23 July 2024
Chris Johnston
[FYI request #27438 email]
Tēnā koe Chris
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00054507
Thank you for your email on 1 July 2024, asking Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora for the
following under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
“Can you please provide a count of the number of people vaccinated against COVID19
funded by the government of NZ and those who subsequently died of any cause - as
measured by MoH record level patient or payment databases.
1) This OIA asks for repeat run of Ticket Reference RT-268 with a revised date range
so that updated numbers can be made available to the public.
Please provide this as a machine readable CSV or Excel file.
2) For reference, my understanding of the columns provided in the previous OIA are
described below. Where there is any conflict please provide a reun of the previous
RT-268 dataset and identify where I have misunderstood what Health NZ are
supplying.
The following breakdown of each column is required:
Col1) Month of Death - from the first vaccination until the end of June 2024
Col2) Age Band of Patient – 0-20 inclusive, 21-40 inclusive, 41-60 inclusive, 61-80
inclusive, 81-100 inclusive, 101+
Col3) Last COVID-19 dose number (eg 0, 1=1st, 2=2nd, 3=1st booster, 4=2nd booster
etc) using a coding scheme used within the MoH
Col4) Days between last vaccination and death – N/A where Last COVID-19 dose
number is 0, else each of the following categories should be calculated from the date
of the patients’s most recent vaccine: <30 days inclusive, 31 days-90 days inclusive,
91-180 days, 181 days to 365 days, 366 days to 730 days inclusive, 731 to 1095 days
inclusive, over 1096 days inclusive.
Col5) Count of people matching (when Grouping on) the above 4 columns This OIA
does not seek any personal or commercial information about patients or suppliers.
Where a cell count is less than 5 please mark as “S”. Where a cell count is truely zero
please mark this as suich in the dataset.
3) In the Summary tab of RT-268 there is a 3rd Note/Comment in the Summary tab.
Please provide a definition for the “Health Service User population - it includes deaths
of people (within the requested time period) who interacted with the NZ Health
Service.” Specifically what counts as an “interaction with the NZ Heath Service”.
Health NZ may find it easier to provide a succinct answer in terms of the databases
queried or the services included/excluded (eg an extract of a table of codes and
descriptions for the databases queried).
4) Please provide a simple count of the number of COVID vaccination records in the
Pay per Dose system as at the end of June 2024.
5) If this query cannot be easily rerun please provide:
a) A reason why this capability has been deprecated within Health NZ since the last
request and
b) Your confirmation that the dataset wil be supplied based upon Health NZ’s new
capabilities/infrastructure.”
Response
Please find attached,
HNZ00054507 Appendix RT-670 Covid Deaths, in response to your
request.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz
or by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Health NZ may
proactively release a copy of this response on our website. All requester data, including your
name and contact details, will be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Dr. Juliet Rumball-Smith
Director Intelligence
National Public Health Service
TeWhatuOra.govt.nz
Health NZ, PO Box 793,
Wellington 6140, New Zealand