Canadian provinces and territories responded differently to the COVID-19 pandemic. To measure the relative stringency of policy responses, we developed an index that captures pandemic policy responses introduced over time. The Centre index captures fourteen different measures enacted by Canadian provincial governments including gathering sizes, masks, school closures, and travel restrictions.

Vaccine requirements

The Centre Stringency index continues to evolve with the pandemic. As provincial governments introduce new restrictions tied with vaccination status, we now include these in the index.

Download the data:

• Github
• COVID-19 Stringency Index.csv: updated January 17, 2022

More on the index

The methodology behind the index builds on the work from the Oxford University’s COVID-19 Government Response Tracker but adds indicators that are more tailored to the Canadian response. The Centre data and the Oxford University’s COVID-19 Government Response Tracker have now been combined to produce a joint working paper Variation in the Canadian provincial and territorial responses to COVID-19.

You can read more about how relative stringency has varied in our original Policy Options article, published on November 27, 2020.

To cite this data:
Breton, Charles, and Paisley Sim. 2021. COVID-19 Canadian Provinces Measures Dataset. Center of Excellence on the Canadian Federation.