Yes, NZ's population-adjusted fatality total of 1,391 in the second quarter was quite low. But NZ's economy contracted 12.2% in that quarter. Thus, NZ surrendered financial health and civil rights for low pandemic fatalities.
Or did they? Based on the trend line, if NZ's economy fell 12.2%, then there should have been over 950 fatalities (i.e. 65k size-adj fatalities that equate to about 950 fatalities for NZ's population) versus the 21 fatalities they posted.
Maybe NZ suppressed their numbers, like China?
Maybe...
Or maybe they didn’t pay hospitals $160,000 per covid case to bump up their covid death toll?
Having spent some time there...I can say that there is maybe five urban centers around the country, and if you had Covid-19...you’d have a better chance of getting/passing it in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown and Tauranga. Beyond that...man, the rest of the country is awful rural, and you might only meet up with more than five people in an entire day.
If they did the infection rate by cities (population)...wouldn’t surprise me if Auckland got 50-percent of all infections for the Feb to Jul period. Other factor, as you get out of the urban areas...lot of folks are in great health (lean, few overweight folks) and I would imagine the death rate in rural areas would be lesser.
Three months ago, they had this sudden surge out of nowhere in the Auckland area...which all led back to the same place....meat processing plant. It was the same issue that we had in Germany back in July. Refrigeration filter system wasn’t hooked up to function.
There’s more to the story, but I don’t think the leadership wants to open it up and talk about it.