British Columbia had more deaths in excess than any other province during the first 18 months of the pandemic, according to a new analysis.
This finding is renewing the scrutiny of how many of these deaths were due to COVID-19.
In her article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal entitled “Excess Mortality, COVID-19 and Health Care Systems in Canada,” a professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health found that western Canada had more deaths in excess in the country, and BC recorded the highest proportion. of all.
“It really is COVID, in addition to things related to COVID-19, such as delayed attention, as well as other things that are happening,” author Kim McGrail said in an interview with CTV News, pointing to the heat dome and the toxic drug crisis. roles, but the pandemic is the key.
“People with delayed surgeries, people who had delayed the diagnosis of new conditions and delayed treatment for ongoing conditions, all of them could have contributed. What we don’t know at the moment is the relative contribution of each of them.”
He said public health measures, such as masks and other precautions, varied significantly by province, as did access to health care. But there were also differences in how or if the deaths were attributed to the virus, with BC with an exceptionally low official count.
“The information practices of the provincial public health agencies were probably affected by decisions on whether or not to classify the deaths of so many people whose main cause of death was COVID-19 (those who died “of” COVID-19) as of people who were infected with SARS. -CoV-2 whose main cause of death was not COVID-19 (those who died “with” COVID-19) as it was related to COVID -19 “, he wrote in the piece.
HOW BIG IS THE SUB-ACCOUNT?
McGrail declined to estimate the extent to which he believes the BC mortality rate could be, but a previous study by the Royal Geographic Society of Canada believes that the official provincial toll in the early days of COVID could be underestimated by half. .
But the collection of independent academics and scientists, analysts and other experts of the BC COVID-19 Modeling Group has maintained for some time that the province has been minimizing the number of deaths and has focused on the issue in its analysis. most recent.
“It’s very hard to think we weren’t under-accounting,” said Jens Von Bergmann, a high-profile data scientist in Vancouver and a member of the group. “With the data accumulated over two years, it seems pretty clear that all the official counts we have, even if we count in excess of deaths from drug toxicity and heat dome, there is still a lot of space unexplained and this is before you start thinking that public health measures were probably effective in preventing deaths of other types, such as the flu. “
THE MINISTER DOUBLES THE EXCEPTIONALISM OF BC
The Health Minister was asked about the latest BC excess mortality analysis and declined to acknowledge that the official count may be inaccurate.
“There will always be discussions about the public health impact of the different emergencies we face,” Adrian Dix said. “In BC the facts are just the facts, and the mortality rate is the lowest of any jurisdiction of its size in North America.”
CTV News asked to speak with someone from BC’s vital statistics agency for more information on how the data is collected, reported and analyzed, but the health ministry ignored the request and instead, he sent a lengthy email statement.
“We note that the weeks when excess deaths were highest in BC were the weeks when COVID transmission was lowest,” a spokesman wrote.
But it has long been established that deaths are a delayed indicator of infection, meaning that someone will die weeks after becoming infected, which is a pattern observed in BC during successive waves of the virus.
Although McGrail’s analysis lasted from March 2020 to September 2021 and does not include the entire Delta wave or the Omicron wave, it suggests that much remains to be learned from his work: the idea that BC had fewer deaths than COVID-19 is A statement that fades in credibility, public health officials should expect not to detect many of the deaths due to the virus in the community, and could respond much better to the fatalities, either due to decreased medical care, a new variant, extremes. climate, drug toxicity or anything else, if they had more timely information.