Beyond the numbers: Why stories matter during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wake up, check the news, see the numbers, repeat. The COVID-19 pandemic has ingrained a new fervour for analytics into the public consciousness. By indulging our desire to obsessively monitor the latest case counts, ICU admissions and deaths, the narrative of COVID-19 has been defined by “successes” and “failures” based on uptrends and downtrends.

Yet, in the midst of this flurry of numbers and data, it’s easy to lose sight of the thousands of human beings who are working on the front lines of this pandemic.

Every week, physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and other health care providers return to their hospital wards and clinics. Grocery store employees, transit drivers and other essential workers of all kinds return to their workplaces. The work may be similar, but their lives have been entirely transformed. Essential workers are intimately familiar with the changed realities of our day-to-day lives in the era of a global pandemic. Each of them have stories to tell; we have a duty to listen. Here’s why.

First, as many of us are confined to our homes, narratives from front line workers provide a window into the human impact of the virus. The ground-level experiences of essential workers are an important medium to facilitate human connection and understanding, and develop a sense of community. Through their work every day, they bear witness to both the most uplifting and ravaging aspects of the pandemic, caring for our most vulnerable, working through equipment shortages, and putting their lives and families at risk to support others. Understanding the world through their eyes is understanding the pandemic at its core.

Second, evidence from the SARS pandemic shows that the impact of disease outbreaks extends far beyond physical health, especially for those on the front lines. Listening to each others’ stories and mutually investing in shared reflection is integral. Now more than ever, workers across the country and the world need to know that we are in this together. We need to convey to these individuals that we see them, and we hear them.

Finally, in the face of uncertainty and fear, we must hold onto the hope that things will get better. Narratives can serve as an important source of optimism, and anchor us in reality. Stories remind us of our humanism and compassion for ourselves, for each other, and for those on the other side of the face shields.

Amid the storm of social media and news coverage of COVID-19, we created a new initiative called Faces of COVID to fill an important gap in humanizing this pandemic. We approached Healthy Debate with our vision to capture stories from front line workers across the country. Inspired by storytelling microblogs like Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York and Healthy Debate’s Faces of Healthcare, we sought to share and archive the experiences of front-line workers. Using the motto “think big, start small,” we started interviewing and photographing front-line workers we knew. The project grew quickly, and the team expanded to include medical students, nurses, residents, physicians and journalists with a deep appreciation for storytelling. The engagement and response from both medical and non-medical communities have been tremendous — a testament to a void with no place to connect over shared experiences through a time of unparalleled change. There is something incredibly moving about being able to connect with the stories of people on the front lines, and we are privileged to be able to make it happen.

As we navigate our lives through a unique set of perspectives, this pandemic is an open call to the global community to find ways to come together and remain connected.

This is not a need that is limited to the hospital wards. This is a need that permeates our grocery store lines, taps onto the buses we board and touches every encounter we have in our day-to-day lives. In a period where everyone is being challenged to adapt to massive change on personal, professional and societal levels, we owe it to ourselves — and to the essential workers who hold our communities together — to do more than observe from afar. We owe it to ourselves and them to listen.

Everyone has a story. What’s yours? Reach out to contactus@healthydebate.ca and help us take a few steps in your shoes.

Arnav Agarwal is an internal medicine resident physician at the University of Toronto. Rishi Bansal is an undergraduate student at McMaster University. Other members of the leadership team include Seema Marwaha, Sahil Gupta, Nikita Singh, Yifan Yang, Mollie Sivaram and Anika Rain.

There is something incredibly moving about being able to connect with the stories of people on the front lines.