Official statistics published this past week are indicative of a slight uptick in new COVID infections following the rapid end of the seasonal surge which had started last August and peaked in late December.
For Ontario, that uptick is obvious in our weekly composite chart, both in the modest rise in estimated municipal wastewater PCR viral counts and in higher test positivity rates. Canada-wide COVID hospitalization rates and ICU bed occupancy as of the end of March are still flattening, which is to be expected given that those are lagging indicators.
The more independent COVID-19 Resources Canada Hazard Index now estimates that one in 74 Ontarians is currently COVID-infected and hence infectious. While that appears to be a sharp rise from their previous estimate of one in every 178, it may simply be more accurate in that the preceding sharp drop in official statistics could have potentially perturbed their predictive algorithm.
The most recent Public Health Canada data on the spread of new COVID variants shows JN1.11.1 to be the new dominant strain, accounting for more than 42% of all new infections. It did so by outcompeting its previously-dominant parent, JN.1, which is now only 23.%. At this stage in the pandemic, when nearly every Canadian has some degree of immunity from either or both vaccination and prior infections, outcompeting essentially means having one or more mutations which better enable that strain to circumvent that immunity.