We motivated the structure of our model based on a survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute to examine how physical distancing measures changed behaviour in Canada (March 20–23, 2020; n = 1664; [20]). Responses indicated that there was a subset of the population believing that the response to the COVID-19 epidemic was “overblown”, who were less willing than others to engage in distancing behaviours. This motivated treating the distancing and non-distancing compartments of our model separately and assuming that ∼80% of individuals were able and willing to physically distance. We used the timing of known government interventions to inform the timing of behavioural changes, and verified these dates against publicly available mobility data for each region [21].