Estimated Deaths, Intensive Care Admissions and Hospitalizations Averted in Canada during the COVID-19 Pandemic

These datasets explore disparities in COVID-19 mortality observed in the US and Canada between January 2020 and early March 2021. Table 1 provides counts of deaths, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and cases, by age, for Ontario, Canada (Canada's most populous province). <br>Table 2 estimates deaths averted by Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, relative to that in the United States, by "Canada-standardizing" the US epidemic (i.e., by applying US age-specific mortality to Canadian populations, in order to estimate the deaths that would have occurred in a Canadian pandemic with the same rates of death as have been observed in the US). Observed Canadian deaths are compared to "expected" deaths with a US-like response in order to estimate both deaths averted and SMR (Table 2).<br>As Canadian age groups for purposes of death reporting are slightly different from those used in the US (e.g., 0-17 in the US vs. 0-19 in Canada), we reallocate Canadian deaths based on proportions of deaths occurring in 2-year age categories in Ontario (Table 1).<br>Ontario age-specific case-fatality is used to inflate the deaths averted, in order to estimate cases averted. Ontario age-specific hospitalization and ICU risk (again derived from Table 1) are used to estimate hospitalizations and ICU admissions averted (Table 2).