Throughout the past year, the USA has been slightly ahead of Canada on many levels in dealing with Covid-19: higher infection rate, higher death rate, quicker vaccine rollout, quicker economic re-opening, etc. Obviously, all these decisions have had a significant impact (especially the death rate) on their population, and that should not be diminished, but the bottom line is, the USA may be holding out some hope for us here in Canada, given we are probably a couple of months behind them (specifically on vaccine rollout, which seems to be happening faster in Canada over the past two weeks alone).
Let’s hope Canada can vaccinate at a much faster pace so we don’t see this death rate climb, which it looks like it might, while the USA death rate appears to be still falling. As death rates fall, infection rates should become less important for policy makers. That is not to say, people will not be sick from infection, but the risk of death should be falling. Perhaps there is hope that our most vulnerable and at risk residents have been vaccinated and protected and those that do become infected will be younger, healthier and more able to withstand the infection with a much higher survival rate. We have warmer weather rolling in and a vaccination rate that appears to be picking up steam. There is hope at the end of this long tunnel we have been in.
The charts below show the the daily death rates per day and the 7-day moving average in the USA and Canada:
