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Highly Vaccinated COVID ‘Success’ New Zealand Sees Huge Increase in Death Rates

Concerning increase in mortality in New Zealand

By Ian Miller | Unmasked | April 7, 2023

COVID has unfortunately created any number of repetitive stories.

Jurisdiction imposes mask mandates, population complies, masks prove ineffective, media claims masks didn’t work because of lack of compliance.

Another example would be when countries with extraordinary compliance, such as Singapore or South Korea, would see increases ignored entirely, or blamed on the population not wearing masks of a correct level of quality.

Yet as a general rule, the most consistently predictable repetitive storyline has been the media and expert community declaring that a country was a pandemic success, only for their results to dramatically change in a relatively short period of time.

This was the case with the Czech Republic, with Australia, with Taiwan and many other locations.

Even within the United States adjustments showed that states like California – heralded as pandemic winners – actually had significantly worse results than previously realized.

But few places on earth have been as heavily praised as New Zealand.

Their science-following leadership was repeatedly hailed, honored, and praised for their effective communication, endless lockdowns, tyrannical response to protests, and prolific commitment to mandates.

All of the above, combined with their strict border controls, should have meant that New Zealand would avoid the significant increase in negative outcomes seen in other parts of the world.

At least, that’s what the media and activist public health authorities claimed would happen.

The reality is far more complicated.

New Zealand’s COVID Metrics

Throughout 2020 and into 2021, New Zealand saw very little COVID transmission.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC praised the country for their efforts, explaining in detail how the country had become “COVID free.”

Jacinda Arden, now former prime minister, was once so completely committed to maintaining an illusion of infallibility that she claimed that the only source of accurate information available to the public was the government.

Of course, Arden then made the provably inaccurate claim that those who were vaccinated would net get sick and would not die.

The ridiculous over-confidence in the proclamations of public health authorities led to Arden convincing New Zealanders that strict mandates and interventions could stop the spread of the virus.

As winter and new variants arrived in 2021, Arden and local leaders predictably enforced increasingly strict measures. Mask mandates, lockdowns and “red traffic light” policies include vaccine passports.

Surprise. None of it worked.

After several months of completely unchecked spread, even the country’s cumulative metrics, once seemingly so impressive, exploded in dramatic fashion.

Consistently and exceptionally high mask wearing rates were also entirely ineffective.

And yet defenders of New Zealand’s authoritarian policies still believed that the country’s strategy was warranted, for one specific reason.

They had delayed the spread of the virus until the COVID vaccines became widely available.

In theory, that was supposed to prevent a substantial increase in deaths, especially considering their extraordinary rate of uptake.

That didn’t work either.

While these rates were generally lower after adjusting for population than many other countries, they still represented an obvious, significant surge compared to previous time periods.

But COVID related deaths only tell a part of the story, often influenced by attribution methodology and testing.

In theory, New Zealand’s exceptional vaccination rate and consistently high mask compliance should have meant that all cause mortality would also remain low.

So did it?

Fortunately, thanks to the New Zealand government’s own data, we now have an answer. And just as the country’s failure to stop omicron, it presents another contradiction to the endless media praise.

All Cause Mortality Shows New Zealand’s Mandates Failed

Despite the exceptionally high vaccination rate, despite their exceptionally high booster rate, despite vaccine passports, strict lockdowns, “red traffic light” policies and border controls, the pandemic came for New Zealand as well.

The government’s own data shows that all cause deaths in New Zealand jumped significantly in 2022, to the highest level in recorded data.

The country universally praised for their dedication to following The Science™, whose leadership told the public that following her dictates would keep them safe, stop the spread and control outcomes, has seen a record level of all cause mortality.

Exactly the same as other countries who were criticized for their supposedly less effective response.

Even after adjusting for population, the scale of the surge in 2022 is exceptional.

In fact, it represents an over 17% increase from 2020.

Not to mention that the one year increase, over 10%, represented the largest single year increase in New Zealand since the 1918 flu.

So why didn’t their policies prevent this? Why didn’t waiting for widespread vaccination to open up prevent this?

The New Zealand government themselves blame COVID for at least a portion of the increase. So why were so many people dying of COVID given the country’s exceptional vaccination and booster uptake and masking?

After all, ~95% of the population over 12 had been fully vaccinated by the middle of 2022, with over 90% fully vaccinated by early 2022. Similarly, adult booster rates were nearly 80% by early in 2022.

Why didn’t it work?!

Some may try to claim that their results would have been worse had they not had such policies.

But countries like Sweden thoroughly debunk that theory. Sweden had one of the least restrictive responses anywhere on earth, yet their results were among the best in their region.

Even throughout 2022, excess deaths remained low.

So why did New Zealand fail?

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Mistaken Assumptions

Compared to other countries, New Zealand’s cumulative COVID mortality rate still remains low. But the all cause mortality tells a different story.

Their strict policies and delayed opening were supposed to prevent this exact situation from occurring. All because the government put their faith in experts.

The experts mistakenly believed that vaccinations would prevent virtually all deaths, as Jacinda “we are your sole source of truth” Arden explained.

Obviously that was not the case.

It’s not clear what percentage of the excess mortality rate came from vaccinated people. But even more importantly, the majority of the increase was entirely unrelated to COVID.

Nearly 6,000 more people died in 2022 than did in 2020, despite a relatively small population increase. Yet the government says just 2,400 were associated with COVID.

So what caused the other 3,600 unexpected deaths?

In raw numbers, nearly 7,500 more people died in 2022 than in 2016. Accounting for population increases, that meant virtually 100 more people per 100,000 died in 2022 than in 2016.

What happened?

Whatever it was, it’s almost certainly related to New Zealand’s mistaken assumptions. Ancillary lockdown-related causes, missed health screenings, side effects — any or all of it could have contributed to the dramatic increase.

And all of it was because the government mistakenly proclaimed that they could control COVID. Instead, they delayed the inevitable.

Governments have many lessons to learn from the pandemic, but the first should be to never, ever, put blind faith in “experts.”

All too often they’re flying blind themselves.

April 7, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, New Zealand