Local doctors aim to test migrant farm workers for virus

City’s public health department says it has started collecting race-based data on positive COVID-19 tests

A team of Hamilton doctors that has helped contain the spread of COVID-19 in the local shelter system hopes to expand its efforts to migrant farm workers.

Dr. Tim O’Shea, an infectious disease specialist, and others in the Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team, are teaming up with public health nurses to test them for coronavirus. The idea is to offer farms weekly surveillance, O’Shea says.

“The purpose of it being we are trying to pick up people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic and potentially spreading in order to interrupt outbreaks before than happen.”

That’s good news, Coun. Nrinder Nann said during this week’s board of health meeting. Migrant workers, who have been “made more systemically marginalized,” are “producing the food in the region,” she said.

In an interview, O’Shea said success hinges on buy-in from farmers and guarantees that workers won’t be deported or lose jobs if they test positive. The workers — often from Latin America and the Caribbean — are housed in congregant settings, which makes the chance of outbreak high once an infection is established.

Data from the testing will be funneled into the race and income set public health started collecting from positive COVID-19 cases in general about three weeks ago.

Nann applauded this, but lamented that granular data wasn’t collected sooner.

“When we have that information, we’re able to plan and adjust our strategies moving forward, rather than seeing some realities as being made visible.”

Evidence from the United States, and closer to home in Toronto, has shown coronavirus has hit certain racialized groups, including Black and Latino people, much harder.

Dr. Elizabeth Richardson told The Spectator the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care had told the city it planned to develop a uniform approach to COVID-19 socioeconomic and race data for all health units.

Not wanting to start one method and then switch gears, public health opted to wait for the province’s guidance.

“If you end up collecting data two different ways ... which way do you analyze it?”

But when that provincial direction didn’t materialize, local health officials decided to embark on their own program, nonetheless, Richardson said. Middlesex-London Health Unit began gathering information about race, family income, occupation, Indigenous identity and “homeless/underhoused” status in April.

A report with early figures shows, as of June 10, race was noted in 87 per cent of confirmed cases, with 1.6 per cent not responding. Of those who offered information, 27 per cent identified as a visible minority, an Employment Equity Act definition that doesn’t include Indigenous people. Visible minorities represented 17 per cent of Middlesex-London’s total population in 2016.

In 27.5 per cent of cases, respondents said they have a household income of less than $60,000, 31 per cent more than $60,000, 30 per cent didn’t know and 11.5 per cent didn’t answer. As of 2015, the median income before tax was $64,797.

“In the context of COVID-19, the collection and analysis of this information will help (the health unit) identify where inequities exist,” Dr. Christopher Mackie, Middlesex-London’s medical officer of health, writes in the June 18 report.

On Monday, the province announced a proposed regulatory change to mandate the standardized reporting of race, income, language and household size from coronavirus cases. The ministry noted people can decline to answer and assured privacy would be protected.

“We are trying to pick up people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic and potentially spreading in order to interrupt outbreaks ...” DR. TIM O’SHEA INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST