The COVID-19 Stringency Index captures the level of policy restrictions that individuals are living with across Canada and when policy measures were taken.
The Index is calculated based on different measures enacted by provincial and territorial governments such as gathering sizes, facial coverings, school closures, and travel restrictions.
Measures capture the most restrictive policy in place at a given time and are flagged to indicate if a policy applies province-wide. Descriptions of what we measure can be found in our codebook.
Our codebook was updated on June 29, 2021 to provide a more nuanced evaluation of measures for gatherings (S1) and dining & restaurants (S6). The "Gatherings" indicator now includes seven categories instead of five and the "dining & restaurants" indicator as one additional category.
Our codebook was also updated in September 2021 to take into account vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination in various sectors.
Data is updated weekly and going forward will follow the new codebook. Legacy data following the old codebook is current as to June 28, 2021 and can be downloaded below but will not be updated going forward.
This is a project of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation at the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), a Montreal-based think tank. Our team developed a complimentary set of indicators for the work of Oxford University’s COVID-19 Government Response Tracker.
The intended use of this database is to model Canadian policy responses over time and support new scholarship and policy evaluation. You can read more about how relative stringency has varied in the different analysis piece we have published.
- In the Canadian federation, pandemic response is hyper-local
- For reopening plans after COVID, who’s doing what and when?
- Have provinces put schools first during COVID?
- Provincial paths diverge on vaccine mandates and passports
Comments and corrections are welcome.
Breton, Charles, Ji Yoon Han, Paisley Sim, and Mohy-Dean Tabbara. 2020. COVID-19 Canadian Provinces Measures Dataset. Center of Excellence on the Canadian Federation. Available at github.com/charlesbreton/COVID19-Canada-Provinces