Thread by @MoriartyLab

Profiles of populations across Canada who are hesitant about #CovidVaccines

1) PEOPLE 70 AND OLDER

--280,000 across Canada, nearly 10% of hesitant pop
--108K ON, 62K QC, 54K Prairies, 34K BC, 18K Atlantic
--59% have underlying health condition
--43% live alone

🧵

Hesitant people 70+ cont'd

--half have secondary edu or less, half have post-sec
--30% are immigrants (more than 10 years in Canada)
--10% identify as racialized (5% E/SE Asian), 5% as indigenous
--61% women, 39% men

Hesitant people 70+ cont'd

Women and men generally similar profile EXCEPT:

--1.8X times more women live alone than men
--20% more women have secondary education or less
--underlying conditions 22% more common in men
--men who identify as indigenous: 7X hesitancy than women

These hesitancy data are from Jan-April/21. There are currently 370K not fully vaccinated people 70+.

This means that about one third of the hesitant population in this age group shifted and got vaccinated.

This is good, but there are still a lot of high risk people left.

Next:

2) PEOPLE 50-69

There's a lot to be concerned about in this age group, which has a 21X greater risk of death from COVID-19 than people 18-34.

First, ACTUAL rates of full vaccination in this age group are lower than hesitancy rates estimated Jan-April/21.

50-69 cont'd

--From Jan-April 1M people 50-69 said they were unlikely to get the vaccines (30% of hesitant pop in Canada)

--Reality: 1.8M have not yet been fully vaccinated

Hesitancy rates 50-69 were 12.2% Jan-Apr, but currently 18.5% of this population are not fully vaccinated.

So, >800K people who were likely to be vaccinated in this age group haven't been able to complete vaccination yet. OR vaccine confidence has slipped badly. OR both.

There could be some delays in reaching completion for those who got AZ early, but had to wait 4 months for 2nd shot.

There are ~600K 50-69 who have received 1 dose only, so maybe they're completing now, but we should be in the tail end of that phase, and the gap should be small.

My guess: most of that 600K just haven't completed, perhaps lulled by summer complacency, or because confidence slipped.

Even if a big chunk of that gap is accounted for by people completing slowly who still intend to do it, we're still seeing a 20% jump in 50-69 not vaccinated at all, compared to those who said they'd be likely to get the vaccine from Jan-April.

So, confidence in the 50-69 age group has slipped by 20% since the spring and/or 20% of people who said they'd be likely to be vaccinated haven't done it and/or had access yet.

Sorry, folks. This will be yet another one of my long threads that starts and stops between meetings. I'm writing it as I analyze hesitancy data and attempt to identify priority areas for outreach, so sometimes I'm just plain thinking when I'm quiet!

Gonna take a while.

I'm trying to respond to the really interesting comments and insights and questions as they come up, but am also trying to get this work done quickly for a deadline, while tweeting about it, so I may not respond fast.

The side-conversations are important to check in on, because these are complex problems and there are people contributing in replies with key insights about specific aspects of these issues. It's informative for all of us, since these problems need multi-factorial responses.

One thing I want to ask anyone who wants to join in with this discussion is to be respectful of all the points of view, and as much as possible to be constructive--offer suggestions about what we can do.

Also, as I hope you'll all see from this thread, it is problematic to label the unvaccinated as anti-vaxx or vaccine-resistant. Yes, there is some component of this, but when you dig into the data, there's a lot more going on, and there's still lots of work we need to do.

I also want everyone to remember that mandates will likely help, but if they're not provincial and if they rely on employers, they're not going to help many of people most at risk.

They're not the solution to everything either. They're a tool in the toolbox. We need more tools.

One last thing, if you want to go look at the numbers yourself, here's my analysis spreadsheet. The actual data were published by @StatCan_eng a couple of weeks ago. They were collected Jan-April this year.

covid19resources.ca/public/vaccine…

@StatCan_eng On the page I just linked, there's an option to download the file. If you do this, there's a tab called "Searchable" that allows you to search and filter info for specific demographics. You can't access the search/filter function on the page above, but you can if you download.

