Given the enormous fuss that this government has put on the Covid-19 virus, it’s clear from the number of hospital discharges alone that it is nowhere near the problem that Influenza and Pneumonia are, so why the incredible over-the-top reaction to Cv-19? Even Tuberculosis and viral Meningitis get more hospital admissions.

Hi,

Your request has been passed on to me to respond to.

It takes several years for cause of death information to be determined, reported, coded and loaded.  I’d expect 2020 cause of death information to become provisionally available in December 2022 though it is dependent on the number of outstanding coronial cases. 

All our data is coded using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.  As such, we are limited by how this system classifies various conditions.  I ran a query looking at publicly funded hospital discharges in 2019/20 for you where the primary diagnosis (i.e. reason for admission) was one of the following codes:

A00   Cholera

A08-A09  Other gastroenteritis and colitis of viral, infectious and unspecified origin

A15-A19  Tuberculosis

A22   Anthrax

A33-A35  Tetanus

A37   Pertussis

A39   Meningococcal infection

A82   Rabies

A87   Viral meningitis

A92.8   Other specified mosquito-born viral fevers

A97   Dengue

A98.3   Marburg virus disease

A98.4   Ebola virus disease

A98.5   Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome

B03   Smallpox

B05   Measles

B20-B24  Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV] disease

B33.4   Hantavirus (cardio-) pulmonary syndrome (HPS)

B34.2   Coronavirus infection, unspecified site

B50-B54  Malaria

G00-G03  Bacterial meningitis

J09-J11  Influenza

J12-J18  Pneumonia

U04.9   Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), unspecified

U06.0   Suspected COVID-19 – testing performed – negative test result

U07.1-U07.2  COVID-19

Some notes about this coding:

  • The coding system codes Staphylococcus aureus without identifying whether it is methicillin-resistant or not.  As such, I’ve not included a code for this.
  • For infectious diarrhoea, I’ve used two codes, Viral and other specified intestinal infections, and Other gastroenteritis and colitis of infectious and unspecified origin
  • With meningitis I’ve separated the viral and bacterial types, and added meningococcal infection which is often referred to as meningitis.
  • Zika would be coded to Other specified mosquito-born viral fevers
  • MERS is coded to Coronavirus infection, unspecified site.  Some COVID cases were reported with this as primary diagnosis so I think that these are more likely to be COVID than MERS.
  • Hantaviruses are coded in various places, e.g. Hantavirus disease with kidney manifestations  are coded to Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome
  • There are no events reported with COVID-19 as the primary diagnosis.  This seemed odd to me so I had a look at events where it was a secondary diagnosis and they’re mostly coded to things like pneumonia, respiratory infection, or cough. 

The number of publicly funded hospital discharges in 2019/20 with these primary diagnoses were:

A08-A09  Other gastroenteritis and colitis of viral, infectious and unspecified origin = 12087

A15-A19  Tuberculosis = 237

A37   Pertussis = 60

A39   Meningococcal infection = 120

A87   Viral meningitis = 362

A97   Dengue = 55

B05   Measles = 574

B20-B24  Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV] disease = 8

B34.2   Coronavirus infection, unspecified site = 13

B50-B54  Malaria = 21

G00-G03  Bacterial meningitis = 188

J09-J11  Influenza = 3468

J12-J18  Pneumonia = 15565

U06.0   Suspected COVID-19 – testing performed – negative test result = 1

I hope this helps.  Please contact me if you have any questions.


Cheers,

Chris Lewis

Information Analyst

Analytical Services, Ministry of Health

phone: +64-4-816-2869

fax: +64-4-816-2898