Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #203 - Dr. Kevin Govender

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Chief of staff at the Lloydminster hospital hopped on to discuss vaccines, Covid-19 variants & misinformation. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

This is Glenn Healy. Hi, this is Braden Holby. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Jordan Tutu. This is Keith Morrison. This is Kelly Rudy. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell.

Hey, everybody. My name is Steele-Fer. This is Tim McAuliffe of SportsNet, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. I hope everybody had a great weekend. And whatever you're up to this week, maybe back to work, school, where we're at. Hopefully things are rolling along for you.

Today we got a great episode on tap for you. Local doctor here from town. We'll get into that here shortly. Let's get on to our episode sponsors for the day. Carly Clause and the team over at Windsor Plywood, they are the builders of the podcast studio table. If you haven't seen this sucker, two big old slabs of wood. They did the epoxy.

It looks, wow, that's the best part of maybe the studio. Everybody comes in, wants to rub it. And if you're looking to build your own table, you should see some of the slabs of wood they have over at Windsor Plywood. I promise you will not be disappointed. If you're looking and you want to take a, or if you want to take a sneak peek of what they got, head on to Instagram or their Facebook page. Do a little creep in, creep in. And see what they got there because they got some stunning, stunning pieces of wood.

Anyways, whether you're talking about mantles, decks, windows, doors, or sheds, you know, stop into Windsor plywood or give them a call. 780 875-9663 mortgage broker jill fisher her name says it all she probably serves the areas of the way mr bonnieville cold lake and vermillion and she's looking forward to working with you for all your mortgage needs i know personally when it comes to mortgages the numbers the percentages everything you know just listen to me talk about it you're like well that's exactly how i feel about the entire process and if you get somebody like mrs jill fisher to hop on board she can make it nice, easy, and streamline for you and can figure out pretty much whether you need to renew or what you can get for a rate, et cetera. I don't think there's been ever a better time to get

rates for your house. Give her a call 780-872-2914 or stop into jfisher.com. She can give you all those lovely details and make your life a little less stressful. Clay Smiley and the team over at Prophet River Update on their new building. Concrete is poured. Interior walls and offices are being framed and the front showroom is being painted. They're moving into the old buckle and I tell you what, I drive by often and live right behind the place. And it is busy. There's people going in left, right, and center. And if, well, I'm just excited to see what the new place is going to look like. They specialize in importing firearms from the United States of America and they pride themselves on making it as easy for their customers as possible. They do all the paperwork, make sure it gets to you, yada, yada. And I really

mean that because you're like, honestly, I just want to buy the gun and have a show up. Well, go to profitriver.com and you'll find out just how easy it is, all right? They are the major retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories serving all of Canada. Trophy Gallery, downtown Lloydminster is Canada's supplier for glass and crystal awards. They got sports memorabilia. They got medals. They got it all. So with all the sports organizations firing up and hopefully we get to, you know, I've been seeing

some videos of kids hockey and such. If you're looking for awards towards, you know, as we move into the season, that type of thing, Clint's your man. He's got it all down there. I always talk about the travel mugs he did up for the podcast. They looked sharp, sharp, sharp, like they were. Oh, man, still use it. Everyone I've given out, they're like, man, this is nice. Wow, that's trophy gallery's work.

That is Clint. And he does, if you hop on his website, trophygallery.com.ca, you can see all the different products he has, all the shape, sizes, all the different price ranges. Stop into a store. You can check out some of the signed memorabilia. I always point out when we had the Sydney Crosby signed jersey that well, we raised a little bit of money for the men's shelter. That came through Trophy Gallery, all right? So take a look at their website, trophygallery.com. Finally, Jen Gilbert and the team for over 45 years since 1976, the dedicated realtors of Coldwell Banker, Cityside Realty have served. Lloydminster in the surrounding area. Star Power is what they provided.

their clients with seven day a week access because they know big life decisions do not happen during office hours. Colwell Banker, Cityside Realty for everything real estate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 780 8753343. Read and write, if you're looking for outdoor signage, go take a look at the SMP billboard across from the airport or, you know, if you're looking for some interior wall quotes, I got them to do one up for me on my wall. It looks sharp.

Or even the SMP logo behind my head in all the videos. That's all done by reading right. Gartner Management is a Lloydminster-based company, specializing all types of rental properties to help meet your needs. Whether you're looking for a small office or 6,000 square foot commercial space, give Wade Gartner a call at 880808, 5025. And if you're heading into any of these businesses, make sure you let them know you heard one from the podcast, right?

Now let's get on in that T-Barr-1, Tale of the Tape. He's the chief staff at the Loyminster Hospital, practicing physician prof-medd clinic. I'm talking about Dr. Kevin Govinder. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Kevin Govinder. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Today I am joined by Dr. Kevin Governor. So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate it. You're a busy man. and I appreciate with all my guests, giving me some of your time. I hear a little birdie told me that you're going to be running in December. You're deciding to cause yourself a little bit of pain, are you?

Yeah, I think I am. I'm going to give it a shot. See how it goes. I should. I never been a runner, but, you know, I mean, I mean. So why not start in December of all months? And I should give the listeners, they're going, what is Sean talking about? We do the Christmas live stream for the Health Foundation, which raises money for the hospital

and a bunch of different projects around Lloyd Minster. Last year we did it and we had Mikey Dubs run, well, a ridiculous amount, Kevin. What was it, 124 kilometers and 12 hours on a treadmill? And so this year, I don't know the fullest extent. And I can't break the beans on what it is because they haven't even announced it. But they got a new idea coming up that's. going to pit some different residents or get them on the same side, who knows, running. And I found out you're one of them.

And I was laughing when I asked, well, the first thing I asked is, is, was he, does he run? And he's like, well, no. I'm like, so he doesn't run and he's going to try and run in the middle of winter, in the dark for 12, like, I don't know the full extent of it. Obviously, it ain't the same thing as Mikey Dobbs, but I commend you for doing that. you got a little bit of an adventure on your side, or on your side, I take it. Yeah, adventure in my future. Well, I look forward to that.

Now, of course, that's not why I got you on to talk about, well, maybe who knows, maybe in the future we'll get you back on to talk about that too. With all that's been going on over the last year and a half, closing in on two years, to be honest, there's been tons of information, good, bad, and different, just tons. I was laughing this morning as soon as my phone went off, woke up, my phone started going off with different articles, different things. And sometimes you just got to put that thing away. But before we get into all of that, I was hoping you could give the audience. There's lots of people certainly in Lloyd who know who you are, doctor. But maybe, Kevin, could you give a little of your backstory? And we'll start there so people can get a feel for who you are and certainly some of your credentials. So I'm a family physician in Lloyd. I moved to Lloyd in 2006. So we, 15 years in Lloyd,

I moved here with my wife, Kabashne, and our then almost three-year-old son, Keegan. And we've had two other kids since then. So there's Deney and Cade. studied at the University of Pitpartisrand in Johannesburg and moved to Canada soon after worked a few years in South Africa and then moved to move to Lloydminster and been here since. I am an avid sports fan and I'm still playing sport, you know, whenever we can, I guess. There was not much in terms of sporting activity over the last couple of years,

so decided to take up a bit of road biking. So bought myself a road bike and started riding a little bit. And now apparently I'm going to become a runner. Maybe you'll, for the people who can't are listening, they won't be able to see this. But I guess next year, we'll get you on that team. I've got a bike for breakfast T-shirt on for all the listeners. Now, the reason I was bringing on, Kevin, is I've been doing, well, there's a big push right now, right?

The pandemic of the unvaccinated, you're a very credible person from sitting here in our own town. And I thought, first, I always think fear paralyzes people. So when I told people you were coming on, man, the questions go across the board. So I thought maybe first we could talk about what you're actually seeing here in Lloydminster, try and bring it to a level that people can understand and maybe understand what's exactly going on. Absolutely. So this pandemic hit Lloydminster probably in March of 2020. That's when we saw our first patient. I was at the emergency room hanging out, you know, just trying to give some support to the team and our first patient COVID-19 patient was seen at the hospital and of course you know from

then it's there's been a kind of a steady increase in the numbers and then you know you kind of get it tapers off and then there's a steady increase and tapers off we've had you know first phase second phase third phase and now we've kind of in like in the fourth phase or fourth wave of the of the pandemic driven by variants. Now, we know that variants are going to happen. We know that this virus is going to mutate, which is normal natural progression of any viral type of infection. And typically as the virus mutates and we get these variants, they typically become stronger, more resistant, more infectious, something that we call more virulent. And this is what we are seeing. You know, we thought we had a bit of a lull, probably early, early part of the summer.

