Weird patterns of death across the Canadian provinces.

Excess life-years lost are significantly higher post-vax, especially the further west you go.

I was trying to recreate the recent studies I have been doing for the US states for the Canadian provinces. Unfortunately, the data quality isn’t great so I could only roughly plot excess life-years lost and nothing else.

However, I did discover a peculiar distribution of excess mortality spreading from the east to the west (where province data was available).

I thought I had made a mistake but Statistics Canada have also reported these unusual patterns that do not appear to be related to COVID.

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Quebec

In Quebec, cumulative excess life-years lost for over and under 65s both follow the same pattern, rising since the start of the COVID epidemic in April 2020 through to the end of the year when they look like they are going to trend back downwards as expected.

However, both series turn back upwards at the beginning of April 2021, a few months after the mass vaccination campaigns begin, albeit remaining under the forecast set by the series pre-vax.

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Ontario

Moving west, in Ontario, the over 65s life-years lost series rises constantly up until the point of mass vaccination, whereupon it accelerates.

In the under 65s, the series is even more constant right through the start of the mass vaccination campaign until the end of April, whereupon it accelerates and then settles back into its previous positive gradient.

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Saskatchewan

Moving further west (skipping Manitoba which had limited data), although the absolute numbers are relatively much smaller, the pattern of increased life-years lost in the over 65s is more significant post-vax.

The same is true for the under 65s but the spike in late August 2021 is much more significant than the one in late December 2020.

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Alberta

Like Saskatchewan, life-years lost in over 65s Alberta are spiking a few weeks before mass vaccinations begin but continue upwards, unabated afterwards, before spiking again in the same magnitude at the end of August 2021.

Again like Saskatchewan, the under 65s in Alberta rises only modestly immediately post-vax in late Dec 2020 but rises significantly a few months later at the end of June 2021.

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British Columbia

Furthest west, it’s the same story in British Columbia, with deaths rising in the over 65s just prior to mass vaccinations but spiking at the end of June 2021, and just the June spike in the under 65s.

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Insights

Apart from Quebec, every province has more lost life-years in both over and under 65s after mass COVID vaccinations than might be expected given the trend set prior. And, that pattern seems to get worse as you progress west across the country.

We expect that the cumulative excess time series should eventually trend back towards zero due to:

1. depletion of the vulnerable population;

2. attenuation of the virulence of the virus;

3. protective community immunity, and

4. better treatments.

So, the fact that deaths are higher in the presence of the vaccine is not only counter-intuitive given that they are allegedly “safe and effective” but more likely indicative that they are neither.

I’m not intimately familiar with mortality seasons in Canada but I am guessing that these spikes between June and August are out-of-season and therefore worthy of more thorough investigation?