Coronavirus Pandemic – Canada has Tapered but Testing Credentials are Subpar

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1. The above graph shows how the daily cases in Canada have completely tapered in July/August. It averaged at the peak in May at 1,196, plunged to 442 in June and further moved sideways to 384 in July/August. The absence of any upside momentum, as evidenced by the 7-day moving average, bodes quite well for the near future, meaning no resurgence is on the horizon.

2. After averaging 130 daily deaths in May, the toll nicely plummeted to 43 in June and a mere 9 in July/August. The 7-day moving average emphatically depicts the collapsing and flattening of the curve.

3. The regression reveals that the death rate curve has flattened since hitting 100K cases. While the total cases climbed from 100K to 122K in July/August, the death toll barely moved from 8,500 to 9,000. A non-linear trendline, therefore, shows the near-perfect fit with the resulting r-squared value.

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4. Unfortunately, among the countries with similar caseloads (100K to 200K), Canada has the highest death rate at 7.4%, more than twice the worldwide average of 3.5%. The reason is straightforward: Among all of the advanced and wealthy countries in the world, Canada's testing credentials remain at the bottom quartile; case in point: The US and the UK have been registering at 216K (per million population), while Canada has been bouncing around at 126K. 

Of course, the silver lining has been Canada's meager positivity rate, which is expected to move up as the testing gets intensified. Nonetheless, Canada has thus far been very fortunate to have such a low positivity rate. 

Stay safe!

Data Sources:

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

2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in Canada - Wikipedia

-Sid Som

homequant@gmail.com