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Buried in the statistics, in the daily updates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, is the heart-wrenching human loss of a loved one.

There were 43 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in B.C. as of Tuesday afternoon.

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Like all those who have died, death No. 39 had a name. It was Warlito Valdez. He had a wife. He had a four-year-old daughter.

Valdez was 47 and he died sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning as he self-isolated on the top floor of his three-storey Richmond townhouse.

Valdez’s wife, Flozier Tabangin, found her husband unresponsive on Sunday morning, after he did not return her text messages asking what he would like for breakfast.

“I was running upstairs, ‘Please Lord, please Lord, please Lord,'” Tabangin said. “I shouted, I screamed” ‘Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me!'”

Chest compressions did no good and he was declared dead when paramedics arrived.

“My husband is gone when we need him most. What is the future for my daughter? How will I pay for our townhouse with just one paycheque? Who will help me?”

Tabangin is not casting blame, but she wants this to be a lesson about the grave danger posed by COVID-19.

Valdez’s home death from COVID-19 was the second in B.C.

How did this happen?