Experts warn against underplaying recent spike

Infectious disease specialists say a recent surge in COVID-19 cases that surpasses a spike last spring must not be shrugged off as merely a byproduct of increased testing.

“I think minimizing right now is a real mistake,” said

Dr. Lynora Saxinger of the University of Alberta.

“People are not wanting to believe that this is a thing, because I think they don’t want to return to the state that we were living in earlier in the year. That’s a dangerous path to take and we should be much more precautionary right now.”

The Canadian Press compiled data posted publicly in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec over one week ending April 21 and another ending Oct. 6 to get a sense of how the two case surges compare.

Daily cases in Alberta were two per cent higher in the most recent period compared with the April week. Ontario’s were 13 per cent higher, Quebec’s were 14 per cent higher and B.C.’s cases were more than triple the mid-tolow, double-digit numbers it experienced in April.

Alberta, an early leader in increased testing, took nearly four times as many swabs during the October week than it did in the April one. B.C’s daily testing grew eightfold, while Ontario and Quebec did about 4 1/2 times as many weekly swabs during the fall week than they did in the spring.

The positivity rate - the percentage of tests that come back positive - in all four provinces has dropped markedly between the spring and fall surges.

Quebec and Ontario don’t officially post historical positivity rates, so The Canadian Press divided the total number of weekly tests by the total number of weekly cases. It’s an imperfect estimate as often there is a lag between when tests are done and cases are recorded by public health.

Quebec, which averaged around 6,300 daily tests and 930 new cases during the

April week, had a positivity rate during that period of about 15 per cent.

In the more recent week, when Quebec had five consecutive days with new cases in the quadruple digits, its positivity rate sat at roughly four per cent.

Ontario, which is dealing with a hefty backlog of swabs waiting to be analyzed, posted an official daily positivity rate of two per cent for Oct. 7, down from the roughly six per cent range it had in mid-April.

Alberta’s positivity rate dropped to one per cent from nearly five per cent and B.C.’s fell to 1.3 per cent from four per cent.

Experts say the lower positivity rates now shouldn’t provide comfort.