Welcome to
Ron’s COVID-19 Page
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
June 21 to 27
The official data published this past week on new Canadian COVID infections confirms that we remain in the expected seasonal low, but at lower levels than at any previous time in this pandemic.
Looking at our composite chart, the Canada-wide municipal wastewater COVID testing curve shows viral counts oscillating from week to week, but around their lowest level to date. Ontario’s PCR COVID testing reports a positivity rate which is coming surprisingly close to zero. Ontario COVID hospitalization rates, which tend to lag testing results by about a week, are also nearing their lowest-ever levels, with ICU bed occupancy rates following close behind.
The more independent health statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada have not updated their previous estimate of only one in every 401 Ontarians being infected. That too is likely to decline when they next publish.
Public Health Canada’s biweekly report on currently-circulating COVID variants shows the PQ family of Omicron variant strains to be currently dominant, accounting for 46% of all new Canadian COVID infections. The previously-dominant XFG family is down to 36%. The above-discussed testing and hospitalization rates demonstrate that neither of these families is significantly more infectious than their predecessors.