I’m not sure public realizes we still fill out death certificates on paper. Yup. Handwritten. No drop-down lists, no true standardization, no care to improve epidemiology. There are chart extractors and coders (ICD-10)—but we continue to manage death data like its 1918.

Try and figure out causes of death since January 1 anywhere in Canada. Try it. By province. Or area code. Or demographic. We have better and more timely data on Amazon purchases or human mobility than we do causes of death in Canada. Now is a time to fix it.