Without fear of flavour
The number of new COVID infections continues to rise. As of December 29, there were 86 cases in the previous 21 days—up from 76 cases two weeks before.
Weston remains harder hit than most neighbourhoods—we have a new-infection rate in the top 20%.
Great news: the rate of COVID infection in Weston seems to be slowing. We had 85 cases in the past 21 days, down from 105 cases last week.
Weston is also falling (a good thing) toward the middle of the pack neighbourhood-wise.
The number of new COVID cases in Weston in the past three weeks has declined slightly—a welcome change after weeks of increases. Over the past two weeks, the number of new cases has flattened.
There have been 51 new cases of community-transmitted COVID in the past 21 days, according to city data.
Including outbreaks in healthcare facilities, there were 59 cases in Weston.
Last week, there had been 68 cases in three weeks. We have returned close to levels of two weeks ago, when there had been 57.
Two students at Weston CI were also diagnosed with COVID, the student cases in Weston.
The CBC says that some people getting tested at the recently-opened Church Street COVID testing centre are having to wait more than two weeks to get their results.
“What’s the whole point of going in for tests if you don’t even get the results until after the quarantine time? There’s no point. It defeats the whole purpose,” she said.
Faisal Hassan, NDP MPP for York South-Weston, says he received more than 25 complaints in a week about people waiting for test results from the Church Street assessment centre.
He says residents were concerned that without a result, they couldn’t return to work, go to school, or visit and provide essential care to loved ones in long-term care homes.
“We have been [identified] as a hotspot area and these delays are totally unacceptable,” he said.
The hospital told the CBC that their typical turnaround is three to five days.
In addition to the burdens they place on those being tested, long turnarounds make contact tracing impossible.
Frances Nunziata says that the COVID positivity rate in Weston is “alarming”.
New data that was reported this week on the overall percent of COVID-19 test positivity rates by neighbourhood indicates that rates in York South—Weston are alarming and disproportionately high compared to other parts of Toronto.
The city’s official numbers haven’t been released, but a Toronto ER doctor published a table that says Weston’s positivity rate is 8.3%—not, thankfully, the highest in the city, but still far above the “3% [that] should prompt shutdowns”
North West Toronto is on fire! This is a snapshot of test positivity rates, good is <1%, 3% should prompt shutdowns, 11% is insane! Racialized communities live here and crowded industrial workplaces; it was an epicentre in wave 1. We have failed them once again #COVID19Ontario pic.twitter.com/p7tQRxPkyw
— Kashif Pirzada, MD (@KashPrime) October 5, 2020
Weston has seen 68 new cases in the past three weeks, an increase of 11 over last week. Eight of the cases occurred in healthcare facilities.
Schools in Weston, however, have largely been free of COVID infections. Pelmo Park had one case in a teacher, but no other cases have occurred in schools in Weston. (There has been a handful of cases in schools that receive students from Weston.)
COVID appears to be coming under control in Pelmo, Weston, and Mount Dennis, with only a handful of cases reported in the past 21 days.
In the past 21 days, there have been three cases of community transmission in Weston, four in Mount Dennis, and only 1 in Pelmo. The north-west part of the city continues to be the worst hit, however.
The Pelmo Park–Humberlea neighbourhood, part of which is in the area most people would call Weston, has the highest rate of new community-spread COVID cases in the city.
Pelmo Park–Humberlea includes the Pelmo neighbourhood south of the 401, as well as an area to the north of the 401 and west of the 400.
Pelmo Park–Humberlea has had 17 new “sporadic” cases in the past 21 days, out of a population of about 10,000. That gives it an infection rate of 159 per 100,000 people, by far the highest in the city—the average rate is 28. (“Sporadic” cases occur outside a healthcare facility).
On the one hand, this may be a statistical blip: 17 cases isn’t a huge number. On the other hand, it is the highest rate in the city in the statistic I think we should care most about: new cases of community spread.
COVID continues to be a problem in the northwest part of the city. In Weston proper, we have had 13 new cases in the past 21 days, and we rank a dismal 9th-worst for new infection rates.
By contrast, more than 10% of the city’s neighbourhoods have had no new cases at all.
Including outbreaks in healthcare facilities makes the picture even darker. Humber Heights (just across the river), Weston, and Mount Dennis have been three of the four worst-hit neighbourhoods in Toronto.
Frances Nunziata says she prompted Joe Cressy, the Chair of Toronto Public Health, to write a letter to the Ontario Minister of Health and the Chief Medical Officer. The letter explains Cressy’s hypotheses around why COVID has been so prevalent here: race, income, reduced access to health services, and household crowding.
He calls on the province to provide: