We need better data on co-morbidities also

News.com.au reports:

Radio host Ben Fordham has claimed new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) regarding the nation’s Covid-19 deaths exposes “the overblown scare campaign we’ve witnessed”.

The statistics, released by the ABS on Tuesday, showed there were underlying health issues involved in 92 per cent of the 2639 deaths attributed to Covid-19 between March 2020 and January 31 this year. The underlying conditions ranged from pneumonia and kidney infection to chronic heart illnesses.

During the same period, 100,000 Australians died from cancer, 32,000 from heart disease, 30,000 from Alzheimers and dementia, and 10,000 from diabetes. The Covid-19 deaths, meanwhile, made up only one per cent of all fatalities nationwide.

We do not know in New Zealand how many of those who died from Covid-19 had co-morbidities. This is not to say we should not still take measures against Covid-19 as a life lost is a life lost. Losing your parent or sibling is a massive trauma to a family, regardless of if they had an underlying health condition. However in terms of assessing personal risk, it would be good to have data tools that took account of if an individual has an underlying health condition, so we understand our risk better.

This excellent Australian tool tells me that with very high transmission in the community, my risk profile for the next two months is:

• Getting Covid-19: 1 in 37
• Chance of dying if infected: 1 in 25,000

But that 1 in 25,000 will be very different depending on health conditions. It might be 1 in 200,000 if healthy and 1 in 10,000 of you have comorbidities. It would be really great to have clear data on this.