Hundreds of Canadians are still dying of COVID-19 every week. Who are they?

Even in her 80s, Josephine Moschitto still cheered on her beloved Toronto Blue Jays, went grocery shopping near her retirement home, and had recently discovered the joys of playing Wordle on her iPad.

The Mississauga, Ont., resident lost her husband of six decades in early 2021, and had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. But she was healthy, mobile and still enjoyed time with family, including a lunch with her loved ones in September. 

"And she looked perfectly fine," her son Victor recalled. "We were all talking, laughing ... then a week later, circumstances changed."

That's when Josephine started showing symptoms of COVID-19. And, despite her having received four vaccine doses, the virus took a serious toll. 

The 89-year-old went to a local hospital in late September, and spent a few days in a bed in the emergency department, waiting for a room. At first her illness seemed mild — with none of the telltale breathing problems that used to strike so many COVID patients — but she slowly began to decline.

Victor and his sister Laura visited their mother as much as possible, often playing her favourite oldies, until the hospital stopped allowing visitors during a COVID-19 outbreak. 

"Then she just took a turn for the worse," Laura said.

In her last few days at the hospital, Josephine was put on oxygen and developed pneumonia. She didn't want to be intubated, so she was never transferred into intensive care. 

She died on Oct. 9.

"I always thought to myself that my mom had a few good years left in her," Victor said.

"You all of a sudden realize that the disease that has captured so many lives is actually affecting your family's life."

People such as Josephine — who are elderly, or medically frail for other reasons — are now the classic victims of COVID-19.

And hundreds of Canada's most vulnerable are still dying, every single week, with countrywide deaths stuck at stubbornly high levels in recent months, federal data shows. 

That means Canadian families continue to lose loved ones to this virus on a regular basis, all while hospitals are still admitting seriously ill COVID-19 patients in the midst of ongoing staff shortages, surgery backlogs and a busy respiratory virus season.