29 April 2022

Study to assess the incidence of COVID-19 in Quebec - Updated with data from the week of April 21 to 26, 2022

CIRANO has published an update of its exploratory study to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 cases in Quebec. This update integrates the data from the fifteenth week of collection, which took place from April 21 to 26, 2022, with a sample of 3000 respondents representative of the Quebec population and compares them to other collection weeks.

It should be noted that this study is spread over several consecutive weeks in order to monitor the evolution of the situation. The study uses both a direct sampling strategy and an indirect sampling estimation based on the network scale-up (NSS) method. Details of the methods are available in the CIRANO 2022s-03 working paper.

→ Fifteenth week of collection (April 21 to 26, 2022)

Highlights:

Very slight decrease in the incidence of cases (not statistically significant) compared to the previous week for all estimators (decrease varying from 0.4% to 5% depending on the estimator). Between 27,000 and 53,000 cases per day, depending on the estimation method used. Slight decrease or stability in the incidence of cases (not statistically significant) for all age groups (except for the 60-69 year-olds, who experienced a statistically significant increase) Decrease in the incidence of cases in the western regions of Quebec. Slight increase in incidence for southern Quebec regions and a more marked increase for eastern and northern Quebec regions. These trends by regional groupings mask variations specific to certain regions.

This study is conducted by a team of researchers composed of David Boisclair (HEC Montréal), Roxane Borgès Da Silva (Université de Montréal and CIRANO), Vincent Boucher (Université Laval) Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin (Polytechnique Montréal and CIRANO), Pierre-Carl Michaud (HEC and CIRANO), Ingrid Peignier (CIRANO) and Alexandre Pud'Homme (Université de Montréal).