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Between those two nursing homes alone, at last count, 59 Canadians have died from COVID-19.

The death tolls certainly aren’t unique to this country. And we have heard of similarly gruesome scenes in other countries — though mostly countries with much higher infection rates than ours, like Spain and the United States. On Thursday, Hans Henri Kluge, the World Health Organization’s European director, said “up to half” of cases on that continent were residents of long-term care facilities. He called it “an unimaginable human tragedy.”

In Ontario the figure is 70 per cent. In Quebec, it’s 80 per cent.

Not all will have passed away in a state of neglect. And while it’s certainly tragic, it’s not “unimaginable.” For all kinds of reasons, including higher rates of lung disease and diabetes, the elderly are simply far less able to fight off something like COVID-19. Housed in close quarters, they are far more likely to catch it.

Clearly, though, not all Canadian jurisdictions put their best foot forward. On April 8, having been caught off guard by the explosion of cases in long-term care homes, Quebec redirected resources from hospitals — who were seeing far fewer patients than anticipated — and announced all care-home residents and staff would be tested for COVID-19. At that point, 85 residents had died of COVID-19.