Excess deaths

[SueDonim]

How would our economy (and excess deaths) be if we had lost 50,000* people to covid plus all the others who couldn't get medical care for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc while all the hospitals were overloaded with patients (and staff) dying of covid? Yes, we have severe problems now, but they are able to be worked through. If we hadn't taken the path we did through the pandemic things would have been one hell of a lot worse. It would have been better though if we had had vaccinations and RATs sooner than we did, and if we had managed to get through to people that the best defence was to avoid contagion by avoiding close contact with other people when it isn't necessary (eg being considerate in the aisles at the supermarket). People now seem to have forgotten the basics already.

*https://issuu.com/kaitiaki/docs/kai_tiaki_july_2020 page 3.