Thought of the Day - May 10 - By The Numbers

Canada again added another 10,000+ cases, and over 1,000 deaths. Isn't it amazing how the human brain works. Where 1,000 cases seemed to be an issue now another 10,000 seems common-place.

Well today I think it is fair to say Covid-19 in Canada is all about Quebec; with over half the cases and nearly 60% of the deaths (and less than 25% of the population). Indeed Montreal has only 5% of Canada's population but has reported one quarter of all cases. While there are still issues in other Provinces, you can see by this graph that Quebec has the most to deal with.

Even when displayed on a per-capita basis, it is mainly about Quebec.

In cases:

In mortality:

Back to the human thought process, when you talk to people in Quebec all they say is "well we are doing better than France", in Montreal "well we are doing better than NYC". There was even as statement at the beginning of May from the Universite de Montreal saying "the actual number of infections in Quebec and Ontario is remarkable similar" explaining Quebec is just better at finding cases. Amazing how folks can rationalize.

This week a shout out goes to Alberta. After some tough weeks, they are now clearly leading the country in tests per-capita. While they are still reporting a much higher infection rate than BC (in part as they are getting serious with testing) they have less than half the rate of BC (5%+) in deaths per case (<2%). They are still on par with us in deaths per-million (~25) and way ahead of Ontario and Quebec.

For more graphs and access to the underlying workbook see the By the Numbers page -> https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/the-numbers

Cheers

Cliff