We are not the best this time, we are not the worst this time, but what a crappy time to be in the middle of the pack.
I complain about Canada federal and provincial data responses from time to time in the following. The Auditor General broadly agrees with me in this report published at the end of March, 2021. The AG mentions poor data infrastructure, methodologies, reporting protocols. Lessons were learned from SARS and MERS and H1N1. Lessons learned were not applied. A useful exercise in the future would be the comparison of how much it would cost to put in place and maintain pandemeic preparedness across the nation, versus the cost of the present debacle.
Then read the CIHI report on LTC in Canada. If that is not grim enough, read their report on Canada LTC sector COVID response compared with other countries. And hope you die before you get old.
The pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy: Expert Advisory Group has more thinks on health data, and ineptitude in handling same, and failures to update to a (secure) digital data sharing infrastructure for health records (and more importantly, ill-health records). James Keller reported on the second report in the Globe, Nov 29: Ottawa, provinces must create agency to reform how health data is collected and used, report says.
pan-Canadian
Health Data Strategy: Expert Advisory Group
report
1
report
2
Canada is terrible at reporting health data, public heatlth data, deaths and what not.
This panel discussion tries to get at it,
with the discussion by Tara Moriarity of Canada's failures of data germane to this page.
Moriarity is a lead author on a (now-dated, but relevant) report on excess mortality in Canada. Time has passed, but the
system is still horribly weak. Kind of a sort-of-first-and-lots-of-third world country.
Royal Society COVID task force
Royal Society reports
Royal Society excess death report home
Most of the data I use comes from the CSV file at the Govt Canada COVID page at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
One would wish PHAC had stayed above the political fray, but, when Trudeau called the Great Unneccesary Election 2021™, PHAC started to limit its information and data streams, which feels like it self-politicized COVID. Dr. Tam stopped her daily updates and the CSV updates schedule was changed so there is now (August 2021) no longer updates on Saturday and Sunday, (cause COVID takes the weekend off). I am not aware of any of the provinces which have held elections during COVID pandemic shutting down any of their public health reporting. Even the Toronto Star editorial board noticed.
PHAC has always assumed COVID took long weekends off, so they have struggled with daily relevant reporting from the beginning. There are updates at other sources, but reasons for PHAC to exist at all is to have the federal view and be a federal source of information and to coordinate responses. Failing to supply timely data to the public makes one wonder what relevance the agency has.
Another view of the same data.
Yet another view of the data, the COVID-19 daily epidemiology update.
Compare two days of cases in Canada
Compare delta new Be very afraid if delta new is always increasing
Canada wide summary adds number of tested statistic
Canadian Vaccination Data
Canada vax data by age and sex
Canada in the world is doing OK.
Cases following vaccination. PHAC reports the cases, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination status. A reader suggested this data to me. I cannot find a daily or weekly download, so cannot easily track the evolutions of these stats. The data is presented in another form in the weekly epidemiological report, CANADA COVID-19 WEEKLY EPIDEMIOLOGY REPORT, in section: CASES FOLLOWING VACCINATION.
Canada TRIPS over Big Pharma thuggery...
The somewhat commendable job on delivering shots into Canadian arms comes at a terrible cost. Trudeau's government was held over a barrel by Pig Pharma, who took a potential public good and privatized it, and then blackmailed Canada to not support patent waivers or else....
OK, blackmail might be a harsh word. Let's say shadowy figures lurking in a lobby suggested that if Canada did not get support stonewalling and squashing the campaign for patent waivers, Canada might have an accident.
There are reasons other than irrationality or "only my freedom matters trucker doesnt wanna" for not getting a vaccination and this article lays those out.
Canadian Graphs
There are lots of graphs out there, these are based solely on the Govt Canada CSV download. As much as anything, they indicate failure of adequate testing, and lumpy data. The data is not clear on what a test is, as a datum could be multiple tests on one person, or a datum could be all the tests performed. I think the CA data consolidates all to be persons tested with a result, but each province is different on the test protocols and the reporting protocols.
