A 3D rendering of the Omicron COVID-19 variant (Image: Adobe)

If you believe everything you read in the mainstream media, a lot of people are reportedly dying of COVID. On Tuesday, official reports claimed 104 COVID-related deaths, the day before there were 28 deaths attributed to COVID. Last week, it was claimed that 400 people died of COVID. But are the statistics telling the whole story?

While the case fatality rate of Omicron is extremely low globally at under 0.20% (the infection fatality rate is believed to be perhaps as low as 0.01% — as many people don’t test themselves, or don’t report a positive test, or are completely asymptomatic), the reported death rate in Australia is strangely high by global standards. According to reported data, 16% of all deaths in Australia last week were due to COVID.

Something here just doesn’t add up: how can Australia be both one of the most vaccinated countries on earth and also have one of the world’s highest COVID death rates?

The stated fatality rate is also inconsistent with the number of people entering ICU wards with COVID. In NSW, which is reporting around 18 deaths per day, there are only 66 people in ICU and only 14 on ventilators (this number continues to fall). In Victoria, which is reporting around 14 deaths per day, there are only 36 people in ICU and 10 on mechanical ventilators.  

In short, the data simply doesn’t add up.

To try to resolve this inconsistency I spoke with one of Australia’s leading respiratory specialists, who has spent the past two years working on COVID wards to understand how so many people are dying from COVID, when ICU wards around the country remain devoid of COVID patients.

According to one of Australia’s most accomplished COVID specialists, ICU admissions remain low because reported COVID deaths relate largely to people who are very old (above 80) and, in most cases, already very ill. In fact, these patients are so unwell doctors are making the decision to not place them in ICU; most have multiple comorbidities and in many cases their COVID infection is incidental (patients are tested when admitted). While COVID may, in some cases, reduce the remaining life expectancy of some of these patients, typically these patients had only a few months to live with a very poor expected quality of life.

This data is analogous with reports from Los Angeles, where the chief medical officer of Los Angeles County Medical Centre, Dr Brad Spellberg, noted “90% of the time it is not due to COVID. Only 10% of our COVID positive admissions are due to COVID. Virtually none of them go to ICU, and when they do go to the ICU it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated; we haven’t seen any of those since February.”

Comparing the Australian data to the global data completes the story. Around the world 153,000 people die each day, according to the last comprehensive study conducted in 2017, with around 1800 reported COVID deaths — around 1.1% of all deaths.

In Australia, approximately 450 people die every day, but last week official reports claim that there were 72 COVID deaths per day — that’s 16% of all deaths in Australia being attributed to COVID.

The concern here is that Australia appears to be grossly overstating the lethality of COVID by not properly distinguishing between those who die directly from COVID, as opposed to those who have COVID when they pass away.

To restate: if the official data is to be believed, in highly vaccinated Australia 16% of all deaths are because of COVID, compared to 1.1% everywhere else.

There are two versions of the truth but only one is correct: either Australia is massively overstating COVID deaths or every other country is understating them. Based on ICU data, it appears that the rest of the world has got it right.