As a result of the current paucity of reporting by governments on COVID statistics, the only possibly significant change over the past week has been an initial sign that the seasonal low in new infections may be endings. Most respiratory viruses are seasonal, and it makes sense that new infections surge in September when back-to-school and back-to-work provide a lot more indoor opportunities for transmission. For whatever reason, COVID appears to also have a summer surge. In fact, as you can see in the Ontario graph contained in our composite chart, for Ontario that rise began in March of last year and continued through September. While one week’s data is insufficient to draw any firm conclusions, this year’s surge was definitely later and may have just started. We’ll be better positioned to draw conclusions next week.
For the second week in a row, the more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada COVID hazard index hasn’t been updated. Their last estimate was one in every 136 Ontarians being infected and hence infectious at that time.
Since both Public Health Canada and the US Centers for Disease Control have adopted the same two-week cycle for reporting on the “market shares” of the currently-circulating COVID variants, it’s impossible to provide you with an update this week. As reporting here in last Saturday’s blog, the previously-dominant LP.8.1.1 was utterly upstaged by the new NB.1.8.1 strain, the latter now clearly dominant in Canada, account for 70% of all new COVID infections. At this point in the pandemic, nearly everyone has some COVID immunity due to vaccination, prior infection of both. That rapid switch would not possible without NB.1.8.1 being considerably more adept than its predecessors at evading existing immunity. Its dominance therefore suggests that infection rates but likely not symptom severity could increase beyond simple seasonality.