Australia records 10,000 deaths with COVID-19 as Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 rise in dominance

Australia surpassed a grim milestone at the weekend, with more than 10,000 deaths with COVID-19 now recorded since the start of the pandemic.

At the time of publication, the nation's death toll stood at 10,040 having passed the 10,000-mark on Sunday.

It comes as the federal health minister, Mark Butler, expressed his concern over the emerging BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron.

"We've seen overseas that there is a greater risk of reinfection, so if you have had COVID earlier this year in the first wave over summer, there is a risk that you are open to reinfection," Mr Butler said.

Since the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus as a pandemic in March 2021, there have been 6.3 million deaths with the illness worldwide.

"If the current trend continues, COVID will become the second leading cause of death in Australia in 2022, only behind coronary heart disease," said Professor Nigel McMillan, expert in infectious diseases at Griffith University, Queensland.

With the sharp rise in COVID deaths this year, Australia has risen quickly to 16^th place in terms of deaths per population. Although still outside the unenviable top 10, Professor McMillan said this statistic alone could be misleading.

"Most of [Australia's] deaths [with COVID] have occurred in 2022. Here we rank number five in the world for increased death with a 405 per cent increase from January 1 to July 1, 2022," he said.

"The current 50 deaths per day is hardly noted and yet it is more than twice the daily road toll."

To put in perspective, roughly 50 passengers can sit on a standard sized bus.

So, according to Professor McMillan, the average of 50 deaths per day would be equivalent to a passenger bus crashing and killing every passenger on board every single day.

Epidemiologist at Deakin University in Melbourne, Professor Catherine Bennett, outlined how Australia's exponential death rate has grown well above that of comparable nations.

"Whether we look at the total COVID-19 deaths per case, or deaths per capita, Australia sits low on the league tables, together with New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan," Professor Bennett said.

"Australia currently has a daily deaths per capita rate that is comparable to the UK and Canada, but less than France, even though these countries are in summer and have recorded a decline in cases over recent weeks.

Professor Bennett attributed the sudden rise in cases and deaths to the growing dominence of certain severe subvariants, especially the BA.5 Omicron.

Dr Cassandra Berry is an expert in viral immunology at Murdoch University in Western Australia. While advocating for the vulnerable to be given a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, Dr Berry said last week rising cases indicate there are still few options for dealing with the virus in the community.

"[...] We must remember that other countries have surpassed the milestone of millions," Dr Berry said.

"Although initially a novel virus we are becoming way too familiar with the name. However, SARS-CoV-2 variants currently circulating can have serious sequelae [other health problems that follow a disease] after infection including death."

Across Australia, the most deaths are in NSW and Victoria, but Queensland is also tracking with a high death toll.

At the start of the pandemic in December 2019 to the first week of January 2022, Queensland had recorded only eight deaths with COVID-19.

At the time of publication, the sunshine state had reached 1270 deaths. It breached the terrible thousand mark milestone in May after managing to keep the deaths under double digits for two years.

"The average daily death rate in Australia sits just below two people per million [...] The deaths are not evenly distributed across states though, with Victoria having up to three deaths per million since the middle of May, but NSW is now also on the rise," Dr Berry said.

"There are three options other than the virus being fatal; avoiding the virus, contracting the virus with recovery, and contracting the virus with chronic after-effects. Avoidance is still the ideal."

The rising death toll may herald a grim reality for the oft-idealised 'COVID normal', according to Dr Vinod Balasubramaniam from Monash University in Malaysia.

"[...] It's hard to anticipate what the timeline will be for the expected shift of COVID-19 to an end," DrBalasubramaniam

"It's dependent on factors such as the strength and duration of immune protection from vaccination and natural infection, our patterns of contact with one another that allow spread, and the transmissibility of the virus."