New immigrants, low-income earners in Waterloo region seeing higher rates of COVID-19

New immigrants to Waterloo region tend to have higher rates of COVID-19 infection than other areas, the region's acting medical officer of health says.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang says there is "a moderate degree of correlation" between the number of COVID-19 cases and people who recently immigrated to the region. She added the numbers showed "to a lesser degree" there was also some correlation with low income.

Wang says staff also looked at the relationship between COVID-19 rates and the proportion of the community who are visible minorities and did not find a correlation.

Wang warned the results "do not fully explain the complex relationship between the determinants of health and COVID-19. There are many factors that influence COVID-19 incident rates and not all neighbourhoods with low income or higher proportions of immigrants have higher COVID-19 rates."

She said it also doesn't mean there's an increased risk for immigrants or people who earn a low income of contracting the virus.

"Correlation does not equal causation, so this does not mean that living in a neighbourhood with a higher proportion of immigrants, for example, causes increased risk for COVID. That's important to point out. That's not what we're saying here," she said.

In line with provincial trends

Wang said the results of the data analysis is not surprising and fits with what is being seen in other areas, including Toronto, and on a provincial level.

"Our local results support a growing body of evidence that there are associations between COVID-19 and social demographic factors," she said.

Wang said public health will continue to monitor the data. Right now, case rates are relatively low and there's no one area that has a lot of cases, she said.

"If we start to see an increase in cases, it allows us to be more aware of the need to consider perhaps additional approaches to make sure populations like that have the support they need to get tested and maybe there's more education and outreach, maybe there's options for mobile testing," she said.

Wang says later this week, public health officials will begin collecting more information from individuals who are tested for COVID-19. That will include race, income, language and household size.