And then we have the Delta variant, which is now the predominant variant in the country and of course in Lloydminster. Delta variant is a lot more infectious, causing people to become a lot sicker. We are seeing more deaths, more significant illness, intubation, ventilations, patients needing to be on antibiotics significantly more than we did in the other phases of the pandemic. So current status at the Lloydminster Hospital is we haven't seen as many admissions in the last couple of weeks. We've seen more in the last couple of weeks than we have seen at any time during the pandemic. So that's that's very concerning. And normally these things kind of according to projections will follow a six to eight week course, right? And depending on

the interventions that we put in in the interim, we either, you know, we'll either get significantly worse or significantly better. So I'm worried. I'm concerned. I'm trying to do as much as I can with all our colleagues, our medical colleagues to try and stave off worst-case scenario, you know, as with anything. You know, if something is looking like it's going to go bad, you know, you kind of try and put in interventions to try and, you know, mitigate against that, right? Yeah, so I'm curious because you're such a spotlight on this and on everything about this. If you go back over your 15 years in Lloyd, like, is there anything that compares to this? Like when flu season comes around, was flu, you know, like, I don't,

I don't know. Like before there wasn't eyes on that are on everything about this right now. So I'm just curious. We've never, we've never seen anything that, you know, the likes of this, right? We've seen, we, when was it, 2009 was the, H1N1 swine flu pandemic that was supposed to be the next worst thing. You know, we kind of, we washed our hands, we coughed into our sleeves, we used hand sanitizer, we stayed at home when we were sick. And it was probably the mildest influenza season with regards to sickness and death that we'd seen in years. With this pandemic, even though we put in all of those measures and masking, we still see significant illness.

There's been a ton of talk around the mass. Lots of people, they don't work, they do work. You go down that rabbit hole of videos from professionals on both sides of that. And I, you know, like on this discussion, there was very quickly, or maybe slowly, I don't even know, there's quickly become two sides of an argument on everything mass being one of them mass don't work they do work okay um no i i guess i'm i'm curious what you've seen from it right like yeah so you know i think i think you know there's lots there's lots of studies out there uh Sean and i'll give you i'll give you a story and and i'll ask you a question this the story the story is is very apt because i

think it kind of lends itself to what you're reading on the internet. So I have a nephew that lives with us and my son, Kegan, who is 17. I mean, when they were a lot younger, they were drinking lots of Coca-Cola. So my wife said to them, you guys should not be drinking Coca-Cola. They were sneaking Coca-Cola into their rooms and stuff like that. There were cans of Coca-Cola everywhere. So my wife said to them, listen, guys, Coca-Cola is going to stunt your growth. And they said, no ways.

So she went on the internet, she found an article, a medical article, that actually showed or proved the point that she was going to make. Coca-Cola causes retardation of your growth. And she pointed it out and gave it to these boys. And of course, the boys have significantly reduced their intake of Coca-Cola, right? So you can get anything.

Now, was that peer-reviewed article? Probably not. Could you reproduce the study? Probably not. But it was a study that's on the internet. It's there. It's fantastic. Yeah, she proved her point, and it was great, right?

And I was fully supportive. So our experience with masking, back in April of 2020, we had an outbreak at the Lloyd-Munster Hospital. I don't know if you remember that. We had a COVID-19 outbreak. There were over 100 staff members that had to self-isolate and or were sick with COVID as a result of that outbreak. And that was just before the masking policy. So hospital masking policy was introduced across Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Health Authority.

So we were essentially caught with our pants down, so to speak, right, because there was no masking policy in place at the hospital. And as a result, we lost 109 staff members for at least two weeks at a time, right? And that went on for a few weeks. And you can imagine what the fallout of that. Losing a hundred and, what do we have, 375 staff members, right? So more than a quarter of our workforce at some stage was down, self-isolating for a period of two weeks. So since then, we've hardly had anything because since then we've had a masking policy that's been in place. Outbreaks have been almost non-existent. So does it work? As I said, you can show me whatever data you want. Our personal experience at the hospital, Lloyd Hospital, has been that it works.

Yeah, no, that's a hell of a story. I mean, who can argue with that, Kevin? Which one the cold story or the Both? Well, hell, I might print off the one for the kids, right? I mean, it's why getting doctors on is so important, Kevin, right? Like, if I sit and read too many articles either way, your brain can explode, right? You're right in the middle of our community. Lots of people trust exactly what you're talking about. And so to have you come on after I've had several different doctors that have spurred on a lot of thoughts, right? It doesn't help when politicians, I know they're trying to do what is right. And maybe you agree with everything they're saying. So I guess that brings the vaccination thing.

I mean, are you seeing the pandemic of the unvaccinated right now? Are you seeing any vaccinated? Does it matter? Does, you know, like, is running for everybody to get, nah, there's too many questions. Let's go back. What are you seeing right now? So, you know, there's no doubt. I mean, the evidence shows that vaccination prevents serious infection and death.

So vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine is not going to prevent you from getting COVID, but it prevents you from becoming very, very sick. So, you know, we've seen patients that are really old and patients that you think, okay, this patient has got COVID and for sure is not going to be with us in the next week or two. Survive, right, and do well. And then you see, you know, younger patients that do really, really poorly are intubated and ventilated because they are unvaccinated. So do vaccines work? Vaccines work, I think they prevent in serious infection.

They prevent death. And that's the big thing, you know, to stay alive, I think that's the most important thing. sure most people will will agree with that. But, you know, there's a lot of controversy with the vaccines. And, you know, you've, you've heard, and I'm sure many people have said, and I've heard it many times, you know, this is an unproven science. It's, they've rushed the production of the vaccine. It's taken, you know, within one year. And normal, you know, traditional vaccines take 10 years to develop and all of that. And of course, it leads to confusion. it leads to fear, right?

And then fear leads to people not acting on things that they need to act on. And of course, fear, as you know, leads to irrational thought. So that's what I'm seeing. Do you want me to speak to a little bit on the vaccine and the history of the vaccine and stuff like that? Yeah, sure. One of the things I, the one side always talks about VERS. You know, and I mentioned this. Yes, yes.

And, and like, I can look at the numbers and I can go, okay, right? Like, it's saying that vaccines do a lot of harm. Yes. But you don't hear. Well, I shouldn't say you don't hear it. You hear a lot of doctors talk about that. You also hear a lot of doctors say that it's a lot of horse rubbish. Well, I think what happens then is most people are like, well, which is it?

Right. Like, is it rubbish or is there, right? Like, I don't know what to make of that. No, and fair. enough. Look, and I think it's, you know, then again, it's important. So here again, it's important to be able to to know what is reliable in terms of the information that you're getting. And that's, that's the biggest thing, you know, is something, is something reliable. So if you've got somebody who wants to push an agenda and kind of floods the, you know, verres with a particular

adverse effect, the numbers are going to buy, it's a numbers game, right? So, you know, I, I would rely on, you know, Governor Canada statistics, statistics from, from reputable institutions. And I mean, you know, we,

there's, you know, anybody, it's self-reporting. So it's a self-reporting website. So anybody can report any adverse effects. Can those, those adverse effects be verified?

Not always, right? But when you, go to the Government of Canada website when you, I quoted for myeloid minister now a couple of a week ago last week, 52 million doses of vaccine given 3,328 serious adverse effects. So that will include your myocarditis, your pericarditis, your DVTs, and so on, right? allergic anaphylaxis, there were 3,328 that was out of 52 million doses, which is 0.007%, which is exceedingly low if you kind of, if you have to think about it.

You know, a colonoscopy, for example, the risk of a perforation if you're having a colonoscopy is one in a thousand. your risk of having a clot if you are if you get COVID is one in a in 100. The risk of you getting a clot if you are admitted with COVID is one in one in 20, right? And 20% of those patients are probably going to die because of the clot. So yes, you know, they are adverse effects. Absolutely. You know, I've had several patients with adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccination.

That's a reality. With any medical treatment, you are going to get adverse events. Absolutely. Whether it's surgical, whether it's a medical treatment, you are going to have adverse effects. And that's the risk. And, you know, if you go for surgery, Sean, you're going to, you sign an indemnity form or a consent for surgery. right? You're going to have your appendix out. They're going to say, okay, these are the risks of the procedure. This is what the benefits are. And it's a risk benefit, right? You sign, you say, okay, fine, I indemnify the surgeon and the hospital from any, I understand the procedure. It's called informed consent. And you sign it and you say, okay, you know what, I'm willing to take the risk.

And that's what it's, you know, unfortunately, that's what it is about. No treatment. is 100% safe. Hmm. I'm curious then. Do you think the push on getting everyone vaccinated is the right? Because, I mean, obviously, it's a small risk. Very, very small. There still is risk.

And for every patient, you know, the 300-pound man, the guy, me, the 12-year-old kid, the pregnant woman, the healthy woman, the unhealthy woman, all these different people, every person has a different, genetic makeup, so to speak, right, and where they're at in life and everything else. The push rate now, I think the last I saw on Alberta, and I could be wrong a little bit on my numbers, but I want to say 70% is where they're at, vaccination, double both doses, and 78.something percent is got one dose, so they're almost 80%. Like, if we get to 100%, does this entire thing goes away?

if you vaccinated, if you think about it, you know, if you've got, look at polio, for example, you know, we've almost eradicated polio. Is this going to go away completely? It's not going to, it's not going to go away completely, but I mean, it's going to be such a small circulating percentage that it's not going to cause any pandemics or it's not going to cause any epidemics. So it's not going to cause any significant disease in a particular area. It may cause small amounts of disease, but it's going to be a pandemic. So is it going to go away to all intents and purposes? Yes, we've almost eradicated polio. And if you, you know, if you talk to people around the time of the polio vaccine, when the polio vaccine was introduced, people said, I will never take this, don't take this,

you. And now we don't even think about it. You know, you get polio vaccine all the time. I would agree with you on that. I mean, when it comes to polio, people have just, just line up and where they go, right? Like I agree with that on. They didn't. They didn't. In the beginning, they did it. They didn't. No, they didn't. Don't speak to somebody who's like 70 plus years old.

