COVID-19 in Australia

COVID-19 first emerged in late 2019 and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic in March 2020. In the early stages of the pandemic, there was less of an impact on morbidity and mortality in Australia than in many other countries (AIHW 2022a; OECD 2021).

The first case in Australia was confirmed on 25 January 2020 (Department of Health and Aged Care 2020). Up until early October 2021, Australia had the second lowest total number of confirmed cases per head of population of all Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (with only New Zealand lower) and the third lowest death rate (with South Korea and New Zealand lower) (OECD 2021).

By December 2021, in Australia there were:

  • 5 variants of concern which had been detected in Australia (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron)
  • 395,504 cases of COVID-19 (including recovered cases)
  • 2,239 deaths from COVID-19
  • 137,752 active cases (AIHW 2022b).

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