Deaths due to acute respiratory infections in Australia

This publication reports on the number of monthly deaths due to COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). These viral diseases will be referred to collectively as deaths due to acute respiratory infections. Due to the higher number of deaths due to COVID-19, a more detailed analysis will be included for this cause. 

The ABS mortality data is sourced from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages and is separate from the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System. While the registration-based deaths data takes longer to receive and process, this dataset has provided important supplementary information to the surveillance system data. 

All data presented in this article is provisional. It is expected that numbers of deaths due to these causes will increase for more recent time periods as more death registrations are received by the ABS. 

The table below shows the number of deaths associated with acute respiratory infections reported on a medical certificate of cause of death by month and year. A death involving an acute respiratory infection is one where the viral disease has either directly caused the death (the virus has caused terminal complications such as pneumonia) or the person has died with the virus (a person has died from another cause but the viral illness still contributed significantly to death). 

• COVID-19 has been the leading cause of acute respiratory infection related mortality across the majority of 2023-2025. In 2025 there were 2,161 deaths involving COVID-19, and 1,701 deaths involving influenza. Since August 2025 the number of deaths involving influenza has exceeded the number of deaths involving COVID-19.
• Since the end of 2021 COVID-19 has recorded a pattern where there are two peaks of mortality during the year - one occurring between November and January and the other occurring between May and August. While there was still an increase in deaths occurring between November 2024 and January 2025 when compared with October 2024, the number of deaths occurring during this period was much lower than other years. Preliminary data does not show a summer peak in 2025-2026. The ABS will continue to monitor this as additional death registrations are received.
• The number of COVID-19-related deaths has declined further in November and December 2025 after the falling to the lowest level since September 2021 in October. In 2025 there were 2,161 deaths involving COVID-19, compared to 5,108 in 2024 and 6,190 in 2023.
• Deaths involving influenza fell slightly in November 2025 before rising again in December. Levels remain well above usual for November and December. In 2025 there have been 1,701 deaths involving influenza registered and received to date, compared to 1,045 in 2024 and 611 in 2023. In the more recent years with a high level of influenza mortality, there were 1,314 deaths in 2019 and 1,656 deaths in 2017.  
• Deaths involving RSV decreased in November 2025 and rose slightly in December. The number of deaths in December 2025 were above the levels in 2023 and 2024.  In 2025 there were 582 deaths involving RSV, compared to 482 in 2024 and 380 in 2023.

The ABS codes an underlying cause of death (UCOD) for all deaths in the national mortality dataset. The underlying cause of death is defined as the disease, condition or external event that started the chain of events leading to death. International coding rules are applied to disease and conditions appearing on the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) to assign the UCOD. A disease or condition must be certified on the MCCD to be coded by the ABS. If COVID-19, influenza or RSV is listed as the underlying cause of death, the death is considered to have been caused by the virus. 

The following table shows the number of deaths due to acute respiratory diseases since 2023. 

• The number of deaths due to COVID-19 fell further in November and December 2025, after falling in October 2025 to the lowest level since July 2021. The 1,707 deaths due to COVID-19 in 2025 are well below both 2024 (3,904 deaths) and 2023 (4,610).
• Between August and December 2025 there have been more deaths due to influenza (741) than COVID-19 (428). Between January and July, the number of COVID-19 deaths (1,279) exceeded the number of influenza deaths (682).
• Deaths due to influenza fell in November 2025 before increasing again in December and remain high for the time of year. There were 1,423 deaths due to influenza in 2025, above the 1,276 deaths recorded in 2017 and the 1,072 deaths recorded in 2019, which were recent bad years for influenza.
• Deaths due to RSV have decreased further in November and December 2025.

The table below shows the number of acute-respiratory associated deaths where the person has died "with" the virus (a person has died from another cause but the viral illness still contributed significantly to death).

• COVID-19 and Influenza are more likely to be assigned as the underlying causes of death rather than a contributing factor (i.e. a person died with the virus). The opposite is true for RSV - it is more likely to be listed as a significant contributor to death. To wholly monitor the effects of RSV on mortality, deaths with RSV should be taken into consideration.
• Deaths with COVID-19 have fallen in November 2025 and increased slightly in December. They remain at extremely low levels.
• Deaths with influenza mentioned as a contributory cause also fell in November 2025 and increased slightly in December. Deaths with influenza have been higher than deaths with COVID-19 since August 2025 and have been higher than the number of deaths with influenza in the comparable month in 2024 or 2023 for several months.
• The number of deaths where RSV was certified as a contributory cause decreased in November 2025 and increased in December. Levels are have generally been higher than in 2023 and 2024 since July 2025. The number of deaths with RSV was higher in 2025 (390 deaths) than in 2024 (341 deaths) and in 2023 (279 deaths).

