Port: The 'it's just the flu' crowd owes us an apology People die for a lot of reasons, but in 2020 one of the primary reasons was the coronavirus. On the list of causes of death for North Dakotans last year, coronavirus ranked third, based on data that I'll admit again is provisional, coming in behind only heart disease and cancer. 6:00 am, Feb. 20, 2021 × A woman looks out the window, bearing a mask during the coronavirus pandemic. Isolation was one of the major impacts to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo Illustration by Metro Newspaper Service) MINOT, N.D. — As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged our society a vocal faction — many of them the same folks who treated the application of a cheap, lightweight mask to their faces amid the outbreak of an airborne contagion like it was some major affront to individual liberty — insisted that the virus was no more serious than the flu.