Right? And they'll tell you there was a lot of resistance. There was. What do you make at Israel and all the data coming in from different parts of the world? I get told this. I mean, all the time, right? Variants breaking through, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So when the COVID vaccine was developed, it was developed using the genetic material or the capsid protein of the wild type Wuhan wild type virus, right? And then it's mutated several times. So is it as effective against the delta variant as it would be against the wild type? no, but is it effective? It still is effective, but it's not as effective. So are you going to see breakthrough infection? You are going to see breakthrough infection. And then you must also realize,

you know, as you said, not everybody's made the same, right? Different genetic makeup, different comorbidities. So you are going to see breakthrough infection. Absolutely you are. We are seeing, you know, locally probably 20 to 30% of patients that are that are becoming infected with COVID-19 are either partially or fully vaccinated. So that's what we are seeing. You know, 70 to 80% are unvaccinated, yes, but we are going to see breakthrough infections. That's normal. So as the virus mutates, the effectiveness of the vaccine is going to be less and less effective.

that's a reality. If we get to 100%, is that even feasible before a new variant comes through and the vaccine we currently have doesn't work on it? And that's the problem. You know, that is the issue that we have is, you know, are we going to do enough to prevent another variant from kind of from showing up? And that's my fear. You know, from day one, as soon as I heard of,

about this. You know, the first, you know, one of the first thoughts that I had was mutation. So, so this is a, this is a, it was a, it was a, almost a race between, you know, getting, so it was a race to try and get as many people vaccinated before we start seeing, before we started seeing variants that were now resistant to vaccination. That's the problem. And that's, that's my biggest fear. Sean, that is my biggest fear.

And that is something that I am, you know, I, as I said, from day one was worried about, and now even though we have the vaccine, I'm still concerned about it because, you know, a large percentage of the population is still not vaccinated. Of course, more are vaccinated than are that are unvaccinated. But, you know, if you've got a large enough population in which that virus is going to circulate, mutations are going to happen. And mutations are going to constantly happen, you know, and we can get, you know, a more virulent, so, you know, a more dangerous kind of iteration of the virus, right? So you're going to get, you know, a stronger, more infective, you know, a virus that causes more illness, more death, potentially.

So that's my biggest concern. And that's why, you know, I support vaccination. And at the end of the day, it's risk benefit. And that's what we're saying. It's, you know, like anything. Like you go and have your appendix out, risk benefit. You take a Tylenol, risk benefit, right? You take your high blood pressure medication, risk benefit. Everything in medicine, or most things in medicine, is a risk benefit.

But it's kind of measuring or weighing the risk with a benefit, right, for yourself. And with COVID, it's been, you know, measuring the risk for yourself, but also the risk and benefit for the community as a whole. So it becomes a bigger responsibility on the individual. And it's not just an individual thing. It becomes more, you know, what do I do and how do I contribute to the society as a whole? And that's where I am with my messaging right now.

It's an individual decision that has a major impact on the community that you live in. Do we want to keep restaurants open? I love to go to my favorite restaurants, right? I want to go and do whatever I want to. I want to play sport again. And, you know, my opinion is that how do we get there? If we get there, we get there with vaccination. We get there with 80 plus percent of the population vaccinated,

and we can get there. And we should get there. So that's where that's where I am. I think we need to get, we need to get to that point so that we can all enjoy the freedoms that we've enjoyed before. This is no way of living, Sean. You know, wearing a mask the whole time, you know, hand sanitizing. My hands are, you know, dry as dry can be. It's crazy.

But, you know, I mean, that's a small, I guess it's a small price to pay for keeping people safe? Can I, I got a, I got a thing rolling in my head right now. Yes, yes. I could see it. So your biggest fear is new variants coming. So the push on getting and why you believe everyone should be vaccinated, including kids who have had arguably no repercussions of COVID, isn't because of what COVID's doing now, but what COVID could turn into in the future. Well, at the moment, the Delta Delta variant is pretty nasty. So if this is nasty, what, you know, what's next? I work at the hospital and I, you know, I'm concerned for our staff,

physicians, nurses, support staff, everybody's getting burnt out. You know, this is absolutely, you know, it's dragging on for a year and a half plus. So it's tough. Yeah. Am I concerned about what's happening now? Absolutely. The Delta variant is serious. It is virulent. There's no doubt about that. But I'm not sure what's coming next. I don't think anybody is. But I think vaccination, if we can get enough people vaccinated, then it significantly reduces the risk of this virus. being present and and mutating further. I'd read it a paper, you may chuckle at this, but I'd read a paper from a doctor out of

Germany who talked about the vaccines spurring on mutation. Do you laugh at that or do you think there's some concern there? No, no. And, you know, no. So that, you know, if you think about it, if, if that that's always the potential because the thing is I am this, the vaccine was created, with the wild type Wuhan strain. So now you've got a, you know, several mutations later, and you've got a vaccine. You've created antibodies to the first kind of the first of the wild type virus. And now you've got, you know, four generations later.

So could it happen? Absolutely, it could happen, Sean. You know, I'm not a virologist, right, by any means, but could it happen? Absolutely, it could happen. And that's, that makes it even scarier, doesn't it? So it doesn't, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vaccinated. It means that we need to get vaccinated sooner and in high enough numbers, so we prevent that from happening. You wonder if that's even possible. Honestly, with the world is interconnected as we, we are. Yeah. Right. Like, you. Just going down that thought process, right, of where we got to, right?

Nobody's Thanos. I don't know if you're a Marvel guy. Oh, yes. Okay, Thanos snaps his fingers, you know, 50% gone, right? I have kids, so I don't have to change. Well, I just think, you know, if you had the magical gauntlet, right, snap your fingers, the world vaccinated, gone, done, we're good. But you look at the world, what you're talking about is probably impossible.

possible. Yes. I think it's, I think we can get to 80%. Well, we're pretty much there. Are we not? I just, I can pull up the, the Alberta website again. Alberta is pretty close. Uh, right? Minister. I should apologize because you are Saskatchewan. You have, we sit on the border city and I live in Alberta. So, right? We're so close. It's what you listen to both reports and you go with it. Okay, so here's here's the numbers from Alberta. Fully vaccinated, 70.9%. 12 population who've received at least one dose, 78.9%. So very close to that 80%.

Yeah. But I go back to like if you look at the world and look at all the different things that's going on, the chances of getting the entire world to that is, I don't want to say impossible because I don't, Everybody loves a challenge, right? Like everybody loves. But look at the states. I mean, that's our closest neighboring border.

And there they sit. I mean, I hear an awful lot. I've had Peter McCull on multiple times from Texas. And he talks an awful lot about early treatment. Do you subscribe then to the early treatment theory or no? You know, right now. And I bring it up because. It's behind the scenes, that is the number one conversation going on anywhere right now is early treatment.

What do you do when you're sitting at home and you get COVID? Can you do things, et cetera? Even if you're vaccinated, right? But that's what we're doing. So my colleagues and I, you know, we engage in early treatment. So prevention of your COVID pneumonia, putting patients on antibiotics, putting patients on advising. multivitamins and all of that, all of that, you know, alternate kind of treatments. Absolutely. You know, I speak to my COVID positive patients every, probably every couple of days.

So I know exactly who they are. I phone them up on a, on a regular basis, keep track and see how they're doing. I had a patient today who was, you know, husband texted me yesterday. This is how the patient is doing. and he said, please call me in the morning and we'll have a chat. So this morning, 845, we gave him a call. The patient wasn't doing well. Sent a request that he'd take her to the hospital. Right. So I think we keep a close eye on our patients.

You know, with the Delta variant, I haven't prescribed as many antibiotics and steroids as, you know, I have throughout the pandemic. So early treatment, yes, you know, multivitamins, yes. All of those interventions, absolutely. What's your thoughts on ivermectin? You know, so there are some studies that show that ibermectin works. There is no doubt about it. But by and large, I think, you know, the largest scale studies haven't proved its effectiveness.

And, you know, it's a cheap drug, right? It's an available drug. And we haven't, we haven't used it in the hospital, right? You know, we've, we've used other other medications. You know, we've, in the initial period of COVID, we used hydroxychloroquine, laquinol, right? But it's not part of the treatment regimen. So, yeah, it's, it's all, they seem to be some studies initially. that showed very good response to the treatment of the ivermectin.

And then when the largest studies came out, we didn't really see that. Don't you find it odd that ivermectin's been singled out across, like when Trump says hydroxychloroquine, I mean, the entire world pays attention to a president saying it, right? So that one, you can understand it's fair. Ivermectin's an interesting one. just because, well, the attack it's had, and I am going to call it attack, because it's been wild to watch. The things that have been written and said and everything else, people talk about, I've had different doctors tell me they can't prescribe it or they're not allowed to prescribe it. I don't know if that's true.

