BC reported nearly 10,000 more deaths than predicted during the 18-month pandemic, but with less than a quarter attributed to COVID-19, it’s unclear why.
The figures and accompanying questions were published Monday (May 30th) by the public of the University of British Columbia and Public Health Professor Kim McGrail in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
It has collected all the over-deaths, whether caused by COVID-19 or not, by the Canadian provinces between 14 March 2020 and 23 October 2021. Excess deaths are those that occur outside the number of Statistics Canada to happen.
For BC, StatCan estimated that there would be 74,096 deaths in the 18 months studied. In fact, another 11.4 percent or 9,496 people died, bringing the total to 83,592.
However, the mystery is not in the number of over-deaths, but in why most of them are not documented as directly caused by COVID-19. Of the 9,496 deaths, only 2,109 or 22.2% were due to the virus.
McGrail says there is no easy answer.
(Excessive Mortality, COVID-19 and Healthcare Systems in Canada, Kimberlyn McGrail)
One possibility is that BC underestimates the number of people dying from COVID-19, considering the cause of death as something else.
Another source could be the record number of toxicity deaths recorded in 2020 and 2021. StatCan takes these deaths into account when forecasting expected deaths next year, but the pandemic caused a sudden spike in fatal overdoses that the agency could not. I did not foresee. Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of overdose deaths in British Columbia jumped from 981 to 1,768, before rising again to 2,236 in 2021.
BC’s thermal dome also had an unexpected effect on mortality, McGrail said. Nearly 600 people died during extreme weather events in 2021, according to the BC Coronation Service.
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McGrail says delayed appointments and surgeries, fewer hospital beds and worsening shortages of doctors are other possible causes. However, it will probably never be possible to quantify it, she added.
However, the real problem that McGrail’s research has addressed is the lack of consistency in reporting mortality across provinces.
According to her report, British Columbia had the highest non-COVID-19 death rate in the country during the study period, but McGrail said that because each province reports deaths differently and relies on different definitions, it is difficult to are compared reliably.
Consistency is vital for assessing national health responses and working for better future solutions, McGrail said. For example, it would allow politicians to determine how different provinces’ pandemic policies affect mortality, she said.
In the future, McGrail says she would like to see Canada invest in a shared, consistent reporting system and more in-depth forensic analysis.
(Excessive Mortality, COVID-19 and Healthcare Systems in Canada, Kimberlyn McGrail)
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