The spread of COVID will be influenced by two factors, population centers and population mobility. So, I chose to group the Atlantic provinces into one set of data points in the the graph, as NB and NS are exactly the same, most of the time (but don't tell them I think that) and Halifax will be the hotspot. And, I lumped Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba into one line of most of the graphs, as mobility is high, especially from Northern SK into the tar sands work camps. BC mobility is somewhat constrained by the Rockies, and I feared the worst influence would come from Washington state. I think Washington public health has responded quite well to the pandemic, and the international border closure helped BC a lot, to prevent some north-south transmission. On balance, BC has done OK, with limited testing, and Alberta has done OK, with a better testing regime than most. The work camps of the tar sands have probably infected the Dene of northern SK. Quebec is a long-term-care disaster, and clearly indicates that the poorest workers bear the brunt as Montreal gets trounced. That thesis is not shown on these bulk graphs. Ontario is a failure of testing and a failure of data collection and failure of reporting timely statistics to support political decisions.
the rich will get richer, and the poor will bear the brunt
Cases
Confirmed cases per 10 thousand. Be very afraid.
Provinces graphs show main affected provinces, with Atlantic Canada and Saskatchewan and Manitoba aggregated
Provinces confirmed cases
Provinces confirmed cases per 10 thousand.
Provinces confirmed cases per 10 thousand:
past
28 days
past
56 days
past
84 days
past
112 days
past
140 days
past
168 days
Deaths
Confirmed deaths per 10 thousand. Be very afraid.
Provinces confirmed deaths
Provinces confirmed deaths per 10 thousand.
Testing
This looks like a child scribbled, because our testing is crap. Each province should be doing a routine number of tests a day, with a baseline of around a 1000 from general population as a control, and then whatever priority populations need testing on top of that. Every day. But, the provinces are doing a crap job of testing and a crap job of data reporting. Be wary of the numbers. And, these are all test for the virus, not anti-bodies tests. Woe is us.
My data starts at april 4, as it was not present from the beginning. Currently (may 1) trying to capture the older data.
Daily tests Be very afraid.
Tests per 10 thousand. Be very afraid.
I reprocessed some of the data from the Canada csv download, and inserted to the DB testing numbers back to March 14 for BC, AB, ON, QC and CA.
Daily tests Still, be very afraid.
Tests per 10 thousand. Oui, still be very afraid.
Rates
Case Rates per 100K
Canada reports rates for 14 days and 7 days, per 100,000 population. I show the graphs here
as West (BC to ON) and East (ON to NL) amd Territories and the self-explanatory Canada and Ontario.
I include the data plots for Canada and Ontario in all
views, as a reference. ON has the biggest population, so influences the
Canadian response the most. You can see in the W graph that the huge late summer surge in AB and SK and
later BC was balanced in the Canada graph by a much lower rate in ON. The small populations of the territories
can lead to wildly high peaks for small (relative to province numbers) surges in
cases when plotted on a per capita basis. It is always worth remembering that Toronto Public Health has a
greater
population and popultaion density than most provinces.
The 14-day average shows a much smoother curve than the 7 day averages, as expected.
14 Days rate
7 Days rate
Canadian Virus League
CVL Standings by date
CVL Standings for past 14 Days
CVL Negative Test Standings for past 14 Days
Ontario Version 2 and other provinces, but beware, the website data from Ontario has footnotes all over the place, trying to explain why data is invalid, missing, unspecified or out of date. Caveat emptor.
On Oct 22, the Canada csv jumped the number of tests for Alberta by nearly half a million. I went to the Alberta website, and computed their number of tests, from the graphed data there, to be 447471 fewer than the value reported in covid19-download.csv. I then adjusted the value for Alberta and Canada, and will probably have to continue fixing them by that value until CA fixes the CSV file.
