Welcome to
Ron’s COVID-19 Page
Who We Are
This site shares the results of an ongoing personal project to better understand why the pandemic developed in such a damaging way in Canada, what other jurisdictions have done to better protect their citizens from those impacts and what we can collectively do to reduce the possible carnage from futures wave caused by this rapidly-evolving virus. It neither represents nor receives funding from any other person or organization. The sole purpose is to provide the latest and most meaningful data and insights related to the pandemic and its impact on our society in a readily accessible format. You will find many meaningful charts and analyses which provide context for the statistics summarized in the above table by clicking on the Global, Canada, Ontario and Kingston menus. For more details, see the About page.
Weekly Pandemic Update
July 19 to 25
Again this past week, we’ve been seeing the first signs of the Pandemic’s seasonal low coming to an end. That’s entirely expected, based both on normal seasonal patterns and the simple fact that new Canadian COVID infections had fallen to the lowest level that we can ever expect to see.
The Canada-wide municipal wastewater COVID testing curve shows a very slight week-to-week uptick. Likewise Ontario PCR COVID testing results, with positivity rates remaining well under 1%. COVID hospitalization and ICU bed occupancy rates climbed a bit more, but remain at historically low levels.
The more independent health statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada provided their monthly estimates, which currently rate the COVID risk in every province and territory as “moderate”. Their estimate of one in every 401 Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious is unchanged from the previous month.
Public Health Canada’s latest biweekly report on currently-circulating COVID variants shows the XFG family of Omicron variants having regained its clear dominance, accounting for more than 59% of all new Canadian infections. About a month ago, it had been briefly eclipsed by the PQ family, which is now down to less than 4%. All of the currently-circulating strains exhibit similar symptom severity.