At the risk of sounding repetitive, the most recent week’s worth of official COVID-related data yet again shows relatively little change from the previous week.
This week’s composite chart suggests that COVID PCR test positivity rates and hospitalizations, the main remaining officially-published indicators of pandemic severity, are continuing their seasonal decline at both a similar rate and roughly the same levels as last year at this time. The one exception is ICU bed occupancy, which has not yet followed suit.
The more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada summary was adjusted upwards from those statisticians’ severity index of last week, seeming due to a sharp increase in the Québec numbers. For Ontario, their most recent estimate of one in 36 people infected and hence infectious remains unchanged.
The latest Public Health Canada analysis of currently-circulating COVID variants in this country again shows relatively little change in the respective “market shares” of the more dominant strains. The recombinant XEC strain continues its slow decline, having dropped from 31% down to 30% in the past week. retaining the top position at 37% of all new Canadian infections, but is in a slow decline. The number two LP.8.1.1 continues to climb, but slowly, from 11% to 13. At this point, none of the circulating strains appear to have a significant competitive advantage in terms of being sufficiently more capable of evading existing human immunity to soar towards dominance.