The values of tests for Alberta as reported there daily vs in CA daily never match, due to differences in data get times, but the difference of nearly half a million is too large to ignore, so my only recourses are either to quit presenting the data or guess at a fix.
columns:
pruid,prname,prnameFR,date,numconf,numprob,numdeaths,numtotal,numtested,numrecover,percentrecover,ratetested,numtoday,percentoday,ratetotal,ratedeaths,numdeathstoday,percentdeath,numtestedtoday,numrecoveredtoday,percentactive,numactive,rateactive,numtotal_last14,ratetotal_last14,numdeaths_last14,ratedeaths_last14,avgtotal_last7,avgincidence_last7,avgdeaths_last7,avgratedeaths_last7
data:
59,British Columbia,Colombie-Britannique,2020-10-21,12057,0,256,12057,563137,9993,82.88,111043,203,1.71,237.75,5.05,2,2.12,4065,122,15.00,1808,35.65,2101,41.43,12,0.24,166,3.28,1,0.02
48,Alberta,Alberta,2020-10-21,23402,0,296,23402,1186035,19734,84.33,271322,406,1.77,535.35,6.77,3,1.26,0,234,14.41,3372,77.14,4048,92.60,15,0.34,315,7.20,1,0.03
47,Saskatchewan,Saskatchewan,2020-10-21,2496,0,25,2496,192572,2002,80.21,163966,57,2.34,212.52,2.13,0,1.00,1664,15,18.79,469,39.93,502,42.74,1,0.09,42,3.61,0,0.00
46,Manitoba,Manitoba,2020-10-21,3626,0,43,3626,224779,1809,49.89,164136,135,3.87,264.77,3.14,1,1.19,2144,106,48.92,1774,129.54,1348,98.43,16,1.17,100,7.31,1,0.06
35,Ontario,Ontario,2020-10-21,66686,0,3062,66686,4591746,57325,85.96,315225,790,1.20,457.80,21.02,9,4.59,31578,719,9.45,6299,43.24,10741,73.74,74,0.51,753,5.17,6,0.04
24,Quebec,Québec,2020-10-21,96288,0,6074,96288,1802240,81267,84.40,212404,1072,1.13,1134.81,71.59,19,6.31,10969,799,9.29,8947,105.45,14374,169.41,168,1.98,1042,12.28,14,0.16
10,Newfoundland and Labrador,Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador,2020-10-21,287,0,4,287,49502,274,95.47,94915,0,0.00,55.03,0.77,0,1.39,331,2,3.14,9,1.73,10,1.92,0,0.00,1,0.11,0,0.00
13,New Brunswick,Nouveau-Brunswick,2020-10-21,319,0,4,319,79743,223,69.91,102652,6,1.92,41.06,0.51,1,1.25,469,8,28.84,92,11.84,97,12.49,2,0.26,4,0.50,0,0.04
12,Nova Scotia,Nouvelle-Écosse,2020-10-21,1097,0,65,1097,107384,1027,93.62,110546,0,0.00,112.93,6.69,0,5.93,562,0,0.46,5,0.51,8,0.82,0,0.00,1,0.07,0,0.00
11,Prince Edward Island,Île-du-Prince-Édouard,2020-10-21,64,0,0,64,44927,61,95.31,286256,0,0.00,40.78,0.00,0,0.00,888,0,4.69,3,1.91,3,1.91,0,0.00,0,0.09,0,0.00
60,Yukon,Yukon,2020-10-21,17,0,0,17,3814,15,88.24,93357,0,0.00,41.61,0.00,0,0.00,29,0,11.76,2,4.90,2,4.90,0,0.00,0,0.70,0,0.00
61,Northwest Territories,Territoires du Nord-Ouest,2020-10-21,8,0,0,8,5158,5,62.50,115067,3,60.00,17.85,0.00,0,0.00,101,0,37.50,3,6.69,3,6.69,0,0.00,0,0.96,0,0.00
62,Nunavut,Nunavut,2020-10-21,0,0,0,0,2785,0,N/A,71815,0,0.00,0.00,0.00,0,,0,0,,,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00
99,Repatriated travellers,Voyageurs rapatriés,2020-10-21,13,0,0,13,76,13,100.00,,0,0.00,,,0,0.00,0,0,0.00,0,,0,,0,,0,,0,
1,Canada,Canada,2020-10-21,206360,0,9829,206360,8853898,173748,84.20,235543,2672,1.31,548.99,26.15,35,4.76,52800,2005,11.04,22783,60.61,33237,88.42,288,0.77,2425,6.45,24,0.06
59,British Columbia,Colombie-Britannique,2020-10-22,12331,0,256,12331,569400,10114,82.02,112278,274,2.27,243.15,5.05,0,2.08,6263,121,15.90,1961,38.67,2265,44.66,11,0.22,185,3.65,1,0.02
48,Alberta,Alberta,2020-10-22,23829,0,296,23829,1668277,20014,83.99,381642,427,1.82,545.12,6.77,0,1.24,482242,280,14.77,3519,80.50,4111,94.04,13,0.30,341,7.80,1,0.03
47,Saskatchewan,Saskatchewan,2020-10-22,2558,0,25,2558,194064,2024,79.12,165237,62,2.48,217.80,2.13,0,0.98,1492,22,19.90,509,43.34,546,46.49,1,0.09,47,3.97,0,0.00
46,Manitoba,Manitoba,2020-10-22,3773,0,47,3773,227104,1920,50.89,165834,147,4.05,275.51,3.43,4,1.25,2325,111,47.87,1806,131.88,1429,104.35,20,1.46,96,7.04,1,0.09
35,Ontario,Ontario,2020-10-22,67527,0,3071,67527,4629335,58066,85.99,317806,841,1.26,463.58,21.08,9,4.55,37589,741,9.46,6390,43.87,10785,74.04,79,0.54,762,5.23,7,0.05
24,Quebec,Québec,2020-10-22,97321,0,6094,97321,1814069,82033,84.29,213798,1033,1.07,1146.98,71.82,20,6.26,11829,766,9.45,9194,108.36,14329,168.88,179,2.11,1051,12.39,13,0.15
10,Newfoundland and Labrador,Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador,2020-10-22,288,0,4,288,49846,275,95.49,95574,1,0.35,55.22,0.77,0,1.39,344,1,3.13,9,1.73,11,2.11,0,0.00,1,0.11,0,0.00
13,New Brunswick,Nouveau-Brunswick,2020-10-22,322,0,4,322,80186,237,73.60,103222,3,0.94,41.45,0.51,0,1.24,443,14,25.16,81,10.43,97,12.49,2,0.26,4,0.55,0,0.04
12,Nova Scotia,Nouvelle-Écosse,2020-10-22,1097,0,65,1097,108136,1028,93.71,111320,0,0.00,112.93,6.69,0,5.93,752,1,0.36,4,0.41,8,0.82,0,0.00,1,0.07,0,0.00
11,Prince Edward Island,Île-du-Prince-Édouard,2020-10-22,64,0,0,64,45311,61,95.31,288703,0,0.00,40.78,0.00,0,0.00,384,0,4.69,3,1.91,3,1.91,0,0.00,0,0.09,0,0.00
60,Yukon,Yukon,2020-10-22,17,0,0,17,3845,15,88.24,94116,0,0.00,41.61,0.00,0,0.00,31,0,11.76,2,4.90,2,4.90,0,0.00,0,0.70,0,0.00
61,Northwest Territories,Territoires du Nord-Ouest,2020-10-22,8,0,0,8,5180,5,62.50,115558,0,0.00,17.85,0.00,0,0.00,22,0,37.50,3,6.69,3,6.69,0,0.00,0,0.96,0,0.00
62,Nunavut,Nunavut,2020-10-22,0,0,0,0,2835,0,N/A,73105,0,0.00,0.00,0.00,0,,50,0,,,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00
99,Repatriated travellers,Voyageurs rapatriés,2020-10-22,13,0,0,13,76,13,100.00,,0,0.00,,,0,0.00,0,0,0.00,0,,0,,0,,0,,0,
