Use and misuse of research: Canada’s response to covid-19 and its health inequalities

Canada had one of the lowest rates of covid-19 cases and deaths per population than most in the G10 group of industrialised countries.1 But overall rates ignore underlying health inequalities—a consistent feature of the covid-19 pandemic across countries, within and outside the G10.2 Across every G10 country, for example, economic marginalisation was associated with twofold to fourfold higher rates of covid deaths.2Disproportionate risks of exposures and transmissions are shaped by physical and social networks3: how, under what context, and with whom infectious disease contacts take place. The same context that governs these networks often defines what happens after infection occurs: access to and quality of care and treatment within a healthcare system that is built with the same tools as the social and economic system that failed to mitigate disproportionate risks. Yet early in the pandemic, Canada, like most countries, largely applied public health measures universally across its decentralised public…
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