Dear editor:

Ontario is opening up a bit and this may give people a false sense of security, feeling that they are relatively safe, particularly if they are fully vaccinated.

I checked recent Ontario COVID data and found the following:

* In numbers, about two-thirds of the cases are with the fully vaccinated (two shots or more). But because they represent 83.5 per cent of the population, their rate of infection is significantly less than that for the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated are 2.35 times as likely to be infected.

The real telling statistics, though, are in hospital occupancy and ICU occupancy:

* The unvaccinated are almost six times as likely to be hospitalized, and almost 12 times as likely to be admitted to the ICU.

So, the messages are, if you have yet to be fully vaccinated do it now as exposure is likely to be higher given that there will be more contact with people.

The risks of being hospitalized and admitted to the ICU are significantly higher than if you are vaccinated. And even if you are vaccinated, there is still a risk of being infected.

There is also a belief that if we do a rapid test before meeting inside with a group, all are safe. Not necessarily so.

We know of at least two cases recently where dinners were held, none had symptoms, all were fully vaccinated, all tested negative – and five of the seven people ended up with COVID. Because they were fully vaccinated, all the cases were “mild.”

Data from one study shows that without symptoms, only about 60 per cent are correctly tested positive. With symptoms, the number is 72 per cent.

Other studies show that a rapid test rarely gives a false positive and the advice from public health is that if you test positive, assume you have COVID.

As some public health people are saying, this will eventually turn into an endemic and perhaps we all have a risk of infection. But in the meantime, we need to stay safe and be aware of what the statistics are telling us.

Bill Garriock

NOTL