Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are at heightened risk of more severe outcomes from COVID-19. 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 information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died from COVID-19 (where it directly caused conditions leading to death) or with COVID-19 (where it was a contributing factor but did not directly cause death). For most of the analysis deaths from and with COVID-19 are presented together due to small numbers of deaths.
While there have been deaths recorded in all jurisdictions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, the rest of this analysis focusses on deaths registered in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory only. Only these five states and territories have evidence of a sufficient level of Indigenous identification and high enough numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths to support mortality analysis.
There were 26 deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people involving COVID-19 in the first four months of 2024. This is lower than the first four months in both 2023 and 2022. Throughout 2023 there were fewer deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in all months compared with 2022.