COVID-19 was the 38th ranked cause of death in 2020 with 898 deaths. Among those people, the most commonly reported co-morbidity was dementia (270 deaths), followed by chronic heart conditions, hypertension and diabetes.
Decreases across the top-five leading causes of death and a reduction in the overall mortality rate highlighted some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Director of Mortality Statistics at the ABS, Lauren Moran, said while the top-five causes in Australia remained the same in 2020, with heart disease still the leading cause of death, it was the first time the rate of death for each had all fallen since 2008-09.
Dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease) ranked second, while strokes, lung cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases rounded out the top-five.
“With fewer than 900 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020 and public health measures suppressing the spread of other infectious diseases, deaths from many causes also decreased,” she said.
In particular there was a 24 per cent decrease in people dying from respiratory diseases, attributed mainly to the absence of influenza.
There were only 55 deaths due to the flu in 2020 and none reported after July, compared with 1080 in 2019.
There were also decreases in 2020 in deaths from preventable causes such as suicide, drug overdoses and motor vehicle accidents.
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