Why StatsCan says Nova Scotia has a ‘significant’ excess mortality

Statistics Canada says there are several reasons for the “significant” excess mortality Nova Scotia has experienced since late July 2022.

Excessive mortality — or deaths above what would normally be expected — is a signal to public health officials that something concerning is happening and needs to be addressed.

Indirect consequences of the pandemic should be considered, “such as missed medical appointments or treatments, or cases – especially early in the pandemic – where individuals may have died from the virus before they were tested or treated,” said a spokesperson. from the desk. said in a statement.

“Excess mortality … is an important metric that explains these effects.”

Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, said excess mortality draws attention to deaths that are not officially reported due to COVID-19, even though it may have been a contributing factor.

“COVID has a lot of harmful effects on the whole body and we’re just learning that, and the bug is still evolving,” he said.

While Nova Scotia received praise for its response early in the pandemic, that changed with the arrival of the Omicron variant in December 2021.

Statistics Canada said the province began seeing periods of significant excess mortality in early 2022. It cited the four-week period ending February 12, 2022, during which there was a record 65 deaths from COVID-19 in the province.

During that time, an estimated 1,014 extra deaths occurred, 18.2 percent more than expected.

Statistics Canada cited “heart disease” as another factor that may have contributed to excess mortality. It caused 175 deaths during that four-week period.

Furness said COVID-19 has a “terrible effect” on the vascular system, so those deaths come as no surprise.

“You had COVID everywhere, and then you have these heart attack deaths very, very close,” he said. “That’s pretty convincing.”

Data “still very incomplete,” says StatsCan

Statistics Canada also announced that during the 28-week period ending February 4, 2023, there were 975 excess deaths, or 17 percent more than expected.

During that period, there were 210 deaths from COVID-19, while flu and pneumonia accounted for 90 deaths. In the comparable period in 2020-2021 there were 30 deaths from flu and pneumonia, while in the same 28 weeks in 2021-2022 there were 45 deaths. deaths.

But Statistics Canada said the data provided is “still very incomplete”. About 30 percent of deaths over the 28-week period in 2022-2023 have yet to be identified or reported to the agency.

That doesn’t surprise Furness, who said Canada is bad at reporting deaths in a timely manner.

But the available data suggests that “COVID is not just killer number 3 [nationally]it contributes to the increase in the number 1 and the number 2, which are cancer and cardiovascular,” he said.

Aging population

Statistics Canada said Nova Scotia’s aging population is also part of the reason behind the extra deaths, but the modeling tries to account for factors like these.

“The number of deaths may be influenced by changes in the composition of the population due to immigration, changes in death rates and the effects of an aging population,” the report said.

“In the Canadian context, with an aging and growing population, the number of deaths has steadily increased in recent years, so a higher number of deaths would be expected regardless of COVID-19.”

Since the start of the pandemic, authorities in the province said 869 people have died from COVID-19 in Nova Scotia, with 383 of those deaths have occurred since July 1, 2022.

The Nova Scotia government is confident its COVID death numbers are accurate, saying deaths attributed to COVID-19 capture both people who died from a coronvairus infection or believed to be a contributing factor.

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