It’s been 12 months since COVID-19 took over our city. The stories in this issue, published throughout the week, aren’t meant to be some grand summing up of the pandemic year that was because, in truth, it's much too soon for a retrospective. They’re snippets of lives lived over a year in Toronto unlike any other—stories about the brave, tough, and sometimes strange ways people have endured.

The suffering during this pandemic didn’t begin with COVID-19 in March—Toronto's vulnerabilities have been showing for decades. This issue tells the story of how we got here. As the city goes into a second lockdown, with a vaccine somewhere on the horizon, it also provides vital context moving forward. We need to know where the cracks are before we can rebuild.