They've then on like CNN, they've said some wildly absurd things, which are partial truths. I mean, it is used in the farming industry by all means. But we both can agree that it's also a human drug, and that's kind of odd for a giant media corporation to say. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know enough about the pharmaceutical industry to know what is going on. Were there some issues with that whole process that I questioned? Absolutely. The non-availability of Ivermectin all of a sudden.

And, you know, these are the kind of things that fuel conspiracies. You know, absolutely. It kind of creates doubt in people's minds. And that's part of the problem. Let's be honest with people. You know, just be straight up and honest with them. And I think, you know, people, that's what people want. People don't want, you know, this kind of cloak and dagger stuff that goes on.

And I mean, and a lot of what's gone on with COVID has been cloak and dagger. And it kind of unfortunately fuels the kind of conversations that are leaning towards conspiracy theories, unfortunately. That's how it goes, right? Which is unfortunate, but that's the reality. I agree with you on that point because in our country, we have watched the goalposts. They even talk about it now is the goalposts, right? Constantly change. And they never tell you what's coming next, even though I have.

have to assume a lot of the time they must know they've never been you talk about trust i read a very interesting um article from uh denmark and the guy saying why they've reached vaccination um 80 i think they're at 86 percent why they got there so fast and he said exactly what you just said he said they were up front and open since the very beginning that people were going to die one two that this wasn't going away in two weeks oh wait we said two weeks flatten the curve and everybody loves to point out that it has not been two weeks. I'm sure doctors must have laughed when they heard that. They talked about vaccines. They said that they were very open, that people were going to, there was going to be people that got hurt from it. That's not a natural, that is side effects of

vaccines, right? The history of vaccines that does happen. They did say there was going to be booster shots. And I was like, wow, there is something I would have never thought a country would say to its people. And they were very open. And he said, with being open, they gained the trust. of a lot of people. And what's happened here, I say this all the time, is medical and politics have become this like really weird animal now. I don't go to my politician for medical advice. People may find that funny, but I don't. And yet, that's where we're running right now to find out where we're going. And you go to the cloak and dagger, that's what it has been now for about a year. I mean, geez, what, like, it was only a month ago, Kevin, that Alberta announced we were

where everything was done. It was endemic. Everything's done. I came back from the States and heard that and I was like, oh, man, where did I go? Like, I just worked through time or something. Like, what happened? Like, what, I don't understand, you know, when we talk about confusion and all these different things, that's our leadership doing that. That's what's been happening here for the last year. That's why there's so much doubt everywhere on everything is because of all this. Yeah. Yes and yes and yes and yes. I realize I put you in a tough spot because you probably did. You did. And I think what you're saying is absolutely true. And I think, you know, I'll stick to my statement. And I think more could have been done to be more up front with our population.

And I think, you know, one of the things that personally, I think, has been done across across the country, several countries, is, you know, they have insulted the intelligence of the populace, right? They have insulted the intelligence of their citizens. Tell them, like it is. This is the facts laid out. how many numbers do we have, how many people are sick, how many in the hospital, tell us, tell us what's going to happen. You know you have the data. Share the modeling with us,

you know, because everybody does modeling, right? They know exactly, you know, how many, what the projections are. Share it. Share it with your population. You know, have discussion. in my opinion, I think, you know, you have credible medical leaders as your forefront spokespeople. And that's the one thing that I think, you know, probably may have been done a little better, is the information sharing with the public. And I think the trust, it's a trust issue. That's what it is. It's not about medical information.

It's about trust. And unfortunately, when people don't have information, they start looking for information. And once you start looking for information, then you start looking and finding things that may not be the most reliable source of information. And then once you go down a rabbit hole, you're lost. Because you know how the internet works, Sean, right? You know, if you kind of search up a particular thing, you know, you'll be getting bombarded in your search engines, after that with whatever rabbit hole you went down. And once you go down, it's a slippery slope and you're gone. Right? That's the way it is. Do you, I agree with that. Once again, I was,

like any rabbit hole you go down is very dangerous and it's harder and harder to get out of it once you're down it. Absolutely. I am curious, you know, for all the knocks of the internet, there is some amazing benefits to it. Like one, I mean, we can learn things that are, happening in different places. You can talk with experts from all over the world. I've asked multiple doctors this. And I'm wondering if you can, maybe you have an answer, maybe don't. I don't know. Do you guys have like a team, a group that is constantly working with other teams across the world on what they're seeing and what they're doing and what they're finding? Is that something that's going on? Do you know of? I think there's through the pandemic,

there's been a lot of collaboration between countries like we've never seen before just because it's a global global pandemic right so so there are lots of working groups that are working together closely across across the across the world and constantly updating the the information that we that we have so so so yes they are there are these these organizations that are collaborating and i think you know scientists are collaborating like like everybody else you know, we rely on various sources of for our information. And we kind of tend to gravitate towards the journals that are more reliable. And that's pretty much where we get our information.

So, yeah, I guess I don't know if I answered your question. Well, I just, I've been, once again, I've been talking with different people from across not only Canada, the states, just about, you know, like what they're seeing, what they're doing, etc. Right. Early, early treatment is, is one that I find fascinating because it doesn't say, you know, I had a listener point this out to me and I agree that, you know, when it's like, why do you have to be pro one? or pro the other, right? Why do you have to be pro-vax or against-vax? Why can it just be pro-vax? Like vaccination's good. And on top of that, we could be doing things like early treatment, that if you get the first symptoms of COVID and have a positive test and they're sitting at home, you're doing this. And that's been cooperated with people from all over the world. I have no idea. I'm just spitball in here. We need to do everything. We can to eradicate this virus from our

midst, right? Whatever it takes, Sean, whatever it takes, we need to get this scar. out. The virus is bad, right? I started taking multivitamins, probably in April last year. I'd never taken multivitamins. I just take the odd multivitamin, you know, take a couple of vitamin D here and there, you know, sporadically. Faithfully started taking, personally started taking multivitamins in, yeah, probably over the last year, year and a bit. Every day, make sure. Take my D, I take my multivitamins. I take zinc, you know, the awe of Kinesia, right? So, yeah, that's what I've been doing.

I've been doing this every day for the last year and a bit consistently. So, you know, is that part of the approach to COVID? Absolutely. Do I encourage that? Absolutely. And you're right. You know, that's all part of it. Early treatment, yes.

So pre-treatment, early treatment, vaccination, proper drugs when you are sick or admitted, all of that stuff, all of it is very, very important, right? And, you know, we'll be learning more about post-treatment, you know, as we kind of study the long-term effects of COVID infection. So do I support all of that stuff? And I think most of my colleagues do. Is there, is there an early treatment protocol? Like I once again go to like the FLACC.

They have like if you get, well, and actually I've read reports on Mexico too that I thought were really fascinating. That if you get the early symptoms, right? You come in, you test positive. You go home. Is there something that people can just go and like, I don't know. Ivermectin has been talked about so much that they always gets if you got Ivermectin go home, start taking it, whatever, right? Everybody, and the thing is, is it no matter how much censorship goes on the word Ivermactin, it's funny that if it's, if it wasn't working, like I've never,

personally, I never hear anyone say the word hydroxychloricum. I mean, once in a while, and you go, maybe there's something there. I have no idea. I just associate it with Trump. But the interesting thing about Ivermectin is it has made its way through everything all across. the world like everybody you know japan just came out and talked about it and then you got mexico who started using it very early on has a whole bunch there in canada is there something because people i guess right now people are terrified right fear is a funny thing and i go well if we just take a step back there's a ton of people are vaccine well now they're fearful because they realize holy crap I can still get it.

I thought I wasn't going to get it, but I can still get it, which is now we don't even, you know, and we got 80% you think everybody happy, go lucky, let's go live life. That is not what it's happening.

And I go, if there's ways to help maybe dampen or take away some of the fear, right? Like, listen, we're working on this. Like, is there anything that they can just go, I mean,

other than multi-bidens, that's even before you get that, right? Like the FLCC talks about if you get COVID symptoms, and sent home, here's the protocol, start doing all these things at once. Do we have anything like that? There's no protocol that we have. And, you know, one of the things that we do is we encourage patients to follow up with the family

physician as soon as possible. Just to kind of monitor and see, it is a viral infection. There is potential that you can become secondarily infected with the, with the bacterium. So antibiotics, steroids to kind of avert the cytokine storm that you may have read about. So those are the, you know, those are the types of treatments that we would offer. And following up your patients on a regular basis, I think is appropriate. And I think, you know, appropriately advise them when they need to go to the hospital for chest-extray blood work and so on. Right. So, So that's what many of us have been doing is following up closely with our

family, with our patients and you know, not just saying, go home, this is a viral infection, and good luck, right? Not many of us have done that because I think, you know, most of us care for our patients and we genuinely, we genuinely can, we want to see that they do well. And then the only way to kind of, to know how they're doing is to give them a call, try and assess them over the phone as best you can. And if at a point you think, you know what they're not doing as well as we as we think they should be doing at this point in the in in the course of their illness, then perhaps going to the hospital is a for a, you know, kind of a physical examination and some, you know, vital signs, oxygen saturations, temperature, x-ray blood work and so on is appropriate.

Yeah, I think one of the fallouts of all this that has been very unfortunate, you know, when we talk about trust and how people talk about doctors and nurses in the medical profession right now is really, and actually my wife's a teacher and I've started to hear it on teachers now, too. And I think that's a very misappropriate thing to do. I don't think, you know, if I take a step back, I think a lot of people took a step back, I thought, you know, are doctors doing everything they can? Yeah, I would think so. Do teachers want our kids to not learn and be indoctrinated and blah, blah, blah. You hear all these different things. You're like, I don't think so, right? I think as a population, we need to

take a step back there. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, most people, honestly, most, most people, you know, are decent human beings and kind of see the work that teachers are doing and want to do. My dad's teacher, was a teacher, he's retired now. He's not teaching anymore. He's 76 years old. You know, he, you know, probably the, you know, one of the, I'm not sure why I didn't become a teacher because, I mean, he was, he almost inspired me to become a teacher. Teachers are amazing human beings and the love that they have for their, you know, for their students is probably, you know, it never ends. You know, I personally, you know, I, when I go back to South Africa, I go and seek out my teachers because of that bond and,

you know, the effect that they've had on shaping me as a human being. So, you know, if people can, can say something nasty about teachers, they've got big problems. If people can say nasty things about physicians and nurses who risk their lives every day, especially now in this pandemic to, you know, to save the life of a stranger, it's a sad, it's a sad thing. You know, I go home, you know, you know, you get coughed on by COVID patients and you know, you kind of hope that you don't have COVID. You know, I get home, strip down in the garage, tiptoe up to the bathroom, to the shower,

have a shower, and then I can, you know, be in circulation with my family. So this is what we go through on a daily basis. Every one of us, every nurse, every doctor, we are in constant fear of potentially contracting COVID. And for somebody to come out and be critical of that process is disappointing and callous. That's what it is. Callous, that's the word. And, you know, if that person is brave enough, they should come and say it to my face. Come and say it to my face.

Don't put it on social media. Come and say it to my face. You know where you find me? I'm everywhere in Lloyd, Sean. Come and say to my face. If you're man enough or woman enough, come and say to my face. And I'll tell you where to get out. because you know what I'm I'm sick of it you know don't be a coward say it to my face you know you know where

I live come that's the governor I know and love no look I mean let's be fair you know look I mean Sean you have to have the courage of your convictions right if you if you got something negative to say to me say to my face you know don't put it on social media because I can't you know I'm not going to respond. No nurse, no doctor is going to respond on social media. If we do, we're going to get a long letter from our college man. And that's not fun, right? That's the reason why we don't, okay?

Because it's unprofessional for us to respond to negative comments on social media. And it is, it is, it is. You know, you say something bad about an RCMP officer. There's no way that this, you know, officer can respond on social media. can't. You know, we are professional people. We, we, we aren't, we aren't, we aren't, we aren't meant to do that. But if you've got a problem with me, you know, and, and, and my profession, you know, speak to me in, in, in, in person. And, you know, look, my part of my job, Sean, is to, is to deal with, with complaints. And, and I, I prefer to see patients in person, you know, if there's a complaint against any of the physicians or nurses or even myself, right?

I prefer to see that person, that complainant in person. Talk to me. I want to see your face and I need you to see my face. If I did something wrong, I need to own up to it. If I've done something wrong, I need to own up to it, but I need to own up to it face to face with you. And that's what I encourage amongst our staff. You know, there's always going to be complaints, right?

that's the way it goes. But, you know, we need to be strong enough and fair enough to people to be able to face them face to face. You know, you bring up, if you comment, you get a letter from the college. I've had a doctor on here say it, and I've had several different people reach out and say it about the censorship of you guys, that you're not allowed to say what you want to say. not on social media, I don't think. I don't think that's what it was meant as. It was more as meant like, you know, I look at, well, the case in Saskatchewan was Francis Christian, right?

He was the guy who was let go for his thoughts on the vaccination rollout. Does that bother you? Are you seeing tons of that? Or is that just standard practice that's always been there? No, look, I mean, I don't think censorship per se, is an issue. And I think if you are saying something that as a physician that makes sense and is following the dictates of evidence-based medicine, that's okay. If you are trying to unduly influence somebody with evidence that's not quite peer-reviewed, and it's a different scenario, right? Should you be,

you be sensitive? Perhaps you should be because you are you are kind of engaging in a narrative that could potentially be harmful to people. So, so yeah, I think, you know, who determines that? I guess your regulatory bodies can determine whether what you are saying is, you know, appropriate or not. Should everybody have their opinion? Absolutely. Absolutely, everybody should have their opinion. But if your opinion is so out to left field that it's potentially causing more harm than good, then, you know, then it's definitely a problem. Is it kind of not consistent with the greater good? Yes. Then I think maybe that person needs somebody to have a chat with them. Yeah, the Francis Christian, though, like, I don't think censorship

is a good thing. I think the more open we are, the more trust people now in saying all that, in I guess in positions of power, it's different. And a guy getting censored, there's probably ways of both sides of that argument. But specifically with Francis Christian, Kevin, he was just saying that he didn't think the vaccine should be rolled out to kids. That's pretty much what you got let go for. Yeah. So I, you know, I don't know what the, the, I didn't read the, the whole kind of charge sheet, so to, so to speak. You know, what is my thoughts on, on, on kids getting the vaccine? You know, I mean, I think it's a, again, it's a personal choice risk benefit, right?

Yeah. Is it, you know, appropriate for kids over 12 to get the vaccine where in a population group where it's been studied? Absolutely, right? Does everybody have a right to their opinion? I think everybody has the right to their opinion. But if you are in a position where you are saying, you know, don't do this. or do this, then it's a problem.

So I can sit here and say that I have not told anybody to get the vaccine. Right. And I think if you say to somebody don't get the vaccine, I think it's bad. It's a bad thing. If you say to somebody, you know, so my personal belief is give people information and make them decide, right?

I haven't told anybody to get the vaccine or not get the vaccine, not even my own family, right? My wife asked me lots of questions. We kind of went through lots of data and so on, because, I mean, that's how her mind works. She needs a lot of information, and because before she makes any decision, she needs to have lots of information.

Our 17-year-old, we asked him about, about getting the vaccine. And he said to me, I'm not going to get the vaccine because I'm 17, I'm fit, healthy, and exercise. And if I get COVID, I'll be OK. You know, these macho, 17-year-olds, how they are. If you've ever met one of those, you don't know what I'm talking about. So then he says to me, why did you get the vaccine?

And I said, I said, I mean, this was in April. And I said, by the time I, you know, by this time I said I've been dealing with this virus for over a year and you know touchwood because of protocols safety and maybe a little bit or a lot of luck I haven't acquired this virus yet. When the vaccine became available, I took it and the reason I took it is because I wanted to be one of the 80 plus percent of people that got the vaccine so that we could eradicate this this virus from our midst, right? Because I said, this is no way of living, you know, masking and, you know, hand sanitizing and social distancing and all of that stuff. That's not for me.

You know, we need to get out of this pandemic as soon as possible. And I think the key to getting out of the pandemic was getting that 80 plus percent vaccination. So I left it at that. And three days later, he comes to me and he says to me, okay, I thought about it. I'm going to get the vaccine because I want to make a contribution to our society, he says. So I said, okay, it's good. Our 13-year-old, I said, you know, are you going to get the vaccine? And she said, I don't know, whatever you say. And I said, no, no, it's not whatever I say.

It's what you want to do, because this is a personal choice. This is the information that I'm giving you, right? I think that it's safe. I think it's effective, but I will not make a choice for you. And you are the one who needs to make a choice for yourself, even at 13 years old. And she says, okay, she came back a couple of days later and she says, look, lots of my friends are getting the vaccine. I think I'm going to get it too.

So I think it's important coming to censorship and of people. I think it's what you say. You know, do I support the vaccine? Yes, I support the vaccine. 100% I do. Should you as a person say, don't get the vaccine because it's bad for you, I don't think that any physician should say that. I think it's wrong for somebody to say that.

I think you can give them the information and you can say, you know, I think this is what I think about the vaccine, but I need you to make your choice. But if you say, don't get the vaccine, it's going to kill you. don't get the vaccine because it's going to do this, this, this, and this, I think that's wrong. Yeah, to make a blanket statement is what you're saying. Exactly. You know, if you have an opinion, that's fine. But, you know, don't instruct somebody to do something because that's not fair.

And, you know, if you, you can go and speak to anybody that I've spoken to the, to about this, the vaccine. and I've never said to a single person, I need you to go and get this vaccine. Not one. I mean, I haven't even done it with my family. Right. So, yeah, I've, you, you provide information

and the patient needs to make it a single. When it comes to kids, because I think, listen, as an adult, whether you, unless we're going to pin, start pinning people down, Kevin, and putting it in their arm and seeing what stories get written after that, Yes.

