Some fact checking on this article.
TLDR: Australia has not reached a 'significant' COVID milestone
A short thread/

https://twitter.com/SBSNews/status/1778534581064564737

"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.

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.

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.

The Mortality Working Group* of the Actuaries Institute has estimated Australian excess mortality to 30 November 2023.

A thread/

* re-branded as we plan to look at more than just Covid Total excess mortality for the first 11 months of 2023 is estimated at 5% (95% confidence interval: 3% to 7%).
This is about 7,400 more deaths than expected if the pandemic had not happened.

The ONS has released a new methodology for calculating excess deaths.
A thread/

https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1759874130415878637

First off, I am going to say that this is NOT a conspiracy to hide excess deaths.
This is a government institution doing its best to estimate excess deaths in a sensible way, noting where we are in the pandemic.

Last week the OECD published this paper on recent mortality trends, including yet another estimate of excess mortality.
How do the OECD results for Australia differ to the Actuaries working group results?
A thread/
oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/78f6… I'm going to start by saying there is no "right" answer to how to measure excess mortality.
By definition, excess mortality is the difference between actual deaths that occurred in a period, and a predicted number of deaths. And the predicted number is just that - a prediction

NSW Health released a surveillance report yesterday including data to 6 Jan, the first data since 16 Dec.
"COVID-19 activity remained at high levels .. Indicators suggest COVID-19 activity .. is higher than the 2023 winter peak, and .. is approaching levels observed in Dec 2022." After a dip in the week of Christmas, case numbers are up (and yes, of course case counts now do not in any way reflect total numbers of people with covid)

Federal data on Covid was released today, our first update in a month. So what is happening this wave?

Data sourced from here:
health.gov.au/topics/covid-1… Here is the Federal graph on numbers of people admitted to hospital.
Looks like we've peaked and hospitalisations are falling fast, doesnt it? Well no.

The first of the new monthly releases of Australian Covid data came out today. State-based data is compiled and released by the Federal Health Dept.

Here is the link to the new report:
health.gov.au/topics/covid-1… Some of the data/graphs in this new format report is the same as the old report:
- daily vaccination rates by age group
- impact on aged care, being numbers of outbreaks and cases in residents, cases in staff - all available by state
- daily deaths.
Very good.

The Covid-19 mortality working group has released our analysis of excess mortality in Australia to 31 July 2023.

TLDR: excess mortality is 6% (95% CI: 5-8%) for the first 7 months of 2023, +6,500 excess deaths relative to pre-pandemic expectations

actuaries.digital/2023/11/02/cov… As always, our baseline predicted deaths allows for the current population size and age demographics, and allow for pre-pandemic trends in mortality to continue

A lot of people getting upset at this announcement, so I did a bit of digging into what it does and doesnt mean.

https://twitter.com/KarenCutter4/status/1715633706055184789

A Communicable Disease Incident of National Significance is defined as "a CDI that requires implementation of national policy and public messaging, or deployment of Commonwealth or inter-jurisdictional resources to assist affected jurisdictions."
health.gov.au/sites/default/…

The COVID-19 Mortality Working Group has updated our estimates of excess deaths to 30 June 2023.
Having technical problems with the blog, so I'll link it in at the end once its up.
Excess mortality estimated at 7% (+5,500) for first 6 months of 2023 (95% CI: 5%-8%) As always, our estimates allow for changes in size and age mix of the population, plus allowance for pre-pandemic mortality trend to continue.
Our baseline is expected number of deaths had their been no pandemic.

The COVID-19 Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has a new blog out, covering excess mortality to the end of March 2023.
TLDR: 6% excess in 2023Q1
actuaries.digital/2023/07/06/exc… This is your usual reminder that our baseline is intended to be a pre-pandemic expectation of mortality, allowing for changes in population size, age demographics and pre-pandemic mortality trend

AIHW yesterday released some statistics on admitted patients in Australia in the 2021/22 year, including stats on COVID admissions.
aihw.gov.au/reports-data/m… Note that the data is for separations (hospitalisations) with a covid diagnosis, not necessarily in hospital FOR covid.

The COVID-19 Mortality Working group of the Actuaries Institute has released our update of excess mortality in Australia to the end of February 2023.
A thread/
actuaries.digital/2023/06/01/cov… A reminder that our predicted deaths are those we would have expected had there been no pandemic, and they allow for changes over time in population size, population aging and pre-pandemic mortality trend

The COVID-19 Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has released updated estimates of excess mortality for Australia for 2022.

TLDR: confirmed 20,000 excess deaths and COVID-19 third leading cause of death in 2022

actuaries.digital/2023/04/06/cov… This latest work uses data for the full year of 2022, based on the ABS Provisional Mortality Statistics, plus additional data on COVID-19 deaths provided via a customised report.
Our current findings confirm our previous findings that were based on part-year data.

NSW and Vic weekly stats are now out
Short thread/ Case numbers: 13% increase for NSW and 19% for Victoria. While the % increase is higher for Victoria, it looks to be a bit behind NSW in terms of how far through the new wave we are (i.e. NSW has been increasing for longer)

NSW Health have released their epi report for the week ending 11 March.
A thread/
You can find the full report here...
health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/cov… Cases are up 16% this week. The upward trend is now clear to see, but still (relatively) low levels of cases. Growth much slower than in the previous wave.

The COVID-19 Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute today released an update of our estimates of excess deaths for Australia.
A thread/
TLDR: 20,000 excess deaths for 2022, or 12% more than predicted.
Full report here: actuaries.digital/2023/03/06/alm… Our predicted deaths:
- are the number had there been no pandemic
- allow for continuation of pre-pandemic mortality trend
- allow for changes in size and age demographics of the population

Just going to step through this another way as it can be confusing...

https://twitter.com/KarenCutter4/status/1631452934776164353?s=20

In this thread, I'm looking at deaths that occurred between 1 Jan 2022 an 16 Oct 2022.
I chose these dates as surveillance deaths by date of occurrence are only available for 2022, and because NSW changed the basis of their surveillance reporting in mid-October 2022.

Returning to the perpetual question: why do Victoria's deaths look so much higher than other states?
A thread/ The @ActuariesInst Covid-19 Mortality Working Group that I am on purchased some additional data from the ABS this month which has enabled us to shed some light on this question, but doesnt provide all the answers.
First, some background...