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Ottawa Public Health makes only the raw data available for All causes and respiratory-related emergency department visits to Ottawa hospitals by age group and week ( https://open.ottawa.ca/datasets/ottawa::all-causes-and-respiratory-related-emergency-department-visits-to-ottawa-hospitals-by-age-group-and-week/about ). 2/

If I take the data and plot all the ages together, you can at least see all of the age groups at the same time but it is just the raw numbers.

The graph shows that the # of visits for the age 0-3 group is similar to the 18-54 age group near the top of the graph, and the 80+ age group numbers are very low, similar to the age 12-17 group. 3/

But you aren't seeing the full picture, this is where population rate comes in. The next graph uses the same data but instead of raw numbers shows the rate per 100,000 population in each age group.

You can see with population rate the age 0-3 group is far and above the highest level of all groups while the 18-54 age group which had similar raw numbers is actually the lowest rate. 4/

Just to make things a little simpler, the last graph shows the # per 100k population as a stacked percentage so you can easily see which age groups are impacted the most.

The youngest 0-3 age group throughout the year accounts for more than 50% of all respiratory related ED visits per 100K population despite being only 3.75% of the population. 6/

I will keep these new population rate versions of the graphs updated on my website if people want to get up to date versions over time ( https://covid.gilchrist.ca/Ottawa.html ). 7/

@jeffgilchrist

Thanks for such a clear explanation. Looking at the data this way is very helpful.