Adults are going to make their choice one way or another. And right now, you're closing in on 80% has made their choice. Yeah. When it comes to kids, I think a lot of parents struggle with this. I know I certainly struggle with this because I go, I don't have a 13-year-old. I got way younger kids than that where you can't, you know, my oldest is a five. I'm not giving him a five-year-old the choice of whether he gets it or not. I'm not going to understand.

Right. Yes. do we fully understand the long-term effects of this thing? No, we don't. No, we don't. Right? We don't. But then, you know, saying that,

do we fully understand the long-term effects of being infected with COVID-19? Right? So that's where I said, you know, risk benefit. Yeah. So, you know, I struggled with this, Sean, because, and the reason I struggled with it is not so much because of safety, because I think, I think I genuinely believe that these vaccines are safe and effective. But what I struggled with was, why does my 13-year-old, or why does my 17-year-old need to get a vaccine against COVID-19 so that we keep Uncle Bob safe?

Uncle Bob is 75 years old, unvaccinated, hypertensive, diabetic, had a heart attack, quadruble bypass, and he's still smoking. So if Uncle Bob gets COVID, he's going to die, unfortunately. So why does my 13-year-old and my 17-year-old need to get vaccinated to protect Uncle Bob?

So that is the one, that's the one thing I struggled with. And if you think about it, it kind of, you know, it makes, makes you think it's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Why? Why does my, and I get it. I understand it. And, you know, you, you, you know, I think that's an appropriate question that, that I had for myself.

And that's the reason why I kind of, you know, I gave the information to the kids and said, look, I'm not going to make this choice for you. particularly because I had that thought process in my mind where I was, you know, do I need my kids to be part of that, you know, 80, 85% maybe? I don't know. To protect somebody who doesn't want to be vaccinated? I don't know. So that was that was the struggle for me. But, you know, and as I said, I deferred it to to them and to think about it with the information that I'd, you know, my wife and I had shared with them. That's a large question, right? Yeah, it's a large question. It's a huge question.

It is. And, you know, how much do we know about this vaccine? So the thing about the vaccine is that, you know, as you may know, as you may know, the development of MRNA technology was probably in the early, in around the 1960s. And then they stabilized the MRNA molecule in the early 90s. They were going to use it for the SARS virus in the 2000s, early 2000s. And then it wasn't, didn't pan out to be a global pandemic. And then they shelved the potential use of MRNA technology or vaccine technology.

Then we had the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, MERS, a few years later. And they thought, okay, this is going to be a global pandemic. It wasn't. So they kind of shelved the idea to run with a, you know, or to produce a vaccine using mRNA technology. So this technology has been around for a while. I mean, you've got companies like biotech, this is what they do. And, you know, you've got companies like Moderna, that's what they do.

I mean, and that's the reason why Pfizer kind of, you know, use the expertise of biotech. I mean, Pfizer is a huge company with their distribution and all of that. and so on, right, factories. So I guess it was a good, good, a good, a good, good mix. Collaboration, call it what you, what you will. So, you know, that, you know, that said, I guess, yeah, where was I going with this? Yeah, so you have, you have a vaccine that was developed over a very short period of time seeming because just a year, right, from the time you had the vaccine that was the virus and then

the vaccine. And it kind of looked, okay, you know, that in itself is a little concerning because how can you develop something over a year? How can you develop something that quick? It takes, you know, five to ten years to develop traditionally, right? And there's a couple of reasons, you know, this was a global effort. So, you know, there's collaboration among scientists across the world. So that's the one thing, which we've never, you know, we've never seen before. We had technology that was kind of developed probably like 25 to 30 years before that was now available.

They had to kind of sequence the capsid protein on the outside of the coronavirus. So once they were able to sequence that and bring it. it down into its amino acid structure, then they were able to kind of create the the MRNA template that was in the virus. So the MRNA goes into your ribosome and creates this capsid protein, and then that's what your body recognizes foreign and then creates the antibodies. So that was, you know, that that was done. And then you still have to do clinical trials, Sean, right?

You know, and that is what takes a long time. So you've got to do phase one, phase two, phase three trials. So that also was accelerated because, you know, one of the reasons why clinical trials take so long usually is because there isn't enough burden of disease in a, of, a particular disease in the community. So they've got to find controls and then they've got to find diseased individuals, right, to be able to do a control group or placebo group and then a actual active product group, right? Now, with COVID, I mean, there were millions and millions of cases of COVID all over the world. So clinical trials were not a huge deal because they could get, they

had the burden of disease in our in our across the world essentially so so those those were some of the factors why the vaccine development was was was so fast right and I think you know I think many many people may or may not understand that but yeah and I mean to be honest I'm you know I'm I'm just a family physician so I don't even understand most of it to be fair right but you know broadly speaking That's part of the reason why, you know, you have that kind of the speed of development. Well, I think it's human ingenuity, right? Like you've got the entire world working on a problem. You find a solution, and they have found it.

I think some of the concerns is, I mean, yeah, you have lots of people to trial it on, but you don't have the time to see what all these injections will do long term. I mean, that's a big fear of people. And you've been very open front, right? Like, you're absolutely right. Absolutely. One of the things that you got all these people, no different for the vaccine, right? You got all these people to try the vaccine on.

You got all these people you can try different protocols on, different, see what's working, right? Because, I mean, you're absolutely right. Millions of people across the entire world have been getting this. I find it interesting that the vaccine got. but world buy-in, but we haven't had world buy-in to or what it feels like to other ways of helping reduce things, or at least it doesn't feel like that. And that's just from the outside. Yeah. So if you look at viruses as a group, we've had viruses forever. Right. We've had bacteria forever for as long as we can remember. And we're going to moving into the

future as well. Yeah. So, you know, you have bacteria, you have antibiotics, right? You have a bacterial pneumonia, you have antibiotic. You know, you have like an abscess somewhere, you know, antibiotic, right? Cut it open, antibiotics, right? For viruses, there aren't many antiviral treatments out there. Right? You know, if you look at the number of antiviral treatments out there compared to the number of antibiotic treatments out there. There are many. So have there been trials on various non-vaccine treatment options? Absolutely. And they continue to be these trials. They, you know, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, some of the biologicals. We're actually using some of them at the hospital approved to be used right now.

So there are all these kind of treatment options that are being investigated. Absolutely, they are. And they'll do the trials kind of work. Is it effective? Is it not? And then somebody will say, oh, yeah, this is fantastic. And then when they go and do a peer review or try and reproduce the study, if the study is not reproducible, then it's not credible.

So that's the problem. So over the years, we found that one of the most effective ways of dealing with a viral infection is vaccination. Right. So that's what we've seen. So, you know, that's, yeah, various various viruses we've seen that we effectively can use vaccine technology. So, you know, we've had traditional vaccine technology. And as you may know, there are some companies that are working on developing non-genetic modes or so-called traditional vaccine technology.

And there are dozens of companies working on dozens of vaccines that may not necessarily be MRNA-based. This MRNA is it's safe and effective because it's genetic. Of course, you know, that brings with its own baggage, right? And I mean, you know, as long as you can remember anything genetic, genetic manipulation has always been looked upon not so favorably by the general population. So they are, you know, they continue to develop various types of treatments,

including looking at other other methodologies of treatment and not just vaccine treatment. Because the thing is, yes, even in those that are vaccinated, you're going to have somebody who would break through infection that will need alternative type of treatment. So the vaccine will prevent you from getting serious illness and death. But what happens when you do get the illness? It needs to be treated. Yeah. Well, even on Canada's website, you know, we're talking data. Yes.

even on Canada's website since the rollout of the vaccinations, there's been 155 deaths of fully vaccinated people. I'm not saying that's that scared. I just said, you can't act. I think for a lot of people, it was portrayed as the silver bullet, like bulletproof now,

away we go. Because you don't know that there's 155 people, you know, what comorbidities did they have, right? Are you fully vaccinated, you know, and, you know, do you have severe heart disease or COPD? Are you fully vaccinated? And are you on a significant dose of immunosuppressant medication that's going to render the vaccination ineffective? So there's so many things. And is it, is it, are people going to die after being fully vaccinated?

Yes. But, you know, I can argue, and the data will bear me out on this, there's a significantly higher number of people that are unvaccinated that are dying. True. But if you go down that that argument of the 155 what they had, then you can use that argument against what's happening right now, right? Like the average age of COVID cases that died is 80. And a lot of people stare at that and go, well, I mean, I'm not trying to say old people. That's what happens at the end of life. They point to all the core morbidities that they got all these underlying health issues. And that's the argument on the other side, too, for everything that's going on right now. Yeah. And, you know, so, so shall we let, you know, my 85 year old granny die? No, absolutely, absolutely not. That's, that's a thing. So is she

collateral damage? You know, I, I don't think so. You know, so it becomes quite a, quite an emotive kind of conversation to yeah sorry Kevin I wasn't trying I wasn't trying to say that we shouldn't try and protect those people I was saying if you look at the 155 and go down well what else did they have wrong with them that's what the argument uses on all the people contracting COVID right now and they're passing away is what do they have wrong with them and they they they've got a whole wealth of health issues and that's you know and it's like well are we not supposed to protect those? No, like that's, I come back to what you're saying about the vaccination. You know, if I'm going to take a couple things out of this conversation is that the idea is if we had

100% vaccination, you could, in theory, have this completely gone. In theory, yeah. The only issue with that is getting to 100% vaccination before a new variant comes through, which may be impossible because without Thanos's glove, on here we sit, right? That's the scary part for me, Sean. Yeah. That is the, you know, that's what troubles me, you know, every day.

