The most recent week of the few COVID statistics which our governments are still willing to collect or release further support the conclusion that this season’s surge in new COVID infections has plateaued after having peaked in late October.
This week’s composite chart shows a continuing decline in the official PCR testing positivity rate. Ontario COVID hospital admissions are also modestly lower. I would wait for next week’s data before drawing any conclusions from the apparent very sharp decline in Ontario ICU COVID bed occupancy because that could well turn out to be a statistical anomaly. More reassuring is the work of independent statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada, whose current estimate of one in every 41Ontarians being currently infected and hence infectious represents a big improvement over the one-in-28 of the past few weeks.
The latest Public Health Canada review of COVID variants shows that, as expected, the new XEC recombinant has already pulled ahead of the previously-dominant KP3.1.1, having doubled its Canadian “market share” over the past six weeks at the expense of KP3.1.1, which dropped from 49% to 34% during that same period. As previously discussed, XEC is a mix of two early JN.1 subvariants, which strongly suggests that the current JN.2-formulated booster shot will provide good protection.