The data for the current age-specific vax rates come from @GovCanHealth here: health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vacci…

Back to the 50-69 age group.

What are the demographic features of hesitancy in this age group? Remember, people 50-69 are ~21X more likely to die of COVID than people 18-34, so hesitancy in this age group is a huge concern from the point of view of potential loss of life.

So, >1.8M people 50-69 aren't fully vaccinated yet, and account for 30% of the hesitant population in Canada, and likely the largest group at risk of death (~1% infected unvaccinated in this age group will die). And hesitancy/access/uptake rates have worsened since spring.

Where and among whom are these challenges greatest?

Of hesitant 50-69 year olds:

--51% men, 49% women
--48% have underlying health conditions
--20% live alone

--Atlantic: 57K (58% men, 42% women)
--Quebec: 233K (49% men, 51% women)
--Ontario: 401K (45% men, 55% women)
--Prairies: 194K (58% men, 42% women)
--BC: 121K (60% men, 40% women)

You can see that the Canadian gender split (51:49) obscures important regional differences.

Yet another side-track: someone just replied to point out how many of the unvaccinated 50-69 year olds in Canada would die if they were infected.

That's 18,000 people....

thanks @skyrymir42

Crap, crap, crap....this is a mistake. A lot more people are NOT fully vaccinated in this group than expected based on hesitancy data. So vaccine uptake/access/hesitancy is ~30% WORSE THAN EXPECTED.

I'm so sorry. Shouldn't be tweeting this live!

For the 70+ year old unvaccinated group, first, I made a mistake at the top. In fact about a third more people in this age group are NOT vaccinated compared to what we expected from hesitancy data. NOT good.

I'm so sorry. Live-tweeting analysis not always a great idea!

For the 70+ year old group not yet fully vaccinated, if all were infected, ~5% would die. That's 19,000 deaths. Add to the 18,000 deaths among unvaccinated 50-69 year olds, that's another 37,000 preventable deaths, if we let COVID rip through the population.

Don't worry....I'll be getting to Alberta and the death consequences of the let 'er rip policy eventually. Have to finish age groups first.

Returning to 50-69 hesitant demographics:

84% of the hesitant population do NOT identify as a member of a visible minority group (StatsCan language, not mine). 96% identify as non-indigenous.

However, people living in neighbourhoods with the highest proportion of so-called visible minorities are more likely to die of COVID-19 than people living in neighbourhoods with the lowest proportion of visible minorities, so risk to people who identify as vis min is higher.

In BC, people living in highest proportion visible minority neighbourhoods are 11.2 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than people in low vis min proportion neighbourhoods.

In ON and QC the risk is 3.5X greater.

In the Prairies and Atlantic Canada it's ~2 times greater.

So even though people who identify as a visible minority (or indigenous) constitute a smaller proportion of the hesitant population, the risk is substantially greater, depending on the region of Canada.

Say the risk of death is twice as high (conservative), this would translate into nearly 5,000 deaths in the 50-69 group among unvaccinated people who identify as visible minorities or indigenous.

What are the largest hesitant 50-69 populations among people who identify as racialized or indigenous (high risk)?

--East/Southeast Asian: 86K
--Indigenous: 60K
--Filipino: 41K
--Chinese: 37K
--Black: 27K
--South Asian: 21K
--Arab/West Asian: 20K

Region by region, here are the largest vaccine-hesitant 50-69 populations:

Atlantic Canada
-non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous men

Quebec:
--Women: non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, with secondary school education or less

--Men: non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, non-immigrant, non-visible minority, with post-secondary education and no underlying health conditions (may be multiple sub-groups within this)

Ontario:

There are certainly a bunch of sub-groups here, so some of these categories may overlap and some may not (we don't have access to data that cross-tabulates against anything other than region, age and gender.

