Covid-19

Four-month-old infant dies from Covid-19 in Fiji

Published

5 years ago

September 8, 2021

A four-month-old infant has died from Covid-19 in Fiji, health authorities announced last night.

The government also confirmed 240 new cases for the 24 hours to 8am Wednesday. That was compared with 160 cases and five deaths announced on Tuesday.

The child was among three deaths reported in the last 24 hours, and all of the victims were from the central division.

Health Secretary James Fong said the infant presented to a health centre in mild respiratory distress on 1 September.

“He was medically assessed and stabilised by the attending medical officer and then transferred to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva for specialist care on the same day,” Fong said.

“As per protocol upon admission, he was tested for Covid-19 and returned a positive result.

“His mother reported that he had a cough and was noted to be irritable two days before presentation at the health centre.

“He had developed a fever on the night before his presentation (31/08/2021).

“Sadly, he died five days after admission to hospital. He was not vaccinated as he was not in the current target population of people 18 years and over who are eligible to receive the vaccine.”

Fong said the other two deaths were a 66-year-old man who died at home and a 76-year-old man who presented to the Vunidawa Hospital in Naitasiri on 30 August with severe respiratory distress. He died on the same day.

Eight other people who tested positive to Covid-19 had also died in Wednesday’s update. But Fong said their deaths were classified as non-Covid-19 related by their doctors.

“The doctors have determined that these deaths were caused by a serious pre-existing medical condition and not Covid-19,” Fong said.

“Please note that due to the time required by clinical teams to investigate, classify and report deaths, a four-day interval is given to calculate the seven-day rolling average of deaths, based on the date of death. This is to help ensure the data collected is complete before the average is reported.

“Therefore, as of September 3, the national seven-day rolling average of Covid deaths per day is four – three in the west and one in the central division.

“We have recorded 353 positive patients who died from the serious medical conditions that they had before they contracted the virus; these are not classified as Covid-19 deaths.”

About 10 young people have died of Covid-19 since April, including a six-month-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.

– RNZ

Covid-19

Covid-19 update: 8544 new cases, 39 further deaths linked to virus

Published

3 years ago

June 19, 2023

News Staff

There were 8544 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to midnight on Sunday, and a further 39 deaths attributed to the virus.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3077.

In addition, there were 246 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with six in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of cases was 1217.

Last week, 9883 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 37 deaths were attributed to the virus.

Source: RNZ

Covid-19

Dr Jonathan Howard: why US doctors spread Covid disinformation

Published

3 years ago

May 21, 2023

News Staff

An American doctor believes more than 800,000 Americans would be alive today, if the US had taken New Zealand’s Covid approach.

Jonathan Howard, who is the chief of neurology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, said he was angry that influential health professionals minimised the seriousness of the virus.

“We want them infected,” was the call of then presidential science adviser Paul Alexander.

It’s also the title of Howard’s new book, which tells the story of how some medical and public health professionals came to become anti-vaccine and pro herd immunity.

He told Kim Hill on Saturday Morning there was a deluge of mis-information from prominent US doctors, some of whom wanted to actually spread the virus.

“Famous doctors from our top universities went on television and told people that Covid was just going away, that it was just the flu, that young people under the age of 65 have essentially no risk,” he said.

“And not only were there not attempts to limit the virus, these were loud influential voices who wanted to spread it.

“You can read quotes from our former Covid advisor, Donald Trump’s former Covid advisor, celebrating rising cases, saying this is a good thing when cases rise, which is shocking and astonishing.”

While Howard said there were obvious differences between the two countries, many lives could have been saved if the US had taken a similar approach to New Zealand.

“If we had limited infections until we had vaccinated the vast majority of our population, we would have potentially had hundreds of thousands of people still alive today, there’s no question about that.”

However, our zero-Covid strategy wasn’t without its critics, with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya writing that it had “cost New Zealand dearly”.

“I think that the fact that most of your grandparents are still alive means that zero Covid did not cost you dearly,” Howard said in response.

“I don’t discount that, there were real costs of the lockdowns, I don’t know anyone who argues otherwise and I want to be very clear that I was protected from those costs, meaning I am very fortunate to be employed, I worked throughout the pandemic, I was never lonely, I don’t have my own business.”

But Howard said he didn’t think that the alternative – letting the virus spread freely – would have yielded a better outcome.

He said that when forklifts were needed to move bodies into giant refrigerated trucks in New York, it was fantasy to imagine the city could have operated as normal during the pandemic.

“You talk about deferred healthcare – every single healthcare worker was working with Covid patients, our hospitals were overflowing,” he said.

“So when I hear people lament they missed cancer screenings, who would have done those screenings? Would elderly patients have left their house to go to crowded waiting rooms to get a mammogram for example? I don’t think so.

“I think that the fantasy is that things could have just been normal if only if it hadn’t been for overly cautious politicians.”

By comparison, New Zealand did well, Howard said.

“I look at the numbers, I look at your death rate with great jealousy.” he said.

“And I think for long periods of time your economy was more open than ours was because we had to keep locking down, just because there were overwhelming outbreaks of the virus.”

Howard said the fact many older New Zealanders were still alive compared with the US statistics, showed the success of this country’s Covid strategy.

Source RNZ