Newly released Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data show people living in poverty or disadvantage are three times more likely to die from COVID than the wealthy.

ABS data show the rate of death from COVID for people living in Australia who were born overseas was almost three times more than those born in Australia.

The rate of death from COVID for people living in Australia from the Middle East was over 12 times that of people born in Australia.

Two academics from the University of NSW, Prof. Gemma Carey and Ben O’Meara, said the figures were disturbing.

“They tell us you’re more likely to survive COVID if you were born here, grew up speaking and reading English, are educated, and earn a good income,’” they wrote in The Conversation.

“They undermine the idea that Australia has good-quality universal health care that has been accessible during the pandemic.”

Carey and O’Meara’s analysis of the ABS statistics is consistent with previous research that shows that “poverty makes you sick”.

“It does this by limiting your access to services and supports, through money or other factors such as the type of job you work,” they said. Poorer people also tend to receive poorer quality health care.

Their conclusion: “A top-down, middle-class response to a pandemic will create services and supports that only work for the middle class.”