For the seventh straight week Mississauga and Brampton has Ontario’s worst COVID-19 positivity

For the seventh week in a row, Peel Region (Brampton, Mississauga, and Caledon) has the highest COVID-19 percent positivity rate out of all of Ontario’s public health units.

Toronto-based research group ICES ranked all 34 public health units in Ontario for the week of April 25 to May 1 based on their percent positivity (percentage of positive tests in the area).

Peel currently tops the list at 16.63%, far surpassing Toronto at 12.29% and Durham at 10.40%.

Ontario overall is listed seventh at 8.55%.

The top 15 public health units are listed above

Peel’s percentage is down from last week where it reported 18.73%.

The same data for the week shows that of the 50 areas in Ontario with the highest COVID-19 percent positivity, seven are in Mississauga and 10 are in Brampton.

Despite lower COVID-19 testing rates among school-aged children (i.e. elementary to secondary) likely because children aren’t in school, ICES says some regions are seeing very high percent positivity and incidence of COVID-19, including Peel at 32.5%-34.3% and Hamilton at 15.2%-24.8%.

Testing rates have remained relatively stable among young adults aged 18-22 years.

As of May 3, overall vaccine coverage among adults in Ontario was 40% (compared to 34% the previous week), with the highest coverage in those aged 75 years and up.

The full data is available to read here.

Data courtesy of ICES, photo courtesy of The Canadian Press