1,Canada,Canada,2020-10-22,209148,0,9862,209148,9397664,175805,84.06,250009,2788,1.35,556.40,26.24,33,4.72,543766,2057,11.23,23481,62.47,33589,89.36,305,0.81,2488,6.62,23,0.06
59,British Columbia,Colombie-Britannique,2020-10-23,12554,0,256,12554,577939,10247,81.62,113962,223,1.81,247.55,5.05,0,2.04,8539,133,16.34,2051,40.44,2369,46.71,11,0.22,195,3.85,1,0.01
48,Alberta,Alberta,2020-10-23,24261,0,300,24261,1682603,20310,83.71,384919,432,1.81,555.00,6.86,4,1.24,14326,296,15.05,3651,83.52,4266,97.59,18,0.41,355,8.12,2,0.04
47,Saskatchewan,Saskatchewan,2020-10-23,2591,0,25,2591,195566,2055,79.31,166515,33,1.29,220.61,2.13,0,0.96,1502,31,19.72,511,43.51,557,47.43,1,0.09,46,3.90,0,0.00
46,Manitoba,Manitoba,2020-10-23,3935,0,48,3935,229636,2032,51.64,167683,162,4.29,287.34,3.51,1,1.22,2532,112,47.14,1855,135.45,1507,110.04,18,1.31,109,7.95,1,0.10
35,Ontario,Ontario,2020-10-23,68353,0,3080,68353,4668046,58799,86.02,320463,826,1.22,469.25,21.14,9,4.51,38711,733,9.47,6474,44.44,10672,73.26,83,0.57,778,5.34,7,0.05
24,Quebec,Québec,2020-10-23,98226,0,6106,98226,1826029,82792,84.29,215208,905,0.93,1157.65,71.96,12,6.22,11960,759,9.50,9328,109.94,14132,166.55,170,2.00,1030,12.14,13,0.15
10,Newfoundland and Labrador,Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador,2020-10-23,288,0,4,288,50192,275,95.49,96238,0,0.00,55.22,0.77,0,1.39,346,0,3.13,9,1.73,9,1.73,0,0.00,0,0.03,0,0.00
13,New Brunswick,Nouveau-Brunswick,2020-10-23,324,0,4,324,80648,245,75.62,103817,2,0.62,41.71,0.51,0,1.23,462,8,23.15,75,9.65,86,11.07,2,0.26,4,0.50,0,0.04
12,Nova Scotia,Nouvelle-Écosse,2020-10-23,1097,0,65,1097,108793,1028,93.71,111997,0,0.00,112.93,6.69,0,5.93,657,0,0.36,4,0.41,8,0.82,0,0.00,1,0.06,0,0.00
11,Prince Edward Island,Île-du-Prince-Édouard,2020-10-23,64,0,0,64,45574,63,98.44,290378,0,0.00,40.78,0.00,0,0.00,263,2,1.56,1,0.64,3,1.91,0,0.00,0,0.09,0,0.00
60,Yukon,Yukon,2020-10-23,17,0,0,17,3857,15,88.24,94409,0,0.00,41.61,0.00,0,0.00,12,0,11.76,2,4.90,2,4.90,0,0.00,0,0.70,0,0.00
61,Northwest Territories,Territoires du Nord-Ouest,2020-10-23,9,0,0,9,5180,5,55.56,115558,1,12.50,20.08,0.00,0,0.00,0,0,44.44,4,8.92,4,8.92,0,0.00,1,1.27,0,0.00
62,Nunavut,Nunavut,2020-10-23,0,0,0,0,2850,0,N/A,73491,0,0.00,0.00,0.00,0,,15,0,,,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00,0,0.00
99,Repatriated travellers,Voyageurs rapatriés,2020-10-23,13,0,0,13,76,13,100.00,,0,0.00,,,0,0.00,0,0,0.00,0,,0,,0,,0,,0,
1,Canada,Canada,2020-10-23,211732,0,9888,211732,9476989,177879,84.01,252120,2584,1.24,563.28,26.31,26,4.67,79325,2074,11.32,23965,63.75,33615,89.43,303,0.81,2518,6.70,24,0.06
