New Zealand hospital emergency department visits by people under the age of 40 with chest pain and heart issues have increased dramatically since 2020, official figures show.
Data obtained from Health New Zealand under the Official Information Act (OIA) by freedom advocate Aly Cook this week shows that such ED visits are on track to hit 29,000 this year, up from just 111 in 2018.
There were 2,219 in 2019, 4,406 in 2020, 13,063 in 2021, 21,416 in 2022, 20,005 in 2023, and 14,639 to June 2024. If the number of ED visits remain consistent this year the final tally will be 29,278.
Ms Cook said on X that she made the OIA request when her 28-year-old son, who has been officially diagnosed with ongoing vaccine-induced pericarditis, noticed that many even younger people seemed to be receiving treatment for similar conditions.
“When my son walked out of his cardiology appointment, he was first in on that day, he was shocked to see a large waiting room at the hospital full of young people and many younger than him,” she said.
“It prompted me to do an OIA and ask the question. How many presentations of young New Zealaders under 40 are there presenting at emergency with heart conditions? I was shocked with the answer.”
Ms Cook’s OIA also requested data on the number of ambulances arrivals at EDs, the number of confirmed cases for pericarditis and myocarditis for the under 40s, and the number of heart attack or cardiac arrest deaths for the same age group.
Ambulance arrivals went from 444,954 in 2017 to 492,419 in 2023, with 2024 likely to record well over 500,000.
The number of publicly funded hospital discharges with a primary diagnosis of acute pericarditis went from 84 in 2019/20 to 113 in 2023/24, while confirmed cases of myocarditis
The number of publicly funded hospital discharges with a primary diagnosis of Acute myocarditis rose from just 16 in 2019/20 to 64 in 2023/24.
The pericarditis and myocarditis figures could include patients hospitalised multiple times for transfers, readmissions and multiple incidents, Health New Zealand said, adding that data from 2020/21 onwards was provisional.
Health New Zealand was unable to provide cardiac arrest deaths numbers after 2020 and only had provisional data for that year.
Alia Bee, co-founder of Voices for Freedom and Reality Check Radio, responded to the data by saying: “Whatever could have triggered that huge increase in ED visits for cardiac issues in younger people?
“The authorities remain puzzled.”
Australian political figure Crag Kelly, a former Liberal MP and United Australia Party leader, blamed Covid vaccines for the shock data.
“Everyone knows that it’s the experimental mRNA vaccines,” he said on X.
“On that data, the New Zealand government must declare a national emergency.”
