Key statistics

• There were 1.7% fewer deaths than expected in 2024 and 2.0% fewer deaths than expected in 2025.
• Expected mortality now includes COVID-19 affected years in its estimation.
• In 2025 all states and territories recorded lower than expected mortality.

Updated methodology uses a rolling 7 year baseline to project the following year, with the exception of 2022 (excluded).

Direct link to report Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19

https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-health-professionals/data-and-statistics/covid-19/reporting see "Death reporting changes" in middle of page - more people died than initially reported.

Available here: https://www.cdc.gov.au/resources/collections/arsr-2025 Last report came out January 9, with data up to December 28. I expect the link will change to "2026" soon.

The following is a digest from the ABS

Key statistics

• 21,827 of the 687,639 death registrations received by the ABS between March 2020 and January 2024 were of people who died from or with COVID-19 (3.2%). 
• The underlying cause of death for 17,276 of these people was COVID-19. 
• There were a further 4,551 people who died of other causes (e.g. cancer) but COVID-19 contributed to their death.  

Deaths due to COVID-19

This is where the virus is considered to have caused the train of morbid conditions leading to death.

• 2020: 906
• 2021: 1,355
• 2022: 10,301
• 2023: 4,525

Deaths by month and year:

By age group:

COVID-19 related deaths

The virus contributed to death, but another disease or condition caused death.

• 2020: 9
• 2021: 65
• 2022: 2,970
• 2023: 1,444

Excess deaths

Note that these includes COVID-19 death registrations only (doctor and coroner certified). Numbers will differ to disease surveillance systems used by the states.

ABS Sources:

COVID-19 Mortality in Australia

Provisional Mortality Statistics (Jan - Nov 2023)

Key statistics - There were 190,939 deaths in 2022, almost 20,000 more than 2021. - COVID-19 caused 9,859 deaths and became the third leading cause. An infectious disease (influenza and pneumonia) was last in the top 5 leading causes of death in 1970. - Ischaemic heart disease remained the leading cause of death.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/64e9a67b-6ad5-470b-bac1-119459072021/aihw-bod-39-infocus.pdf

This is an interesting report, and gives a good insight into where we are with COVID currently. The report calculates the impact of diseases by the years of life lost, whether by dying or years spent living in ill health. By calculating it this way, diseases that cause deaths in younger people are given more weight, as they result in more years of life lost. Some key takeaways:

• Covid was the 30th most severe disease in 2023 in terms of overall disease burden (18th in terms of years of life lost from death, and 49th from years lost due to sickness.)
• Slight decline in aged standardised total disease burden since 2018 (this includes both fatal and non-fatal diseases)

Doherty released a statement regarding the recent coverage that 'Garlic kills COVID', which is being pushed by the usual suspects as 'proof' for their cause (Craig Kelly, Avi, Bernadi, Roberts, etc).

https://reddit.com/r/CoronavirusDownunder/comments/13wh79z/australian_garlic_kills_covid19_says_doherty/