Dear John,

By now you're probably familiar with the Fraser Institute's motto: "If it matters, we measure it."

And not much matters more right now than measuring the world's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

So that's exactly what we did – a new study out today analyses the COVID-19 responses of nearly 200 countries around the world over the past year.

How did Canada perform when compared to other countries?

Not so well.

Remember the SARS outbreak in 2002-2004? Five countries experienced more than 100 SARS cases – China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada.  If there were any lessons to be learned from SARS with respect to containing a pandemic and reducing the death rate, they do not appear to have been well heeded in Canada – we have had the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths per million of these five countries.

What is the best way to prevent those cases and deaths? The study finds that high rates of testing and access to hospital beds have proven successful at reducing transmission and lowering mortality rates.

But on both those factors, Canada underperformed: of the 35 IMF advanced economies, Canada ranked 26th in its COVID-19 tests per million population, and 32nd in terms of the number of hospital beds per capita.

This wasn’t due to a lack of reactionary spending: Canada saw the second biggest spending increase of the IMF advanced economies in 2020, leading to Canada also having the highest deficit to GDP ratio of that same group.

This higher spending didn’t help our unemployment numbers either – Canada saw the second highest increase in unemployment and the fourth highest unemployment rate of the IMF advanced economies.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the study also found that prolonged lockdowns – something most Canadians are now quite familiar with and still subject to – did not significantly reduce longer-term numbers of COVID-19 cases or deaths.

The restrictions and stringency measures did have an effect, just not necessarily the desired one:  they devastated economies, including Canada’s.

While we are still in the midst of this pandemic, clearly we’re already seeing signs of the lessons Canada needs to learn.

This is the type of important, quality, peer-reviewed research the Fraser Institute does every single day. On everything from health care to education to the economy to the environment – if it matters, we measure it! Can you help us continue?

We provide all of our research to people who want it – like you – for free. We rely on the generosity of our supporters – like you! – to continue doing the work we do. If you are able to, please consider making a donation today.

Thank you for your support,

Niels Veldhuis
President

PS: Learn more about the international response to COVID-19 - check out today’s full study here.