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%.