It was the photo that did it for Jane.
The photo above of some dudes with their masks down in a Burnaby shopping mall just set her off.
Jane is a woman I did a series of stories about late last year after she went to Burnaby Hospital for an emergency procedure and came out with COVID-19, which then spread to her husband.
Jane contacted me again after I wrote recently about just how many people wander indoor spaces without masks – or masks worn improperly - in violation COVID-19 health orders.
Jane is now what they call a COVID-19 long hauler. She’s technically “recovered” but has long-lasting health issues related to having coronavirus.
“If I could say anything to these kids, and think they would listen, it would be this: Stop it, don't let it happen to you,” Jane said. “I've only recently started to really tell people what it was like, how the three worst days and nights I just stayed up and didn't sleep. I was afraid if I so much as napped I wouldn't wake up again because breathing had become that difficult. I was afraid to go back to the hospital, not because I initially got sick there, but because I was afraid if I got readmitted I might never come home again. If I was going to die I wanted it to be at home with my family and my pets, not with the RN scheduled to the ward that day.
“You may be young, but you are not invincible. For your own sake, and those of everybody around you, for just a little while longer please wear those masks. It's not worth it for the sake of vanity or pride or whatever misplaced sentiment you have that is telling you to leave them off. Our health-care system is starting to be stretched. We don't need to replicate the horror stories of other countries.”
So, yeah, if you’re tired of me harping about masks the listen to Jane and the fact that Burnaby recently set its all-time record for weekly cases with 473.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shineboxx44.