Ontario women 50-69 (221K hesitant):

-more than two-thirds (144K) are non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, non-immigrant, non-visible minority, w/ post-secondary education

-~30% immigrants living in Canada for 10+ years, ~20% "visible minorities" (both higher risk)

Ontario men 50-69 (181K hesitant):

-more than two-thirds (115K+) are non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, non-immigrant, non-visible minority

--highest education: secondary school

-~33% immigrants living in Canada for 10+ years (higher risk)

At this level of granularity, no specific racialized group stood out had a large enough hesitant population in this age group to be identified by these analyses for Atlantic Canada and Quebec.

However, Ontario is big enough to identify some higher-priority/higher risk groups.

The largest groups at risk in Ontario among the 50-69 age group are people who identify as East/SouthEast Asian (29K), Indigenous (19K), South Asian (16K) and Chinese (10K).

OK, the Prairie provinces next, 50-69 age group.

Prairies men 50-69 (112K hesitant):

-more than three quarters are non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, non-immigrant, non-visible minority

--half have post-secondary education

Prairies women 50-69 (81K hesitant):

-more than 85% are non-LGBTQ2+, non-indigenous, non-immigrant, non-visible minority

--half have post-secondary education

Among those most at-risk in vaccine-hesitant Prairies 50-69 group:

--Immigrants 10+y in Canada (42K), people who identify as racialized (34K), E/SE Asian (25K), Indigenous (13K), Chinese (9K).

--Among higher risk groups, men >2X more hesitant than women (opposite of Ontario).

British Columbia 50-69 vaccine-hesitant pop:

--two-thirds men with no underlying health condition
-->90% among non-LGBTQ2+, non-Indigenous, non-visible minority, non-immigrant pop
--half have post-secondary education

The largest groups at-risk in the BC 50-69 age group are:

--E/SE Asian (23K), Chinese (11K)

Phew. Now the 35-49 age group.

There are ~25% fewer people in this age group in Canada compared to the 50-69 age group, so overall hesitant population size is smaller too (830K).

Hesitancy rates reported from Jan-Apr are a little higher (13.5%) than in 50-69 group (12.2%).

But, there has been a really big backslide in this age group in uptake/hesitancy.

The estimated size of the hesitant pop in this age group from Jan-Apr was 830K. In fact, the number who are not yet fully vaccinated is nearly 3X higher than that (2.3M).

The number of people in this age group who haven't even had one dose yet are 2X higher (1.6M) than the estimated hesitant pop.

So, even though this age group is smaller overall than older age groups, it's contributing more unvaccinated people to the national pot.

In the 35-49 group, ~0.1% of infected people will die of COVID. If everyone in this group who is not fully vaccinated contracts COVID-19, you'd expect about 2,300 to die.

Add that to estimated deaths among unvaccinated people 50+ and you have 39K deaths, assuming all infected.

Generalities for the 35-49 group across Canada:

--50:50 women:men
--~75+% are non-LGBTQ2+, non-Indigenous, non-visible minority, non-immigrant, with post-secondary education and no underlying health condition
-->85% live in a multi-person household

35-49 hesitant pops:

--Atlantic: 38K (40% men, 60% women)
--Quebec: 180K (46% men, 54% women)
--Ontario: 325K (53% men, 47% women)
--Prairies: 200K (48% men, 52% women)
--BC: 89K (57% men, 43% women)

From all the analyses so far, you can see the generalization that the typical hesitant Canadian is a 42 year old white Liberal-voting woman in Ontario is likely untrue. It's the age midway between the much larger hesitant groups (50-69, 18-34), but it's not that representative.

As we teach pretty much every grad student, taking the mean of a bimodal distribution is problematic for exactly this reason. And the age and gender distributions (and demographics) vary considerably across Canadian regions.

Anyhoo.

