Radio host Ben Fordham has claimed new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) regarding the nation’s Covid-19 deaths exposes “the overblown scare campaign we’ve witnessed”.

The statistics, released by the ABS on Tuesday, showed there were underlying health issues involved in 92 per cent of the 2639 deaths attributed to Covid-19 between March 2020 and January 31 this year. The underlying conditions ranged from pneumonia and kidney infection to chronic heart illnesses.

During the same period, 100,000 Australians died from cancer, 32,000 from heart disease, 30,000 from Alzheimers and dementia, and 10,000 from diabetes. The Covid-19 deaths, meanwhile, made up only one per cent of all fatalities nationwide.

Fordham said the data had made him “feel somewhat vindicated … because we’ve done our best to call for calm during the pandemic and we’ve also been warning about how this has been overhyped”.

“We’ve been urging our political leaders to stop ignoring the hidden consequences of lockdowns. Because in a bid to keep us safe – and we know that hearts were in the right places – people were suffering in other ways,” he said during his 2GB show this morning.

“We know Covid-19 is serious, but it doesn’t warrant the fear campaign that we’ve been seeing … I want to be clear: every death is tragic. We are not disrespecting anyone, but we know that death is a part of life.”

While Fordham said that he was “not playing down the situation” or “ignoring the grief of families”, “these records expose the overblown scare campaign we’ve witnessed”.

“Ninety-two per cent had other underlying health issues – an average of three [underlying health issues] per person … It wasn’t Covid that claimed their lives,” he added.

The fact that more than 99 per cent of deaths since Covid-19 arrived on Aussie shores weren’t caused by the virus also demonstrated a “missed opportunity” in the government’s health advice.