I probably lose about maybe 30 minutes of sleep, maybe. I don't know, but I do, I do lose some sleep over that every night. And that's, that's the, you know, that's the big concern for me is mutation. And, and, yeah. Okay, well, I'm not, I appreciate you giving me all this time. I want to slide in the crewmaster final five. You know, as I said before, I appreciate all your time of sitting here and having an open discussion board. I think one of the things in society that we really, really need is discussions like this.

It's very, I think it's eye-opening the people to hear it and certainly going to make me go home and think over some things. But there was, when I mentioned you were coming on, I said this, there was a ridiculous amount of questions come in. So I'll try and keep it short here. As long as I got you for a few more minutes. Absolutely. Okay. Well, the first crude master final five question, I got to ask mine, is always, if you were going to sit down with somebody and do what we're doing right now, who would you want? Like, who do you think would be worthwhile in having a conversation like this with?

You, Sean, absolutely. You got nobody you'd want to pick their brain up. Just you, Sean. Well, I was all right. Um, okay. If I, if I, if I, if I had to, you know, I, I probably, if I had one, one person, uh, you know, dead or alive that I, I would want to sit down and have a, have a conversation with. It would be Nelson Mandela. Yeah. That's the guy. I've listened to him. Yeah. Talk on different, uh, you know, like old videos. Yeah. He's a fascinating individual. He is a fascinating individual. He, you know, and yeah, I think many of us, especially me, can learn a lot from somebody like that, for sure, after what he went through and then, you know, to forgive. And it was an amazing thing for him, you know, that's one of the things.

I wish I could learn and take that level of forgiveness. And if that could rub off on me, that'll be fantastic. Yeah, that's the big, that's a big thing. Yeah. I put him in the same realm as Gandhi. I think so, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, Gandhi was probably like before my time,

Mandela was somebody who, you know, was almost a contemporary, you know, and I kind of saw him and his struggle and followed his, followed his life and works and teachings and so on very, very closely. So, so yeah, so that'll be, so after you, Sean, Nelson Mandela. Well, geez, that's a pretty high count. All right. Well, I'm going to put you back into the fire.

Here's a couple questions that have come in from all the people who at least follow me and you here in Lloydminster. They were all local people who were asking these. They know exactly who we are. The first one is drills directly with schools. Right now they're having outbreaks. And what they're doing is if your child is unvaccinated, they're supposed to isolate at home.

And so one of the moms had asked, why are we making perfectly healthy children isolate? So I think, so this is now just to clarify, So you're isolating because you've been in contact with a close contact. So if there's a close contact. COVID-19. And then they make the unvaccinated go home and the vaccinated can come back to school. And they're both-

Come back to school. And I mean, if you, you know, that's the chance of you acquiring COVID-19 if you vaccinated is significantly lower. if you are unvaccinated, there's a significantly higher chance that you can apply a COVID-19. You can be asymptomatic for a few days, but when you asymptomatic, you're still infectious. So you could still be spreading the disease in the unvaccinated state until, you know, until and beyond when you become symptomatic. This is what confuses me.

Yes. You can carry the virus while you're vaccinated, yes? Yes, you can. So if the theory is to send kids home so that they don't spread it, they're still spreading in at school. They're just all vaccine. So it's about viral loads as well, right? So you have a significantly lower.

So those with a higher viral load have an increased risk of, of spreading the disease. If you are vaccinated, the chances of you developing a very high viral load and then subsequently becoming somebody that will spread the disease is significantly lower. If you are unvaccinated, and because you don't have any vaccine or antibodies

against the virus, then you have a greater risk of developing a higher viral load, the higher the viral load, the more infectious you are. So that's the thinking behind that. And if you think about it, it makes sense. That does make sense. The problem is, and this is when you talk about the internet and everything else, right? There's very smart people talking about completely opposite of that, where the viral load in vaccinated are carrying high amounts there as well, as much as the unvaccinated. vaccinated. And so when I hear that, I go, listen, for work, for older people, I get it. For kids,

what I don't understand is why we would separate the two, because at the end of the day, when you look at Alberta, no kids have died, like zero. And I know, like, we should be encouraging them to be in school and having healthy things. I know this isn't, you're not putting the rules in schools. I just, I just curious to your thoughts on it because, well, as is the mother, right? Absolutely. And I mean, it's a, it's a fair question. And, you know, and, and, and, and you, you certainly don't want to, you don't want to discriminate. And, you know, coming to my, my, my, my earlier point about, you know, does my kidney need to get a vaccine to protect Uncle Bob, right, who's unvaccinated and blah, blah, blah, right? You know, it's a tough one. It is,

it is, it is, it's tough. Sean, it's not. What's, what's, what's, I don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't what the right answer is. But, you know, that's, you know, that's, that's my take is, is, is, is, is, is to do with, with, with, with with, with, with, with, with, and and the potential for acquiring disease, significantly lower risk, significantly lower risk if you vaccinated, significantly higher risk if you are. So, uh, so, uh, so if you, if you're a vaccinated, symptomatic person, you, yes, you can have high viral loads, but probably by then you at home, right? Or you've been tested. How about this one? A listener wanted to know why do the reactions from the second one, she was vaccinated. She wanted to know why the second dose always seems to have a harsher reaction, I guess. I don't know whether

that's necessarily true. Like, you know, I think I hardly had a reaction for my second dose, first dose was kind of minimal symptoms. Perhaps it's, I don't, I'm not sure. It varies for different people. Some people have a really bad reaction and some, some don't. I, it varies. You know, could it be, as I said, I'm not a biologist. I'm not an infectious disease specialist. Could it be because you already kind of sensitized to it, right? And your body is, is, uh, is now mounting a, a more potent response, perhaps. I don't know. Uh, that I, if I had to, as I said, I'm not, I'm not a specialist in the field. I appreciate you taking a crack at it. So, uh, I had a listener asked kids sports. Um, we've seen out of Ontario, uh, a couple of different hockey

organizations that are going to mandate that kids have the vaccine to play. Is there any, is there any reason in your mind why? I mean, obviously transmission amongst kids, we've already talked this through and through, but to play a sport, like, do you see any reason if you're out on the ice surface playing hockey, why that, why it would matter? Another controversial question. You know, like, I mean, I, I don't know. I want to, I want to see kids. I want to see kids playing. I'm a sports fanatic. I want to see kids playing.

And of course, I think we need to look at it globally in terms of, you know, what is the risk. People, you know, kids are out on the ice, you know, low risk of transmission, extremely low risk of transmission. But, you know, once they get back into the locker rooms, put a mask on, right? let the parents be masking in the in the stands because this is what we want to see but you know following basic public health measures wash your hands social distance all of that stuff yeah i you know i want to see kids playing i you know go out and play that that's what i that's what i want to see because i mean you know i want to play but i can't you know it sucks here's one unnatural immunity uh it's a lady who is uh just under the age of 40 has had COVID

19 and she's wondering should she get vaccinated or will natural immunity work? So you know lots of people bash this natural immunity kind of conversation. Does natural immunity work? Yes it does. Absolutely. You know and and you can probably argue that now if you've been infected with delta and you and you recover, you know, you are probably more safe than me, who's been double-vaxed, right? So does it work? Yes. But we're not sure how long it works and how effective natural immunity is.

So that's the difference. One of the ways that I kind of, you know, like to think about it. And is when you are vaccinated, so when you go for vaccination, they ask you the questions, are you well? Are you having cough fever? you know, how are you feeling? Feeling great, okay, get vaccinated. Second shot, same deal, right? So I like to think about it like this. When you are vaccinated, you are being vaccinated with an immune system that is completely intact, okay, because you are well. You're not sick.

You know, you're well. So the immune response that your body is going to mount to the vaccine is 100% or close to 100% as it can because you know you have a completely immune completely intact immune system so the chances of you developing good a good immune response is very very high when you are infected with any infection COVID-19 influenza whatever your immune system takes a knock right your sometimes your white cell count drops, right? Your lymphocyte counts drop. We see this, we know this because this is what we see. So your immune system is not functioning at 100% capacity. Then you start developing antibodies with an immune system that is not 100% immunocompetent. So what is the quality, so to speak,

of the immunity that you develop? I don't know. Would it be as effective as vaccinated immunity? Probably not, because your immune system has now developed antibodies with an immune system that is not 100% immunocompetent. I always thought natural immunity. You get it?

I'm going back to being a kid in chicken pox. Everybody always bring a chicken pox. I remember having chicken pox. Like, I miss my Christmas carnival because of it. Yes. Isn't that good for life now that I've had it? Yeah, but we don't know, right? Because the thing is, so, you know, when did we start doing the vaccination?

Probably around 2000 and maybe 2000. Okay. Right, 2000? Early 2000. Right? Prior to that, I mean, probably none of us are vaccinated, you know, my age, your age, young guy like you, even a young guy like you, Sean, is probably not vaccinated against chickenpox.

