An audit of death certificates has revealed COVID-19 played a role in killing 61 more people in Canberra than previously thought.
ACT Health has adjusted its official tally of COVID-19-related deaths to 224 since the beginning of the outbreak in 2020 — a 37 per cent increase.
Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said the under-reporting was the result of doctors submitting death certificates to the ACT registrar of births, deaths and marriages, but forgetting to report COVID-19-related deaths to ACT Health.
Reviews of deaths in other states and territories have revealed similar oversights.
A COVID-19-related death is any death in which the doctor lists the disease as a contributing factor on the death certificate.
All 61 extra deaths were in 2022, with 24 coinciding with the peak of the Omicron outbreak in June and July.
However, Dr Coleman said ACT authorities would not have acted differently had they been aware of the deaths.
"I am really confident that this additional information would not have changed our response in any way," she said.
"This data is consistent with the data that we were receiving through the personal and organisational identification process, and is also consistent with what we were seeing in other jurisdictions and nationally."
The people whose deaths were not previously reported were aged between 68 and 102, with a median age of 86.
About 60 per cent were aged-care residents, while the others died at home, in hospitals or in palliative-care facilities.
Fewer signs of disease in community
Dr Coleman noted that most indicators suggested the pandemic's impact in Canberra was declining.
The ACT's latest weekly epidemiological report said only 10 hospital patients were infected with the disease.
"We're seeing fewer of our colleagues and friends being unwell with COVID-related symptoms, and we're also seeing fewer COVID cases in hospital, which is really good news," Dr Coleman said.
"We have low levels of COVID circulating in the ACT community and we're seeing low levels of impact.
"That doesn't mean that the pandemic has gone away … we can expect to see further waves in the future.
"But we're really well positioned to respond well to those."
The chief health officer urged Canberrans to stay up-to-date with their vaccinations, and, if they qualified, to book an appointment for their next dose.
Australian adults will be eligible for a fifth vaccine shot from next week.
Dr Coleman also suggested that a final COVID-19-related restriction might soon be dropped.
The ACT is the only Australian jurisdiction that still requires people who test positive for COVID-19 to report their result to authorities.
"We are now at a stage where we can consider potentially taking those remaining steps, and we are talking with the government about when and how we can potentially remove the public health direction to report your RAT," Dr Coleman said.
