Covid-19 3rd leading cause of death among Canadians in 2022

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1310039401

by jeffbee • 3 years ago

67 112 3 years ago

www150.statcan.gc.ca

simonw• 3 years ago

Are the figures for the USA for 2022 out yet?

Found this for 2021, where Covid came third as well: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Heart disease: 695,547

Cancer: 605,213

COVID-19: 416,893

kenferry• 3 years ago

Provisional figures are out. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7218a3.htm

COVID’s down 47% from 2021, but still the 4th leading cause of death at 244,986.

amatecha2• 3 years ago

Ah, this is the perfect summary to explain to people when they ask "why are you still wearing a mask? COVID is over" or similar queries invalidating my caution around this virus.

Worth noting is it was the 4th-leading cause of death in 2020 and 2021.

Not sure why this is being downvoted into oblivion, as I regularly get some hassle from people about my strict adherence to wearing a mask indoors around people, and the more I can say beyond "I don't feel like getting COVID", the better. Otherwise I have to go into a story about how, directly via COVID infection, a friend's mom died, a coworker's wife is left wheelchair-bound and can't even complete a phone conversation without being left breathless, one of my favorite musicians has called it quits after a complete loss of hearing in one ear.. etc... As a programmer I highly value my clarity of thought and am not going to risk that because people apparently feel the need to bother me about being cautious. Honestly cannot figure out why anyone feels the need to even comment on it, as it has no effect on them, and in fact helps keep them safer.

tptacek7• 3 years ago

People shouldn't bother you about wearing a mask, or bother storekeepers who request patrons mask, but a reason to push back on state-mandated masking isn't that COVID isn't serious (it clearly is), but rather that the empirical evidence for masking, especially vs. the new strains, is quite weak

amatecha2• 3 years ago

Well, first off I'm going to say "citation needed", but secondly, I haven't had a single transmissible illness since I started wearing KN95 whenever I'm around people indoors. This includes going to crowded markets, trans-continental flights, a recent concert... Of course, wearing some flimsy loose thing that barely even covers your face (like those "surgical" masks that are typically handed out) is certainly going to be of limited usefulness. A decently-fitting N95/KN95 , well.. it works.

vik0• 3 years ago

but rather that the empirical evidence for masking, especially vs. the new strains, is quite weak

https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7

doctorhandshake• 3 years ago

I’d be curious to read more on that - any citations?

graeme2• 3 years ago

the empirical evidence for masking, especially vs. the new strains, is quite weak

If you're wearing an N95 or KN95 the filtration efficacy is quite high. Most of the mask studies looked at whether mask policies lowered covid.

If you wear a mask in class but then take it off in the cafeteria or outside of school, the mask no longer has an effect.

If, however, you wear a mask with high filtration efficacy while outside of the house, that's a different story. To my knowledge we have no challenge trial of people wearing such a mask when exposed to an infectious agent.

It is folly to ignore the physical mechanism of such masks when reasoning about them, and defaulting to only considering the studies we have, which simply cannot measure efficacy when the mask is worn.

This study on parachutes is a good analogue: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

mrb• 3 years ago

There is a lot of empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of masks against COVID-19, and I would not call it weak. In my own quest for actual research instead of single data points ("I never mask and have never gotten COVID"), I found that out of 27 peer-reviewed studies, 22 of them show masks are effective: https://github.com/mbevand/masking-effectiveness

Krssst2• 3 years ago

I am a developer, not a doctor, so I just rely.on health authorities as imperfect as they are: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm .

graphe6• 3 years ago

The air on a plane circulates and causes illness to many people, like people who have had plastic surgery are advised not to travel too soon for fear of infection.

Have you found that it helps there?

prirun• 3 years ago

I read an article about masking and airplanes that seemed reasonable:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/covid-omi...

The basic advice is to unmask when it is okay to use your laptop. The plane is cruising and cabin air is completely exchanged with outside air every 2 minutes. The biggest risk, according to the article, is when the plane is on the ground.

godshatter2• 3 years ago

This is just something to think about. After I was called back in to the office and started seeing people more often I came down with what I would have sworn was covid three times. Absolutely the worst flu-like symptoms I'd ever had that I could recall, each affecting me in a novel way, but negative on covid each time.

They could have been false negatives, of course, but I suspect I just hadn't been training my immune system for many months and it wasn't prepared to handle the normal cold or flu viruses I would normally be able to handle otherwise. Since that period of time, I haven't come down sick since.

Not saying that covid is nothing to worry about, but it's something you might want to consider down the road. I don't know your situation or what health concerns you might have, but being too protective can have it's downsides as well.

Reki• 3 years ago

There is no scientific evidence for being able to "train your immune system". There is plenty of evidence the opposite happens. Covid especially can cause permanent immune damage.