Hesitancy among at-risk groups in the 35-49 pop across Canada (collectively <25% of hesitant pop in this age group):

--immigrants in Canada >10 (162K) or <10 years (68K)

cont'd below

--people who identify as racialized (197K), S Asian or Arab/West Asian (55K each), Black (53K), Indigenous (37K), E/SE Asian (36K), Chinese (15K), Filipino (14K)

Much like the Canadian average, in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, 75+% of the hesitant 35-49 population is non-LGBTQ2+, non-immigrant, non-visible minority, non-Indigenous, with post-secondary education and no underlying health conditions. No specific at-risk pop stands out.

Ontario is generally similar, but hesitancy rates in the following specific at-risk groups are higher than the national average:

--Immigrants >10y in Canada (162K), and people who identify as Black (53K), South Asian (33K) and Indigenous (10K)

When we get to the Prairies, there's something quite different going on in the 35-49 age group.

First, rates of expressed hesitancy expressed by this age group from Jan-April were quite low in Atlantic Canada and BC (10% or less).

Reported hesitancy in this age group in QC was 12.7 and in ON 13.8%. But in the Prairies, it was 17.6%.

Then there are the age demographics of the Prairies (largely due to Alberta). There are more younger people in general than in the rest of Canada.

Both the larger 35-49 population and the higher hesitancy rates create a storm in the Prairies, where 200K people 35-49 expressed hesitancy from Jan-Apr/21.

Don't worry. After finishing the individual age groups, I'll be looking at region-specific shifts from expressed hesitancy in the spring to actual vaccine uptake now, to see if that shift has been bigger in any specific region than in others.

Like the rest of Canada, hesitancy in this age group is >75% among the non-LGBTQ2+, non-immigrant, non-visible minority, non-Indigenous with post-secondary education.

It includes a greater percentage of people with underlying conditions than elsewhere in Canada.

For populations at greatest risk, there are few increases in hesitancy compared to the Canadian average (and some decreases), except among immigrants who have been in Canada <10 years (24K), and people who identify as South Asian (17K) or Indigenous (16K).

In BC, the pattern of >75% of hesitancy in the 35-49 age group arising largely from non-immigrant, non-visible minority, non-Indigenous populations with post-secondary education and no underlying health conditions repeats.

Overall hesitancy is <9% among at-risk groups.

Finally, the 18-34 age group.

This group has an approximately 140X lower risk of death from COVID-19 than people 70 and older. This likely reflects in higher rates of hesitancy in the 18-34 age group across Canada expressed from Jan-Apr (18.6%).

However, because the 18-34 age group is still smaller overall than the 50-69 age group, high hesitancy rates in this younger population translate into 1.2M hesitant people ("only" 200K more than the 50-69 group). At least based on hesitancy expressed from Jan-April.

And of course, 18-34 year olds have the highest rate of living in multi-person households in Canada (91%), so the risk of transmission to others is higher, especially for those living with people from older age groups.

OK. Shift from expressed vaccine hesitancy in Jan-Apr to actual vaccine uptake now in the 18-34 age group.

As a recap, there are respectively ~33%, 200% and 240% more currently unvaxxed people 70+, 50-69 and 35-49 than expected based on reported hesitancy in Jan-Apr.

In the 18-34 group we also see that 240% more people are currently unvaccinated than what we expected based on reported hesitancy in this age group from Jan-Apr. It's the same/similar to everyone except the 70+ age group. So this is a near-universal phenomenon.

What strikes me is that the gap between ~2-2.5-fold decrease in actual uptake vs expected hesitancy numbers seems to be independent of risk of death, or perceived risk of death.

Although, as I've discussed in our previous excess mortality report, Canadians appear to have understood for a long time that it's "only" the "old" who die of COVID-19. I'm not actually sure if this is true BTW--just wondering if people 50-69 underestimate their risk of death.

Excess mortality report is here: rsc-src.ca/en/covid-19-po…

It died a quick death in terms of effects on policy, if you'll pardon the pun. Or at least it seems that way, since only federal agencies engaged with it and us, and provinces ignored or batted it away.

