This week’s composite chart is suggestive of a very similar pattern to last year’s monthly COVID statistics, with new infections rapidly increasing in September following the seasonal summer lows, then falling back somewhat in October and November before climbing higher to an annual peak during the Christmas holiday season. The difference is that this year’s numbers have been 50-to-60% lower than those of the same time last year. As you can see from this week’s composite chart, Ontario COVID PCR test positivity rates have plateaued after the recent drop, as have hospitalizations and ICU bed occupancy.
For whatever reason, the risk estimates by the more independent statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada are somewhat higher than those of the past two weeks, both nationally and for Ontario. Yet, their estimate one in 139 Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious represents an improvement over the previous one in 108.
The latest Public Health Canada data on currently circulating COVID variants again demonstrate the utter dominance of the rapidly-diversifying XFG family of recombinant variants. Nine of the twelve most common strains which infected Canadians last week were XFG and its derivatives, accounting for 70% of all new infections. The most prevalent is XFG.3 but it has only a miniscule lead over the original XFG. Based on the actual number of new infections, XFG’s symptom severity appears to be less than that of previous Omicron-derived variants.