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Study reveals COVID-19 first wave disproportionately impacted visible minorities

Last Updated Oct 28, 2020 at 8:39 pm MDT

Statistics Canada building and signs are pictured in Ottawa on Wednesday, July 3, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

A new Statistics Canada report said communities with the most visible minorities had the highest mortality rates during the first wave of COVID-19.

The report’s authors said it is more evidence that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting visible minorities.

Racialized communities are more likely to live in overcrowded housing and work in jobs that put them more at risk of exposure to COVID-19.

In the four largest provinces, death rates from COVID-19 were twice as high in communities where more than one in four people identify as a visible minority.

This compared with communities where less than one per cent of residents did.

99 per cent of the deaths from COVID-19 between March and July occurred in those four provinces.

In Ontario and Quebec, the rates were 3.5 times as high in communities where more than one-fourth of residents identify as visible minorities.

Nearly 8,800 people died in the first wave of the pandemic in Canada, with 94 per cent of them in Quebec and Ontario.

Canadian and provincial public health agencies did not collect much data on the race of patients with COVID-19 at first.

Statistics Canada used the national database on deaths and census data on visible minorities and neighbourhoods to compile the report.

Local outlook

Alberta reports no new cases and five recoveries of COVID-19 in Wood Buffalo in the last 24 hours.

All are in Fort McMurray, which has 39 active cases, one death, and 304 recovered cases of the illness.

The province removed an additional active case from the urban service area after receiving new information.

Outside the urban service area, there are still seven active cases and 64 resolved cases.

While the RMWB has less than 50 active cases reported, the region will remain under the 30-day mandatory mask-wearing bylaw.

The Municipality enacted the bylaw on Oct. 26, 2020.

In the last 24 hours, Alberta has 410 new cases and four additional deaths linked to COVID-19.

125 Albertans are in hospital with 19 in intensive care.

Health officials found a COVID-19 positivity rate of 3.85 per cent for the 10,631 tests they completed on Oct. 27.

Alberta has 4793 active cases, 313 deaths, and 21,459 resolved cases of COVID-19.

This article includes excerpts from The Canadian Press