This week’s composite chart shows an encouraging continuation of the pattern of the past month. Ontario COVID PCR test positivity rates continued their moderate decline since the early-September seasonal peak and both hospitalizations and ICU bed occupancy remain quite low. New infections have been less than 40% of those of a year ago at this time and hospitalizations are even lower.
The risk estimates by the more independent statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada are moderately lower than those of two weeks ago, with Ontario doing better than the national average. They now estimate one in 108 Ontarians being currently infected, which is a big improvement over the previous one in 63.
The latest Public Health Canada data on currently circulating COVID variants shows a continuation of the utter dominance of the new, rapidly diversifying XFG family of recombinant variants. Of the nine most common strains, seven are in that family and together account for almost 70% of new Canadian infections. Fortunately, the severity of XFG COVID infections has thus far proven to be significantly less than those caused by their predecessors.