Based on the latest official data, it is now fairly safe to say that we have reached our seasonal low in terms of the rate of new COVID infections. Even better, it’s our lowest in many years.
As displayed in this week’s composite chart, the Ontario test positivity rate has flattened out at only half of the 2024 low and has continued at its low point for longer than previous years. Likewise, Ontario COVID hospitalizations and ICU bed occupancy rates have been running at half those of a year ago.
The more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada uses a different methodology based on excess-mortality calculations. Deaths are inherently a lagging indicator, and that official reporting is quite slow. Nonetheless, even their severity indicators for Canada and Ontario are down significantly from those reported last week. Their estimate of the number of Ontarians being currently infected and hence infectious is down only slightly at one in 141. Their severity categorization of “very high” is relative to historical norms rather than recent pandemic experience, which serves as a sobering reminder that the pandemic is far from over.
Turning to trends in the mix of circulating COVID variants, LP.8.1 with a 24% “market share”, remains slightly dominant over second-place XEC which it recently exceeded, but continues to grow only very slowly. That represents a continuation of the unusual disconnect with the viral picture from the USA where LP.8.1 is utterly dominant. We can expect that decoupling to continue as long as most Canadians choose not to cross the border at anywhere in anywhere near historic numbers.