Here are some things to think about when reading this data.

1- How are these covid-positive cases identified and included in the set? Are they confirmed by: A) in-hospital testing? B) an outside physician/clinic/hospital test? C) a self-administered test? D) self-admission/diagnosis without in-hospital lab confirmation?

2- What type of test is being used to confirm these cases (PCR, antibodies, quick and dirty swabbing)?

3- Are the hospitalizations (ICU or not), directly related to covid or something else?

4- In Ontario, the unvaccinated are submitting (voluntarily or not) to many more tests than the unvaccinated specifically because those employers who permit unvaccinated to work, are often required to submit 3+ tests/week.

5- Public Health Ontario has repeatedly used (and admitted within their methodology sections of their published reports) extrapolated numbers often informed by historical data, international published data as well as their own assumptions which place their published numbers at 300% higher than reality. (This point is easily verified by pulling any of the PHO reports using iPHIS, CORES, the COD and the CCMTOOl databases)

When reading these numbers, it is rare to find the numerators and denominators or the methods used to create each group. It takes effort to track down the reports and deal with the medical/epidemiological terminology, statistical jargon and conclusions formed from the details results. This leaves most at the mercy of MSM or their physicians who might be as ignorant of the answers to the questions I posted above, all of which are necessary to properly understand the current situation in Ontario (in this instance).

Taking the data at face value, even though we see the highest rates among the fully vaccinated, this makes sense if the vaccination rates of 80%+ are accurate. The answer to question three then becomes of the utmost importance: are these covid-positive patients in-hospital, or worse, suffering in the ICU because of complications attributed to covid?

If the answer is NO! That is, they are in-hospital or in ICU because of something other than covid/covid-related illnesses, then of course we should see more patients who are fully vaccinated because they make up 80%+ of the population. From the numbers of in-hospital only, the fully vaccinated make up 70% and change (1353/1925). Not bad given the fully vaccinated are 80%+ of the population. The unvaccinated make up 24% of the cases (457/1925) so a bit more than their presumed 15-20% proportion of the total population. Overall, not a big surprise with those numbers given a NO answer to question 3. Essentially: nothing to see here.

BUT!!!!

If the answer is YES! That is, they are in-hospital/ICU because of covid/covid-related illnesses, the proportionality of the unvaccinated population vs the fully vaccinated takes on extra weight, particularly among the ICU patients. Here, the unvaccinated make up 44% of the total (123/278) whereas the fully vaccinated make up 49% (137/278). This means that (in the context of the published numbers) an unvaccinated person is roughly 4x as likely to end up in ICU than a fully vaccinated person if they are infected with covid.

That's a narrative pro-vaccine folks, like the government would like to push hard.

The problem is, we can't draw that conclusion if we don't know the answer to question 3 above. Moreover, the nitty gritties that make up the numerators and denominators are of such high importance but are hidden from us.

Questions to ask regarding the ICU numbers:

1-What is the average age? Sex? BMI?

2-What is the median age? BMI?

3-What is the geolocation of the patients? Are they randomly distributed across the province or are these numbers corresponding to an outbreak within a city, neighbourhood, at a nursing home? A school? A returning cruise? or flight?

4-What variants are detected and in what proportions?

I can go on and I haven't even touched on the automated methods used for collecting the data, how they are parsed, what software is used and what thresholds are implemented when creating their reports. All of which with I am intimately familiar.

I'm mostly preaching to the choir here I realize, but I think it is still worthwhile drawing one's attention to necessary answers from fundamental questions that are rarely asked and almost never, if ever, answered.

The TL:DR version = be not afraid.