Hospitalisations and deaths following COVID-19, 2020–2022: a linked data analysis

This section focuses on people aged 70 and over with their first COVID-19 diagnosis between 16 February and 1 July 2022 (in line with the data coverage for analysis of COVID-19-related hospitalisations and supply of COVID-19 antiviral medication). To aid in interpreting findings, 95% confidence intervals are included to show the range of uncertainty around each estimate (that is, that 95 out of 100 times the estimate will fall between the upper and lower values). A wider confidence interval band means greater uncertainty. In this report, when confidence intervals of two different estimates do not overlap, the difference between estimates is likely to be statistically significant.

People with COVID-19 aged 70 and over who were prescribed antivirals were almost half as likely to be hospitalised compared with those who were not prescribed antivirals (3.8% and 6.6%, respectively) (Figure 11).

Notes:

1. A COVID-19 related hospitalisation is a hospitalisation related in time to a COVID-19 diagnosis and has a COVID-19 ICD-10 diagnosis code (U07.1, U07.2). See Technical notes for further details.
2. This analysis is based on people who had their first reported COVID-19 diagnosis during the Omicron wave (15 December 2021 to 1 July 2022). Hospitalisations that occur after subsequent diagnoses for the same person are not included in this analysis.
3. Antivirals supplied within 3 days before diagnosis and up to 14 days after diagnosis. See Technical notes for further details.

See Data tables to access downloadable data containing COVID-19 antiviral treatment and COVID-19-related hospitalisations data across all age groups.

Remoteness area and socioeconomic groups

Irrespective of a person’s remoteness area or socioeconomic group, COVID-19 related hospitalisations for people with COVID-19 aged 70 and over were lower for those who were prescribed antivirals compared to those who were not (Figure 12). However, the size of the change varied across these groups.

Among people aged 70 and over with COVID-19 who were prescribed antivirals, COVID-19 related hospitalisations:

• were halved for residents of Inner regional areas (from 6.8% to 3.4%), were 33% lower for Outer regional areas (6.6% to 4.4%), and 40% to 42% lower in all other areas
• were halved for the lowest socioeconomic group (from 9.0 to 4.5%) and were 29% lower for the highest group.

As the rate of COVID-19 related hospitalisations from age 70 and over increase with each decade of age (Figure 2), it is important to recognise age differences in the older population across remoteness areas. For example, in 2021 between 2% to 2.5% of the Australian population in Major cities and Inner regional areas were aged 85 and over, compared with 1.0% in Remote and Very remote areas. Refer to Technical notes for more details.

Notes:

1. A COVID-19 related hospitalisation is a hospitalisation related in time to a COVID-19 diagnosis and has a COVID-19 ICD-10 diagnosis code (U07.1, U07.2). See Technical notes for further details.
2. This analysis is based on people who had their first reported COVID-19 diagnosis during the Omicron wave (15 December 2021 to 1 July 2022). Hospitalisations that occur after subsequent diagnoses for the same person are not included in this analysis.
3. See Technical notes for details on the antiviral methodology.