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So, I want to talk about the story we published today about Niagara's deadliest #COVID19 weekend. 22 confirmed deaths in 48 hours. By any stretch, a tragedy that should wound a community deeply. So let's chat a bit. Pull up a chair.
To catch up, read this story:
It was Niagara’s deadliest pandemic weekend, and more deaths are likely on the way https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara-region/2021/01/25/it-was-niagaras-deadliest-pandemic-weekend-and-more-deaths-are-likely-on-the-way.html via @StCatStandard
It was Niagara’s deadliest pandemic weekend, and more deaths are likely on the way https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara-region/2021/01/25/it-was-niagaras-deadliest-pandemic-weekend-and-more-deaths-are-likely-on-the-way.html via @StCatStandard
So let's consider that number. 22 people. That is 22 people with names. Families. Friends. They contributed. And despite what the anti-maskers will tell you, they had lives that had value and meaning. Their loss should impact us all. 22 people in 48 hours.
But I am not sure it does impact us deeply. Not in the way it would if 22 people died in a bus crash. Or a fire. Or by murder or suicide. That would, and rightly does, galvanize a community and its political leaders. We mourn, collectively, and privately.
Not long ago, St. Catharines saw a rash of deaths by suicide on a public bridge. The community was rightfully upset. It rally behind the families of the lost. The politicians demanded something be done to prevent it from happening again.
A decade ago, I covered the horrible loss of an entire family in a rural house fire. The whole community rallied behind the surviving husband. Niagara was shocked and hurt and acted with kindness and generosity. The politicians were not silent then either.
But here we are, 22 people died in 48 hours and the response, at least from leaders and people with influence is mostly silence today. No ribbon campaigns. No tearful calls for more to be done. No rallying the community to the cause.
Again, think about that. 22 people in 2 days.
Again, think about that. 22 people in 2 days.
I reckon this is, in part, because we are all a little numb nearly 12 months into a pandemic knowing we have probably at least that long to go before it's over. But the other part is, I think, because these folk were elderly.
Like most of the people who have died during the pandemic, they were very old, vulnerable in LTC homes. They were not young, or pretty, or up and coming. And so, we collectively seem to care a little less.
I mean, we live in a society where when Gordon Downie died, political leaders wept in public. I know the man and his music meant a lot to many, many people. Nothing wrong with that grief. But these were 22 of our own people. 22!
Actually, 22, of 276 Niagara residents lost. I stand to be corrected, but have their been public tears for any of them? Or have we wasted time with arguments over why must we wear masks, quack cures and the urge to spin everything as positively as possible?
Look at this graphic. Every data point on it represents a person who had family and friends now grieving. Framed that way, do you not find this at least a little upsetting?
COVID-19 in Niagara: deaths over time https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/4841001/ Visualised with @f_l_o_u_r_i_s_h
COVID-19 in Niagara: deaths over time https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/4841001/ Visualised with @f_l_o_u_r_i_s_h
I know, we are shocked by unexpected deaths. A teenager is killed, we are more shocked than when a 90-year-old dies. But I would posit that the problems in our LTC homes, so brutally exposed by #COVID19, are rooted in that penchant for caring just a little be less about the old.
I don't know. I might just be a little tired, like everyone else, 12 months into #COVID19. But it just seems rather mendacious than this community has lost so many people and our leaders have said so little about it. No tears.
Perhaps, if we cared as much for the elderly in our community as we did about Gordon Downie (Or John Prine in my case) and if we were less concerned about our immediate self-interest, it would not have become his bad. Perhaps.
Thurgood Marshall said we have to dissent from the apathy, and indifference and dissent from the mendacity and do better. And if our leaders in our community won't say it, then we ought to ourselves. All of us.
The human cost of this pandemic has been high. Beyond jobs lost, and the frustrations of working at home all the time, and lockdowns. The cost in the faces of those 276 people and those who will soon join that count. We should not forget that. Any of us. https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara-region/2020/07/14/niagara-residents-lost-during-the-covid-19-pandemic.html
The pandemic, for everything else it is has done, has held up a mirror to all of us, and far too often the reflection we see is anything but flattering. If nothing else, we should at least acknowledge the loss of those 276 people and not let that fact pass without notice.
Tomorrow is another day. Another chance to do better.
Be safe. Be smart. And, please, be kind.
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Be safe. Be smart. And, please, be kind.
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