In this issue
The Last 25 Percent
Almost three-quarters of Toronto adults have received their first vaccine. Next comes the hard part.
Second Doses Missing Those Who Really Need Them
With the Delta variant making second dose distribution urgent, new data reveals Toronto’s highest-risk neighbourhoods are being left behind.
Hot Spot Tracker
Weekly progress updates on vaccination efforts in the GTA's highest-risk neighbourhoods.
Community Ambassadors Are the Link to Toronto’s Unvaccinated Populations
As vaccination rates plateau, a new army of outreach workers is canvassing pockets of the city missed by the initial rollout.
“We Had to Save Ourselves”
When the pandemic hit Peel, it wasn’t the government that stepped in, but an army of citizens that mobilized to feed their neighbours, set up pop-up clinics, and demand better for their community.
Why Haven’t Primary Care Doctors Been Part of the Vaccine Rollout?
Sometime soon, responsibility for vaccinations in Toronto will need to shift to primary care doctors. Is there a plan?
Getting Vaccinated in the Holy Month
This year, we thought we’d figured out how to do Ramadan in a pandemic. Then the vaccine rollout began.
Vaccinating Black Toronto
The city’s Black communities has been disproportionately affected by COVID. Now these physicians and community leaders are working to make sure they don’t also go unvaccinated.
The Chaotic Race to Vaccinate Peel
Overwhelmed phone lines, frantic group texts, frustration and relief—inside the first week of pop-up clinics in a region desperate for vaccines.
Behind the Sudden Drop at Toronto’s Mass Immunization Clinics
The City of Toronto clinics are well-funded operations that were supposed to be the engines of the city’s vaccination drive. Why are pop ups in parking lots delivering four times as many doses a day?
“You Can’t Stop the Spread of the Virus if You Don’t Stop it in Peel”
Not enough support, not enough testing, not enough vaccines—Peel has been neglected at every step of the pandemic, and the results have been devastating.
The Toronto Hot Spot Nobody’s Talking About
Malvern has one of the highest COVID positivity rates in the city and only got its first pop-up clinic today. People here are used to feeling left behind.
Bringing the Vaccine to Where it’s Needed
Relief, joy, and no hesitancy at a pop-up clinic at Jane and Finch, the postal code with the lowest vaccination rates in the city.
The Vaccine Rollout is Leaving Toronto’s Hardest-Hit Postal Codes Behind
New data reveals that Ontario’s vaccine strategy is missing the most vulnerable areas of Toronto.
Plenty of Pharmacies, but No Vaccines in Toronto’s Northwest
There are 25 pharmacies in the five Toronto neighbourhoods worst-hit by COVID. Why weren’t any of them chosen to administer vaccines?
In this issue
A Year in Toronto
In a year of “unprecedented times,” the world didn’t split apart in ways that were terrifying and new. It cracked along familiar seams, over and over again.
A Year of Indigenous People Helping Indigenous People
In the middle of a pandemic, with multiple crises devastating their community, Nanook Gordon and Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat started a grassroots organization to bring compassion, aid, and culture to Indigenous people on Toronto’s streets.
A Year Looking at the Numbers
For the last year, seven days a week, I’ve woken up to post the province’s COVID numbers. It turns out people don’t want data—they want someone to tell them how this all ends.
A Year on Two Wheels
My father believed that biking was a way to strengthen our communities. In this strange and sorrow-filled year, I’ve tried to follow his path.
A Year of Kids Playing Pandemic
When COVID-19 leaked into my children’s make-believe games, I worried they were being traumatized. Maybe I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
A Long Year
As the months stretched on and days became meaningless, I did the natural thing—turned to 800-page novels and 15-hour German movies just to feel the passage of time in all its punishing slowness.
A Year of Resistance in the Moss Park Encampment
Derrick Black, one of the original residents of the Moss Park encampment, survived a year of confrontations with the city, police raids, and extreme weather in his fight for permanent housing. His story in his own words.