COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Reporting Updates: June 2022

In response to the decreasing number of COVID-19 cases and severe outcomes in Ontario, removal of pandemic public health measures and changes in provincial testing and case and contact management guidelines, Public Health Ontario (PHO) is updating its COVID-19 data and surveillance reporting. These changes align Ontario with other provinces and territories, as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Starting Thursday, June 16, PHO will begin releasing a new, comprehensive weekly epidemiological summary with the aim of providing an overview of key trends in COVID-19:

• cases, including by age and geography
• testing including test volume and percent positivity
• hospital admissions and deaths, including by age/sex and health equity indicators (neighbourhood material deprivation)
• outbreaks and severe outcomes in long-term care, retirement homes, hospitals and congregate living settings

This new weekly epidemiological summary will replace some of the existing data and surveillance reports. Specifically,

• PHO will discontinue the Daily Epidemiological Summary (June 15), Weekly Epidemiological Summary (June 9), weekly Cases with Severe Outcomes report (June 13) and bi-weekly COVID-19 in Long-Term Care Homes (June 13) report. The data from these reports will now be included in the new weekly epidemiological summary published on Thursdays.
• The Ontario COVID-19 Data Tool will move from a daily to weekly update on Thursdays. The last daily update for the Data Tool will be June 15, with the weekly updates starting June 23 to give time to adapt the tool to align with the new weekly epidemiological summary. 

Surveillance plays an important role in monitoring COVID-19 activity in Ontario. PHO will continue to work with the Ontario Ministry of Health, local public health units and other health system stakeholders to provide ongoing, active surveillance of COVID-19 as well as other infectious diseases.

You can find all of PHO’s COVID-19 data and reporting on our Data and Surveillance page.