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“Did you hear? One guy died from it.” That’s one of the first things my colleague Ed said to me when I saw him for our meeting the other day.

Ed is a binner who was recently promoted to part-time head coordinator on our staff team at Binners Project. His cracked fingernails and weathered hands were visibly dirty from a day of binning as we sat together setting up his new email account on his phone.

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Up until March 1 he was homeless, living in his van with his two dogs: Daisy and Mr. Donuts.

Ed’s got more things to worry about than washing his hands — but at 62 he’s exactly the kind of person who ought to be thinking about COVID-19.

Just take a quick walk down Hastings Street, and you’ll see first-hand that people who live in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are more likely to be over age 50 and have previous health problems — a group who, according to the numbers, aren’t only the virus’s most likely victims so far, but its most likely fatalities as well.