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Australia has avoided the 'missing deaths' phenomenon seen in other coronavirus-stricken countries, with an analysis showing COVID-19 has not significantly increased the nation's overall death rate.
There are fears in the UK, Italy and Spain that overwhelmed healthcare systems may have recorded thousands of people who died of coronavirus as dying from other causes, often because people who died were not tested for COVID-19 after death.
That means the true COVID-19 death toll is vastly understated.
Reports in the US have suggested the country has more than 63,000 'missing' COVID-19 deaths. But preliminary findings from an analysis of state and territory data commissioned by The Age suggests that is not the case locally.
A worker wearing personal protective equipment waters the floral tributes of funeral urn niches in a columbarium at a cemetery in Spain on April 30. CREDIT: ANGEL GARCIA/BLOOMBERG
Overall, Australia’s ‘death rate’ appears in line with our average over the last five years – a remarkable achievement given the government was initially projecting between 50,000 and 150,000 deaths from COVID-19 if no action was taken.
“The fact we’re not seeing anything screaming out from the death data is good news,” said Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University.
“But it’s early days for the less direct effects we might end up seeing on deaths associated with chronic disease and mental health.
“If people aren’t managing their blood pressure or diabetes well, that could eventually impact mortality rates. And I would include in that mental health. We’re seeing a lot of predictions for increases in suicides."
Excluding the Northern Territory – which did not supply data before deadline – 38,810 deaths were recorded between January and March this year across Australia.
That’s slightly up on the 37,072 recorded last year. Australia’s official COVID-19 death toll stands at 97.
However, Australia’s population has been steadily rising, and so have our annual number of overall deaths.
When adjusted for population increase, our 2020 ‘crude death rate’ for January to March – the number of deaths per 10,000 people – is 5.1.
In 2019 it was 5.0, according to Professor Bennett's calculations.
The Age sourced data from the Births, Deaths and Marriages registries of all Australia’s states and territories, except the Northern Territory.
Professor Bennett, who is part of an academic team reviewing Australian and international COVID-19 mortality data, then crunched the numbers and adjusted them for population growth.
She described them as “rough and ready”.
They are based on preliminary data collected by the states, and record only when a death was registered, not when a person actually died. They also do not capture deaths reported to the coroner. A computer glitch with Victoria's 2019 data also complicates the picture.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is expected to eventually produce a high-quality analysis of the data.
In the meantime, said Professor Bennett, the preliminary data did not show any dramatic changes.
Professor Allen Cheng, director of the infection prevention and healthcare epidemiology unit at Alfred Health and an adviser to the federal government, cautioned against reading too much into preliminary data.
Death rates vary across the year, and small changes to computer systems can throw out the data gathered, he said.
On the basis of the data supplied, he said he could not see any obvious extra deaths in 2020.
As more and higher-quality data comes in, Professor Bennett warned people should be on the look-out for subtle long-term impacts from COVID-19, which may take longer to translate into deaths.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/...hs-phenomenon-data-shows-20200508-p54r75.html
There are fears in the UK, Italy and Spain that overwhelmed healthcare systems may have recorded thousands of people who died of coronavirus as dying from other causes, often because people who died were not tested for COVID-19 after death.
That means the true COVID-19 death toll is vastly understated.
Reports in the US have suggested the country has more than 63,000 'missing' COVID-19 deaths. But preliminary findings from an analysis of state and territory data commissioned by The Age suggests that is not the case locally.
A worker wearing personal protective equipment waters the floral tributes of funeral urn niches in a columbarium at a cemetery in Spain on April 30. CREDIT: ANGEL GARCIA/BLOOMBERG
Overall, Australia’s ‘death rate’ appears in line with our average over the last five years – a remarkable achievement given the government was initially projecting between 50,000 and 150,000 deaths from COVID-19 if no action was taken.
“The fact we’re not seeing anything screaming out from the death data is good news,” said Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University.
“But it’s early days for the less direct effects we might end up seeing on deaths associated with chronic disease and mental health.
“If people aren’t managing their blood pressure or diabetes well, that could eventually impact mortality rates. And I would include in that mental health. We’re seeing a lot of predictions for increases in suicides."
Excluding the Northern Territory – which did not supply data before deadline – 38,810 deaths were recorded between January and March this year across Australia.
That’s slightly up on the 37,072 recorded last year. Australia’s official COVID-19 death toll stands at 97.
However, Australia’s population has been steadily rising, and so have our annual number of overall deaths.
When adjusted for population increase, our 2020 ‘crude death rate’ for January to March – the number of deaths per 10,000 people – is 5.1.
In 2019 it was 5.0, according to Professor Bennett's calculations.
The Age sourced data from the Births, Deaths and Marriages registries of all Australia’s states and territories, except the Northern Territory.
Professor Bennett, who is part of an academic team reviewing Australian and international COVID-19 mortality data, then crunched the numbers and adjusted them for population growth.
She described them as “rough and ready”.
They are based on preliminary data collected by the states, and record only when a death was registered, not when a person actually died. They also do not capture deaths reported to the coroner. A computer glitch with Victoria's 2019 data also complicates the picture.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is expected to eventually produce a high-quality analysis of the data.
In the meantime, said Professor Bennett, the preliminary data did not show any dramatic changes.
Professor Allen Cheng, director of the infection prevention and healthcare epidemiology unit at Alfred Health and an adviser to the federal government, cautioned against reading too much into preliminary data.
Death rates vary across the year, and small changes to computer systems can throw out the data gathered, he said.
On the basis of the data supplied, he said he could not see any obvious extra deaths in 2020.
As more and higher-quality data comes in, Professor Bennett warned people should be on the look-out for subtle long-term impacts from COVID-19, which may take longer to translate into deaths.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/...hs-phenomenon-data-shows-20200508-p54r75.html
