Let’s get the whole picture
The COVID-19 pandemic affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally.
That’s something the public intuitively understands. But Ontario’s public health officials have actual data on it. Not perfectly comprehensive data — since they have not bothered to collect all the information they can — but enough that officials should publicly share and act on what they have.
On Monday, Premier Doug Ford referred to COVID-19 hot spots “lighting up like a Christmas tree,” and urged people in those areas to get tested. Then he refused to make public the information on those hot spots, suggesting it would be “very stigmatizing.”
Thankfully, Toronto finally took the necessary step and made the data it has publicly available.
The data released on Wednesday shows shockingly stark differences in COVID-19 cases between lower and higher income neighbourhoods. In particular, the five most-affected areas in the city’s northwest have an average of more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, while the five least-affected areas have an average of less than 60 cases per 100,000.
“I believe releasing it to the public will do far more help than harm,” Toronto Mayor John Tory said. He’s right. While there have been COVID-19 cases in every neighbourhood in the city, the poorer and more racialized neighbourhoods are the hardest hit. That’s understandable (though not acceptable) given that workers in low-paid, front-line jobs and people who can’t socially distance in more crowded homes, or both factors at once, are at greater risk of exposure.
The city, unlike the province, knows these are not issues to shy away from or try to cover up. This is not about blaming and shaming people in these areas. There’s no blame or shame to be had here.
This is about crafting a public health strategy based on what’s actually happening in the community. It’s about ramping up proactive testing where it can do the most good. Taking steps to reduce the risks for those more likely to be exposed, protect their families and reduce further community spread. And provide services and support to those who need it.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, said she was “glad to see more granular data coming out of Toronto” because it helps target public health efforts.
The data picture though, even where it is beginning to emerge, is still only a partial one.
Where people live is not necessarily where they get COVID-19. What type of work they do may be as important or even more important.
As we’ve seen from outbreaks elsewhere in Canada — including meat-packing plants in High River, Alta., and Montreal, a chicken processing plant in Vancouver, and farm workers in Windsor-Essex County — the risk of contracting COVID-19 is dramatically higher in some jobs than others.
Ontario has long made the effort to track and report cases among health-care workers. That’s how we know that, over the course of the pandemic, 4,577 health care workers have tested positive.
And since it was pressed to do so, the province reports cases in long-term-care homes, which have been particularly deadly hot spots. So we know 4,964 residents have contracted COVID-19 and tragically nearly one-third of them have died.
But what about everyone else? How many workers in food processing have tested positive? Cashiers? Cleaners? Delivery drivers? Other front-line workers? We know more women than men test positive and we know how old they are but that’s all we know. It’s not enough.
Ontario needs to collect — and publicly report — comprehensive geographic, employment and race-based data to better understand the inequities that clearly exist and target its COVID-19 response.
It’s been months since Ford started calling cashiers, cleaners and other low-paid essential workers Ontario’s “heroes.”
It’s long past time to properly track the risk factors they face and come up with solutions to protect them, their families and the broader community.