TORONTO -- As Canada surpasses 1,000 deaths due to COVID-19, the names and faces of victims are piling up.
From 34-year-old Shawn Auger, a father of three from Alberta, to 99-year-old Marguerite Mary Adams Miller, a retired nurse from Ontario, COVID-19 has taken so many lives that it’s hard to track the individual stories of each victim.
More than a thousand people are gone; more than a thousand families devastated.
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One of those gone is Bianca Rossetto. Her nickname was Ferrari because of a sticker she had of the car manufacturer on her buggy at the Niagara Falls Nursing Home she lived at.
She died of COVID-19 just weeks after celebrating her 85th birthday.
Her son said that the family can’t even grieve properly due to the pandemic.
“It’s been extremely difficult right now to have my sister standing here, six feet away, being emotional, and I can’t just give her a big hug,” he told CTV News.
Among the waves of deaths and cases, the virus has claimed its first victim at a Toronto care home for adults with disabilities.
This morning, 58-year-old Martin Frogley became the first resident there to die of the virus.
His family said in a statement that he died while “listening to music he loved,” and that he was “a wonderful son, uncle and the best brother anyone could have ever asked for.”
At the facility, 37 of the 42 residents has tested positive for COVID-19. Thirteen staff have also contracted the virus.
Nearly half of the deaths across Canada are linked to outbreaks within long-term care homes, leaving families who still have loved ones living within a care home panicked.
Tracey Pitoscia, who had her mother removed from a long-term care home, told CTV News that it’s “scary.”
“I mean, when my mom comes back, will her friends be here?” She asked.
Ontario and Quebec have the highest number of deaths recorded, at 385 and 487 respectively, as of Wednesday.
But the true extent of the crisis in Ontario may be much larger; the province has the lowest per capita rate of testing in the entire country.
Only 119,000 tests have been done, in a province with more than 14 million people.
