The official COVID-related data published this past week depicts a continued fall in Ontario infection rates.
Those numbers are likely to level off over the coming weeks. Ontario COVID PCR test positivity rates are virtually identical to those of last year at this time, at which point the graph was roughly midway to its late-June seasonal low. Hospitalization rates are following the same trend but slightly lower than last year’s, unlike ICU occupancy which remains almost identical in the year-to-year comparison.
The more independent Canadian COVID-19 Resource Canada summary shows a comparable improvement in infection rates, though Ontario’s in the highest amongst the provinces. Their most recent estimate is one in 50 Ontarian current infected and hence infectious, which is significantly better than recent weeks.
The latest US Centers for Disease Control analysis of currently-circulating COVID variants in that country shows significant shift in the respective “market shares” of the more dominant strains. The recombinant XEC strain, which had held the top position since early last December, has finally ceded dominance to LP.8.1, another JN.1 derivative which now accounts for 42% of all new US COVID infections. That sharp rise represented a 180% increase over the past eight weeks. The good news is that the current booster vaccine strain continues to be reasonably effective against all of the JN.1 derivatives.