Why is it always Alberta? On January 14th the Canada CSV finally updated all the missing Alberta test data. Since mid-December, the Alberta test count data had been stuck at about 1.5 million (1547298) tested, through to jan 13, then jumped to nearly 3 million on jan 14. These lines are from the csv for those days:
48,Alberta,Alberta,2020-12-10,,75054,0,666,75054,1547298,54225,72.25,353966,1566,2.13,1716.97,15.24,13,0.89,5964,1589,26.86,20163,461.26,23176,530.18,156,3.57,12031,275.23,91,2.08,1719,39.32,13,0.30
.... days and weeks pass ...
48,Alberta,Alberta,2021-01-13,1,113618,0,1368,113618,1547298,99412,87.50,353966,875,0.78,2599.17,31.29,23,1.20,0,1234,11.30,12838,293.69,13190,301.74,322,7.37,6117,139.93,175,4.00,874,19.99,25,0.57
1,Canada,Canada,2021-01-13,,681326,0,17382,681326,14781592,584652,85.81,393240,6856,1.02,1812.55,46.24,151,2.55,67556,8205,11.64,79292,210.94,108346,288.24,1910,5.08,54085,143.88,1013,2.69,7726,20.55,145,0.38
Wheee... Jason does 1.4 million tests in one day! Or does he?
48,Alberta,Alberta,2021-01-14,1,114585,0,1389,114585,2939875 ,100762,87.94,672538,967,0.85,2621.29,31.78,21,1.21,39788,1350,10.85,12434,284.45,12957,296.41,343,7.85,6116,139.91,172,3.93,874,19.99,25,0.56
1,Canada,Canada,2021-01-14,,688895,0,17582,688895, 16263519 ,593397,86.14,432664,7565,1.11,1832.69,46.77,154,2.55,129138,8745,11.31,77916,207.28,107468,285.90,1931,5.14,53312,141.83,958,2.55,7616,20.26,137,0.36
My regimen has been to insert only the new daily data, and ignore back-filling and backtracking of missing or old data. I may have to modify that, and do an update or insert into table since day 1 each day. Nuisance. I blame Alberta. For everything.
Feb16, 2021: OK, it isn't always Alberta. PHAC can muck things up too. On January 31, the CSV download introduced a new column, numtests, which they inserted after numtested, rather than add new columns at the end of rows. But, they did not backfill the data to the beginning of time, so it looks in the data and in the PHAC interactive tools as if there was no testing anywhere in Canada until the start of February. Nor did they maintain numtested until they got the data corrected for numtests. Covidiots. They inserted two more columns to do with rates of testing, but those are just BS. And, out of date.
pruid,prname,prnameFR,date,update,numconf,numprob,numdeaths,numtotal,numtested,numtests,numrecover,percentrecover,ratetested,ratetests,numtoday,percentoday,ratetotal,ratedeaths,numdeathstoday,percentdeath,numtestedtoday,numteststoday ,numrecoveredtoday,percentactive,numactive,rateactive,numtotal_last14,ratetotal_last14,numdeaths_last14,ratedeaths_last14,numtotal_last7,ratetotal_last7,numdeaths_last7,ratedeaths_last7,avgtotal_last7,avgincidence_last7,avgdeaths_last7,avgratedeaths_last7
actual photo of the virus
worst variant of the virus