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Elderly NWT residents suffered the brunt of severe Covid-19 outcomes: OCPHO data

Elderly residents of the NWT have been overwhelmingly more likely to suffer negative outcomes from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, while younger residents have fared much better, according to newly-released data from the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer (OCPHO).
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The OCPHO cautioned that due to the low number of deaths from Omicron, it wasnSA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½™t possible to extrapolate about the protection offered by vaccines against that variant. NNSL file photo

Elderly residents of the NWT have been overwhelmingly more likely to suffer negative outcomes from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, while younger residents have fared much better, according to newly-released data from the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer (OCPHO).

On March 15, the OCPHO made public for the first time data on the rate of severe Covid outcomes based on factors like age, region, and vaccination status. Severe outcomes include hospitalizations, admissions to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and deaths.

The data show that residents over 80 were by far the most likely to suffer severe outcomes, including hospitalizations at a rate of about 322.1 per 10,000 people and deaths at a rate of 161 per 10,000 people.

Nobody under the age of 30 has died of Covid-19 in the Northwest Territories, and nobody between the ages of 5 and 14 has been hospitalized.

There were also significant disparities between regions when it came to severe outcomes: Residents of Yellowknife and the Tłı̨chǫ and Sahtu regions were more likely to suffer severe outcomes compared to residents from other regions during the Delta wave, although outcomes were comparable during the Omicron wave.

The data also confirms several observations about both vaccine efficacy and the differences between the Omicron and Delta variants observed in other jurisdictions across the world: Those who were unvaccinated were four times as likely to be hospitalized compared to those who had two or more doses. The OCPHO did caution, however, that due to the low number of deaths from the Omicron variant, it wasnSA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½™t possible to extrapolate about the protection offered by vaccines against that variant.

Hospitalization and death were five and a half times more likely from a Delta infection than an Omicron infection, although the latter wave caused more infections in a shorter period of time.

This is the first time the GNWT has released demographic information about severe Covid outcomes in the territory. In its release, the OCPHO said this data could not be released until a 20th resident had died of Covid-19, due to privacy concerns about revealing personal medical details.

As of March 14, 20 NWT residents have died of Covid-19, 29 have been admitted to the ICU, and 100 have been admitted to the hospital.

*

data is presented as a rate per 10,000 people for a given time period

Since the beginning of the pandemic:

For people over 80 (greatest risk):

322.1 hospitalizations per 10,000 people

161 deaths per 10,000 people

No deaths under the age of 30

No hospitalizations for 5-14

Hospitalization rate was 4X for unvaccinated comparred to those with 2+ doses

hospitalization and death are both 5.5X higher from Delta than from Omicron

For entire territory population (not just per infection(?)), hospitalization and death were 1.5 times higher during Delta compared to Omicron

However, Delta wave lasted four months whereas omicron is nearly 3





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