Nearly 2,000 Australian children have lost parents to Covid

Nearly 2,000 Australian children have lost a parent to Covid-19 during the pandemic, according to new data.

A global study by the Australian National University (ANU), based on 2021 data, has estimated that for every 100 Covid-related death in Australia, around 13 young people lost one or both of their parents.

ANU researcher Callum Lowe said this was a significant concern and had largely been missing from the nation’s broader conversation regarding mental health during the pandemic.

“It’s particularly worse in other countries, but in other countries children tend to have larger extended families than they do in Australia,” Lowe said.

“During Australia’s lockdowns there’s [also] been a greater restriction on children going to school.”

The impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on people’s mental health has been well documented, especially among young people.

In a survey released by the Australian Human Rights Commission, 41% of children said the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health, with most respondents worried about missing school and having less time with their friends and family.

Lowe said more support was needed for children who lost a parent or became orphaned during the pandemic, with those children facing unique mental health challenges and potentially “worse outcomes later in life”.

“We typically think of Covid deaths predominantly among the elderly [but] they can and do occur in younger adults, people in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and as such those are the deaths that are going to lead to children being orphaned,” he said.

“The research highlights the need for government resources and policy settings that ensure children affected by the death of one or both parents are properly supported, particularly in vulnerable populations like First Nations and rural communities.”

The ANU research compared international data to find out why certain countries saw more children become orphans due to Covid. It found that fertility rates, poverty and noncommunicable disease were all major contributing factors, as well as vaccine disparity.

Some of the countries most affected were in Africa, particularly in countries that were below the median GDP per capita. In Angola, the number of children orphaned was at least double the number of people who have died from Covid, according to the ANU research.

A modelling study in the Lancet shows more than 5.2 million children across the globe have been impacted by Covid-related orphanhood and caregiver death.