Kiwis Saved by Covid Vax
A slight departure from my usual fare ...
This is more on the Health side than the UV side, but still relevant here because there are sure to be interactions between UV and Covid-19. I’ve discussed some of them here, here and here in the past.
This post was motivated by a recent visitor to our home, who has chosen not to be vaccinated against Covid-19. He says he’s not an anti-vaxxer. He just thinks that he doesn’t need to be vaccinated because he lives in an isolated rural community. I like him a lot, but that attitude makes me cross because the disease is currently rampant in my community, and that self-centered position works against eradication. Herd-immunity works only if a high proportion of the population is vaccinated. People like him - who decide against it - are acting anti-socially. I call them “free loaders”. Their own protection relies on the rest of us being vaccinated.
Note added 13 June. My visitor feels safe only because others have done the hard yards for him. According to today’s Worldometer statistics, New Zealand’s total death rate from Covid-19 is about 25 per 100,000 population. That’s more than a factor of ten better than the UK’s 261, or the USA’s 309. There are 15 other countries with rates higher than the the USA, the worst being Peru, with more than twice that number (about 630 deaths per 100,000, which is 25 times higher than New Zealand’s). Most of that difference is simply that most of New Zealand’s population was already fully vaccinated by the time the disease struck, while for those other countries it wasn’t. Though it must be said that these numbers change daily, and the delayed appearance of various strains in New Zealand may also be a factor.
But, not only is the risk for others affected, it’s also dumb because of their own increased risk.
In New Zealand we’re carrying out a very interesting experiment with Covid-19. Most of the population was vaccinated before the disease really took hold. So most deaths have been in the post-vaccination era. The NZ Department of Health maintains a record of case statistics, which is updated regularly and is available to the public here. It shows that, unfortunately, over a thousand souls in a population of about 5 million have now succumbed.
If you dig there, you can find some telling statistics. The table below shows that of the 1179 people who have died so far (early June 2022), only 246 weren’t fully vaccinated. The other 933 deaths were among the vaccinated.
My visitor smiled when I showed him the table. Only 20 percent of the deaths so far have been among the unvaccinated. And he liked the apparently low rate in his 60 to 69 age band (though it’s not nearly as low as for younger people when you note that the top band in the above table covers 6 decades rather than just 1).
But he needs to also remember that about 95 percent of New Zealand’s eligible population of 5.1 million is fully vaccinated (the Worldindata site has it at only 80 percent, but that includes children for whom the risk is low and are currently eligible for vaccination. I have more confidence in our National Health statistics).
Taking the NZ figures into account, the mortality rate for unvaccinated Kiwis is 246 people per 250,000, or about 100 deaths per hundred thousand. But for vaccinated Kiwis the mortality rate is 933 people per 5 million, which is fewer than 20 deaths per hundred thousand (if only 80 percent had been vaccinated, that rate for the vaccinated would increase to about 23 deaths per hundred thousand). Those rates would no doubt be even better with the booster shot. Still not great, but I’m glad to be in that camp rather than his … 😊
It’s not too late to be vaccinated. If our visitor eventually decides to, his chances of dying from Covid-19 will reduce by at least a factor of five. That’s a protection rate from vaccines of at least 80 percent. Not quite a good as the heady 90 percent or more advertised when they were first launched, but still a lot better than a poke in the eye.
I’ll send him a copy of this post. I want him to stay alive, and I’m sure we’ll continue to be friends. I just hope he chooses to do the right thing to make himself and the community safer.
Please pass this on to the great unwashed.