The increase in deaths has temporarily lowered Australia’s life expectancy. For 2021-22,life expectancies are expected to have fallen by just short of five months,and for 2022-23,they are forecast to drop by about 2.5 months for men and 3.5 months for women.
After that,life expectancies will likely gradually increase. In 10 years,the average life expectancy is projected to reach 87 years for women and 83.5 years for men.
Australia moved quickly to manage the pandemic,closing the international border in early 2020 while rolling lockdowns were enforced across much of the country. Vaccine take-up has been strong – 96 per cent of people aged 16 and up have had at least two doses of a vaccine.
COVID-19 deaths in Australia peaked at 3.3 per million in January last year,and 3.7 per million in July. By comparison,COVID-19 deaths peaked at 20.6 per million in the United Kingdom and 10 per million in the United States in January 2021.
Life expectancies in those countries also fell further in 2020 – dropping by 1.5 years for men and one year for women in the UK,and two years for men and 1.4 years for women in the US.
Professor Jodie McVernon,director of Doherty epidemiology,said people needed to be mindful of the fact that compared to other nations,the COVID-19 impact on Australia had been relatively modest.
“Every death is a loss,but in terms of the wider global burden in countries of comparable income,Australia did manage to reduce that toll,” she said.
McVernon noted that some people with chronic conditions delayed medical care in the last three years,as the pandemic overwhelmed hospitals,making people wary of seeking help.
“For a little while,those sorts of under-treated chronic conditions and delay presentations are going to continue to play out,” she said.
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Federal Labor MP Dr Mike Freelander haspreviously expressed concern at the higher-than-normal deaths through 2022. Chairing the Senate inquiry into long-COVID,he said the investigation would look at how COVID-19 might increase inflammatory responses and what could be done to modify those risks.
Despite fears earlier in the pandemic that extended lockdowns and social-distancing restrictionscould drive a surge in suicide rates,the report said so far the suicide rate had dropped compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The report assumes the increased death rate in people aged over 60 will continue for the first half of this year,but notes the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the country’s mortality rate were “highly uncertain”.
“The degree to which ‘long-COVID’,ongoing mutations of the virus,and public health responses affect future mortality is unknown,which is a material uncertainty for future projections,” the report said.
McVernon said with good national vaccine coverage and milder variants,Australians could hope for less uncertainty in the future,“where we have sort of grumbling waves and smaller epidemics,rather than these big catastrophic things that happen”.
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