Covid-19 drives nation’s mortality rate 10 per cent higher than anticipated in first few months of 2023

The long tail of Covid-19 continues to have an impact, with national mortality almost 10 per cent higher than expected.

Covid is continuing to push the nation’s death rate higher, but excess mortality is down on 2022. Picture: AAP

Covid-19 continued to push the nation’s death rate almost 10 per cent higher than expected in the first three months of 2023, but this excess mortality was lower than for the same period in 2022 when Omicron was rampaging through the country.

New ABS data reveals that the January-March period of 2023 saw excess mortality of just under 10 per cent even as the pandemic winds down.

ABS head of health statistics Lauren Moran said excess mortality measured deaths against a baseline of “expected deaths” which are based on long-term demographic factors like population ageing and other health factors.

“Excess mortality is estimated at approximately 9 per cent for the first quarter of 2023, meaning we’re still seeing a higher-than-expected number of deaths,” Mr Moran said. “This is lower than the 16.6 per cent excess mortality we saw in the first quarter of 2022.”

Ms Moran confirmed Covid-19 said was the main contributor to this excess mortality throughout 2022 as Omicron spread.

While making it clear the measure of Covid deaths was a complex issue, given it was often a comorbidity, the ABS has calculated that 915 people died “from or with” Covid-19 in 2020 out of 162,675 overall deaths.

But with public health measures put in place that year to manage the spread of the virus, there were 5228 fewer deaths than expected.

For 2021 there were 1415 Covid-related deaths out of 172,096 total deaths, with overall excess deaths at 2378.

But in the worst year for Covid mortality, 2022, the actual deaths, 190,326, were 18,634 more than expected, a 10.9 per cent increase. Deaths spiked higher than expected in the early months and then again in winter.

And for January to March this year the excess mortality still ran at over 9 per cent, with 3280 excess deaths.

“From the data we see on death certificates, we can still see a lot of deaths of people with Covid, so we weren’t surprised by continuing excess mortality in the first quarter of this year,” Ms Moran said.

“We’ve seen this year that from February there has been a slowdown of Covid mortality, but as the data for the winter months becomes available we would expect that to go up again, as it did last year.”

More broadly, the nation’s life expectancy continues to rise, and more Australians are reaching the age of 100 and beyond.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare this month reported that in the past two decades alone, life expectancy in Australia has been increasing at a rate of three months a year. And those dying beyond the age of 100 has grown from 83 in 1964 (one in 1214 deaths) to 2247 in 2021 (one in 72 deaths).