Given the relatively minor changes in the past week’s official COVID data, we continue to approach the 2025 seasonal low for new COVID infections.
The Ontario PCR test positivity rates, COVID hospitalization rates and ICU occupancy rates displayed in this week’s composite chart all point to the pandemic approaching but not quite having reached its typical seasonal low, with all those indicators modestly lower than their comparable rates last year at this time.
The more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada is in the process of calculating its March national severity index, which means that the data is subject to change next week. That includes their estimate of one currently-infected and hence infectious Ontarian among every 112 people. That said, the index still shows overall Canadian infection rates continuing their modest decline, with Ontario again being the most infected province.
We continue to alternate Canadian and US data on the relative incidence of the currently-circulating COVID strains, with this week’s composite chart showing the US numbers. For the third week in a row, the Canadian and US numbers continue to diverge despite Canada having closely tracked the US trends for most of the pandemic. In the US, the LP.8.1 strain continues to extend its dominance with a 64% “market” share. The previously-dominant XEC strain now accounts for only 18% and the rest of the menagerie are declining with only a few percent each. In Canada, by contrast, XEC and LP.8.1 are nearly tied at 20% and 19% respectively, with LF.7 starting to catch up at 15%. In the US, it is stable at a mere 4%. The only reasonable explanation for the sudden divergence in our two countries’ respective COVID populations remains the dramatic reduction in the number of snowbirds crossing the border.