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
August 1 to 8
Over the past two weeks, the official COVID statistical data have shown continuing signs of the seasonal lull in new cases having passed and the numbers starting to increase towards the expected Fall resumption.
The Canada-wide municipal wastewater COVID testing curve shows a strengthening week-to-week uptick. While Ontario PCR COVID testing positivity rates remain mostly very low, COVID hospitalization and ICU bed occupancy rates are already on the rise.
The most recent update by the more independent health statisticians at COVID-19 Resources Canada categorized the risks across Canada as remaining moderate, but with slightly higher numbers than two weeks ago. Their estimate of the number of Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious as having risen significantly, from only one every 401 Ontarians being currently infected and therefore infectious to one in 280.
Public Health Canada’s latest biweekly report on currently-circulating COVID variants is indicative of a significant shift in the circulating COVID variants, but makes it difficult to understand what that shift portends. The previously-dominant XFG family of Omicron variants is again in decline (down to 36% “market share”) but the PQ family (its main competitor up to now) plummeted to only 3%. There has also been a remarkable resurgence in one of XFG’s nearly-defunct predecessors (NB.1.8.1), which shot up to 33% over the past six weeks. The unspecified “Other” category is also unusually high at 26%.