1) Quebec’s public health doctor, @ArrudaHoracio, promised May 6 he'd start collecting data about race, ethnicity and socio-economic status of those infected with #COVID19. In this thread, I will explain how Arruda’s broken promise has blinded our understanding of the #pandemic.

2) For months, Montreal was the epicenter of the #pandemic not only in Quebec but Canada. The city is densely populated, multi-ethnic and has many racialized minorities. Initially, the #coronavirus was concentrated in some middle-class neighborhoods.

3) But it soon moved to poorer and more racialized neighborhoods like Montreal North, a topic I described in some Twitter threads. La Presse journalists @agruda and @YvesBoisvert then did amazing work exposing what was going in Montreal North.

4) Gruda and Bosivert wrote about racialized minorities — mostly those of Haitian descent, but also people who had come from Africa and Latin America — who were working at low-paid jobs as patient attendants in long-term care centres. Some died from #COVID19.

5) Some of these individuals were asylum seekers. Initially, Premier @francoislegault rejected calls to give them permanent residency by virtue of their sacrifice in the #pandemic. Legault then announced each request would be studied on a case-by-case basis, a lengthy process.

6) It was during this period journalists started asking Arruda at his daily briefings whether data on race would start to be collected. He pledged to do this, but never followed through. Weeks later, the Montreal public health department produced a partial study on this topic.

7) That study concluded that there were 2.5 times more people with #COVID19 in Montreal’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods than the most affluent ones. But that study never mentions racialized minorities, unfortunately.

8) Credit must now go to CBC journalists @robroc, @benshingler and @jonmontpetit for an excellent report on June 11 using census data to show how race, housing and income correlated to the spread of #COVID19 in Montreal. But the story doesn’t end there.

9) This is where two of the biggest stories of our time come together: the #pandemic and #BlackLivesMatter . On May 31, Premier @francoislegault tweeted about the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer. “It reminds us that racism is an evil that still exists.”

10) In June, Legault set up an anti-racism task force. But he was reluctant to concede that systemic racism exists in Quebec, in contrast with Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau who acknowledged “systemic racism exists in all of our institutions, including all of our police forces.”

11) Perhaps Legault’s task force should look at how the #pandemic has disproportionately harmed Montreal’s racialized minorities, and why this is the case. On Sunday, the @TorontoStar published a bombshell report on race and the #pandemic in Toronto.

12) On July 30, the Toronto Public Health Department did what @ArrudaHoracio promised but didn’t deliver and what Montreal authorities did not address in their report: it released data showing how racialized communities in Canada’s biggest city have been harmed the most.

13) I would now like to draw your attention to this piercing insight by Toronto Star reporter @jyangstar: The “lockdown instantly flattened the curve for #Toronto’s richest/whitest areas. For poorest/most racialized (top 2 lines), it kept rising.” Please click on the chart below.

14) This is likely true in Montreal, as the city’s racialized minorities continued to work at poorly-paying jobs to pay the bills. Many worked for private agencies in seniors’ residences and nursing homes, where they were not provided with adequate personal protective equipment.

15) If we are to know the true story behind the #coronavirus crisis in Montreal, if we are to learn lessons for the future, we must study the systemic racism behind the #pandemic in the metropolis. End of thread. Please stay safe as the #COVID19 resurgence continues in this city.