OPINION
Peter Allan Williams
Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines although verbalising thoughts on www.reality check.radio three days a week
peterallanwilliams.substack.com
A commenter named Andrew responded to a recent post about the Barry Young data release. He had questions about the country’s crude data on deaths in 2022 and, more importantly, the death rate.
As has been pointed out previously, our overall death rate per thousand of population for the calendar year 2022 was the highest this century. It was 7.53 deaths per 1000 of the estimated mid-year population, the first time that number has been over 7 since 2002.
In the twelve months to the end of September, the rate had dropped to 7.23.
But Andrew, while not disputing that ratio nor that the total number of deaths in 2022 (38,574) was the highest in our history, suggested I look at what are known as the standardized and age-specific death rates to get a more realistic take on what happened last year.
The standardized death rate is the weighted average of the age-specific death rates of a population – the weights being the age distribution of that population. It’s a statistical construct designed to compare mortality rates in various countries where the age distributions are different.
But the crude mortality numbers and death rates provide the comparison from year to year in New Zealand and are regarded as the best reflection of the health of the population.
On that basis, the number says we are dying at a rate much higher than just two years ago.
But statistics from Infoshare allow us to look at age-specific death rates too, and this is where a different theme emerges.
Let’s compare 2019, the last normal year before the Covid era, with 2022. The crude death rate that year was 6.87, so 2022 was ten per cent higher than what we could call a normal year.
(From 2009 to 2019, the crude death rate in New Zealand hovered between 6.53 and 6.92. That’s why the 2022 number is such an outlier.)
Infoshare breaks down the age groups into five-year periods from zero to 90 plus.
Looking at the age brackets from 15–19 till 50–54, the death rate in 2022 was actually LOWER than in 2019 in six of those eight age groups. The higher death rate in 2022 only started to kick in regularly at the 55 to 59 level. Mostly, the differences in the death rate are small, except in the 90-plus age group where the rates are 215.1 (2019) and 234.89 (2023).
Which puts rather a different complexion on things does it not?
Yes, there was a massive spike in both the number of deaths and the death rate, but these numbers suggest it was just the older age groups dying at a faster rate, while 2022’s under 55s are actually a healthier lot than four years ago.
The crude numbers for deaths in those aged 70 or over show that 3798 more people in that bracket died in 2022 than in 2019. Considering the difference between the complete respective totals in those years was 4317 (38,577 to 34,260) and 87 per cent of those were aged 70 or more, there is now a somewhat different complexion on last year’s death explosion.
The reality is the vast majority of those who died last year, as in most years, were in the older age brackets. There is nothing untoward at all about death rates in those aged under 55.
Data analyst David Hood claims the death rates in every age group since vaccinations began are lower than before Covid.
Having come to this conclusion though, there is still one pressing question. Health authorities, politicians and pro-injection media types are all happy to report that four deaths have most likely occurred as the result of an mRNA injection. Doesn’t that number say that this injection is potentially dangerous?
Isn’t one death alone enough cause to withdraw a medicine from the market?
Many is the potion withdrawn for far less serious side effects to a tiny cohort of the population. The latest is pholcodine, sold under the trade names Difflam and Duro-truss. It’s a cough medicine which will be withdrawn from the end of next month because of the ”small risk that taking pholcodine may make patients more susceptible to anaphylaxis (a rare but life threatening allergic reaction) during surgery.”
So a “small risk” during surgery is enough to have a popular cough medicine withdrawn.
But four deaths from the mRNA injection, all essentially acknowledged by authorities, is still not enough for this medicine to be withdrawn.
The death numbers for 2022 could possibly be explained as the deaths of older people being delayed for a time.
But any death from a medicine is one death too many and that medicine should be withdrawn immediately.