The Social Demography of Covid-19 Delta

Supplementary data provided by Stats NZ and MBIE and covers labour force and hardships consequences, besides other information. In addition, a range of surveys (some carried out by government agencies) provide information on people’s attitudes (see Crothers, 2021 for a summary). The usefulness of these various sources of information depends on the speed with which they are processed and made available and the extent to which the data allows close examination of particular social groupings given the social breakdowns provided. Fortunately, MOH data in particular is quickly available and although social breakdowns have been limited more has been made available recently, although ways of presenting data differ according to source. In a fast-changing situation the data presented here will be quickly out of date although it is likely that some of the broad patterns will endure.


Introduction
The trajectory of Covid and its immediate consequences are tracked across several official and some non-official data sources. The main data comes from MOH, with the reported data related to: -Scanning -Testing -Vaccination -Cases of Covid and also -MIQ.
Supplementary data provided by Stats NZ and MBIE and covers labour force and hardships consequences, besides other information. In addition, a range of surveys (some carried out by government agencies) provide information on people's attitudes (see Crothers, 2021 for a summary). The usefulness of these various sources of information depends on the speed with which they are processed and made available and the extent to which the data allows close examination of particular social groupings given the social breakdowns provided. Fortunately, MOH data in particular is quickly available and although social breakdowns have been limited more has been made available recently, although ways of presenting data differ according to source. In a fast-changing situation the data presented here will be quickly out of date although it is likely that some of the broad patterns will endure.
Given the wider range of data available and the small-area spatial scale, Vaccination data affords the best insight into social effects on Covid-related phenomena. At the DHB level having 3 DHBs each with somewhat different social characteristics provides some insight into socio-economic effects.

Literature
There is already a small literature = which is useful since MOH present but do not analyses their data. A media report and two analyses reveal effects of systematic racism in terms of Covid outcomes -both hospitalisations and deaths (Janesen, 2021;Steyn et al., 2021a;Steyn 2021b) while a study of the spatial arrangements of vaccination services (Whitehead et al, 2021) comes to the same conclusion.

Scanning
Data has been developed for various ways of scanning and monthly averages shown in the table that the long period thought which NZ did not experience cases tended to suppress New Zealanders' scanning behaviour. MOH has been releasing vaccination date data by DHB (n=20) and locality (SA2; n=c2139). Data are up to 17 th Oct 2021. The DHB level data is not only age (and gender specific) but also includes both Level 1 and Level 2 ethnic levels, allowing quite detailed tracking of groups. The table below is highly summarised but shows that for the 65+ age-group rates are similar for the three ethnic groupings, with increasing divergence with successively younger age-groups. The locality-level data allow many links to be made, but they are links at the 'aggregate level' and such links might not also hold at the individual level. At the locality level separate data is provided for all, Maori and Pacific rates: from these an 'Other (neither Maori nor Pacific) rate can be calculated. This is much higher than that for either Pacifica or Maori, which are both alarmingly low. Given that 2 nd dose tends to follow fairly 'automatically' from the first attention is focused on the 1 st . There is a clear fall-off with size of urban area, illustrated by quite strong measures of association. There is an even stronger association (although less so for Pacifica) between Deprivation level of area and vaccination. Covid cases need to be sequestered between those in MIQ (almost totally drawn from overseas travellers) and 'community cases. During periods where there were no community cases were necessarily drawn from overseas. Community cases are drawn substantially from each of the main ethnic groups and across age groups up to the 50s and even between the two genders. Those hospitalized have ben older and with more males. In some periods there has been a substantial backlog of 'historical' cases. A useful presentation provides data for total cases, and then cases, deaths and tests per million population. It is important to exclude various cases to obtain more comparable measurement and to recognize that countries vary enormously in the accuracy of their reporting. Ranking (in my view) is best carried out on case rate. On this basis NZ is 3 rd amongst larger countries (after China and Taiwan and we do slightly better in terms of death rate.

Conclusions
The data assembled in this research note shows that we are each experiencing Covid through the places we hold in society and viewpoints fatefully shaped by New Zealand's social order. But Covid is also fatefully reshaping this social order not just in the short term as we experience the current shifting phases but into the longer-term future.
These different ways we relate to Covid are fractured by underlying socio-economic, ethnic and age differences (and perhaps others). Managers and Professionals and Businesspeople (according to the Household Labourforce Survey data reported in Crothers, 2021) are more likely to be able to have the advantages of 'working from home' affording them more protection from being exposed to the virus -whereas many 'Essential workers' (see Appendix) that have needed to venture out are closer to the breadline (Stats NZ data). Those suffering from lower incomes are more likely to be causal workers. Many service workers are vulnerable, and many do not have the flexibility or even the transport to be able to easily take opportunities to be vaccinated. To the different opportunities and difficulties which accrue to different socio-economic situations must be added difficulties which can arise through ethnicity and language, some embedded in very long-standing experiences of deprivation and prejudice. Moreover many in difficult circumstances are further handicapped by their distance from facilities -and perhaps also the opportunities to talk with others about the situation and its dangers. Different ethnic groups also have different age-structures and the Ministry of Health data show that different age-cohorts are being vaccinated at fairly similar rates. Analysis has to dig below the surface.
The analysis of data from MOH show useful light on some of the underlying social differences at DHB and locality (SA2) levels. Vaccination rates are strongly shaped by social class, ethnicity and location. These points are important: although Māori lags in vaccination are partly due to the greater extent to which Māori are working class but there is also a major vaccination gap in working class areas in general -and also in those which are more remote.
A further new class division which is emerging is that between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated which hopefully at least will be temporary until more of the disadvantaged catch up in their vaccinations with the advantaged. Such a division seems unfortunately seems unavoidable to ensure we can all cope with Covid. Assigning extra resources to educate and assist the vaccine hesitant is essential and the Government is working on this. To keep tabs on this issue formal government reporting on progress is being carried out which is useful to agencies in targeting their efforts although unfortunately it adds further pressure and stigmatisation.
While the majority are law abiding and will follow rules designed to limit the dangers of Covid not all are, and appalled respectable citizens often cannot understand why simple rules (e.g. stay at home isolation) cannot be more widely followed, and perhaps don't realise how much extra resource is sucked into dealing with the relatively few stand-outs and why more complex approaches are needed. Covid too has brought out just how many people in various social situations (although many youth fall into this category) who are considerably detached from the broader society most respectable citizens live within.
Charting forward any path is completely rife with difficulty and continues to involve trade-offs in decisions and balancing of competing interests. The tendency of too many in the public, commentators in the media let alone opposition leaders is to paper over these conflicting interests and views and, worse, to increase polarizing them, which is not helpful to keeping the high social