These maps show Toronto’s current COVID-19 hot spots are not where you think, or could have been.
A recent article published in the Globe & Mail has prompted the questions: Where are the hotspots? What’s going on?
We’ll begin answering those questions by answering two questions in advance. When?
When did hot spots emerge?
We’re now in the fifth week of the pandemic.
That means we’re seeing the growth of a rapidly evolving curve that shows a slow but steady increase in cases, deaths and virus cases on a global scale. We’ve also seen the emergence of hot spots within cities across the globe.
Those hot spots are being reported globally but especially in Toronto.
The problem is, what does this curve look like? How long does this process take? When will we get to the point of being able to say Canada has officially hit its peak?
If you only look at the cases being reported, you’ll have a hard time tracking back hot spots, because the number of cases are not at all indicative of how hot the area is.
What we know about Toronto’s past and present hot spots is that there have been several outbreaks in the city — some of which have been ongoing for years, some that have only just begun.
With the curve now showing the growth of these hot spots, let’s examine the Toronto hot spots that have emerged so far.
1. University of Toronto
This hot spot is in the northwest corner of the city. It’s in the Etobicoke Annex and has a population of around 1,500 people. There are three outbreaks: a confirmed case, and two probable cases, with five suspected cases.
The only confirmed cases in the hot spot are linked to a single student from the University of Toronto, who returned to the city after a week of being out of the country.
What are Toronto’s hot spots?
How long have these hot spots been around?
This hot spot has been around for around nine days, which means the only way to know how long these hot spots have been around is to review the total number of cases in those hot spots