Choco31415• 3 years ago

For those of you curious, the top 5 causes are:

* Malignant Neoplasms - 82,412

* Diseases of the Heart - 57,357

* Covid-19 - 19,716

* Accidents (unintentional injuries) - 18,365

* Cerebrovascular Diseases - 13,915

graphe6• 3 years ago

The number by COVID is 19,716. Euthanasia is absent on here but is 13,241 for context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_Canada

lukev2• 3 years ago

Regardless of one's opinions on if MAID is a good idea, it seems unfair to regard it as a "cause of death". Wouldn't that be more correctly attributable to the underlying condition?

chrisco2552• 3 years ago

No, if one ends their life prematurely by suicide, then suicide is the cause of death.

herodotus• 3 years ago

When a person with an incurable terminal disease chooses MAID, the disease itself is listed as the cause of death on the death certificate.

graphe6• 3 years ago

Midazolam, Propofol and Rocuronium or Cisatracurium overdose at 13,241 is an acceptable cause of death. You'd best consider COVID-19 to be asphyxiation, low blood oxygen or natural causes.

Eumenes5• 3 years ago

You can say the same thing in regards to how the CDC lumps suicide into "gun violence" deaths but don't blame sleeping pills, ropes, driving cars off bridges, or whatever OTC drug one can buy to reach the same conclusion. Weaponizing data is a government statisticians job.

xeckr• 3 years ago

If someone shoots themselves, the proximal cause of death is "self-inflicted gunshot wound", not "depression".

seattle_spring5• 3 years ago

Since it’s inevitable for someone to pop in and breathlessly claim these numbers are falsely inflated, here’s some light reading in preparation:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debunking-the-fal...

https://www.aha.org/news/blog/2020-11-02-aha-continues-debun...

https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2020/11/07/how-covid...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772693

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-...

wk_end3• 3 years ago

Just took a quick glance but these appear to be about the US, whereas this post is about Canada. Am I missing something?

seattle_spring5• 3 years ago

Are you suggesting that Canada’s numbers are inflated, even though they match US numbers which are not inflated?

Animats2• 3 years ago

Current stats for US:[1]

Hospital admissions are up to 3x the August-September low. Deaths are way down, though. The vaccines really do work against deaths, and the newer variants are less lethal.

Understanding of long COVID at the cellular level is just beginning, but there is progress.[2]

[1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklyhospi...

[2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v...

Scoundreller5• 3 years ago

the newer variants are less lethal.

Is this true, or does just about everyone have at least some residual immunity from infection/vaccination?

cmrdporcupine5• 3 years ago

I never tested positive for COVID in the entire 3.5 years of this crap ... until last month. I have had 4 rounds of the vaccine and didn't ever get it in prior winters even when it was in my house (daughter had it before) -- but didn't get my booster in time this fall to do anything about the rather insane wave making its way through the population right now (thanks Doug Ford, you incompetent buffoon). And so I got it, and so did everyone else in our house

And it was rather brutal-awful. Enough so that I felt the need to get on anti-virals. 3 weeks later and I'd say I'm only really recovered right now.

Point being, it seems the vaccinations unfortunately need repeated application, and what's making the rounds right now is nothing to scoff at. For some people, it's mild. For others, pretty awful.

Animats2• 3 years ago

About a quarter of the US population has never had COVID.

Immunity from both having the disease and vaccination lasts somewhere between 3 to 18 months. [1][2] Study results differ, but most are in that range.

This disease changes fast enough that the vaccine will probably have to change at least annually, like flu vaccines. We'll see how the winter goes.

[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-long-do-covid-...

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/health/covid-19-infection-imm...

graphe6• 3 years ago

The vaccines really do work against deaths, and the newer variants are less lethal.

Non sequitur with no evidence. New variants being less lethal is the only consideration. Sweden famously had no lockdown, and the total death rate (feb2020-nov2023) is 25,590 despite no vaccines and no lockdown when it was most lethal.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

flanbiscuit• 3 years ago

1. Malignant neoplasms (aka cancerous tumor) 82,412

2. Diseases of heart 57,357

3. COVID-19 19,716

4. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 18,365

Note: the list also has an "Other causes of death" at 78,354 but that's not one specific thing so can't be included in the ranking

Some age statistics regarding COVID deaths from their own analysis: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231127/dq231...

The proportion of COVID-19 deaths among older Canadians aged 65 years and older rose to 91.4% in 2022, approaching early pandemic levels. This increase was largely felt by seniors aged 80 years and older, who experienced a 78.2% increase in COVID-19 deaths from 2021 to 2022. In contrast, deaths due to COVID-19 decreased to 8.6% for those younger than 65 years in 2022.

So this is hitting 80+ people the hardest, then 65+... but under 65 has gone down.

renegat0x03• 3 years ago

In my country if somebody died with COVID, then COVID was found as the reason of death. Hospitals had additional bonuses for writing COVID into reason of death. Therefore I read such statistics with a grain of salt.

jihadjihad• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, the official tally of Chinese deaths sits at ~122,000 total [0]. I wonder when, if ever, we will know the true number, especially after the "zero Covid" policy ended.

0: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn

pixxel• 3 years ago

true number

True numbers. Let’s not allude that only China’s stats are… I’ll be kind and say ‘massaged’. How high is the western “died with Covid” tally?

