Epidemiological Study of COVID-19 Fatalities and Vaccine Uptake: Insight From a Public Health Database in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Coronavirus disease has reached millions of people worldwide and is responsible for millions of deaths around the world. Research on fatalities in rural communities remains limited. In addition, the scientific literature has not yet reported on the distribution of vaccines in Canada and compared the findings to the age distribution of COVID-19 fatalities in Canada to see whether the vaccines have been distributed to the highest age category populations. This research article used data from the Government of Ontario and Statistics Canada to analyze the number of cases, fatalities, case fatality rates (CFRs) by demographic factors, such as age, gender, urban-rural status, and compared the findings to national vaccination rates by age. As of June 11, 2021, this study found that among the 528,819 cases among 14.8 million people. Among this population, there were 8875 fatalities in Ontario with 82.208% (n=7296) of fatalities occurred in people over 70 years, and 93.183% in people over 60 years (n=8,270). Additionally, the odds ratio of a fatal event was 9,652 times higher in people over 90 years (95% CI: 4418, 31124, p<0.001) as compared with less than 20 years. Men had a higher number of fatalities (n=4,490, CFR=1.721%) compared with women (n=4,385, CFR=1.692%), and a higher odd of fatal events only when adjusted for age and gender (OR=1.66, 95% CI: 1.57, 1.74, p<0.001). Urban areas had 92.034% of fatalities (n=8,168) and had a CFR of 1.632%. In contrast, rural areas comprised 4.451% of total fatalities (n=395) and had the highest CFR (2.267%). The unadjusted odds of a fatality were 1.41 (95% CI: 1.27, 1.56) in rural areas compared with urban areas. Across Canada as of May 29, 2021, people over 80 years old received 1,530,318 vaccines with 91.98% of this population age group receiving at least one and 457,664 being fully vaccinated (27.51%). In Ontario, as the number of people with at least one vaccine increased for people over 90 years, the number of fatalities was reduced from about 8 per day prior to vaccines to approximately two per day. Furthermore, once the vaccination rates exceeded 75% in ages 60 years and over 50% in the younger age groups, the number of fatalities per day among all age groups was approximately one per day. In summary, age was found to be a significant factor for COVID-19 mortality in Ontario and vaccine uptake in Ontario was followed by decreases in COVID-19 mortality.

Inequality in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccine: a systematic review

“…For example, according to some studies in the United States and the United Kingdom [ 39 , 49 ], the rate of vaccine injection is higher in women than men. Also, older people had greater access to vaccination [ 34 , 36 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 44 , 48 , 50 , 51 ]. A study by Cardona et al in Maryland found that vaccination rates were lower in blacks [ 32 ].…”

COVID-19 fatality and DALYs, and associated metabolic disorders and ambient air pollutants in pre-Omicron era of the pandemic: an international comparative study

“…Disparities exist in terms of the effects of COVID-19 vaccination, as reported previously. A Canadian study conducted in 2021 found that antiCOVID-19 vaccine did reduce the disease mortality in Ontario; however, the authors suggested that age was the only significant factor associated with COVID-19 mortality [ 16 ]. A Japanese study by Ko et al [ 17 ] showed that, among full vaccinated patients, vaccine effectiveness to prevent death varied according to the age of COVID-19 patients; it was 77.7% effective in patients aged over 90 years and higher (83.5–88.6%) in those aged 60–80 years.…”

An LBS and agent-based simulator for Covid-19 research

“…Considering the fact that the virus transmission was demographically heterogeneous (such as age and gender 23 ), e.g., Covid-19 was significantly more lethal for older people than other populations 34 , we also assigned epidemic correlated attributes in the group pattern. These attributes were vital for virus transmission simulation, but missing in traditional human mobility data such as mobile phone location data and GPS data.…”