A snapshot of Ontario's COVID-19 wastewater data shows infection rates in the province are declining after a holiday surge.
The province's so-called wastewater signal was about 0.7 at the end of January, the lowest level since Sept. 14, according to a Feb. 8 update from Public Health Ontario. There was a wave of infections and the marker reached 2.3.
“Throughout December and into January, we saw a spike in the number of coronavirus detections in wastewater, but they began to decline after the holiday season and certainly continue to move in the right direction,” Unity Health Network Infectious Diseases said specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch. CTV News Toronto on Monday.
The presence of COVID-19 in wastewater appears to be decreasing in all regions surveyed by Public Health Ontario, with the exception of northwestern Ontario, where the signal is actually trending upward to 1.2. Exclude.
While encouraging, Bogoch cautioned that the wastewater data only tells part of the state's full picture of COVID-19 infections.
“If the question is, what is the situation with COVID-19, the answer is that we need to look at multiple indicators, because there is no perfect indicator, including wastewater. Because it doesn't exist,” he explained, adding that factors such as hospitalizations, test positivity rates and number of tests completed help add context.
Although Ontario is not testing or reporting as many COVID-19 cases as it did in 2020 and 2021, publicly available data shows other important indicators are trending down as well.
As of February 3, there were 81 people hospitalized with the virus, compared to 396 in early December. Meanwhile, the test positivity rate has fallen from a recent high of 43.1% in late November to 21.5% in the last week of January.
Although the data is “far from perfect,” Bogoch said piecing it together will help show how widespread COVID-19 is in the state, especially now that testing and reporting are not as widespread as they used to be. he says.
“But even if the pieces of data are incomplete, when you put all the pieces together, a picture is painted, and that picture is that the coronavirus is still here. The coronavirus is still a problem. “However, the spread of coronavirus is much lower now than it was during the holiday season,” he said.
