The Waterloo Region will undergo changes on Friday. According to Vickie Murray, the COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force’s dashboard is projected to cause some data to decline.
The task force’s leader told the Health Board that they will now use Statistics Canada’s 2020 population estimate for the entire population, which includes non-permanent residents in Waterloo Region.
“We’ll go from a population denominator of 588,878 to a population denominator of 605,232,” Murray noted, noting that the increase in population would result in lower overall percentages.
“We’ve taken time to evaluate and analyze recent population data, and we are now ready to update our dashboard accordingly,” she added. “Population estimates are dynamic and constantly changing.”
The other major change that will be implemented on Friday will see the stats broken down by year of birth rather than age.
“A person’s year of birth does not change, but their age does,” Murray said. “So this keeps our age groups together as a cohort.”
She said that the moves will cause most of the percentages on the dashboard to fall.
Murray told the Board of Health that the 18 to 29-year-old age group will see a drastic drop as it had been previously adjusted to exclude students from outside Waterloo Region including those from foreign lands.
“The change in how we report aid groups will cause a decrease in vaccination values for the 12 to 17-year-old age group and will increase vaccination of our oldest age groups,” she said.
“But we do feel this more accurately reflects our vaccination progress over time, which means using current updated information.”
Source_ globalnews.ca
