We’re all in this together. That’s what we’ve told ourselves. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the pandemic’s effects are not being borne equally by all Canadians — and the working poor are taking the brunt.
We are still all in this together. But after three months, it’s getting easier to draw differences and point fingers.
A new analysis conducted by CBC News of cases in Montreal, for instance, found strong correlations linking higher rates of COVID-19 infections with low-income neighbourhoods and neighbourhoods with higher percentages of Black residents.
Limitations on available data may hide the full extent of what happened as COVID-19 spread across the country, but a similar analysis conducted by Global News of neighbourhoods in Toronto found “a strong association between high coronavirus rates and low income, conditions of work, visible minority status and low levels of education.”
Public health officials in Ontario reported last week that the rates of infection and death from COVID-19 were disproportionately higher in the province’s most ethnically and culturally diverse neighbourhoods.
“After adjusting for differences in the age structure between neighbourhoods, the rate of COVID-19 infections in the most diverse neighbourhoods was three times higher than the rate in the least diverse neighbourhoods,” officials reported, taking into account cases reported through May 14.
Low income equals high risk
The rate of hospitalizations in those hard-hit communities was four times higher. The rate of death was twice as high.
Earlier data from Toronto Public Health — looking at cases reported through April 27 — showed COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting low-income residents and recent immigrants.
There are several possible explanations for those differences, said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and researcher based at Toronto General Hospital. They include working conditions that leave people more exposed to the virus and smaller dwellings that may have more people living together.
“I think this infection magnifies the pre-existing inequalities,” Dr. Bogoch said. “It’s hard to find a silver lining in a pandemic. But if there is a silver lining in this pandemic, [it’s that] this has highlighted some of the inequalities that we see and has highlighted many of the needs of marginalized populations.”
Short-term measures can be implemented to counter those inequalities, he said, but those immediate steps should be building blocks toward establishing equity in health long-term. The “tragedy,” he said, would be for governments to apply “band-aid” solutions and then “regress back to our old ways” in the months and years ahead.
Not everyone gets to be safe
The most recent modelling from the federal government contained only basic demographic data — women accounted for 57 per cent of infections — but officials also pointed to significant and specific vulnerabilities. Long-term care centres, of course, were first in that group.
But multiple outbreaks were also reported in other “congregate settings,” such as prisons, food processing plants, work camps and shelters — places and people that often exist beyond the focus of political attention. In the days since that report came out, attention has shifted to the conditions on farms, where infections have spread rapidly among the migrant worker