This week’s composite chart shows a further modest decline in Ontario’s rate of new COVID infections. That said, the overall pattern remains that of a fall and early winter moderate decline in new cases following the seasonal September surge, one likely to presage a significantly higher surge during the coming holiday season.
As you can see from the graphs, Ontario’s positivity rate for PCR COVID tests is levelling out at roughly 40% of what it was this time last year. Hospital admissions and ICU occupancy rates are holding steady but are even lower than last year’s numbers. All of which represents good news.
The more independent statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada now rate both national and Ontario COVID risks as slightly down from two weeks ago. Their most recent estimate is one in 133 Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious, which hasn’t changed much over the past two weeks.
Public Heath Canada’s biweekly report on currently-circulating COVID variants in our country is interesting in that it suggests that the currently-dominant XFG family of Omicron strains has peaked and may now be starting on a declining trend. They now account for less than 70% of new infections, slightly less than two weeks ago. During that period, three relatively new non-XPG strains in the top 12 (PQ.2, PQ.17 and QK.2) rose from 11% to 13%. That may not be significant as yet but, since XFG strains resulted in somewhat milder symptoms that their predecessors, there is always the risk than new strains might prove more severe.