Official statistics published this past week are indicative of a flattening out of new COVID infections following a very modest uptick immediately following the mid-March seasonal lows.
That flattening is clearly visible in all three of the Ontario charts displayed in our weekly summary: wastewater and human PCR test results along with both COVID hospitalization and ICU bed occupancy. As indicated last week, we can no longer report on the Canada-wide impact of the pandemic on hospitals because Public Health Canada no longer receives that data from enough provinces to be statistically valid. That in turn means that Canada is failing to do its share of international pandemic monitoring, not that our current provincial governments would care about our nation’s declining global stature.
The above statistics are consistent with the more independent COVID-19 Resources Canada Hazard Index estimate of one in every 76 Ontarians being currently COVID-infected and hence infectious.
The most recent Public Health Canada data on the mix of currently-spreading COVID variants shows the continued dominance of the prolific, BA.2-derived JN.1 family, which currently accounts for more than 96% of all new Canadian infections. JN.1 has itself been outcompeted by its own progeny, the most aggressive of which is KP.2, which soared from only 2% of new infections to 30% in only six weeks. Thus far, thankfully, none of the new variants have been shown to produce more severe symptoms than their predecessors. In that regard, we’ve been on a winning streak with respect to the genetic rolling of the dice ever since the deadly Delta strain was outcompeted by the much-less-virulent Omicron strains. Like the gamblers who support the profitable casino industry, our governments choose in their complacent dismantling of intelligent public health precautions to unscientifically assume that this string of good luck will last forever.