My sense, though, is that it may not be so much about older age groups not accurately estimating their risk of death if unvaccinated (although that's likely part of it).

Instead, I think that either confidence in vaccines or engagement with the issue of vaccination itself has slipped. That and/or we simply haven't managed to make vaccination accessible to a lot of people who were willing to be vaccinated this past spring. It's likely all three.

To explore these hypotheses a little bit, I'll look at shifts in vaccine confidence/hesitancy in the spring to actual vaccination rates now. Vaccination has slowed to the point almost of a stall in most provinces now, so it's a good time to ask this question.

I should be clear. I'll look at these (possible) shifts in different Canadian regions and by gender (since we've already looked at shifts within age groups).

I can't look at other categories because we don't have this demographic info for current vaccination rates across Canada.

Since the gap between actual and predicted vaccination rates is quite stable across age groups (and the 70% age group is small and quite uniform), I'll look at gender shifts for all people 18+ years of age across Canada and in individual regions.

For women 18+, hesitancy data suggested 1.7M would not be vaccinated, but 5.0M currently aren't vaccinated at all, and 6.4M aren't fully vaccinated. That's a shift of 2.9-3.8 fold (avg 3.4X).

For men 18+, hesitancy data suggested 1.6M would not be vaccinated, but 5.7M currently aren't vaccinated at all, and 7.3M aren't fully vaccinated. That's a shift of 3.6-4.6 fold (avg 4.1X).

These shifts are bigger than expected based on the age group shifts alone. I wonder if the estimated age group numbers need to be weighted differently to be complete. Sigh.

However, it looks like for all genders and ages except 70+ uptake is 2.4-4.6 times lower than expected.

Also this shift is about 20% bigger in men than women--i.e. the gap between expected and observed is 20% larger in men than in women.

Ach! I know what I did for the gender estimates. In included kids 12-17 in the baseline population estimates. OK. Have to recalculate with 18+ only.

Phew. Figured it out. I used population data that included people under 18.

After correction, the expected number of hesitant women 18+ is 1.4-2.1X less than what is actually observed (midpoint 1.8).

The expected number of hesitant men 18+ is 1.9-3.0X less than what is actually observed (midpoint 2.5).

And the shift is 40% greater in men than in women.

So, the shift is affected by gender, but not so much by age (except in 70+). Interesting.

Sorry. Had to delete some tweets that were worded unclearly. May need to stop soon cause I'm getting addled!

Regional analyses of shifts between expected and observed hesitancy/lack of uptake among people 18+.

Atlantic Canada:
Actual hesitancy/lack of uptake is 2.4X greater than expected (2.2X in women, 2.5X in men), and this shift is 14% larger in men.

Quebec:
Actual hesitancy/lack of uptake is 2.0X greater than expected hesitancy (1.7X in women, 2.4X in men), and this shift is 41% larger in men.

Ontario:
Actual hesitancy/lack of uptake is 2.0X greater than expected hesitancy (1.7X in women, 2.3X in men), and this shift is 35% larger in men.

Prairies:
Actual hesitancy/lack of uptake is 1.9X greater than expected hesitancy (1.8X in women, 2.1X in men), and this shift is 20% larger in men.

British Columbia:
Actual hesitancy/lack of uptake is 2.2X greater than expected hesitancy (2.3X in women, 2.2X in men). The shift is very slightly larger in women than men (<5%).

All in all, observed hesitancy/lack of/delayed uptake is considerably larger than expected hesitancy across all Canadian regions.

The magnitude of this shift is similar across all age groups <70 and all Canadian regions.

Except in BC, this shift is larger in men than in women.

There don't appear to differences based on political leanings of different regions or age groups.

Rather, these observations suggest increased hesitancy, challenges with motivation/access to get vaccines for those who are not hesitant, and/or perhaps vaccine disengagement.

It is likely that all/many of these factors apply in all regions and age groups less than 70, and that barriers to vaccination are more pronounced for men in most regions.

Finally, estimates of how many people would die in each region if vaccination slowed to a near-stop (the current situation in much of Canada) and everyone who isn't fully vaccinated was infected.

These are crude snapshot estimates as of today, not projections.

I'm going to use our actual numbers of people who aren't fully vaccinated, not the estimates of hesitant population sizes I used earlier.

This is what we'd expect if we stopped vaccinating, just let 'er rip removing other protections, and if everyone unvaccinated gets infected.

I lied. I just realized the time, and managed to delete a file where I'd done these calculations, so time for bed. I'll finish up that last bit in the morning.

Night for now. And do everything you can to help others get vaccinated. Now is not the time to judge.

People are persuaded by family and friends about vaccination twice as often as by experts. You are the key. Be a friend. Listen. Ask what would help them get vaccinated. Don't argue, correct, pressure or expect an immediate decision. Make sure they know you care about THEM.

OK. I'm back, nearly caffeinated, and I've redone my damn spreadsheet.

Let's talk about numbers of estimated deaths among people who weren't fully vaccinated as of Aug 14/21 (last date posted at the @GovCanHealth page here: health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vacci…).

@GovCanHealth These numbers could be about 20% lower if you assume that people with single doses are partially protected and that some of the population has already been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

@GovCanHealth Using these values and OECD age-specific estimated SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rates, I estimated the number of deaths for each region, gender and age group for people who are not yet fully vaccinated.

The data and calculation spreadsheet is here: utoronto-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal…

@GovCanHealth Here is how many DEATHS would be expected if we had no more vaccination after Aug 14/21, all other protective measures were removed, and every unvaccinated person in the population was infected:

Canada 46,300
Atlantic Canada 3,800
NL 800
PEI 100
NS 1,100
NB 1,700
QC 7,900

cont

@GovCanHealth ON 21,600
Prairie provinces 8,400
MB 1,000
SK 1,600
AB 5,800
BC 6,500

And that, folks is why vaccination is important.

And why we still need other measures to control spread until at least 90% of us are vaccinated.

@GovCanHealth And of course, this doesn't even take into account all the other consequences of widespread transmission in a population as unvaccinated as ours, including paralysis of healthcare, long COVID, economic recession, trauma to survivors and loved ones.

@GovCanHealth Finally, I want to make sure that everyone reading this thread understands that I've largely been talking about the absolute size of hesitant populations in different demographic groups, as a way to understand who and how many people are most likely to be affected (and transmit).

@GovCanHealth This is important if you're trying to figure out how to prioritize vaccination support efforts. This is the reason why I personally am doing this analysis right now, in conjuction with a bunch of other analyses to determine how to focus the efforts of @COVID_19_Canada.

@GovCanHealth @COVID_19_Canada What is important to remember, though, is that many of these absolute numbers actually reflect the underlying demographics of different Canadian regions.

For example, you see a large, younger hesitant population in the Prairies partly because there are more young people.

@GovCanHealth @COVID_19_Canada Another example is post-secondary education. Why does it come up so often? Are people with post-secondary education MORE hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccines?

Actually, no, they're not. ~2/3 Canadians have some form of post-secondary education, especially those younger than 50.

If you look at the Canada data on the very left of the Summaries tab at the link below, you can look up 3 different pieces of information:

covid19resources.ca/public/vaccine…

1) % total Cda hes: that's the proportion of the total Canadian hesitant population accounted for by the demographic group listed in rows

2) Size hes pop: that's the absolute number of estimated hesitant people in the demographic group listed in the rows

cont...

3) % hesitancy in sub-population: that's calculated what percentage of people in the demographic group listed on each row is hesitant.

Let's start with post-secondary education as the example.

In Canada, among everyone older than 18, 2.0M people with post-secondary education are hesitant, and they account for 58.5% of the entire hesitant population in Canada.

HOWEVER, the % of people with post-secondary education who are hesitant is LOWER (11.6%) than the percentage of all Canadians 18+ who are hesitant (13.6%).

People in this demographic account for more of the total hesitant population simply because there are more of them.

If you focus on absolute numbers, you can also miss really important information about smaller demographics/populations in Canada that might be at risk.

For this, it's crucial to look at #3 (% hesitancy in the sub-population).

For this, let's go to the "Data" tab at the page above. Go all the way down until you hit the yellow highlighted line called "Hesitant Population Estimates".

Here you'll find hesitant sub-population (row) size estimates plus % of people in each sub-population who are hesitant.

The new info here is in the column called "Number of people"--the title is partly cut off (sorry!).

This is the number of people in Canada in that particular demographic group. We multiply this by % hesitancy to get the absolute size of the hesitant population in that group.

Let's use the category "Latin American" as an example, since @YaneValdezT was saying yesterday that she'd like to support Spanish speakers.

There are about 346,000 people 18 and older who identify as Latin American currently living in Canada.

From Jan-Apr/21 a whopping 93.2% of people 18+ who identify as Latin American said they'd be likely or certain to get the COVID-19 vaccine. That's an expressed hesitancy rate of only 6.8%, which is amazing.

Because the hesitancy rate is so low in this demographic, the expected number of people in this population who are hesitant/unlikely to get vaccinated is small compared to many other demographics, or about 24,000 people (still a lot...).

The Summaries tab includes only people who account for at least 1% of total hesitant Canadian population, so you don't see people who identify as Latin American on that tab.

But you can still find the info--at the Data tab, and also by using the "Searchabe" tab (download 1st).

Also in the Data tab (most up to date version linked here--sorry @BensunCFong !), I've been trying to develop ways to adjust the absolute hesitant population size numbers to reflect the profound inequities in how at-risk communities have been harmed by COVID-19.

@BensunCFong Here's the link: utoronto-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal…

And to crystal clear, the impacts of COVID-19 on at-risk communities is NOT because members of individual groups are more likely to die of COVID-19 because of underlying biological differences.

@BensunCFong They're more likely to die and be disproportionately affected by COVID-19 because of systemic inequities structured around devalued races, ages, abilities and genders, and the impacts these values and social determinants have on health.

In the Data tab of the spreadsheet I've just linked, there's a section starting at line 118 called "Number of flags" (just my personal shorthand).

In this section I've tried to quantify risk for each population based on numbers of flags (scoring described in column A).

If you go to the tab called "Searchable" the number of risk flags for each population can be found in column F (Risk Adjustment). I then do a simple multiplication of absolute hesitant population size (column E) by the risk adjustment factor in column F.

The resulting number, which doesn't correspond to actual numbers of people, is called "Hes pop x risk" (column G).

You can filter and sort the data in the Searchable tab using this variable.

Sorting this way yields a really rough (as yet completely unvalidated) estimate of how much smaller demographic groups at risk might be affected, and may help to prioritize vaccination support efforts based on the "population size of the problem", without obscuring smaller groups

And that, my friends, is the end of this thread. If/when I find other good nuggets I'll share.

As always, this is work in progress I'm sharing as I do it so that other people can learn to do it for themselves (if they're interested), or simply understand those damn spreadsheets.

Take care of your loved ones, friends, neighbours, colleagues, fellow Canadian residents. Support people to get vaccinated--don't stigmatize, generalize, shame or blame. It's inaccurate and unfair to many, and it drives polarization, entrenchment, mistrust and avoidance.

XO

Please note. I broke the thread two posts above. You'll have to pick it up again in the replies to that post. Sorry!

One last post!

Please see below for a draw for 11 pints of homemade ice cream AND a $100 gift certificate for anyone who gets a shot before Sep 7.

Plus a free Q&A Zoom resource from @COVID_19_Canada for Canadians w/ questions about the vaccines.

https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab/status/1429612261451210752?s=20

I broke thread 2 posts above. Please see replies to that post to see where I resumed.