Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Babet for the question and also for the advance indication that he would be asking a question around excess deaths. I can say that the department of health would, as routine, look at the reports that come out through the ABS. As the senator indicated in his question, there are reports that the ABS does on mortality statistics and reports they do on the causes of death, and of course the department of health would look at those and examine them to see if there are any trends or issues of concern. I'm advised that it's important to note that increases in deaths from a range of causes not related to COVID-19—because there is an indication of excess deaths related to COVID-19—have also been observed in 2022. Examples include deaths due to dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, which were 25.6 per cent above the baseline average in June and 21.8 per cent above the baseline average for the year to June.

While the number of COVID-19 cases and associated deaths has increased in 2022, I think it is important to understand that the proportion of COVID-19 associated deaths relative to the numbers of cases of COVID-19 has decreased overall, which highlights the positive impact of the health measures, vaccination, the changes in transmission and the reduced severity of the omicron variant and subvariants when compared to earlier COVID-19 variants such as delta.