Adults who reported catching COVID-19 at least twice had 76 percent higher odds of being diagnosed with a new medical condition than adults who reported never being infected, according to a government study published this month in the Canada Communicable Disease Report. Researchers from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada analyzed survey data from 8,809 adults collected between April 2022 and June 2023.
Odds framing matters and is frequently mangled. An adjusted odds ratio of 1.76 is not a 76 percent chance of getting sick, and it is not a 76 percent increase in absolute risk. About 11 percent of all participants reported a new diagnosis during the study window. The figure describes how much more likely a new diagnosis was in one group relative to another, after adjusting for sex, age, education, income, obesity, smoking status, existing health conditions and the length of time each person was at risk.
