It is the New Year but the old year lingers on in full force as today's COVID-19 numbers for Ontario again topped 3,000. We are now in the second wave of COVID-19 and it shows no signs of reaching a peak yet. Indeed, as Figure 1 illustrates, the second wave dwarfs the first by far and at day 344 of the start of the pandemic in Ontario (based on the date of the first case) is still on a steep upward incline.
The somewhat better news for Ontario (Figure 2) is that while deaths are also on an upward incline, they are not increasing as quickly as during the first wave and have yet to surpass the peak reached during the first wave. However, given the number of cases and the extent to which the virus appears to have become ingrained in the population combined with the stubborn inability of many members of the public to accept the need for taking protective measures and social distancing, we are probably at best a few weeks away from a daily death toll of over 80 - last reached in late April/early May.
As for Thunder Bay, the good news may be that a peak in terms of daily cases may have finally been reached. As Figure 3 shows, the LOWESS smooth does appear to be on a downward trend with the peak occurring nearly three weeks ago. However, the down slope is slow and at the current trend it will take about another three weeks to get the daily count back down to close to zero - barring another super-spreader type event that kicked off the last upswing. The current surge in daily cases largely starts from the pickle ball and teen challenge events in November.
One hopes that appropriate lessons have been learned. So, there you have it. Happy New Year.
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