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September 09, 2021DEATH COUNTS AND EXCESS MORTALITY, JUNE 2021 The first death attributed to COVID-19 in Canada was reported in British Columbia occurring on March 8, 2020. As of September 9, the Public Health Agency of Canada's daily epidemiology update reported that COVID-19 has caused the death of 27,106 people in Canada.
Statistics Canada has provided provisional information on deaths in Canada up to July 3, 2021. This includes deaths attributable to all causes; fluctuations from one week to the next may be attributable to many different causes of death. The data does not include all deaths that occurred during the reference period. Not all provinces have reported their results up to July 3. Information is not complete for recent weeks in:
- Nova Scotia (to June 12)
- New Brunswick (to May 22)
- Ontario (to May 29)
- Manitoba (to January 2)
- Saskatchewan (to June 12)
With limited information from several provinces, national estimates are available up to June 5.
A comparison of deaths in 2020 and 2021 with the number of deaths reported in similar weeks in previous years allows highlights whether mortality is higher than usually observed at that time of year. The number of deaths reported in each week is represented below as a ratio of deaths per 1 million residents (population as of July 1 of the year - for 2021 the population as of July 1, 2020 is used). Based on observed historical trends, Statistics Canada has also estimated the expected number of deaths for each week and compared this with observed deaths (adjusted where possible reflecting provisional data). Estimates of expected deaths are presented with a 95 per cent confidence interval.
In the data for May and June, most provinces reported deaths that were consistent with prior years and with expected deaths for that time of year. The notable exceptions are in Alberta and British Columbia at the end of June. Alberta reported its highest number of excess deaths since its December-January wave of COVID-19 while British Columbia reported an extraordinary number of excess deaths in the last two weeks of data. These excess deaths coincided with extraordinary heat events in western Canada.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0768-01 Weekly death counts, by age group and sex; Table 13-10-0784-01 Adjusted number of deaths, expected number of deaths and estimates of excess mortality, by week; Public Health Agency of Canada. COVID-19 daily epidemiology update
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