Why has the Bureau of Statistics been so coy about its new official method of estimating excess deaths?
In July 2023, the ABS released a new model to calculate excess deaths, created retrospectively and reporting six monthly, not monthly. How can timely action be taken on excess deaths with such infrequent reporting? This change is very disturbing, given we had excess deaths in the range of 6.9 to 15.9 per cent above the historical average during 2021, 2022 and 2023. The ABS twice changed the way it calculates excess deaths during the pandemic years, and both times it made changes which show fewer excess deaths are estimated.
Interestingly, the new method for excess deaths shows 24,351 excess deaths between January 2020 and 27 August 2023. This is in stark contrast to the previous method, which would have shown 56,058 excess deaths to the end of 2023. This is more than twice the number being reported under the new model. The new model is a complicated mathematical equation, and the ABS have not been transparent about how they chose this new model, which rewrites the history of the pandemic. Is it possible that the model was chosen to minimise excess deaths or to make it appear that all excess deaths were due to COVID?
Australians can handle the truth and they deserve to know.
