📖 You can read the full study here: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

🙏 Thank you to the research team & especially the participants of the Ku-gaa-gii pimitizi-win study, who made this and many other studies possible! 🙏

#Homelessness #COVID19 #HealthEquity #Toronto

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀

☑️ COVID-19 burden has been severely underreported among people experiencing homelessness in Canada

☑️ Existing studies on post-infection outcomes—eg. deaths, Long COVID—may also be inaccurate because of this.

We'll address this 2nd point soon in upcoming reports —stay tuned.

Even more concerning: this was measured while Toronto invested big $ in distancing hotels (which actually did decrease risk, vs masking which had no effect). Those protections are being dropped now, so infections are likely even higher today.

The main highlight of the paper?

We identified 🚨𝟵𝟳 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀/𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀🚨 post-Omicron, which is at least 𝟰𝘅 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 than previous PCR-based estimates for our region. Reinfections were a big part of this, with some folks getting COVID two or even three times.

Great summary. COHB to house every single person, as crazy $$ as that'd be, would still be better than continuing to warehouse people semi-permanently as is clearly happening now, both from a human & cost perspective. Sadly, prevailing political winds mean we'll keep doing the cruel/expensive thing?

You didn't miss it. A lot is implied, methods-wise. The way I interpret the results is including anyone with at least one day of homelessness. Otherwise you get into wondering what the minimum should be.

But the more I think about It the more I want to just ask them about all these things.

Not sure. TSSS documented over 22K unique clients in '23 for Toronto. I'm sitting on some health based numbers suggesting the true number could be as high as 27K tho, so 80k being the bottom for ON sounds about right.

Still, maybe we should petition helpseeker to release their full methodology

I'd wager if there were confidence intervals applied to the estimates that they'd be fairly wide.

100%, the "technical appendix" sucked. It's too bad, after the 240k fiasco I'm more hesitant to accept stuff at face value. The number is vraisemblable at least?

It'll depend on whether data pts could be linked across regions. Otherwise they'd have to assume no mid-year migrations for a start.

Yeah there's no way this doesn't get contested as unconstitutional. Wtf

Eee, hopefully you're ok!

I mean I get it but compared to momentum from what felt like not so long ago... 😭

I cannot believe in end of 2024 we are here. Still.

Sometimes "cut cheque" solutions work, like CERB (for a literal public health emergency) or CCB (to literally raise kids out of poverty).

But here, this does stink of desperation. The focus doesn't seem to be on providing a better social safety net at all.