“A very serious situation.” Northeast corner of Brampton tops the list of 30 GTA neighborhoods with alarming rates of COVID-19 infections

An area in the northeastern corner of Brampton has a “shocking” COVID-19 positive rate of 19% – twice that of the United States – and is leading a list of 30 Greater Toronto neighborhoods that they’re seeing alarming numbers of people testing positive for the virus, new data shows.

Peel as a whole is reporting 9.8% positivity – the highest in the GTA – while neighborhoods in Northwest Toronto, Scarborough and South York are also reporting sky-high rates, according to a first look at an analysis. conducted by the Toronto-based non-profit ICES (former Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences). The data covers the first week of November, the most recent time period for which percentage positivity rates are available, and is broken down by zip code to provide a detailed picture of the local severity of the pandemic.

“It’s shocking,” said Dr. Jeff Kwong, a senior scientist at the ICS, of the positivity rate in the Brampton neighborhood north of Queen Street East and east of Airport Road, where one in five people test positive for the virus. . “It might not be as high as some countries like Italy, but it’s five times that of Ontario and double the positivity in the US.”

All 30 neighborhoods have a positive test rate of over 9%; 14 are in Toronto, 13 in Peel, two in York and one in Halton.

For the week of November 1, Peel’s overall percent positivity rate was 9.8%, nearly double Toronto’s 5.9%, followed by York at 4.8% and Halton at 4.4%. . The rate of positivity – the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who have been found – for Ontario as a whole was 3.7% during that time.

Toronto, Peel, York and Halton are all at the “control” or red level of the province’s new color-coded COVID-19 framework, the highest category outside the block.

“We wanted to point out that some areas are very tall, so the people living there are aware of that,” Kwong said of the ICES analysis, adding that some officials may look at the map and push for more targeted public health measures rather than a provincial approach.

“In my opinion, the measures should be broader,” he said, noting that areas with high rates of positivity require specific, community-based interventions.

“However, restrictions in one public health unit may force residents to go to another area. And this is a problem; so we will only see a spread in those areas “.

Epidemiologist Farah Mawani, of the MAP Center for Urban Health Solutions at Unity Health Toronto, said ICES data highlights that the current response to the pandemic is failing.

In early October, COVID-19 testing was limited just as cases were on the rise and in Toronto, public health abandoned all contact tracing except for high-risk facilities, such as schools, hospitals and nursing homes. long-term.

“This combination, as cases increased, is a recipe for disaster,” Mawani said. “We are now seeing the disaster unfolding. These are two key tools to stop the spread. “

ICES data shows that over the past month the test positive rate is higher in lower-income neighborhoods than in higher-income neighborhoods and is increasing more in low-income neighborhoods.

“People in precarious working conditions cannot choose to work at home, either because of the nature of the job itself or because they don’t have the power to stay at home,” Mawani said, noting that those in low-income jobs often require them to be in contact with many people.

“And they can’t talk about unsafe conditions because of that lack of power and are at risk of losing their jobs,” he said. “On top of that, they may have to take public transport a fair distance on crowded routes to get to their work.”

The Brampton neighborhood with the highest percentage positivity rate includes a dozen census tracts or small geographic areas defined by Statistics Canada. Of those, nine had infection rates of over 200 per 100,000 people during the first week of November, according to data from Peel Public Health. This is five times the infection rate required to move into the red or “control” zone of the province.

The census data offers compelling clues as to why positivity rates are soaring in these communities, which have a high concentration of visible minorities, particularly South Asians. Socioeconomic data shows that South Asians have been disproportionately affected by COVID in the Peel region, accounting for 45% of cases but comprising only 32% of Peel’s population, according to a public health report from early August.

A census stretch – just southeast of the intersection of Countryside Drive and Airport Road – has the highest percentage of large households in Peel, with 49% of homes occupied by five or more people. Peel has more occupants per household than cities like Toronto and Ottawa, according to Dr. Lawrence Loh, a medical health officer, and family contacts have accounted for 40 percent of COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks. Last week, the federal government announced that it will fund a $ 6.5 million facility in the Peel region for people who cannot adequately isolate themselves in their homes.

This part of Brampton is also densely populated with essential workers, the census data show. A community of approximately 2,360 residents – a high-immigration area near Queen Street East and Highway 50 – has the highest percentage of people working in Peel’s manufacturing sector, with 22% of residents working there. sector.

Just north is another stretch of the census with Peel’s highest percentage of retail workers (16%) and the lowest levels of education, with 60% of residents not attending post-secondary school. This community of about 7,000 people reported 66 cases of COVID-19 in the three weeks leading up to November 7. His most recent infection rate was 285 cases per 100,000 people.

“Those are racialized neighborhoods where there is poverty, where there is overcrowding, where there are essential workers who are paid very low and cannot afford to stay at home,” said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the ‘University of Toronto, echoing Mawani. “They don’t have the luxury of working at home. They have little leeway. “

Furness added that the government should open isolation centers in these neighborhoods and conduct mobile testing and, if necessary, pay people to enter for testing.

“And if it comes back positive, go stay in a hotel room and we’ll feed you and take care of you. Create a situation where people really want to show up, “he said.” If you want to address this problem, that’s how you do it. “

Loh said that while further testing could be done, the numbers tell him that “we are seeing a real acceleration of the pandemic” in his community.

On Saturday, Loh took the rare step of issuing an order under the Health Protection and Promotion Act that requires employers to put in place adequate employee protections and cooperate with epidemic investigations or risk $ fines. 5,000 per day.

The order requires companies diagnosed with COVID-19 to ensure that the infected person does not enter the workplace and remain isolated and cooperate with all public health directives, among other things.

Loh said more cases in the community inevitably lead to more hospitalizations, a prospect that worries him, especially considering the fact that the region now has around 3,000 active cases, with somewhere between 300 and 400 new cases every day.

“If we have 10% of 3,000 in need of hospitalization in the next two weeks, that’s really worrying,” he said. “Just the infection prevention and control procedures, the isolation protocols, this is essentially a very dire situation.”

ICES data also shows that nearly all those who tested positive in Ontario long-term care homes between October 26 and November 8 – 98.7%, or 628 people – live in a fairly urban setting. than in a rural house. Additionally, 41% live with diabetes, 81% with dementia, and 79% with medical conditions that contribute to frailty.

Mawani of Unity Health said this “troubling” data is another indicator of how the aftermath of the pandemic is being unfairly distributed, which could be prevented if politicians – both local and provincial – acted swiftly on expert advice. they know their communities.

“Why are we here again with such severe outbreaks in long-term care homes, some of them in Scarborough?” she said.

“As an epidemiologist, seeing the disaster unfold, knowing it could have been prevented, there is nothing worse. We need to focus on what is needed to make things better for those most affected. Is critical. It is a matter of life or death. “