• More males have died from COVID-19 compared to females in 2024 and 2025. The opposite has been true for influenza and RSV, with more females dying than males from these viruses.
• Those aged over 90 years are the only age group to consistently record more deaths of females than males from COVID-19. Nearly two thirds of Australia's population of persons aged over 90 years are female.
• All three of these acute respiratory infections are more likely to cause death in older age groups than younger age groups.
• RSV deaths for 2026 have not been shown due to small numbers.

• As the most populous state, New South Wales generally records the highest numbers of deaths for acute respiratory infections. There have been a similar number of deaths due to RSV in Victoria and New South Wales in 2025.
• COVID-19 has caused more deaths than influenza and RSV in 2024 and 2025 in all jurisdictions with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory recording more influenza deaths in 2025.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are at heightened risk of more severe outcomes from acute respiratory diseases. There are several reasons for this, including higher rates of socioeconomic disadvantage, higher rates of chronic diseases and limited access to culturally safe health care.

This section presents three tables which includes information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died from acute respiratory diseases. The first two tables focus on COVID-19 mortality only due to the higher numbers of deaths from the virus. The third table presents numbers of deaths and age-standardised death rates on deaths associated with COVID-19, influenza and RSV. For most of the analysis deaths include those where the acute respiratory disease was listed on the medical certificate of cause of death. This includes deaths where the acute respiratory disease caused death and those where the acute respiratory disease contributed to death. Data is presented in this way largely due to the small numbers of deaths from these diseases in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.  

There have been deaths recorded in all jurisdictions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In previous publications, only deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that were registered in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory have been reported. The ABS has conducted an extensive review of Indigenous status recorded for deaths registered in Victoria and implemented enhancements to how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin is recorded for deaths in Victoria. These improvements in identification now permit inclusion of Victorian data in mortality outputs by Indigenous status for recent years. 

Since 2022 the number of deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people involving COVID-19 has declined each year from 281 deaths in 2022 to 22 deaths in 2025.

There were 524 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had COVID-19 certified as a cause of death across the six jurisdictions in 2022-2025. Of these people:

• 346 died due to COVID-19. This is where the virus caused complications that led directly to death. A further 178 people died with COVID-19. This is where another disease caused the terminal complication causing death but COVID-19 was a contributing factor.
• The age-standardised death rate for deaths from COVID-19 is higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females than males, while the reverse is true for deaths with COVID-19. For non-Indigenous people, males have a higher death rate from COVID-19 and with COVID-19 than females.
• Of those who died from or with COVID-19, a higher proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died with COVID-19 as a contributing factor compared with non-Indigenous people (34.0% compared with 22.6%).
• The mortality rate from COVID-19 is 1.5 times higher in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared to non-Indigenous people.
• For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females, the rate of mortality with COVID-19 is 2.4 times higher than that of non-Indigenous females.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who died from or with an acute respiratory disease: 

• COVID-19 was involved in more deaths than both influenza and RSV across each year in 2022-2024. In 2025 there were 22 deaths involving COVID-19 and 53 deaths involving influenza.
• The mortality rate for COVID-19 and influenza related mortality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was higher than non-Indigenous people across each year in 2022-2024. In 2025 the influenza related mortality rate was higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people than non-Indigenous people. The mortality rate for COVID-19 related deaths is lower for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people than non-Indigenous people.
• The 2025 mortality rate for influenza related mortality is higher in both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people than for 2024. Influenza mortality rates were higher in 2024 than in 2022 or 2023.

Deaths from acute respiratory infections as a proportion of total deaths changes over time and is dependent on a number of factors. The following table shows the number of deaths due to acute respiratory infections by month of occurrence in the context of total deaths registered by 31 January and received by the ABS. These counts are not final and are considered preliminary. This number will increase as the ABS receives more finalised registrations and an updated count for all months will be published in next month's publication. Cause of death counts will also increase as more deaths are received. See the 'Timeliness and Completeness' section in the Provisional Mortality Statistics publication for more information on when deaths are most likely to be received by the ABS.  

Deaths from COVID-19 accounted for 1.7% of all registered deaths in January 2025 and declined to lows of 0.7% between March and May. Deaths from COVID-19 increased as a percentage of all deaths received by the ABS during the winter months, peaking at 1.7% of deaths in June and have since fallen to 0.3% of deaths in December. 

Deaths due to influenza rose from 0.2% of all deaths in January 2025 to 1.5% of deaths in July 2025, and were 1.4% of deaths in August and September before falling to 0.6% of deaths in October and November. Deaths due to influenza were 0.7% of all deaths in December.

Numbers and proportions may change as additional registrations are received by the ABS and cause of death revisions applied.