The truth about NZ’s death rate that the Covid Commission will hear

Opinion: Over 300 years ago Edmond Halley published the first analysis of death rates by age, setting the basis for modern ways of measuring mortality.  
Today, incorrect claims about ‘excess deaths in New Zealand’ are becoming more common as we approach phase two of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry, and these claims seem to have either forgotten the centuries-old basic mathematical steps, or are ignoring them.