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June 09, 2022DEATH COUNTS AND EXCESS MORTALITY, APRIL 2022 The first death attributed to COVID-19 in Canada was reported in British Columbia occurring on March 8, 2020. As of June 9, 2022 the Public Health Agency of Canada's daily epidemiology update reported that COVID-19 has caused the death of 41,348 people in Canada.
Statistics Canada has provided provisional information on deaths in Canada up to April 2, 2022. 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 March 5; only Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and British Columbia have reported to this date. Information is not complete for recent weeks in:
- Prince Edward Island (to December 11, unchanged from last month)
- Nova Scotia (to October 23, unchanged from last month)
- New Brunswick (to Januaary 1)
- Quebec (to March 5)
- Ontario (to January 29)
- Manitoba (to May 8, 2021)
- Saskatchewan (to March 12)
With limited information from several provinces, national estimates are available up to February 12, 2022.
A comparison of deaths in recent years with the number of deaths reported in similar weeks in years prior to 2020 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; 2022 deaths per 1 million residents are based on populations as of July 1, 2021). 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.
There is some evidence of excess mortality from January to March of 2022, coinciding with the omicron wave of the pandemic. In these months, there has been elevated death counts (above confidence intervals for expected mortality) in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia as well as some weeks in Newfoundland and Labrador. For Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia, excess mortality has faded and deaths slowed to be more in line with expectations in the most recent weeks of data. There was also a period of elevated deaths reported at the end of 2021 and into the first week of 2022 in New Brunswick. As with Saskatchewan, the level of elevated deaths does not appear to be reverting to expected mortality, but the data have not yet been updated to April.
Ontario reports recent mortality results that are consistent with expected mortality. Data for Manitoba remain lagged while there have been no updates to results for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (none of these provinces reported excess mortality in their most recent results).
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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