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The most recent of the remaining statistical evidence related to the evolving COVID epidemic confirms the continuing rise in the rate of new infections. However, the Ford government, which can always be counted on to do the wrong thing at the wrong time with respect to public health (perhaps because it has never been held to account for many thousands of avoidable Ontario COVID deaths), is abruptly trashing the most important early-warning tool for pandemic tracking. This week’s Ontario wastewater signal graph which anchors our composite chart is the last that you will see because Mr. Ford arbitrarily and stupidly terminated data collection as of August 1.
The graph of COVID virus counts in municipal wastewater shows a continued sharp rise in the actual weekly counts but a levelling off of the two-week estimate. There is no way to determine if that represents a drop in the real data or some sites not submitting their final reports as they abruptly terminate the program. The rate of positive PCR test results from the minority of Ontarians still eligible for such tests shows a continuation for the rise which began in mid-April. COVID hospitalizations also show a continuing modest rise, but the ICU data is more choppy.
Unfortunately, the more independent COVID-19 Resources Canada estimate of the number of Ontarians currently battling COVID bouts and therefore being infectious hasn’t been updated for the past three weeks. Wastewater data being an important contributor to their modelling, that delay is not unexpected.
Turning to the latest Centers for Disease Control report on circulating COVID variants, the JN.1 family of Omicron variants continues to account for virtually all new US infections. As in Canada, KP3.1.1 is now the dominant strain at 28%, with its parent KP.3 second at 20%. Incidence of KP3.1.1 infections has soared by a factor of 10 over the past two months.