Rise in deaths but COVID-19 not only to blame: AIHW
Report shows 3000 more Australians died than expected in January and February this year, but only half were pandemic related
Three thousand more Australians died in the first two months of this year than expected, but it wasn’t all down to the Omicron wave, a new report says.
The Australia’s Health 2022 report, published on Thursday, found death rates in January and February were 35% higher than expected, with COVID-19 blamed for about half of the excess deaths.
Coronary heart disease and dementia were the next highest causes of the excess death, accounting for roughly 10% each, revealed the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report.
The last time Australia had a major spike in excess deaths of the same scale was during 2017’s severe influenza season, but even that only caused a 15% rise in excess deaths, the authors said.
