Five times as many Australians are dying from COVID-19 than influenza five years after the outbreak of the global pandemic, research published by the Actuaries Institute shows.
New analysis by the Institute’s Mortality Working Group of mortality between January and November 2024 found 3,676 people died from COVID-19 – 69% more than predicted. The COVID-19 deaths were five times more than the 728 recorded for influenza.
Another 14,780 people died from non-COVID-19 respiratory conditions including influenza and pneumonia – nearly 1,000 or 7% more than predicted, following analysis of the latest Provisional Mortality Statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Chair of the Institute’s Mortality Working Group, actuary Jennifer Lang, said while there have been slightly fewer deaths from COVID-19 in 2024 than in 2023, the reduction has not been as great as expected. Deaths from COVID-19 fully explain the overall excess mortality we have seen.
“COVID-19 was a much more significant cause of death than the flu in 2024, with pneumonia and other lower respiratory disease also markedly higher than predicted.”
She added, “The first 11 months of 2024 were materially worse than we anticipated for COVID-19, in terms of both the peak mortality wave and the underlying mortality between waves. While at the beginning of 2024, deaths from COVID-19 were not as high as in the equivalent wave in 2023, since then the mortality from COVID-19 waves and in between waves has been very similar to 2023, rather than reducing as we anticipated.
“Those waves appear to have kept deaths from COVID-19 stubbornly high, which contrasts with the drop we saw from 2022 to 2023 when the number of deaths from COVID-19 more than halved from 10,300 to 4,600.”
The Mortality Working Group also found there were 1,400 more deaths in the first 11 months of 2024 than had been predicted. As a result, Australia’s excess mortality rate – or the number of actual deaths compared to our predictions – was 1%, which can be fully explained by excess COVID-19 deaths.
Respiratory conditions caused 10.8% of all deaths in 2024, with COVID-19 accounting for 2.1% of total mortality. Respiratory conditions caused 10.8% of all deaths in 2024, with COVID-19 accounting for 2.1% of total mortality.
Excess deaths are measured by comparing actual deaths each week to a baseline. For 2024, this baseline is the working group’s predicted values, based on 2023 mortality and expected improvement rates, and including COVID-19.