In advance of our June excess mortality work coming out tomorrow, here is a thread on the latest COVID-19 data in Australia. #COVID19Aus
Here's a table showing the various bits of data we know about COVID-19 deaths.
Note with the change to weekly reporting, I have needed to estimate surveillance deaths for the last day of Sept (last 3 days for Qld).
This thread might be a good read for some of my new followers, explaining how Covid deaths are recorded in Australia, concentrating on the difference between daily surveillance reports and the ABS statistics.
Surveillance numbers dont change, other than adding a new month.
ABS figures increase as deaths are registered, impacting the most recent months more than older months.
Compared with last month, a lot more coroner referred deaths were registered this month (49 cf 4 last month).
Here is the chart of surveillance deaths per month.
September is much lower than July and August.
This graph compares the ABS and daily surveillance reports to the end of August. Before Jan-22, the two sources match closely but there are considerable differences in 2022.
The main reason for the big August difference (and to a lesser extent July), is because there are a lot of deaths that occurred in those months that wont have been registered yet, hence wont appear in the ABS data.
Here’s the same data presented on a cumulative basis since the start of the pandemic. I’ve also shown the ABS data including an allowance for late registrations (grey dashed line, using the same pattern of registrations as seen in the last six months).
Daily surveillance deaths to the end of August were just under 14,000.
The ABS data shows 11,400 deaths, and I estimate this will increase to 13,200 by the time all the late registrations come in.
Its unclear why surveillance deaths are higher than estimated ABS deaths:
- "historical" reporting in surveillance data confuses timing
- there could be lots of coroner-referred covid deaths awaiting decision as to cause (so arent in ABS data)
- my estimates could be wrong🙃.
Deaths *from* vs *with* covid. Overall, the ABS data shows that 9,428 (82%) of deaths are *from* covid and 2,013 (18%) *with* covid. The proportion *with* covid increased significantly with the Omicron wave and was 25% in May-July, increasing to 30% in August.
For those who died *from* Covid, overall 79% had a pre-existing condition. This proportion has increased for deaths registered in the last four months and is currently sitting at 85%.
Chronic cardiac conditions and dementia remain the most common pre-existing conditions.
For those dying *with* Covid, what were the underlying causes of death? Cancer, circulatory system diseases (which includes heart disease) and dementia are the top 3. It is likely that Covid accelerated the death of these people in many/most cases.
The end. Any questions?
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Excellent summary, noting the baseline is no longer “assuming no pandemic”.
Actual weekly deaths are mostly within the 95% confidence interval. However, most weeks in June, July and August were above the prediction and this is significant in aggregate for the eight-month period.
The Mortality Working Group has today published our Research Paper covering excess mortality in 2020-2023. actuaries.asn.au/public-policy-…
It is a massive paper (100+ pages), so I'm not going to cover off all of it!
This thread gives a taster of what is included in the paper, and is aimed at those who may want to delve further into the nitty-gritty.
There are four main sections of our paper (plus an into in section 1).
Section 2 cover excess mortality for Australia. This formally documents the excess mortality blogs we published throughout 2023. For those who have been following me, the numbers will look familiar.
The Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has released their latest estimate of excess mortality for Q1 2024.
TLDR: excess mortality is 1%, noting this is measured against the new baseline. actuaries.digital/2024/07/10/exc…
Our new baseline measures 2024 mortality against 2023 (after allowing for some mortality improvement), and includes and allowance for COVID-19 deaths.
Deaths from all causes have been within the 95% confidence interval in each of the first thirteen weeks of 2024, although they have been towards the top of that range for three of the last four weeks of March.
"Australia appears to have had at least a week where no COVID-associated deaths were recorded for the first time in more than two years."
This is simply not true. The statement is based on this Fed Health graph.
Yes, it does show a 7-day average of zero deaths for the most recent data points. But this ignores the fact that the graph is compiled using date of death, and it is almost impossible for someone to die, have their death registered, and included in the Fed data within a week!
The Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has released our estimate of excess mortality for the full year 2023.
TLDR: Excess mortality for 2023 is 5% (95% CI: 3%-7%) or +8,400 deaths.
A thread/ actuaries.digital/2024/04/05/exc…
Note that our expected number of deaths (baseline) is our expectation had the pandemic not happened.
The baseline allows for changes in the age and size composition of the population over time, plus allows for pre-pandemic mortality trend to continue.
We finished the year with deaths being much higher than expected for each of the four weeks in December (as they were in November).
Australian deaths counts: surveillance vs death certificates.
For some time now I have been quizzically looking at the death surveillance reporting, thinking the numbers looked too low.
A thread/
This is because of the relationship between hospitalisations and deaths.
Normally deaths track hospital admissions quite closely, but with a little bit of a lag. But for Dec23 and Jan24, this relationship changed - deaths are lower than expected based on hospitalisations.
A few theories were floating around about why (eg. JN.1 less severe), but it also didnt make sense to me from looking at the Vic death reporting, and knowing the Vic wave was a bit earlier than the rest of Aust. Things just werent stacking up nicely.