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It’s a pity the media didn’t take more interest in the COVID-19 numbers presented at the daily briefings, or in the modelling the PM used to send us into lockdown and keep us there.
The mantra, “It’s a miracle more of us weren’t killed”, pays homage to the millions of New Zealanders still under the illusion that we dodged a bullet. No disrespect intended to those who died with COVID-19, but most casualties had underlying health issues and the promised pandemic didn’t eventuate. The PM is basking in an artificial glow of success based on inaccurate modelling. Muriel Newman dissects the modelling that panicked the government.
“The Government relied on seven different models to inform its decision-making. One is an Imperial College London paper that estimated millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Brits would die without severe suppression measures like a lockdown. The paper altered policy in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand as well.
“When former Reserve Bank Economist Ian Harrison examined the models he found that grossly inaccurate assumptions ‘led to an explosion in the number of cases and deaths.’
“Instead of questioning the accuracy of the models, and balancing them with proper cost-benefit analyses of the economic and social consequences of locking down the country, the Prime Minister appears to have been spooked into making another of her disastrous Captain’s Calls.”
We were so grateful to be alive that we scarcely questioned anything. Even as emerging data challenges the need for lockdown, some are reluctant to leave home. They want to stay a little longer, thank you very much. “Better safe than sorry” is their justification. Granted, these are government and institutional employees rather than business owners whose futures look bleaker by the day.
Media wobbled along to the COVID-19 briefings, star struck and dumb. They took it on themselves to protect our collective bubble of contentment and we endured weeks of banal updates and virtually no probing questions. Delighted that New Zealand was leading the world in eliminating the virus, the media were disconcertingly unperturbed to discover elimination didn’t mean elimination at all.
We received daily and cumulative case numbers that included probable cases to inflate the numbers – and that required tinkering with cumulative case numbers after the testing results came in.
Artificially increasing the number of cases justified lock down and meant the time taken to process tests was irrelevant. Probable cases were already included so there was no need to scrutinise the time taken to get test results.
Initially there appeared to be a shortage of test kits. This was vigorously denied. The explanation given was that it was a simple distribution issue. That was hard to believe when testing was restricted and sometimes refused even on the recommendation of two doctors. Admitting to a test kit shortage would have been detrimental to an already panicked population.
Eventually we received more test kits. On 1 April the definition of testing was widened to include “anyone with respiratory symptoms consistent with COVID-19”, and daily test numbers rose dramatically from 1,421 tests on 25 March to peak at 6,977 tests on 24 April.
But what about the disparity between the case numbers presented to the New Zealand public and those reported to the WHO? We were alerted only this week on 29 April when the number of cumulative confirmed cases was disclosed.
“This means our total for confirmed cases is 1,126 and total for probable cases is 348.
It brings the current total of confirmed and probable cases to 1,474.
We will report the confirmed case numbers of 1,126 to the World Health Organization.”
WHO reported our confirmed Covid cases as 1,126 on 29 April, and from that date onward, our daily briefings included accumulated confirmed cases; a figure which tallies with WHO numbers and differs from previous briefings of accumulated confirmed and probable cases. The Ministry of Health provided the following explanation:
The WHO requires countries to only report laboratory confirmed results. New Zealand has taken the stance of considering a case ‘probable’ in a range of scenarios, including where a person has a negative test result but matches the case definition.
This is because the COVID-19 test isn’t 100% accurate and can return a negative result in a positive case in certain situations. A case being considered ‘probable’ is a diagnosis. Some cases are also considered probable where a test may be distressing to the individual but it is clear they have COVID-19 – most common in the elderly, particularly those with dementia.
So we report only confirmed cases to the WHO to meet their requirement, but report confirmed and probable cases publicly to give the most accurate understanding we have.
But how did 1,241 cases recover out of only 1,126 confirmed cases? The Ministry of Health provided the following explanation about this discrepancy:
“New Zealand has 1241 people who have recovered from COVID-19 With 1476 total cases”
What sort of magic is this when probable cases have recovered before they are confirmed? After deducting 19 people who died and the 6 who are in hospital from 1,126 confirmed cases we are left with 1,101 who may have recovered. At least 140 probable cases recovered before they received a confirmed diagnosis, and there could be more because some may still be sick at home.
In the epidemiological world elimination is not elimination and probable also means confirmed. How confusing. Why didn’t they just stick to the facts?
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