Thought of the Day - August 23 - By the Numbers

The overall Canadian case rate has been fairly flat over the past week. However, we are now a tale of two countries: rates in the east continue to decrease, rates in the west continue to increase. Alberta and Manitoba are leading the way with new cases per capita, over two per million, closely followed by BC, ~1.6/million. Indeed, last week in BC we saw our highest number of new cases ever, almost 500. As a result we also have our highest number of active cases at 800. In case you missed the memo - time to bring the numbers down people!

Oh, just in case you have forgotten (with all the discussion about schools (Thought of the Day - August 22- Back To School), this is still all about age (Thought of the Day - April 9 - The Old Person's Pandemic). Here is the age demographics of deaths across Canada:

Looking around the world, you might be surprised in the figures by country (over $1M population):

• Highest number of cases per capita is all about the Middle East and Americas (meaning how much are we detecting): The top 10: 1) Qatar, 2) Bahrain, 3) Chile, 4) Panama, 5) Kuwait, 6) Peru, 7) USA, 8) Brazil, 9) Oman and 10) Armenia - Canada is 50th;

• Highest number of tests per capita (meaning how much are we spending on testing): The top 10: 1) UAE, 2) Bahrain, 3) Denmark, 4) Singapore, 5) Israel, 6) Russia, 7) USA, 8) Australia, 9) UK and 10) Cyprus - Canada 19th;

• Highest number of deaths per capita (the most important): The top ten: 1) Belgium, 2) Peru, 3) Spain, 4) UK, 5) Italy, 6) Sweden, 7) Chile, 7) USA, 8) Brazil, 9) France and 10) Mexico - Canada 21st.

The great news, Canada is not in any of them. Meaning, we have flattened the curve, we are not wasting money on excessive testing, and, finally, we have done better than the worst in protecting the most vulnerable.

This week the shout-out goes to the "Atlantic Bubble". Collectively they are still doing far better than the rest of the country.

Cheers

Cliff