What was the average age of death in New Zealand from Covid?

A look at some OIAs that have asked...

After this tweet a week ago from Dr Eli David on Israeli Ministry of Health data:

Which showed (through a court order!) that there were zero deaths in the under 50s in people with no co-morbidities - I’ve been asked by a couple of people if any of the documents I’ve come across state anything similar for New Zealand.

Well firstly, I don’t really look into this stuff - there are other people doing that and it’s far better I leave the art and science of data analysis to them. There is just so, so many variables in this - alongside the fact humans can be erroneously reductionist in thinking. If/then just isn’t the way to look at complex data and interactions therein.

But yeah, I have come across and read quite a few OIA’s, usually asking about vaccination status and death. You can find some yourself through the FYI website or directly on the Ministry of Health website (when they answered these before transferring them to the new health system, Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand).

New Zealand may release data slightly differently than other countries too - for instance all values under 5 are always suppressed for confidentiality.

But….well…from a Ministry of Health OIA response in August 2022 - as winter finished in New Zealand….the average age of death across all age groups was:

And the average age of death where Covid had been identified as the underlying cause?

83 years old.

Ignoring the more recent inconvenience of excess deaths, 83 is about-ish or slightly over the average life expectancy for women. Men are lower.

However that doesn’t mean we haven’t had deaths from Covid in the under 50s - as this end of February 2023 OIA response shows:

The above only shows Covid deaths skew older rather than younger as we all know.

How many of those under 50s had zero co-morbidities?

I just don’t know although I did find a dedicated requestor asking it in both mid-2022 and later in 2022 too - please comment if you look through the Excel data tables or have more information on New Zealand deaths in the under 50s with no co-morbidities.

By the way, the above responses were all from the Ministry of Health. When Te Whatu Ora took over these OIAs - they frequently said they didn’t have the data to provide.

Still makes you wonder why did we need to spend so much on advertising, and have so many restrictions based on getting the young and healthy vaccinated?