Welcome to
Ron’s COVID-19 Page
What’s new on this site
The COVID municipal wastewater PCR testing results for each province, which are updated weekly on our Canada page, have all been revised to accommodate a restructuring of the Canada Public Health Infobase from which we draw the data.
Who We Are
This site shares the results of an ongoing personal project to better understand why the pandemic developed in such a damaging way in Canada, what other jurisdictions have done to better protect their citizens from those impacts and what we can collectively do to reduce the possible carnage from futures wave caused by this rapidly-evolving virus. It neither represents nor receives funding from any other person or organization. The sole purpose is to provide the latest and most meaningful data and insights related to the pandemic and its impact on our society in a readily accessible format. You will find many meaningful charts and analyses which provide context for the statistics summarized in the above table by clicking on the Global, Canada, Ontario and Kingston menus. For more details, see the About page.
Weekly Pandemic Update
July 13 to 19
There have been no significant changes over the past week to recently-reported trends. As shown in the composite chart, available data suggests only very marginal increases from the mid-May seasonal lows in most COVID statistics. Those are most pronounced in the Canada-wide wastewater viral testing results. Ontario PCR testing positivity results have been almost static these past several weeks, as have Ontario COVID hospitalization. ICU bed occupancy has actually dropped to its lowest level in almost two years.
The more independent statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada now appears to be updating their severity estimates only monthly, so have not changed their most recent estimate of one in every 118 Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious.
There has likewise been only marginal change in the current Canadian “market shares” of the most prevalent of the currently-circulating COVID variants. While NB.1.8.1 marginally remains the current dominant strain, its share continues to decline and now represents only 29% of new Canadian infections. What’s actually dominant is the two new and very closely related recombinant XFG and XFG.3 strains which are almost equal at 28% each. None of these strains have demonstrated more severe symptoms than their predecessors. In fact, the reverse may be true.