The Australian government says it is “concerned” and “baffled” at the sudden spike in deaths of vaccinated individuals across the country.
The government says it is considering launching an urgent investigation into the country’s “incredibly high” 13% excess death rate in 2022.
Benzinga.com reports: An analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data by the Actuaries Institute showed that an additional 15,400 people died in the first eight months of the year in the country.
Actuaries said that number includes around one-third of those having no link to COVID-19.
13% was an “incredibly high number for mortality,” and it was “not clear” what was driving the increase, said Karen Cutter, spokeswoman for the institute’s Covid-19 Mortality Working Group.
“Mortality doesn’t normally vary by more than 1 to 2%, so 13% is way higher than normal levels,” she said.
“I’m not aware [of anything comparable] in the recent past but I haven’t gone back and looked [historically]. They talk about the flu season of 2017 being really bad, and the mortality there was 1% higher than normal. So it’s well outside the range of normal,” she said.
This came after Australia’s latest mortality data released in November showed that there had been 128,797 deaths from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, which was 17% higher than the historical average.