My best interpretation of the past week’s official COVID data is that we are approaching the seasonal low in terms of new COVID infections.
That trend is clearly illustrated by the Ontario PCR test positivity rates displayed in our composite chart for the past week. Those rates serve as the best remaining leading indicator for Ontario COVID infections. Those rates tend to bottom out at the end of March each year. We are now already significantly lower than last year’s minimum, which is obviously a good thing. COVID hospitalization rates and ICU occupancy are also showing their first signs of bottoming out, albeit not to the same degree.
The more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada national severity index for the second half of March again is slightly lower than the estimate which they had published last week, with Ontario’s remaining the highest amongst the provinces. Their estimate of one currently-infected and hence infectious Ontarian among every 112 people was again not updated.
This is our usual week for publishing Public Health Canada data on the relative incidence of the currently-circulating COVID strains in Canada. Once again, we’re seeing an unprecedented divergence from the USA data published by the Centres for Disease Control. In Canada, the two variants with the highest “market share” are the recombinant XEC strain in first place (accounting for just under 20% of all new cases) and, in second place, LP.8.1.1 at just over 17%. On track to replace both is LF.7.7.2 at just under 17% but having quintupled over the past six weeks. According to the latest US CDC data, LP.8.1 is strongly dominant at 55%, XEC is a distant 21% and LF.7 remains a miniscule 4%. The only reasonable explanation for the sudden divergence in our two countries’ respective COVID populations is the dramatic reduction in the number of snowbirds crossing the border. Perhaps viruses are another of those US imports which we can happily do without.