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That could very easily happen here in very short order

It warns of six months’ worth of deaths compressed into six weeks.

“Most crematoriums can handle about one body every 4 hours and could probably be run over 24 hours to cope with increased demand. Cremations have fewer resource requirements than burials and, where acceptable, this may be an expedient and efficient way of managing large numbers of deceased during a pandemic.

“Refrigerated trucks can generally hold 25-30 bodies without additional shelving.”

They are hard words to read.

It is the job of disaster planners to think about the unthinkable.

The scenarios they envision are the stuff of nightmares and end-times movies but, it stands to reason, having such plans are better than the alternative of not having them, while also hoping they are never needed.

What is happening around the world and beginning across Canada makes this contagion of novel coronavirus the most worrisome health scare in generations.

Photo by Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters

Hope of containment has failed.

What was once an alarming but distant tragedy in China is now, in a slow-to-dawn suddenness most saw coming but didn’t accept, Canadian reality. Or at least the start of what is expected to become reality.

Many Canadians seem stuck in the stage of thinking the most important thing is to hoard toilet paper or else laugh at people hoarding toilet paper.

The reality, however, is sinking in.

As the virus jumps from country to country, each nation reacts in its own way. A mix of surprise and dark humour greeted the curtailment of national passions and deemed a doomsday sign: Iran cancelling public Friday prayers, an end to kissing in Italy, closing of pubs in Belgium, shuttering soccer in Spain, cancelling basketball in March in the United States, the end of Tim Hortons’ Roll-Up-The-Rim contest in Canada.