New Zealand has overtaken Australia and Canada with weekly COVID-19 deaths per capita at a time when the Government is rolling back restrictions.
However, New Zealand's overall COVID-19 death rate is still much lower than Australia and Canada and a leading health expert says the rolled back restrictions are not expected to increase cases significantly.
To date, 258 COVID-19 deaths have been announced in New Zealand, however this figure includes deaths that occurred more than 28 days after the case was reported, and deaths still under investigation. The official figure on the Ministry of Health's website is 223.
The latest data collated by the Financial Times shows that in the past few weeks, New Zealand has overtaken Australia and Canada in terms of weekly COVID-19 deaths per capita, and we are just behind the UK and the European Union.
New Zealand had an average of 0.18 deaths per 100,000 people on March 24, compared to 0.19 in the UK, 0.21 in the European Union, 0.11 in Canada, 0.09 in Australia.
But cumulatively, New Zealand is still well behind in terms of COVID-19 deaths. New Zealand had four cumulative deaths per 100,000 people as of March 24, compared to 22.8 in Australia, 98.4 in Canada, 232.6 in the European Union, and 244.9 in the UK.
While the sharp rise in COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand coincides with a gradual easing of restrictions like the border reopening, the latest tweaks to the traffic light system - outdoor gathering limits scrapped and indoor gathering limits increased from 100 to 200 - are unlikely to make things worse, an expert says.
"We're expecting that cases will continue to plateau even with the restrictions easing. There could be a small increase but that's not what we're expecting," Dr Andrew Old, Chief Clinical Officer at the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre, said on Friday.
"The relaxing of rules was always a question of when it was going to happen, not if, so we have been planning for that."
However, Michael Plank from the University of Canterbury and COVID-19 Modelling Aotearoa expects the death rate to continue to rise for a few more weeks, and ultimately between 300 and 500 people could die by the end of the first Omicron wave.
The key word is 'Omicron' - a rise in deaths was somewhat inevitable after the highly infectious variant broke through the Government's protective barriers and quickly spread through the community.
The Government shifted the entire country to the most restrictive 'red' traffic light setting in late January after nine cases of Omicron were discovered in the community. The Ministry of Health is now reporting an average of 16,000 cases a day.
Until Omicron came along, New Zealand's death rate hardly made a dent. But Omicron could never be kept at bay and the Government accepted that and tried to give the population time to get boosted by delaying the border reopening.
New Zealand is now experiencing its first major COVID-19 peak, which is to be expected as Kiwis haven't had the same level of exposure as other countries.
But as Michael Plank explains, while the COVID-19 death rate is higher than we've previously experienced, the death toll is at the lower to middle end of projections from earlier this year.
A reason for New Zealand's low death rate, he says, is high booster uptake among older people and young people comprising a large amount of those infected. The latest Ministry of Health data shows 72.6 percent of the eligible population has had a third booster dose.
It's also encouraging that cases are declining in New Zealand.
"Case numbers have declined consistently now for about two weeks and are a third of what they were at the peak of our outbreak," Dr Old said.
"Although we are continuing to see high hospitalisation rates here in Tamaki Makaurau, they have thankfully started to follow the trend in case numbers and have also started to decline over the past week."
But passing the peak does not equal out of the woods.
"Although new admissions are falling, we're still admitting an average of over 100 people per day to our regional hospitals with COVID-19 and tens of thousands more people will still get COVID-19 in the coming weeks," Dr Old said.
"With changes to the traffic light framework allowing us to head back to things like sports and social events, we need to remember that there are still many people in our community being adversely and disproportionately impacted by this virus."
With greater mixing comes greater risk, he said.
"We also need to be mindful that while we are seeing improvements in numbers here in Auckland, this is not the case for communities in many other parts of the country yet.
"My message today is to continue to exercise caution, especially if you do have friends and whanau who are more vulnerable."
Dr Old also shared a warning about winter.
"For two years we have not had to worry too much about other viruses circulating in our communities but with borders reopening and winter approaching, we need to give this real attention.
"COVID-19 will be with us for some time yet and the combination along with flu and other diseases such as RSV and the potential for typhoid or measles could create significant pressure for our health system in months to come."
