Deaths won’t fall unless stronger infection control measures are put in place, experts warn.
Covid was the third highest cause of death in Australia in last year, with the death rate increasing more than 10-fold compared to 2021.
Figures released by expert group OzSAGE estimated there were 17,000 deaths from covid in 2022, including more than 1000 people aged under 60 years.
“If we don’t do anything, there’s no reason to expect that deaths will decrease,” OzSAGE director Professor Geoff Hanmer said.
An OzSAGE covid expert group has called for higher levels of booster vaccinations, delivery of safe indoor air in public settings, the use of masks in poorly ventilated indoor areas, the return to free widely accessible testing, wide-spread availability of subsidised antivirals for all adults and a review of mitigations in high-risk settings such as aged care facilities.
“There is every indication that unless Australia changes its stance on managing covid, this trend will continue into 2023,” the group said in a statement.
Professor Hanmer said there was “absolutely no evidence” that Omicron would become another endemic respiratory disease that we experience, such as a cold.
“There’s no evidence in countries where there have been very high rates of infection. In the US and the UK, they’re still getting very high levels of infection and significant numbers of deaths,” he said.
Without the requirement to report covid infections, accurate data was difficult to find, said Professor Hanmer, a ventilation expert from the University of Adelaide and University of Technology Sydney.
“But if we just look at deaths, in 2022 around 17,000 people that wouldn’t normally die have died,” he said.
“It’s incumbent on the government to try and make plans to protect Australians so we don’t have this level of death. Outside of wartime, this is an unprecedented level of additional deaths in the Australian population.
“It’s up to the government to tell us what it thinks it should be doing in order to make sure that Australians are as safe as they can be from what appears to still be a pandemic which is effectively out of control.”
The number of deaths in residential aged care facilities was extremely concerning, Professor Hanmer said.
According to the OzSAGE report, there have been 3600 deaths from covid infections in residential aged care facilities since the start of the Omicron wave in November 2021.
That figure was at the bottom end of estimates, Professor Hanmer said.
“I think most Australians would be horrified to find out the extent of this,” he said.
He said evidence had emerged showing that the bivalent Moderna vaccine was highly protective against variants that were currently circulating.
“But the government still seems to be finding it too hard to make the Moderna vaccine available to older people,” he said.
“Where’s the government’s campaign to encourage older people to get fourth and fifth vaccinations? In fact, how do people get fifth vaccinations? Unless you have a chronic condition or you can persuade your GP or specialist to say that you have, then you just can’t get a fifth vaccination.
“Doing nothing isn’t really a plan. And this is what the government seems to be doing – nothing.”
Professor Hanmer said advising people to wear masks was “a bit like advising people to wear seat belts”.
“We eventually gave up asking people to do it because they didn’t,” he said.
“If we’re going to get people to wear masks, I think we have to face the fact that it has to be compulsory. And we understand that’s not a popular thing.”
Professor Hanmer said Australia has seen the benefit of implementing policies that were unpopular but saved lives, and leadership required action.
“We stopped people drink driving, we made people wear seatbelts, we made people wear bike helmets,” he said.
“And that’s reduced the road toll by about 2000 deaths a year over what it would be otherwise. If we do that, how can we argue that we shouldn’t do anything about 17,000 deaths?”
The warning came as a study in the BMJ found that mild covid infection was significantly associated with increased risks in early and late periods for anosmia and dysgeusia, cognitive impairment, dyspnoea, weakness and palpitations, and with significant but lower excess risk for streptococcal tonsillitis and dizziness.
The analysis of almost 2 million Israeli patient records found that most health outcomes arising after a mild covid infection remained for several months and returned to normal within the first year.
However, the researchers said anosmia and dysgeusia, concentration and memory impairment, dyspnoea, weakness, streptococcal tonsillitis, and dizziness were still reported more frequently in infected patients a year after infection, indicating long-lasting symptoms.
“Importantly, the risk for lingering dyspnoea was reduced in vaccinated patients with breakthrough infection compared with unvaccinated people, while risks of all other outcomes were comparable,” the researchers said.
