I never was much for math when I was a kid. I tended to gravitate more toward history, science, English – essentially any subject but math.
I’ve come to appreciate the art of numbers in my shuffle along my mortal coil, and nothing has accented that appreciation more than the pandemic.
Recently, British Columbia surpassed 2,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Even if you are one of the many people who accept the truth of the pandemic and are doing everything you can to put it behind us for good, it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around the scale of 2,000 people. That’s not your fault; bigger numbers are easy to hear but harder to picture; that’s just human nature.
But we’re going to try.
For the sake of illustration, we’re not looking at who’s vaccinated and who’s not or any other contributing factor. What this is about is seeing what 2,000 lives lost really is.
As of 2019, Statistics Canada estimates the population of Harrison Hot Springs to be 1,632 people. Imagine Harrison Hot Springs was completely empty, not a soul around. They’re memories and legacies live on, but the people themselves are gone too soon.
And it’s not just them, but add to that death toll the equivalent of the population of most of Harrison Mills (484 as of 2016), which would total 2,116 people, and the eastern Fraser Valley is looking a lot emptier than it used to be.
Zooming out further, deaths have topped 28,500 nationwide. That accounts for more than the entire estimated populations of Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs, Harrison Mills, Hope, Boston Bar, North Bend, Sunshine Valley, Cache Creek, Whistler and Yale – everyone, gone.
Worldwide, we’ve thus far lost 4.55 million people to COVID-19. If all the deaths took place in B.C., roughly nine of every 10 British Columbians would be dead.
I don’t normally seek out negative news or information. Quite the contrary; I keep a running list of all the positive stories I run for myself and others, and I look back on all of them fondly. The uplifting stories are often among my favourite stories of my career. However, I do think there’s a time and place to hopefully compel readers to reflect, understand what’s happened so far and work to end the pandemic so that one day soon no more may die of COVID-19.
I came to a sobering epiphany the other day. As much as I would love to mind-meld with people Star Trek-style to hopefully make them think like I do, there are some who will not accept the truth about the pandemic no matter what. At the end of the day, my responsibility as a newspaper editor begins and ends with providing and curating good, locally relevant information from trusted experts, research and interviews.
What you do with that information is entirely your choice. Powerful though it may be, the distribution and protection of good information is limited in what it can really do, because people have free will. That’s the way it should always be. I can’t make you get vaccinated, follow reasonable protocols or conduct your small business with full compliance and safety of your customers as top priority. I can hope for it, but that’s as far as it can and should go and you’re free to make those choices and live with the results thereof.
We have to make peace with our limitations when it comes to pandemic information. We must be okay with the fact that while there’s plenty we can do, there’s only so much we can do.
So if you’re out there trying to convince anti-vaxxers and working to help those who are hesitant to get the vaccine, I know you’re feeling defeated. I have plenty of those days, too. But what you’re doing is important, and while we may never know the full impact of promoting good, life-saving science as the pandemic wears on, we can sleep at night knowing we’ve done the most we can do to help and heal.
@adamEditor18
adam.louis@ ahobserver.com
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