TORONTO – Wednesday 31 dead, today 32. In recent days, Covid-19 looks like a war bulletin. The number of victims in Ontario, since the beginning of the pandemic, is now rapidly approaching 13 thousand (today 12,921), while paradoxically, hospitalizations still drop from 1,698 to 1,676 (assuming that the decrease is not due to deaths more than to patient discharges). On the other hand, the number of infected people in intensive care is growing: 205 (+6). 

What is certain is that with the passage of time the vaccine (the various doses date back to a few months ago) loses strength: of the hospitalized patients, 1,048 are fully vaccinated, 223 unvaccinated and 80 partially vaccinated, while the vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown. Of those in intensive care, 84 patients are fully vaccinated, 30 are unvaccinated and 4 partially vaccinated: no information on vaccination of the remaining patients.

Not all infected patients, however, go to hospital due to Covid-19: of those hospitalized in ordinary wards, 57% are being treated for a disease not related to the virus, but tested positive on hospitalization. . The hospitalizations actually due to Covid-19 represent the remaining 43%. In intensive care the percentages are respectively 35% (with Covid) and 65% (for Covid).

On the contagion front, today 2,700 of the 17,927 tests processed were positive, but it should be remembered that these tests in Ontario – as well as in other provinces – are limited to “at risk” groups and therefore the “counting” of cases is far from reality. The positivity rate calculated on these data is however stable, around 13%. The active and known cases, officially (therefore only on the basis of the “official” tests) are now 26,073, compared to yesterday’s 27,046: for a week this number has been decreasing, which could represent a positive sign if the tests weren’t performed on only a small fraction of the Ontario population.

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash