November 2023
The data is based upon weekly deaths data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics spanning from 2015 to June of 2023. The data is only available for certain selected age groups.
Country: AU (Australia)
Source for Weekly Deaths (Australian Bureau of Statistics): ABS table: Deaths by week of occurrence.
Source for Vaccination data (Australian Government DHAC): Australian Department of Health and Aged Care.
Alternate Source for Vaccination data (Our World in Data): Our World in Data.
Source for Population Estimates (UN): UN table: Total Population, as of 1 July.
Comment on the available data and its limitations.
The data on excess deaths and vaccination has several limitations that one should be aware of when analysing the charts below.Unlike the data from Eurostat for the majority of European countries, the data for weekly deaths in the Australia is only available limited age groups, namely (0-44, 45-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85+ and Total). Any analysis of the data does not allow us to observe the excess mortality in younger age groups with sufficient detail.
Additionally, the Australian DHAC data on vaccination that is available on the public website is of limited use as the data format is not user friendly and the time series are only available from September 2021. This poses a problem as we are unable to show excess deaths versus vaccination rates for different age groups using the official source.
For this reason, we decided to use the vaccination data for Australia from Our World in Data. The time series provided goes back to the start of the vaccination rollout, but is limited to the Total population and no age group granularity is available.
In the charts below, we show the excess deaths age groups compared to total vaccinations administered, in the following way:
| Excess Deaths Age Group | Vaccination Age Group |
|---|---|
| 0-44 | Total |
| 45-64 | Total |
| 65-74 | Total |
| 75-84 | Total |
| 85+ | Total |
| Total | Total |
We obtain quarterly excess deaths estimates by aggregating in quarters, data that is based on our weekly analysis of excess deaths.
In order to estimate weekly excess mortality we perform a 2-step approach to estimate the baseline deaths. The first step is by estimating the trend in death rates using annual data as described in our methodology papers, while using method 2C.
The second step is to estimate weekly excess deaths by comparing deaths or death rates in a given week with the average death rate, which is computed using the average weekly frequency of deaths over a period of N-years (typically 5 to 10 years depending on the data availability). By using both methods in conjunction we obtain a trend adjusted and week of year adjusted estimate for excess mortality.
A quarterly analysis of excess deaths allows us to then use different metrics to estimate seasonally adjusted patterns in excess mortality. For example, we can compare excess mortality in Q1 of 2022 versus Q1 of 2021 to observe the impact of the vaccination policy on excess mortality.
The following chart shows the quarterly (annualised) excess mortality from 2020 to 2023, for different age groups. The Covid-19 vaccinations data (right hand scale) refers to the total accumulated doses at the end of each quarter, as a percentage of the respective age group population.
Please be aware that we matched the age groups as described in the data section above.
The user can specify the age group.
The following chart allows the user to perform quarter-to-quarter comparisons in excess mortality during 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, for the different age groups.
This chart is particularly interesting to investigate excess mortality in seasonally equivalent periods in different years. The vaccine penetration rate for the end of 2021 is also shown. Please note that we matched the age groups as described in the data section above.
The interactive chart allows the user to specify the desired comparison quarter.
PHINANCE TECHNOLOGIES