3 people in ICU. For the last 2 days Random Testing has been done on supermarket visitors in Queenstown and elsewhere, and in ~1000 tests there were no positives.
At this point, due to Jacinda’s rapid introduction of level 4, there should only be a small number of cases left to come out of the woodwork.
It would appear that in a country with a good health service, for those who get Covid-19 the death rate is a shade under 1%. Being in lockdown effectively takes a snapshot of what happens to the segment of the population that has been Exposed to and then Developed Covid-19. Other countries in lockdown have frozen their recruitment of Covid-19 cases with greatly varied degrees of success according to the quality of their precautions and the quality of their treatment which largely depends on the preparedness and capacity of their health systems. The figures for New York are catastrophic. In the coming week, NY will reach 250,000 cases and 20,000 deaths, which suggests a death rate of ~8%. BUT how reliable are these numbers in a State which is overwhelmed - and which also gives $13,000 to hospitals per attributed Covid-19 case and $39,000 to hospitals per attributed Covid-19 death‽ Notwithstanding that, there is clearly huge risk of Covid-19 being fatal in a country where half the children and three quarters of the adults are metabolically ill - i.e. Diabetic/pre-diabetic/metabolic disorder, all of which are accompanied by heart disease. Surprisingly, the WHO obesity stats for New Zealand, Australia and the UK only trail the US by a couple of years. New Zealand and Australia have a death rate per recorded case of ~1%, but the UK has a rate of ~13% with Spain, Italy and France all over 10%. The US and the NY figures are ~5%. The true number of actual cases is probably much higher in countries with a lot of cases, where the real fraction of the total population involved is too great to count. Similarly the deaths attributed to Covid-19 may be much higher than those actually caused by Covid-19 in countries which are overwhelmed. These two factors together could easily result in an apparent death rate 10x the actual rate of death in the Covid-19 cohort. My best guesstimate is that the actual death rate over the whole population is around 1%, but that in the ‘older’ segment the death rate would be 10% across, say, 70-100 Years old. However, in the same way that a fit 80yo with a zero CAC (Coronary Arterial Calcium) score has far better life expectancy than an obese 60yo diabetic with a CAC score >400, age is just a number which tends to have an association with ill health. It doesn’t have to be that way, if you stop eating sugars and carbohydrates you can reverse T2D in < a month. Good plan would be to do this before you are exposed to Covid-19 when it all happens too quickly to take evasive action.
To use a car analogy, it is as if while you’re parked at that busy supermarket, someone opens their door into yours and that then triggers a really vicious MOT or as we call them Warranty of Fitness, not when you were expecting it on your car’s birthday, but NOW. Life is further complicated by big fines for dirty air/oil filters. However, if the car has a significant fault like a bald tyre or dirty exhaust emissions it will be unceremoniously taken to the crusher and recycled NOW... Best hope that your ‘car’ is in perfect condition!
Returning to New Zealand; life expectancy is a tad over 80, the population is a tad under 5 million which predicts a normal average “all cause mortality” of around 60,000 per annum or ~160 per day. Because of our early extended lockdown and the small current increases in daily totals it may not be a huge stretch to say that if every New Zealander had already been exposed to Covid-19 then the numbers of Covid-19 deaths would be (5M/1500) X 11 = 33,000, probably regardless of whether the period of time involved in the infection was 3 months or 3 years. I am aware that neither the number of cases nor the number of deaths has stopped increasing, but the rates of increase are similar and balance out. If those deaths were allocated to a 12 month period they would represent a rise in the average all cause mortality of 50%. Post Covid-19 there will be a marked reduction in that average because the surviving population will not have the same sized vulnerable percentage. I must point out that with a very high CAC score I am high risk and very much a member of that group.
So what is Jacinda to do? She has bought us the luxury of having time to control the spread of Covid-19 but I don’t believe that it will be possible to eliminate the virus from the planet and even if we could, there will be more viruses in years to come, some of which might make Covid-19 look like a pussycat. To completely avoid Covid-19 our borders would have to stay closed - the international equivalent of Permanent self-isolation. Bearing in mind that the 2 main activities of the nation are raising woolly lawnmowers and Tourism, we need to re-open our borders, first with Australia and then to nations who have Covid-19 under control to a reasonable level. Clearly we need to protect our vulnerable groups so nursing and residential homes will need government to work out suitable precautions in order to keep infections to a low level that the health service can cope with. As for the general population their risk is relatively low, provided their health is good, so the lockdown needs to come down a level to 3 and a fortnight later to 2, before the economy self-destructs and the suicide/domestic violence/civil disorder fatalities begin to rival those of Covid-19. This would also be an excellent time to reverse the obesity pandemic by scrapping the food pyramid guide and educating consumers and manufacturers that carbohydrates and sugar are lethal to those who are insulin resistant - i.e. most of us. It’s the leading cause of death in New Zealand, not Covid-19. Check out LCHF way of eating...
I’d welcome your thoughts in reply!
Keep Well 
Medical Professionals, Third Leading Cause of Death!
