The Timeline of COVID-19 in Canada (CovidTimelineCanada) is intended to be the definitive source for data regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. In addition to making available the ready-to-use datasets, this repository also acts as a hub for collaboration on expanding and improving the availability and quality of COVID-19 data in Canada. This repository is maintained by the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group and is one component of the What Happened? COVID-19 in Canada project.
Datasets in this repository are found in the data directory and are updated automatically several times per day. Map, population and other spatial data are provided in the geo directory.
On April 30, 2022, CovidTimelineCanada superseded the original Covid19Canada dataset, which was first made available in March of 2020. For those familiar with the original dataset, please see Transitioning from Covid19Canada.
A simple dashboard is available to explore the data available in the Timeline of COVID-19 in Canada dataset.
We offer three groups of datasets: health region-level (hr), for case and death data only, province/territory-level (pt), for all data types, and Canada-level (can), for all data types. Because each province/territory has a different update schedule, the most recent date of data for each region is different; for the same reason, the Canada-level data are incomplete in recent days.
To download all of the datasets in this repository, click the big green "Code" button, then click "Download ZIP". Save it to the location of your choice and unzip the contents. All of the CSV files containing the data can be opened using your spreadsheet software or statistical package of choice. Alternatively, you can download individual CSV files in the data directory by right clicking the "Raw" button on the page and selecting "Save link as...".
For a list of available datasets see Available datasets and for an explanation of the data format see Data format.
For more advanced users or those wanting an always-up-to-date data source, we recommend using our API (https://api.opencovid.ca/), which can return data in JSON or CSV format.
Below is an example query that will return the latest 7 days of case data for each province/territory (again, the dates will be different for each region because of their differing update schedules) in JSON format:
https://api.opencovid.ca/timeseries?stat=cases&geo=pt&date=7
The next query will return the latest day of case data for each health region in JSON format:
https://api.opencovid.ca/timeseries?stat=cases&geo=hr&hr_names=short&date=1
Some provinces no longer offer health region-level data for cases and/or deaths. For these provinces/territories, all recent cases and/or deaths will show up under the "Unknown" (code: 9999) health region. The following is a list of provinces/territories that no longer report health region data:
- Manitoba (death data no longer reported at HR-level)
- New Brunswick (death data no longer reported at HR-level)
- Newfoundland and Labrador (case data no longer reported at HR-level)
- Northwest Territories (case and death data no longer reported at all)
- Nova Scotia (case and death data no longer reported at HR-level)
- Nunavut (case and death data no longer reported at all)
- Saskatchewan (case and death data no longer reported at HR-level)
- Yukon (case and death data no longer reported at all)
The following datasets are available:
- Cases (
cases) (health region or province/territory) - Deaths (
deaths) (health region or province/territory) - Active hospitalizations (
hospitalizations) - Active ICU (
icu) - Tests completed (
tests_completed) - Vaccine coverage by dose (
vaccine_coverage_dose_1,vaccine_coverage_dose_2,vaccine_coverage_dose_3,vaccine_coverage_dose_4) - Vaccine administration by dose (
vaccine_administration_total_doses,vaccine_administration_dose_1,vaccine_administration_dose_2,vaccine_administration_dose_3,vaccine_administration_dose_4)
While we do our best to ensure comparability for the same metrics across different provinces/territories, some regions use different difinitions for the same metric (e.g., how COVID-19 deaths are defined). Reporting of a metric may also change over time in the same region. See Detailed description of data sources for more details.
For a summary plot of each dataset, see our dashboard.
name: The name of the metric (e.g., cases, testing)province: The two-letter code for the province or territory (e.g., ON, AB)sub_region_1: The unique identifier of the health region (e.g., 3595, 594) (this column is absent for PT-level data)date: The date in YYYY-MM-DD formatvalue: The cumulative value (e.g., cumulative number of cases, number of active hospitalizations)value_daily: The daily value (e.g., daily number of cases, change in the number of active hospitalizations)
Datasets in our repository are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Software and scripts in our repository are provided under the MIT license.
Please see our license file for a full list of acknowledgements of data sources used in this repository as well as copies of the aforementioned licenses.
We recommend using the citation below:
Berry, I., O’Neill, M., Sturrock, S. L., Wright, J. E., Acharya, K., Brankston, G., Harish, V., Kornas, K., Maani, N., Naganathan, T., Obress, L., Rossi, T., Simmons, A. E., Van Camp, M., Xie, X., Tuite, A. R., Greer, A. L., Fisman, D. N., & Soucy, J.-P. R. (2021). A sub-national real-time epidemiological and vaccination database for the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Scientific Data, 8(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00955-2
A BibTeX file for the citation is available here.
Previously, we recommended the following citation:
Berry, I., Soucy, J.-P. R., Tuite, A., & Fisman, D. (2020). Open access epidemiologic data and an interactive dashboard to monitor the COVID-19 outbreak in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 192(15), E420. doi: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.75262
To contribute to this project, please refer to the ongoing discussions in the issues board or open up a new one. We need help identifying the best data sources for each value and harmonizing them into a single dataset. We can also be reached via our contact page.
We must also identify gaps in publicly available data. These data may then be requested from the relevant agencies or acquired via Access to Information requests (see an example with Sasksatchewan's COVID-19 data).
The data in this repository are updated several times per day by Covid19CanadaBot using the script update_data.R.
The data in this repository will eventually conform to the developing Data and Metadata Standard for COVID-19 Data in Canada. To contribute to the development of this standard, please visit the repository.
See Detailed description of data sources.
We would like to thank all the individuals and organizations across Canada who have worked tirelessly to provide data to the public during this pandemic.
Additionally, we acknowledge the following individuals and organizations for their support:
Public Health Agency of Canada / Joe Murray (JMA Consulting)
More information about the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group is available at our website. We may also be reached through our contact page.