The recent release of nearly 10 months of death data for Nova Scotia, covering October 2021 to August 2022, sheds light on the province’s COVID-19 deaths, a researcher says.
Nova Scotia has lagged behind most other provinces in providing the data to Statistics Canada, but Statistics Canada’s latest excess mortality update on Thursday included a host of new numbers for Nova Scotia.
The federal agency uses death data to track excess mortality — the actual number of deaths above expectations.
“I think it’s really critical for decision makers to see this data, and for people to see this data,” said infectious disease researcher Tara Moriarty, who is based at the University of Toronto.
The data, which are broken down into weekly periods, show consecutive periods of positive excess mortality over the most recent time period.
“It means we have a constant excess mortality, but we never really dip,” Moriarty said. “So the fact that we don’t see negatives — or very few of them — we’re in a constant state of hypermortality.”
Moriarty said that’s a big departure from the early days of the pandemic in Nova Scotia, when strong public health restrictions meant fewer people were dying than expected.
Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher and associate professor at the University of Toronto, wants the Nova Scotia government to provide more information to citizens about the state of COVID-19 in the province. (Submitted by Tara Moriarty)
There could be many reasons for excess mortality, Moriarty said.
In addition to the COVID-19 outbreak, this could signal problems with toxic drugs or problems with access to health care. But the excess death rate is a sign for authorities to take action, she said.
“Is there anything else going on that we need to be aware of and address?” Moriarty said.
She said that in Quebec, which has a steady count of cases and deaths from COVID-19, the excess mortality statistics resemble the official number of deaths from COVID-19.
Moriarty is also the lead for the COVID-19 Resources Canada project, which does modeling to help people better understand the COVID-19 situation. He receives funding for his work from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Deaths from Omicron
The deadliest wave of the pandemic in Nova Scotia began with the arrival of the Omicron variant, with 589 of the 701 reported deaths since then.
Moriarty notes that Statistics Canada data also shows significant excess mortality from September 2021 to November 2021.
Although Nova Scotia’s official death toll from COVID-19 increased by 16 deaths during that time (from 94 to 110), Statistics Canada puts Nova Scotia’s excess death toll at 109 deaths.
Rapid tests for COVID-19 with negative and positive results are shown. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
Moriarty is not surprised by this.
“Across the country, we’ve seen a pretty bad wave of mortality and excess mortality associated with [the] Delta [variant] that continued at Omicron,” she said.
Moriarty has long warned that the province is undercounting the number of deaths from COVID-19.
She would like the province to speed up the information it provides to Statistics Canada, as well as provide more information to the public “so that people really get a real sense of the risk and what’s going on, instead of it being all hush-hush all the time.” time.”
Nova Scotia has suspended regular COVID-19 briefings. It updates its COVID-19 dashboard weekly and issues a monthly epidemiological report.
CBC News has requested additional information from the province and will update the story once it receives a response.
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