The third week of January 2022 was the deadliest week in Canada since the pandemic began, according to new data released by Statistics Canada.

And while COVID-19 infections have directly accounted for most excess deaths during the pandemic, alcohol, drugs and accidental poisoning have also been significant drivers.

These findings are detailed in a new report by Statistics Canada on in Canada from January 2020 to October 2022. Agencies like Statistics Canada measure excess mortality in order to better understand the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic as new COVID-19 variants of concern continue to influence public health.

Here is a summary of some of Statistics Canada's latest findings.

WHAT IS EXCESS MORTALITY?

A certain number of people are expected to die in a population, like Canada's, during any given period. Excess mortality is when there are more deaths than expected for a specific period of time.

Even without a pandemic, there is always some year-to-year fluctuation in the number of deaths in a population in a given week – an expected range – and the number of expected deaths should fall within that range. But when weekly deaths are consistently higher than the expected range, especially for several consecutive weeks, that bears examining.

According to Statistics Canada, there were an estimated 53,741 excess deaths in Canada from the end of March 2020 to the end of August 2022, 7.6 per cent more than would be expected had there not been a pandemic.

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During this period, at least 42,215 deaths were directly attributed to COVID-19. From the beginning of January that year – a time when Omicron was rapidly spreading throughout the country – to the end of February, there were 8,286 excess deaths, or 16.8 per cent more than would have been expected.

In the third week of January alone there were 27 per cent more deaths than would have been expected for that period. In other words, slightly more than one in five deaths that week were excess deaths attributed to the pandemic.

 

Most of these excess deaths were recorded in Ontario and Quebec, although Alberta and British Columbia had higher-than-expected weekly deaths through much of 2022.

In fact, deaths in the three westernmost provinces drove a second significant period of excess mortality in 2022, when 2,357 excess deaths – or 8.4 per cent more deaths than expected – were recorded from the middle of April to the middle of May.

DEATH FROM ALCOHOL AND DRUGS

Not all of the excess deaths throughout the pandemic have been caused by COVID-19 infections, though Statistics Canada says many should be considered an indirect result of the virus.

Deaths related to alcohol consumption, drug use and accidental poisoning have occurred at especially high rates among younger Canadians.

Accidental poisoning – including overdoses from prescription, over-the-counter and illicit drugs, alcohol, solvents and pesticides – contributed to at least 4,605 deaths across Canada in 2020 and 6,310 in 2021.

In comparison, unintentional poisonings caused 4,830 deaths at the previous height of the overdose crisis in 2017.

More than half of accidental poisoning deaths – 2,640 in 2020 and 3,600 in 2021 – occurred in people younger than 45 years old.

Alcohol-related deaths have also increased significantly throughout the pandemic. These include deaths from accidental and intentional acute alcohol poisoning, alcohol-induced diseases and mental and behavioural disorders attributed to alcohol use.

There were 3,790 alcohol-induced deaths in Canada in 2020 and 3,875 in 2021, compared with 3,200 in 2019. According to Statistics Canada, the 18 per cent increase from 2019 to 2020 was the largest year-over-year change in alcohol-induced deaths seen in at least the last 20 years.

As with accidental poisoning deaths, deaths in people under 65 accounted for most of this increase. This age group saw an increase in the number of alcohol-induced deaths of 27 per cent from 2019 to 2020, compared to an increase of four per cent among people over 65. Statistics Canada said that trend persisted through 2021.

DATA CAVEAT

The data released by Statistics Canada on excess mortality do not capture all the deaths that occurred during the reference period. This is due to both reporting delays and the absence of data from Yukon.

Provisional death counts are based on what is reported to Statistics Canada by provincial and territorial vital statistics registries. Provisional death estimates have been adjusted to account for incomplete data where possible.

These figures may also not match figures from other sources, such as counts and estimates from provincial and territorial health authorities and other agencies, and any media reports using those figures.