'You can't just look at the raw data': Unvaccinated patients dying from COVID-19 at higher rates in several provinces

As more of Canada's population becomes vaccinated, several provinces are seeing that COVID-19-related hospitalizations are made up of a large number of vaccinated patients. The same trend also appears when analyzing COVID-19-related deaths.

In the province of Alberta, for example, 352 deaths recorded in the last 120 days or so involved those who were unvaccinated aged five or older. Meanwhile, 423 deaths reported in the same time frame were among residents with at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

While it appears as though a greater number of vaccinated people are making up COVID-19 deaths in the province, the total populations of vaccinated and unvaccinated residents must be taken into account as well, said Dr. Darren Markland, an intensive care physician based in Edmonton. With most Albertans now vaccinated, more of those being admitted to hospital and also dying are coming from that pool of people, he said.

“If you look at the raw numbers and you don't index it by vaccine rates, then it looks like vaccinated people are having worse outcomes,” he told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Wednesday. “But really, it's because the sample size now is predominantly almost all vaccinated.”

Out of a total of about 4.15 million residents aged five and older, about 3.3 million have been vaccinated with at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while approximately 583,000 remain unvaccinated in Alberta. When taking into account the total number of fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people, the death rate associated with each group is vastly different.