Coronavirus is not our most pressing public health problem
Penny Murray05:00, Feb 22 2020
Coronavirus: The confirmed cases around the world
Here is a look at the total confirmed cases of Covid-19 across the world.
OPINION: First, there were the quarantined cities, the flight cancellations, that alarming footage of a doctor collapsed on a hospital floor.
Then it seemed to come closer, with posters up at work (WASH YOUR HANDS) and notes home from school asking pupils to stay away if they'd been to China in the previous fortnight.
My son's ukulele teacher emailed – in English, Chinese and Korean - with advice on how to avoid transmission of disease. The news had reports of people being told to "go home to China" and commentators worried about the long-term effects on people of East Asian heritage.
Never mind the long-term effects: at my local noodle shop, the kitchen staff looked to be in perfect health, yet had masks covering their faces.
News and fear of the novel coronavirus spread quickly, exponentially faster than the disease itself: as I write, there are about 74,000 cases confirmed in China and the death toll there has just topped 2000. A further 820 cases had been confirmed worldwide – more than half of them (454) on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined at Yokohama.
It's worrying and sad, sure, but a cold look at the diseases we've struggled through for years gives some perspective. We might think of coronavirus as a scary new thing, yet many types of coronaviruses are well known to us – in humans, this group of diseases cause respiratory infections, including the common cold.
AARON FAVILA/AP
Coronavirus has been confirmed in the Philippines, which has adopted tight precautionary measures.
From this point in the Kiwi summer, when drought and sunburn are pressing concerns, the misery of winter cold and flu season feels like something viewed from the wrong end of a telescope. However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the body asked by the World Health Organisation for its expertise on managing outbreaks – estimates that, in the four months from October 1 last year to the end of January, up to 31 million Americans had a flu-like illness and between 12,000 and 30,000 of them died from it. Assuming the worst – that the larger figure is accurate – that's about one person in every 11,000 dying from the flu, out of a population of 331 million. It seems like a lot.
Ah, America, where suburban life involves shovelling snow off the pavements in winter and there's no public health system. Of course they die from the flu there in disturbingly high numbers. That doesn't happen in our sub-tropical land, eh?
Well yes it does, only the situation here is much, much worse. New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world that sees a significant increase in deaths during the colder months. Over and above the usual heart attacks and car accidents, an additional 1600 people die here every winter, mostly due to respiratory and circulatory diseases and the effects of poorly insulated homes that are hard to heat. That's one in every 3000 of our people, with children and the elderly disproportionately affected.
This spike doesn't happen in places that freeze solid over winter, like Canada or Scandinavia. And why not? There, the building code is all about keeping people warm. Warm, dry dwellings are the difference between life and death.
I was on OE in Scotland at the end of 95 – a time etched into the national consciousness because the temperature dropped to -20C in Glasgow between Christmas and New Year – and, being fresh off the boat from a New Zealand summer, I fully expected to be freezing. All. The. Time. But everywhere I went, there was double glazing and central heating and insulated buildings. I'd been colder in my student flat in Auckland.
MARTIN DE RUYTER
New Zealand's minimum insulation regs are poor, compared to the levels required by other countries with similar climates.
Meanwhile in Ontario, the recommended R-value for roof insulation is a toasty R60 (the higher the number, the more effective at retaining heat). In the UK, which resembles our climate more closely, the specifications are much lower, sitting between R6.1 and R7. In New Zealand? New houses will be signed off with a pathetic R3.3, or R2.9 if they're north of Hamilton. Draughty old homes are making us ill, sure, but newbuilds aren't required to be much better.
(Oh, and remember how landlords howled about fitting underfloor insulation for tenants? That has to be R1.3. Might as well be candyfloss.)
When the news is dominated by one story, it's tempting to think it's all that matters – before coronavirus, it was Australia's bushfires – because sometimes the day-to-day facts are relatively tedious. It's a niche dinner party where thermal envelopes are the basis for sparkling banter. But cold, damp housing is one unsexy problem we know how to fix: it doesn't require a vaccine and it will even help reduce our carbon footprint. A bit of legislation and a few grants for retrofitting will produce huge dividends in terms of the nation's wellbeing.
So far, no cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed in New Zealand. I hope our precautions keep it that way. But we need to treat our cold, damp housing like the public health emergency it is in order to prevent the deaths we know are coming.
