Tag: Weston Ontario

COVID this week

The third wave continues to recede. Weston had 193 COVID cases in the past 21 days, down from 250 last week, and 275 the week before.

From the city

That’s the good news.

The bad news: Weston’s immunization rate remains below the city average, despite the pop-ups and community vaccination efforts. According to The Star, the city’s vaccination rate is 54% while Weston’s is 46%—in the bottom 25% of neighbourhoods.

Weston remains one of the worst-affected neighbourhoods in Toronto; we are have had the ninth-most cases per capita since the pandemic began, and we had the ninth-most cases in the past 21 days. There are 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto.

COVID this week

The past three weeks of the pandemic have been the worst for Weston since I’ve been keeping records.

There were 117 cases of COVID in Weston in the past three weeks, passing our previous high of 105 in November.

In contrast to the first phase of the pandemic, Weston is not a hotspot. Our recent increases have been part of the broader second wave.

FreshCo coming to Weston

Jason Doolan says that the construction at Jane and Denison (Trethewey) will soon be a FreshCo grocery store.

The large, somewhat-paved lot on the southwest corner has been vacant since at least 2009.

Satellite view of the lot

Update: Mike sends the following facts:

The land used to be the Moffat Stove factory. It was supposed to be another grocery store as far back as 2004, but construction was stopped in 2006.

G&M on Weston Park development

The Globe and Mail has an article on the development at the Weston Park Baptist Church.

While many church congregations are shrinking or struggling financially, Weston Park Baptist Church is placing its faith in development plans that aim to revitalize its property in the west-end Toronto neighbourhood.

“Our vision formulated [in] 2005,” says church deacon John Frogley-Rawson. “It’s a nice piece of land, and we have developed [a plan] for the property and the community.”

It’s worth reading, because it shows how a development should be done: with community consultation and assent. It also includes much on the fate of churches, and how they will be reused and redeveloped in a secular age.

Income is related to COVID prevalence

As we’ve discussed, Weston has a large number of COVID cases. It’s not clear why this is the case: it could be density, income, an increased reliance on public transit, or just how diseases work.

I thought that I would try to puzzle out one of these variables. Of course, I’m neither an epidemiologist nor a statistician. But I am pretty handy with a spreadsheet!

And it looks to me like income and COVID prevalence have a loose relationship.

I compared the 2016 neighbourhood median pre-tax income and the COVID rate per 100,000 (to June 4, including public and institutional transmission).

As I suspected, the richest neighbourhoods have very little spread of COVID. This makes sense to me: people there drive, are spread out, and can work from home.

The highest COVID rates are in the poorer neighbourhoods—but not all poorer areas have high rates of transmission.

Income is far from the only explanation. The R² value is .14, suggesing that income explains 14% of the variance in COVID rates. But that’s not nothing, and you read it here first.

Please feel free to check my work.

 

Mati’s coffee is gone

Mati’s Coffee on Weston Road has closed. Mati’s opened in May of 2018, and the owners, Konjet and Derrge Tadewsa, had started their own business after working at Tim Hortons.

In a bitter (pun intended) twist, Tim Hortons opened a franchise earlier this month only steps away from Mati’s.

Konjet Tadewsa and her son receive a City of Toronto congratulatory diploma from Business Improvement Association Chair Masum Hossain on Saturday May, 26. Husband, Derrge and other family members were on hand to lend support.