As of April 15, 2023, there had been a total of around 51,921 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Canada. As of this time, every province and territory has reported deaths, with Quebec and Ontario reporting the highest numbers.

COVID-19 in Canada Canada has recorded almost 4.65 million coronavirus cases since the first infection in the country was confirmed on January 25, 2020. The number of cases by province shows that Ontario and Quebec have been the most severely affected. The number of daily new cases reached record highs at the end of 2021 and began to decrease as spring arrived in 2022.

COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada Seven COVID-19 vaccines have now been approved for use in Canada and vaccines are widely available. As of January 1, 2023 around 83 percent of the Canadian population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The provinces with the highest share of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. However, Ontario and Quebec are the provinces with the highest total number of people vaccinated.

Background: In Quebec, most COVID-19 deaths are from residents of long-term care facilities. Within a facility, some residents experience adverse symptoms and even death, while others show no symptoms or exhibit mild symptoms. The reasoning behind these differences remains unclear. Aims of the CITF-funded study: DISCoVER biobank aimed to optimize risk stratification for residents infected by COVID-19 in long-term care facilities by using interferon-based immunological markers. They also aimed to identify psychosocial and cardiovascular risk factors contributing to severe outcomes of COVID-19 and evaluate the impact of vaccination on disease severity. Methods: This cohort study recruited residents over the age of 65 from long-term care facilities in Montreal, Quebec, who were tested for COVID-19. On “day 0”, when participants’ COVID-19 test results were determined, they completed a psychosocial interview, questionnaires, optional qualitative psychosocial evaluations through in-depth interviews, and provided blood samples for plasma and a COVID test [1]. This process was repeated at follow ups 1-, 3-, and 6-months post “day 0”. Participants also provided a blood sample for plasma 7 days after day 0. Summary of the contributed data: Dataset includes baseline medical health record data from 115 participants. 80% of participants gave one or more blood samples for SARS-CoV-2 serology between August 2021 and July 2023. A total of 149 serological samples were collected. Variables include data in the following areas of information: demographics (age, sex, ethnicity), general health (smokes, chronic conditions, height and weight), longitudinal follow-up for COVID infection (test date and result), SARS-CoV-2 vaccination (dates of vaccine doses, side effects) and serology (antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 RBD, nucleocapsid, and spike proteins). [1]: Please contact original study team for psychosocial data.