In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic had sunk its claws into every corner of the world, New York City was hit particularly hard. The bodies of people killed by the virus had become a problem for the municipal government, so they buried them in mass graves on Hart’s Island. A Reuters report at the time cites a city official who confirmed that two dozen bodies a day, five days a week, were being buried in these graves. Photos were passed around social media of workers clad in PPE burying rows of coffins in a ditch.

The loss of life that erupted from COVID in its earth-shattering first year has been something that’s been buried under the rug in the public consciousness. A report from September on the Ontario government’s failure to help long-term care homes, where COVID was catastrophic, was quietly forgotten. None of the opposition parties are interested in holding Ford and the Progressive Conservatives to account.

On November 27, Statistics Canada released the yearly report on the leading causes of death in Canada for 2022. COVID killed 19,716 people in Canada in 2022. The official count of people killed by the virus in 2020 was 15,890.

Life expectancy in Canada also decreased for the third year in a row. COVID was the fourth leading cause of death in Canada for both 2020 and 2021. In 2022, it rose to third. In Atlantic Canada, the rate of COVID deaths in 2022 (59.5 deaths per 100,000 population) was more than seven times higher than 2021 (8.3 deaths). But Statistics Canada notes, “the rate of COVID-19 deaths increased across all Canadian regions, except the Prairies (i.e., Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta).”

COVID officially killed more Canadians last year than in the first year of the pandemic, when CERB, capacity restrictions, mask mandates and public health measures helped curb the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, it killed enough Canadians to reach the third leading cause of death. Where were the news reports?

The Canadian Press released a story on the overall findings of the report. The headline made no mention of COVID, instead focusing on the decline in life expectancy. But COVID makes the first sentence, and remains dominant for the rest of the article.

In fact, most of the headlines on these findings focused on life expectancy, relegating COVID to the body. Anyone who finds the news story in a social feed, but doesn’t read the article, will be missing key information. This Canadian Press story was published in various forms by CBC News, CP24, CTV News

Muddled Reporting

Still, even when news outlets report on the COVID deaths, downplaying the pandemic remains a background motivation. A CTV News article on the subject mentions “Record-breaking COVID deaths” alongside the opioid crisis. This is a fair bundling, as deaths in younger people are more due to these factors, but then the it downplays the findings on COVID. The article states “the numbers suggest that COVID’s mortality impact may be less extreme this year.” Immediately following this, the information that COVID killed more people than 2021 is mentioned, but not that the disease killed more people than the first year of the pandemic.

The article also mentions that COVID death rates in 2023 are “their lowest since the pandemic began.” In addition, with the rough estimate of 6,200 since January and mid-November, COVID would be the eighth-most common cause of death “between influenza and pneumonia (roughly 6,000 deaths in 2022) and diabetes mellitus (7,600) deaths.”

Sandwiched between these sentiments is an admission that this is an inaccurate evaluation of the current state of COVID. “Health Canada notes, however, that more recent totals for cases and deaths should be interpreted with caution, as they may be subject to undercounts due to delayed reporting.”

Typically, this type of contextualizing of official government figures would be welcome. But it’s telling that no other cause of death receives remotely the same level of scrutiny in the piece.

The piece is not entirely without merit. It does discuss the direct effect of COVID on the wider life-expectancy in G7 countries. Consulting a multinational review by researchers in Europe and the UK, they quote its finding that the pandemic “had induced a protracted mortality shock.” The article even kicks off with “years on from the beginning of the pandemic,” eschewing the “after the pandemic" trope.

But even so, the piece takes other pains to put the COVID pandemic in the past. “[A]s COVID deaths decrease year-on-year,” one passage reads. The piece quotes the StatCan report’s language describing a “gradual return to normalcy.” The life expectancy changes represent a “post-pandemic drop.”

The Bare Minimum

Other pieces take similar approaches, all taking varying acknowledgements of the ongoing pandemic. In a shining moment of hope, The Toronto Star piece directly mentions the role that restrictions and apathy played in the higher deaths from the virus.

Doctors and public health researchers, reflecting on the deadliest year of the pandemic, attributed the spike in deaths to fatigue and indifference to infection most Ontarians had shown as the year wore on, supported by the gradual lifting of pandemic restrictions. That left the immunocompromised and senior to fend for themselves, as fewer people masked, and infections spread.

Other pieces weren’t so direct. Global News took similar factors in the increased rate of death from COVID and presented it in a downplayed manner.

This increase may in part be due to the exposure to new highly transmissible COVID-19 variants and the gradual return to normalcy (such as reduced restrictions and masking requirements), the federal agency added. [Emphasis added]

This isn’t to say that the Global News piece completely disregards the analysis of increased COVID deaths, but it does do its best to tamp down on how the abdication of public health has contributed to these deaths.

Credit where credit is due, these outlets have gone into the dimensions of an increased death rate from COVID in 2022 compared to previous years. However, not a single headline included that 2022 was the deadliest year of the pandemic. None of them mentioned the COVID infections lead to increased chance of cardiovascular issues, as heart disease was the second leading cause of death from 2018-2022. None mentioned the role that long COVID plays in increasing the chance of death, including from heart and lung issues. None ask what public health can do to lessen these deaths.

Then… it was gone. Simply a blip in the news cycle. If the average news consumer was aware of this report, it’s most likely from the headline. If they bothered to read the article, they may be informed of COVID’s impact last year, but it was contextualized by the idea that this is not something to continually be concerned about. This is how reality is invented.

Even when Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Kieran Moore made his increasingly rare appearance to announce that “a lot” of COVID was spreading around Ontario, he didn’t mention the report’s findings. Moore refused to reintroduce public health measures, as well. Instead, Moore will “continue the risk communication” and individual access to protection. The Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health felt that more Canadians dying from the pandemic in 2022 than 2020 wasn’t worth mentioning.

When did the pandemic end?

The reporting of this story plays into a phenomenon that’s permeated the discussion (or lackthereof) surrounding COVID and the pandemic. Often, those in the media or in public will say something along the lines of “after the pandemic” or “the pandemic is over.”

When, exactly, did it end? How do we qualify that?

Some point to Joe Biden’s announcement on May 11 that the pandemic was over. But a post two weeks later from the Cleveland Clinic interviewed pulmonologist Raed Dweik, MD, on this subject. Long story short, it’s complicated. The WHO didn’t actually say the pandemic was over, just that it was no longer a “public health emergency of international concern.” As CBC News reported, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat.”

The ongoing deaths, long COVID spread and resulting heart and lung complications from infection still constitute a pandemic, especially considering the low-rates of people in Canada of people staying updated on their vaccines. As of writing, the amount of Canadians who have completed their primary series of doses or a booster in the past 6 months is only 3.4 per cent.

This is all besides the point, really. There is no agreed-upon “end” of the pandemic, especially since the death rates we have concrete information on are comparable to the beginning. Those who claim it’s over are simply going off of the narrative that the news media and governments have cultivated. All these updates about deaths and spread appear as aftershocks. Venues are open, mask mandates aren’t implemented and COVID updates aren’t diligently covered by the news media. In effect, there is no pandemic… because there is no pandemic response.

Clearly, the pandemic isn’t over. At this rate, it never will be.

Author’s Note: I will be on vacation from Dec. 10-20. As such, The Catch will not publish for the next two weeks. Chances are, this Saturday’s ICYMI will be the second-last post by the end of the year, followed by The Catch Inaugural Weasel Awards. Don’t expect another regular analysis post for the rest of the year, unless something really aggravating happens like last time I was on vacation.