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. 2021 Jul 15;8(1):173.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-021-00955-2.

A sub-national real-time epidemiological and vaccination database for the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

Isha Berry  1 , Meghan O'Neill  2 , Shelby L Sturrock  2 , James E Wright  3 , Kamal Acharya  4 , Gabrielle Brankston  4 , Vinyas Harish  2   5 , Kathy Kornas  2 , Nika Maani  6 , Thivya Naganathan  4 , Lindsay Obress  4 , Tanya Rossi  4 , Alison E Simmons  2 , Matthew Van Camp  4 , Xiao Xie  4 , Ashleigh R Tuite  2 , Amy L Greer  2   4 , David N Fisman  2 , Jean-Paul R Soucy  7
Affiliations

A sub-national real-time epidemiological and vaccination database for the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

Isha Berry et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for real-time, open-access epidemiological information to inform public health decision-making and outbreak control efforts. In Canada, authority for healthcare delivery primarily lies at the provincial and territorial level; however, at the outset of the pandemic no definitive pan-Canadian COVID-19 datasets were available. The COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group was created to fill this crucial data gap. As a team of volunteer contributors, we collect daily COVID-19 data from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources and curate a line-list of cases and mortality for all provinces and territories of Canada, including information on location, age, sex, travel history, and exposure, where available. We also curate time series of COVID-19 recoveries, testing, and vaccine doses administered and distributed. Data are recorded systematically at a fine sub-national scale, which can be used to support robust understanding of COVID-19 hotspots. We continue to maintain this dataset, and an accompanying online dashboard, to provide a reliable pan-Canadian COVID-19 resource to researchers, journalists, and the general public.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Overview of the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group data collection, curation and verification process.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Health region-level map of cumulative reported COVID-19 cases and mortality in absolute counts. Cumulative (a) cases and (b) mortality in each health region of Canada from the first announced case on January 25, 2020 to WHO pandemic declaration [March 11, 2020]; to Labour Day weekend [September 7, 2020], to December 21, 2020. Values of 0 shown in grey.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Health region-level map of cumulative reported COVID-19 cases per 100,000 and mortality per 100,000 over time. Cumulative (a) reported cases per 100,000 population and (b) mortality per 100,000 population in each health region of Canada from the first announced case on January 25, 2020 to WHO pandemic declaration [March 11, 2020], to Labour Day weekend [September 7, 2020], to December 21, 2020. Values of 0 are shown in grey. Health region populations correspond to 2019 estimates provided by Statistics Canada.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
COVID-19 case and mortality epidemic curves in Canada. Daily reported (a) cases and (b) mortality with 7-day moving averages (bold line), across Canada since the first announced case on January 25, 2020 up to December 21, 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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