Coronavirus Australia: Why Victoria’s COVID-19 death toll is surging

State and federal authorities have known for months that Victoria’s daily virus death toll was missing up to 100 fatalities.

State and federal authorities have known for months that the daily COVID-19 death toll was missing up to 100 deaths in aged care.

A huge increase in the number of COVID-19 deaths in Victoria announced today is being blamed on over 50 deaths in the state’s nursing homes not being reported until now.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews confirmed today that there were 59 new deaths in the daily figures but 53 of those people died in aged care weeks ago.

The death toll is the largest number announced to date but the daily figure would be in single digits without the previously unreported 50 plus deaths in aged care homes being included in the figure.

“600 Victorians who have now lost their life as a result of this global pandemic,’’ Mr Andrews said.

“An increase of 59. I want to stress today’s report includes 53 tragedies, 53 people who passed away prior to yesterday. This is in relation to a reconciliation of data between private providers, the Commonwealth, and our public health team.

“Everyone is doing their very best to reconcile the data as quickly as possible.”

On Monday, Victoria reported a shock 41 deaths in the daily death toll, however the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed 33 of the 41 died in the weeks leading up to August 27.

The deaths were reported by aged care facilities on Sunday after investigations were completed.

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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a record 59 deaths on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said nobody had “done the wrong thing”.

“This is the stubborn tail of the epidemic curve,’’ he said.

“In relation to the 53 historical deaths, the reconciliation process with the Commonwealth does have some complexities. There are mandatory reporting requirements for deaths from aged care facilities to the Commonwealth.

“But there is a process that needs to be reconciled with those different reporting structures. In terms of active cases in Victoria, we’re almost below 2,000 now for aged care facilities also decreasing significantly and for health care workers now under 300 active cases as I understand.”

On Monday, he confirmed that investigations in recent weeks had led to dozens of deaths being reclassified when the cause of death was confirmed to be coronavirus.

“These are deaths that have happened over previous weeks including going back to late July,” Professor Sutton said.

“Some of those have now caught up.”

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Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton stressed no one had done anything wrong. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ David Crosling

The main reason for the discrepancy in the number of deaths reported by the Commonwealth and the Victorian Government is due to the deaths not being reported in the DHHS Public Health Unit information system – the Public Health Event Surveillance System (PHESS). The deaths were however, appropriately certified as deaths through the normal Victorian death certification process and families were notified.