The 50,000-death milestone is shocking, but we must look beyond the numbers

The news of the vaccine this week raised hopes that the end is in sight, writes Sean O’Grady – but this grim milestone is a sobering reminder of the staggering toll the pandemic has taken

A volunteer at a temporary morgue in Birmingham (PA)

Imagine walking around a graveyard with 50,000 memorial stones, each and every one memorialising a loved one taken before their time. They would surely stretch further than the eye could see. You would be struck that the great majority would be of the old, with their dates of birth from the 1950s back to the 1930s and beyond. A quarter would be 85 or more when they passed on, some of the last of the “great generation”. There would, though, also be a few tragically young deaths marked on the headstones, perhaps one in 100. Those from Bame backgrounds would be disproportionately represented, as would those from the north of England. The inscriptions might tell you just how many nurses, doctors, care workers and bus and train staff were afflicted by this modern plague. The poor would be over-represented. It is emotionally draining just to envisage such a vista, and there will be thousands more in the cemeteries before the vaccine is distributed.  

Thus far, there is no actual monument to the 50,000 taken by Covid-19. We call it a “milestone”; a tombstone, more like. It is a poignant coincidence that the death toll was reached on the day that the nation remembered the Unknown Warrior and prayers were offered at his tomb. Nations need a focus for their grief.