National academics in the field of health and population point to the high numbers of “excessive mortality” as an important mystery that provinces must solve in their understanding of the human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But New Brunswick, with some of the most puzzling figures in Canada, opposes the idea that it has reported fewer deaths.
In the legislature on Wednesday, opposition leader Roger Melanson asked what the province knows about the excessive deaths in New Brunswick in 2021, which are among the highest in Canada.
Health Secretary Dorothy Shepard seemed confused by the questions.
“He’s hinting that something is wrong.” Said Shepard.
“I don’t understand where this is going.”
Forensic analysis
Earlier this week, University of British Columbia professor and population scientist Kimberlyn McGrail called for a national forensic analysis of why some provinces had a much higher death toll during the pandemic than others.
She also said that the high total number of deaths in provinces that had officially registered only a moderate number of COVID-19 deaths, as happened in New Brunswick, needed to be better understood.
“It’s just an important thing to do,” McGrail told CBC News.
Tara Moriarty is an infectious disease expert and researcher at the University of Toronto. She said figures for over-mortality in New Brunswick showed that COVID deaths in the province were greatly underestimated. (Lisa Son / CBC)
“It’s really hard for me to distinguish between all these different things, so I think the focus on excessive mortality – saying something is happening at the population level – is worth trying to dig into.
In an ongoing study of what it calls “temporary deaths and over-deaths” related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Statistics Canada tracks and records the number of deaths in each province and compares them with levels in normal years after adjusting for population changes. .
“In order to understand the direct and indirect consequences of a pandemic, it is important to measure the over-mortality that occurs when there are more deaths than expected in a given period,” explains Statistics Canada.
Last month, she reported that New Brunswick recorded approximately 7,397 deaths in the first 43 weeks of 2021. According to the agency, that was 908 more than would have been expected in those weeks in the absence of a pandemic, a difference called “excessive mortality.” “
This is one of the highest levels of over-deaths seen in Canada in 2021, and contrasts sharply with the number of deaths in neighboring Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island over the same 43-week period. They were below normal levels with a combined 301.
Unnecessary deaths are high
The idea that 908 more people died in New Brunswick than normal also raised questions about whether the 98 people the province claims died of COVID-19 in those 43 weeks could be accurate. And if so, what factors caused the deaths of the other 810.
Excessive deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic are thought to be related to the effects of the virus circulating in the community in some way, although the exact links to individual deaths are not necessarily known.
Some deaths are caused directly by the virus, but some can be caused by other factors, such as delayed or canceled medical procedures due to pandemic restrictions.
Health Secretary Dorothy Shepard said her department was dealing with over-deaths, but was outraged by the legislature’s suggestions that the numbers showed more people had died from COVID-19 in New Brunswick than the government said. (Ed Hunter / CBC)
Tara Moriarty, an associate professor and researcher in infectious diseases at the University of Toronto, said a large number of deaths in New Brunswick were likely to be COVID-19 cases that remained undetected by the province due to inadequate testing and follow-up.
McGrail agrees that this may be a problem in some provinces, and in an article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this week, she stressed the importance of sorting out such issues to understand exactly what happened in each province. This will help plan for future crises, she suggested.
Once clearer data on the “true” number of COVID-19 cases become available, it may be possible to better assess the extent to which the type and timing of the pandemic response are relevant to the overall mortality rate of the provinces. “She wrote.
Population researcher Kimberlyn McGrail said provinces with high deaths during the pandemic needed to understand what was caused by COVID and what was not. (UBC)
Many of the excessive deaths documented in New Brunswick occurred at and around COVID-19 outbreaks that occurred at the time, including the nine weeks of September and October.
New Brunswick lifted indoor mask requirements and border restrictions earlier this summer, but then declared a state of emergency on Sept. 24 after the Delta option took hold in the province.
Officially, New Brunswick documented 71 deaths from COVID during that September and October period, but Statistics Canada showed 431 more people than normal during those two months.
But so far, the government has resisted the idea that these over-deaths could be undiagnosed deaths from COVID.
Prime Minister Blaine Higgs and Chief Medical Officer Jennifer Russell danced at New Brunswick Day celebrations in August 2021. A COVID epidemic soon struck, and in September and October the province said 71 people had died. Statistics from Canada say there have actually been more than 431 deaths in those months. (CBC News)
In the legislature, Shepard said her department was looking into the matter, but intervened in questions from Melanson, who asked if hundreds more people in the province could have died from COVID-19 than the government has officially announced.
“I don’t know of any deaths that weren’t qualified as the cause of death. So I don’t know what the member on the other side is alluding to.” she said.
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