Thread by @GidMK

It feels like the entirety of the Australian media has been making errors about COVID-19 deaths in the last few days, so here's a brief explanation of the issue 🧵1/10

2/10 The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released a report looking at registered/reported deaths as of Jan 2022. The numbers don't match crude COVID-19 reporting because this is a more complete system abs.gov.au/articles/covid…

3/10 This report is based on death registry systems, which themselves are based largely on death certifications performed by (mostly) doctors. These are assigned ICD-10 codes based on the reported causes of death and comorbidities

4/10 The report found that 2,639 people had died and had COVID-19 mentioned ANYWHERE on their death certificate

Of those, 2,556 (96.9%) were DIRECTLY CAUSED by COVID-19

5/10 So, 96.9% of the COVID-19 deaths in Australia were FROM COVID-19, and 3.1% were 'with' COVID-19. Most of the 'with' deaths were caused by either cancer or chronic disease of some kind

6/10 Of the 2,556 deaths 'due to' COVID-19, there were two main categories:

1. COVID-19 as either the only CoD or as part of the causal sequence only
2. COVID-19 plus comorbidities

7/10 Importantly, the 'causal sequence' is NOT COMORBIDITIES

As the ABS report explains, these are conditions CAUSED BY COVID-19 (i.e. COVID-19 pneumonia)

8/10 So 30.5% of the deaths caused by COVID-19 in Australia had COVID-19 or the disease progression as the ~only~ CoD. Not 8% as you may have heard from whichever incorrect media source

9/10 Of the remaining deaths, there were a variety of comorbidities listed. Importantly, however, the median age was very similar to the median age of death of Australians generally. The comorbidity proportions were a bit lower than you might expect, but not drastically so

10/10 So, there we have it. 2,556 people died in this time period FROM COVID-19. Another 83 died 'with' COVID-19. The people who died were not especially old nor sick compared to people who die of any other disease

11/10 If you've heard the number 83, or that 92% were horribly sick already, you've been misinformed. The ABS report shows very well that most Australians recorded as dying from COVID-19 would not have died at that point without the infection 🤷‍♂️

12/10 Also, probably worth noting that the comorbidity percentages really weren't that high in the group of people who died. Somewhere around 1 in 4 Australians has at least of the conditions they listed

13/10 Small addendum - the actually interesting/depressing stuff in this report, like the clear socioeconomic gradient in the COVID-19 deaths, has largely been ignored, which is terrible