The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to excess mortality across the globe, and Canada has been no exception. Nonetheless, the pandemic experience has been very different across provinces, and the objective of this paper is to investigate these differences focusing on two extreme cases. We contrast the mortality experience of British Columbia with that of Québec to understand how large differences in mortality during the first wave of the pandemic emerged across these two provinces. We find that most of the differences can be found in excess mortality in institutions (nursing homes) and that travel restrictions, differences in how deaths are recorded, differences in the seasonality of the flu, or differences in how the pandemic spread across different economic segments of the population are unlikely explain these large differences. We document that the reported death toll from COVID-19 is about 30% larger than excess mortality in Quebec due to lower mortality from other causes of death, in particular malignant tumors, heart disease, and respiratory problems. We do not find evidence of an income gradient (measured by postal code level income) in relative excess death for the first wave.

第一波 COVID-19 大流行导致全球死亡率过高，加拿大也不例外。尽管如此，各省的大流行经历却大不相同，本文的目的是调查这些差异，重点关注两个极端案例。我们将不列颠哥伦比亚省与魁北克省的死亡率经验进行对比，以了解这两个省在第一波大流行期间的死亡率差异有多大。我们发现，大多数差异可以在机构（疗养院）的超额死亡率以及旅行限制、死亡记录方式的差异、流感的季节性差异或大流行在不同经济领域传播方式的差异上找到的人口不太可能解释这些巨大的差异。我们记录了报告的 COVID-19 死亡人数比魁北克的超额死亡率高出约 30%，因为其他死因的死亡率较低，特别是恶性肿瘤、心脏病和呼吸系统疾病。我们没有发现第一波相对超额死亡的收入梯度（以邮政编码水平收入衡量）的证据。