Testing rates lagging in areas hit hardest by virus
Province urged to increase accessibility to pop-up sites as city data reveals imbalance
The rate of COVID-19 testing in the part of the city hit hardest by the virus is lagging behind other neighbourhoods, data newly posted by Toronto Public Health shows.
That data, released Monday and current to Oct. 4, shows eight of the 10 neighbourhoods with the highest per cent positivity for COVID-19 are in the northwest part of the city, which reporting by the Star has shown to be most at-risk.
At the same time, all eight of those neighbourhoods had rates of testing below the average for neighbourhoods where there was data available.
On Monday, the city’s board of health called on the province to increase the availability and accessibility of pop-up testing in neighbourhoods disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s medical officer of health, said Monday more testing is needed to “fully understand” what’s happening in those neighbourhoods. Testing is the responsibility of the province.
She said Toronto Public Health (TPH) has worked with the province and community partners on creating mobile testing sites to help increase accessibility to testing.
De Villa did not say how many of those sites are currently available.
“That has happened and will continue to happen premised on conversations that we are still having and will continue to have with our health-care partners,” de Villa said.
Per cent positivity — how many positive tests come back compared to the total number of tests — is one of TPH’s key measures of the pandemic, with the goal for citywide test positivity to stay less than three per cent.
Experts have turned to test positivity to gauge the spread of the virus as reporting times for new cases lag due to changes in province-wide testing restrictions.
Even if daily case counts fluctuate as a result of the number of tests conducted, the percentage of test positivity gives some idea as to how widespread the virus is, either across the city or in a specific area.
De Villa said, if there is a low number of tests done in a particular neighbourhood, it could show an inflated test positivity.
More tests can help public health officials determine if in fact the area is experiencing a disproportionately high percentage of positive tests.
The data for the week of Oct. 4 is incomplete, TPH said, and should be interpreted with “caution.” For some neighbourhoods, where there have been fewer than five tests, data has been withheld to prevent the risk of those people being identified, according to TPH. Others are missing data because of a lag in the reporting of tests.
For the week ending Oct. 10, the average test positivity in Toronto was 3.1 per cent.
The data released Monday also confirms earlier provincial data, reported by the Star’s Kate Allen and Jennifer Yang, that showed two-thirds of Toronto’s neighbourhoods are seeing test positivity for COVID-19 over the three per cent threshold set by public health officials.
For the week prior, where there is more complete data of both test positivity and testing rates, there are similar outcomes for the northwest corner — eight of 10 of the top neighbourhoods for highest test positivity are in that area, while testing in all those neighbourhoods happened at a belowaverage rate.
Four northwest neighbourhoods were on the list both weeks: Brookhaven-Amesbury (12 per cent positivity the week of Oct. 4), Elms-Old Rexdale (8.6 per cent), Glenfield-Jane Heights (8.8 per cent) and Mount Olive-SilverstoneJamestown (7.7 per cent). Tom Rakocevic, the NDP MPP for Humber River-Black Creek, said his office has been pushing for mobile testing in the northwest area, but now he is looking for the province to fund what he called “community liaisons” to help spread information to communities about available testing in more than one language.
“If we don’t recognize that equity plays a role here in terms of COVID or even disseminating information, then we’re really falling behind,” he said.
“There’s no more excuses this time.”
He said those liaisons should be funded by the province and could be managed through the local health networks or by other means to spread the message about testing through trusted community associations and directly with local residents.
Coun. Anthony Perruzza, who represents the same area at the city level, agreed with the idea for more “boots on the ground.”
But he said part of the problem has been getting the information out to people about what’s available, including a health card is not needed to get a test and there aren’t long lines.
“There’s some trepidation,” he said. “People that generally are somewhat a little more isolated are intimidated by the whole process and I think that that has more to do with it than access.”