Joe Cressy, Toronto Board of Health chair and Spadina-Fort York city councillor, has sent a letter to the province’s health ministry calling for the government to collect data on COVID-19 cases that indicate race, occupation and other socioeconomic indicators.
Toronto Public Health said it has been proactively collecting and analyzing race-based data on cases in the city; however, the province is currently not collecting this data and has not required the 34 local health units across Ontario to collect it, Cressy said.
Cressy has previously said the provincial government “has made it clear that they are not interested or willing to collect race-based data.” “The old adage of ‘what gets measured gets done’ is especially relevant right now,”