Australia To Move Away From Reporting Daily COVID Deaths

CHO flags new concept

Australian jurisdictions are preparing to move away from reporting the accumulated deaths from COVID-19 each day, says Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly.

The country's lead health officer flagged the transition towards bringing in a new concept called "excess deaths".

The notion compares the amount of people expected to die over a certain period due to the virus in addition to the actual number of deaths reported.

"On this metric, Australia has performed extremely well throughout the COVID-19 pandemic," Professor Kelly told reporters.

"Although every death from COVID-19 is a sad event for family and friends and as a country, this is an outcome we should acknowledge."

With warning of complacency and comfortability, Kelly echoed calls made recently which encourages Australians under the age of 40 to continue to receive their booster shot for best protection against infection.

A health report shows more than two million Australians are yet to have their third dose of the vaccine, considered by using the term "overdue", instead of "unvaccinated".

Meanwhile, Covid cases and hospitalisations across Australia and New Zealand look like this:

Western Australia