Victoria reports 107 daily Covid deaths after data issue
Victoria has reported an unusually high number of Covid deaths on Friday with more than 107 Covid-related fatalities added to the state's official count.
The health department blamed the confronting number on "data feed issues this month".
"This has resulted in 105 additional deaths being reported since July 1," it said.
Without the backlog of deaths, Friday's figure would have been just two, well below the average daily deaths in Victoria over the past fortnight which is 19.
The state also reported 10,898 new cases on Friday morning, while there are more than 68,000 active cases known to be in the community.
Meanwhile NSW on Friday morning reported 14,927 positive tests in the past 24 hour period and another 22 Covid deaths.
On Thursday, Australia saw its deadliest day of the pandemic to that point with 125 deaths, thanks to a backlog of fatalities being recorded.
While the nation's death rate remains low compared to global peers, Australia currently has the third most Covid deaths per million people in the world, the ABC reports, only behind Norway and New Zealand.
Loneliness up after Australian lockdowns
More Australians are feeling lonelier now than before the Covid-19 pandemic, research has found.
The latest research released on Friday from Telstra's Talking Loneliness report shows 27 per cent of people experienced loneliness for the first time during the pandemic, while almost half of Australians felt lonelier because of Covid-19 lockdowns.
"The pandemic has really disrupted our social routine and behaviour," clinical psychologist Michelle Lim told AAP.
"I think we're going to be experiencing huge disruptions to maintaining relationships for a very long time."
Almost two-thirds of Australians regularly feel isolated from others, the report found, while one in four say they don't have people they can regularly talk or turn to.
More than 40 per cent of people reported being worried they would be judged if they told people they were feeling lonely.
"We have robust global data that says loneliness actually leads to things like poorer heart health, type two diabetes and poor mental health," Dr Lim said.
"But almost half of Australians now report feeling lonely and perhaps they might feel lonely because nobody's talking about it."
with AAP
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