So while experts acknowledge it’s “very human” to freak out, they’ve also said people shouldn’t panic. After all, a person in Canada has better odds of dying from cardiovascular disease than coronavirus.
“What should you worry about?” says Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, a University of Toronto statistics professor and author of Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities, which came out following the SARS epidemic.
“Anything you can do to help your heart. Exercise and eating well are massively more important than the more obscure ways people worry about dying.”
1:34 More Canadians want to be evacuated from Wuhan than room on plane amid novel coronavirus outbreak: Trudeau
More Canadians want to be evacuated from Wuhan than room on plane amid novel coronavirus outbreak: Trudeau
What’s more likely to kill you in Canada?
Cancer
Nearly 80,000 people died from cancer in 2018, according to Statistics Canada. One of the main causes? Smoking. The sooner you quit, the sooner the risk you’ll die early drops, research shows.
“Smoking’s still our number one (risk factor),” says Dr. Doug Manuel, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor in family medicine at the University of Ottawa.
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Cardiovascular disease
In 2018, more than 53,000 Canadians died from heart disease, according to Statistics Canada. It is the second leading cause of death, and 12 Canadian adults who have been diagnosed with heart disease die every hour, according to surveillance data the Public Health Agency of Canada gathered in 2012 and 2013.
Accidents, including a car crash
Nearly 13,300 people died from unintentional injuries caused by collisions in 2018, according to Statistics Canada. And while the number of car accident fatalities has dropped from nearly 3,000 20 years ago, people in Canada are still more likely to die in a car crash than from coronavirus. More than 1,800 people died in a collision in 2017, per figures from Transport Canada.
The flu
Influenza and pneumonia killed 8,511 people in 2018, per Statistics Canada figures. When you narrow the scope to just the common flu, the death toll is around 1,000 per year, says Rosenthal. Once he crunches the numbers, he says this: the odds of a random Canadian dying from the common flu this year is about one in 300,000.
Every year thousands of people in Canada die by suicide — a figure experts say is conservative at best. In 2018, 3,811 people died by suicide. And yet, it is preventable, experts say, if we keep fighting stigma, connecting the data, and working to ensure everyone has access to the treatment they need.
If cancer, heart disease and a car accident don’t strike fear the same way coronavirus does, you’re not alone.
“Why do people fear terrorism and SARS so much more than automobile accidents and cardiovascular disease? Because terrorism and SARS seems new and unknown, and therefore uncertain,” Rosenthal wrote in his book.
“Humans can accept significant danger and loss of numerous lives, provided these happen in a manner to which they are accustomed.
“But when unexpected dangers emerge, they fear these more than is truly justified.”
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Some things we take for granted, says Manuel: getting the flu shot, washing your hands, refrigerating meat, being careful with food preparation, putting our seat belt on when we drive, not driving in bad weather, exercising.
Or, Manuel notes, it’s a case of delayed gratification.
The new coronavirus seems immediate and infectious and scary, while dying from lung cancer or heart disease in the future might not seem quite as immediate when you light up a cigarette or two.
Manuel isn’t discounting the need for vigilance in preventing the spread of the new strain of coronavirus, but he says mostly we need to put our trust and funding in the public health infrastructure such outbreaks demand.
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And what can you do in the interim to live a longer, healthier life? Manuel’s advice isn’t earth-shattering.
“Eat better,” he says. “Don’t smoke.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs help, resources are available. In case of an emergency, please call 911 for immediate help.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
