Jos,

LOL. February article says 2,918 cases per day, but fast forward to this week and it's well over 20K per day. And that's said to be an under-estimation, with most testing now using rapid antigen tests, often self-administered and not necessarily reported. Some modelers and epidemiologists are claiming up to 100K or even 150K per day, as they must after their doomsday models predicted 50K per day.

However, daily count has been irrelevant for months according to WHO, especially with highly contagious but less severe omicron, and mRNA vaccines not preventing transmission. Latest NZ figures seem to show fully vaccinated infections per 100K are *higher* than unvaccinated.

What we're now supposed to focus on, is hospitalization rates or intensive care, and deaths. However, under questioning yesterday, the minister and Director General of Health were unable to say how many people were admitted *with* C19 on Wednesday, let alone how many admitted *because* of C19. Meanwhile one of the big maternity hospitals reported that almost 30% of mothers turning up to give birth, are testing positive- suggesting the bug is everywhere.

What NZ did manage by pulling up its highly effective drawbridge and locking down hard, was a total C19 death tally measured in dozens rather than thousands. However, C19 is not the only cause of death, or even the biggest internationally during this pandemic; that's still held by cancer, cardiac and chronic respiratory, usually in that order. So now there's consequences of delayed cancer and other treatments yet to land, plus of course huge increases in national debt, firms gone under, mental health...