Arson94162• 3 years ago

Complications of medical and surgical care

Is the ~30th cause of death in Canada. In US it's the ~3rd. Why the order of magnitude difference? Is US healthcare 10x more incompetent or are these stats massaged?

p1necone• 3 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if many people in the US just don't go back to the hospital when they get infections etc from surgery because of the medical bills.

mcpackieh2• 3 years ago

That wouldn't count as a medical error. Medical error is when the doctors fuck up, not the patients.

WillPostForFood• 3 years ago

Complications of medical and surgical care isn't in the top 10 for US.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Arson94162• 3 years ago

Medical errors now vie with COVID-19 infections as the third largest cause of preventable death in the United States.

https://blogs.cdc.gov/safehealthcare/patient-safety-action-p...

mcpackieh2• 3 years ago

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...

Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) third leading cause of death — respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year.
The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates.

pfannkuchen• 3 years ago

It's possible that more low-probability-of-success heroics are attempted in the US (especially on the elderly). It would line up with the system level incentives differences between the two places and it would produce the difference you mention.

groestl• 3 years ago

Wild guess: Could be better measurement in the US, due to litigation/insurances?

cmrdporcupine5• 3 years ago

I think something like this is most likely. It's rare in Canada for legal action to be taken (or to succeed) for these kinds of things.

Though I wouldn't rule out accessibility of care as being in Canada's favour, even with our rather awful doctor and nurse shortages right now. It would be interesting to see these stats broken down by region.

Healthcare everywhere is rationed. But in Canada it is mostly rationed on a medical priority instead of ability-to-pay priority.

Eumenes5• 3 years ago

Died "with covid" or "of covid"..? Hmm ...

seattle_spring5• 3 years ago

They died of covid. Any other questions we can answer for you?

renegat0x03• 3 years ago

I find your comment offensive.

hollerith• 3 years ago

Yes: how many of them would have died anyways even if they hadn't gotten covid?

bilsbie• 3 years ago

Does this include a “with vs from” distinction?

thegrim33• 3 years ago

It's extremely well known that this is a common objection to such claims. You'd think that if the data truly was died FROM covid, they would bend over backwards to make that really clear, in order to shut up "deniers". The fact that they don't mention or clarify the issue in anyway is pretty telling. I tried looking through the related sources and found nothing useful to clarify.

ceejayoz3• 3 years ago

"Cause of death" is pretty clear.

Your theory is trivially debunkable by the numbers in the table.

The individual casues of death on in 2022 sum up to 334,121. The total number of deaths for the year is indicated as 334,081. If they're double/triple-counting ailments, they wouldn't match up. (I preusme the mismatch of ~40 is a typo or something in one of the rows.)

mv• 3 years ago

I'd be shocked if this was anywhere near reality. Covid hasn't been an issue any of the hospitals that I work at to the point that many doctors and nurses don't even bother with N95 masks when seeing covid patients.

It's more likely this is people dying with covid and not from covid. If someone covid positive has a stroke or heart attack which column is that being written in?

I have had to write my share of death certificates, and most docs will write the easiest thing that gets the corner off their back. These statistics may be broadly true

medicine is unlike technology in that it has a much much higher level of human error in data points (intentional or not).

Scoundreller5• 3 years ago

Covid hasn't been an issue any of the hospitals that I work at to the point that many doctors and nurses don't even bother with N95 masks when seeing covid patients.

Damn, where are you at? Got ~75 hospital and care home units in active COVID-19 outbreak right now in Toronto. And outbreak doesn't include people that arrived with it, just spread within the unit.

https://ckan0.cf.opendata.inter.prod-toronto.ca/dataset/outb...

cmrdporcupine5• 3 years ago

Wastewater numbers clearly show extremely high # of cases.

And anecdotally - I just got it 3 weeks ago, along with my whole household (Hamilton area), after avoiding it for the entire time prior to this. My elderly parents got it a couple weeks before that. Coworkers of mine got it. It's all over the place right now.

Just got back from the family dr's office today. The doctors were all in masks. The nurses weren't bothering.

Eumenes5• 3 years ago

Its interesting how the deaths increased nearly 25% post vaccine roll out .. Not very effective

twisteriffic• 3 years ago

Interesting how deaths increased only 25% post pandemic precautions. Turns out the vaccine was fairly effective.

Eumenes5• 3 years ago

So effective that despite 80%+ of the population being inoculated it resulted in 25%+ more deaths? You gotta admit, that doesn't really make sense.

alejohausner• 3 years ago

Before 2020, there was no covid, but the number of deaths from influenza was higher. Once covid arrived, there were many fewer influenza deaths:

2018: 8594 2019: 6945 2020: 6037 2021: 4115 2022: 5985

Who dies of influenza? Very old people. Same for covid. Perhaps what we're seeing in these statistics is that the grim reaper may have changed, but he's still gonna get you at end of life.

Covid-19 3rd leading cause of death among Canadians in 2022

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