You know, an old guy like me, definitely not. But my 17-year-old is. So, you know, is he going to get shingles? I don't know. Maybe it's too early, right? These guys that have been vaccinated are probably 17, 18, 19, 20. right so do we know whether they're going to get shingles one day i don't know so is the vaccinated immunity better than uh natural immunity because you and i could get shingles at any time

so i don't know i don't know what the answer to that question is yeah i i guess i just i guess time time will tell whether you know the the kids that have got vaccines against chickenpox are going to end up having shingles. I don't know. You, you, you, um, you want, you mentioned 80% a lot with the vaccination. I just, when I, when I hear you talk about natural immunity are people who have had it and they develop the same antibodies and I'm paraphrasing here because, you know, I go, geez, why, why don't we just add in the people that have had COVID-19 as well then? Wouldn't that put us close to the 80%? Or does that just wrong thinking. I can be completely wrong on that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer.

That's a good thought, right? And I've had that thought before is, you know, do you add those that have become infected to that, to that group that we consider now fully vaccinated? I don't know. Because I don't know, I'm just, I'm literally, you know, this is so early, it's so early in, in this pandemic that antibody studies, which are ongoing need. And, you know, the studies will be coming out shortly, right, to kind of, you know, compare natural immunity to vaccinated immunity, is vaccinated immunity the equivalent to, to natural immunity, how long does vaccinated immunity last? as opposed to natural immunity, all of those are still to come. And we as a medical community will take in that information and use it, that evidence, to develop protocols and policy. And let me tell you, you know, our policy and protocols are not going to be dictated by Pfizer or by Moderna or by AstraZeneca or any of these guys, right? So, you know, I'm not in any

anybody's pocket and none of my colleagues are in any of these guys' pockets, right? And I think that's very, very important. You know, we look at the evidence and develop policy based on the evidence that we see, right? We're not going to kind of prejudge what is going to happen, because that's not the way we do science, right? That's not, that is not appropriate scientific protocol. Have you seen anybody who's had COVID get COVID again? Yes. Yes.

Yes. So you've seen a person have COVID twice? Yes. Okay. That's good to hear because I've heard that that's not the case. Obviously it is. Look, I mean, you can get COVID after being vaccinated. You can get COVID after you've had COVID once.

You know, because the thing is, so we've done a little study at our clinic. Because I've had numerous patients that come to me and I say, hey, Kevin, I can tell you, I can guarantee you, Kevin, I had COVID. I had COVID in December or January, December of 2019, I had COVID. I had all the symptoms. I was in Mexico, I was here, I was there, and I can tell you I had COVID, I guarantee you. And then, you know, the wife comes in, yes, he had COVID. I also had COVID. So fine.

So we kind of, you know, I said, hey, I said to my nurse, you know what, let's get an antibody test, right? Let's get an antibody test. And we'll get the patients in, take their names as soon as we get the kit. So we ordered a kit from the US. And we said, okay, what we're going to do is we're not sure whether these things work, right? because we bought them off, you know, some site. So, you know, let's seem reputable, but you never know of the internet.

So we, we bought a kit, I think we bought 25 or 50 test kits for antibodies, right? Because once you have COVID, you develop antibodies to COVID. So it's not an antigen test. Antigen is to check if you've got COVID. Antibodies is to see if you've got immunity to COVID, right? So they wanted antibody testing. So we had a group of three controls. So patients that we know had COVID in the last three, in the last month to four to six weeks.

So we said, you know, we phoned them up and said, hey, listen, we're doing this test. We know that you had COVID. Would you be so kind as to be our guinea pigs? And we just want to do a test. So we ran tests on three of our patients that had COVID in the preceding 4 to 6 weeks, and they were all positive, antibody positive. So then we said, okay, now that we know that this test works, because the thing is, if you had COVID, of course you'll have antibodies.

So you said, okay, now we know that this test works. Let's call our guys in that had requested an antibody test. And most of them would have been probably at least minimum nine months post when they thought that they were infected. So we were doing these tests probably six to nine months post. So I think we started doing this test sometime in the summer. It's probably like six to nine months. Well, actually longer.

No, what are we now? Probably longer than that. Yeah, this was 2019. No, this would have been over a year or a year or close to a year. So I think we probably started early either spring or it would have been at least a year. And none of them were positive. We've run probably 10 or 15 tests and nobody had antibodies. So it's either that they didn't have the disease at all and they may have had something else or their immunity had dropped off so significantly

that there were no detectable antibodies. So it's kind of hard to say, right? Because they didn't have a test to prove that they did have COVID. It'd be, you know, it's just a thought. You know, you think all the things we got going on in the race to get to 80%, the race to, you know, your fears. Yeah. You got the vaccine. In theory, you could have COVID and be immune as well, at least for a short period of time, right? because after you fought it, you, you almost would behoove a government to put those out and let

people go, if they think they have it, go get those tests done, like fast. Because if you do, do have it, that number can be going up. And we can understand we are eradicating this day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, and we are. I think, you know, there are small, small scale trials or tests that are, you know, antibody tests that are going on right now. And it's that, you know, hopefully that that information and those trials or that research comes out and starts to start to, you know, show us, show us the way. Because I mean, you know, we practice evidence-based medicine. Whatever the evidence is, that's what we do, right? And that's the way it should be. You know, we don't just come up with a theory and hope it works. You know, we need to, you know, work on what the

evidence is. And if there's evidence, research properly, you know, peer-deviewed, reproducible evidence, absolutely. You know, you go with that. I follow that thinking entirely. It's, it's interesting, though. I mean, when you look around the world, you got, you got Canada did it their way, you got the U.S. doing it their way, you got Mexico, Australia is in a weird world. You got Sweden. Everybody loves to talk about Sweden. You got Israel. real, right? They got all these different places that rely on, well, they got really smart scientists and medical people. Would we not agree? Yeah. All going about it in different ways and having different results. And I always come back to, it's interesting, Sweden's approach is

interesting. I don't know if I could sit here and say what would happen in Canada if we took that approach. But it is interesting that there's a country out there that took that approach. Yeah. And it's, it's an interesting thought because there's so many, there's so many different ways that a country could have gone about this process. And you're right.

You know, different countries took different approaches and, you know, and then, I'll give you a, varying results. And then, you know, then we throw the variance in. And whatever approach you have goes out the window. It looked promising and then and then you, you know, look at Australia, for example. I mean, they were doing phenomenally well. And then you get the variant and it kind of throws a spanner in the works of what they were, what they were trying to achieve.

And, you know, they essentially got caught with their pants down, so to speak, because the vaccination rate was so low because they were doing so well. I watch what Australia is going through and the you know that's where I say medical and political gets it gets twisted I can't you look at how they're policing it and everything and it's it seems like strange times over there but I can't really speak to it I don't think either of us can really speak to it because you're not living it right so how do you actually know um here's your final one I this was this was a lady I know I've been keeping you here for a long time it's like you probably hopped on here going I'll be 15 minutes and

and here we go, close it on two hours. I've really enjoyed it. It's great to open the conversation up and have different people have their thoughts put into it, because if you stick to one train of thought, that's never healthy. So I really appreciate you giving me some time. Here's what a lady had sent me. When you compare 250,000 doses of vaccinations administered in Alberta at the end of February 2021, to over 5.6 million doses administered as of September 9th, how much difference?

do you think it'll make to this winter's occupancy in hospitals? Delta variant. That's the difference and that's the that's the that's the issue, right, is the delta. You know, that's my concern is the variance and I said this from the beginning and from the beginning of the pandemic, uh, the race to try and vaccinate as many people as as as possible. So 250,000 people as opposed to 5.6 million. Would it make a difference? Absolutely it, it, it, it, it, will, you know, if we are 250,000 people now, we'd be an absolute disaster right now, right? It would be an absolute mess. The fact that we've got, you know, 5.6 million people that have been vaccinated is, is. It's 5.6 million doses. So that would be, that would be where you're 70%

coming from. That'll be, that's, that's huge. Look at, look at what happened in our long-term care across, across Saskatchewan. So, This is going back to, I think, data from June, around June. As of early June, we had 98% of long-term care residents in Saskatchewan fully vaccinated. And 94% had at least one dose. So pretty much, you know, 88% fully vaccinated. and then the rest of the 6% had had only one dose. In December, we had over 300 cases of COVID-19 in long-term care across Saskatchewan.

As of June, there were none. We are seeing breakthrough cases now, Sean, because of the Delta variant. But, you know, at the beginning of the summer, we hadn't seen any. and that's our most at-risk population right there in the long-term care facilities, right? So there's no doubt that it, you know, that in itself, from a local perspective, local evidence, shows that it's effective. Well, I do appreciate you giving me your night and your time. I assume you're staying now because you're...

Yeah, no, I was going to drive back, but it's too late now, Sean. You made me stay in Edmonton for another night. I just wanted you to have some quality time with your son. That's what I was doing. Yes, thank you so much and I will. Well, thank you again for hopping on and doing this. I do appreciate you giving me some of your time and your thoughts on this subject. Thank you so much.

You know, I thank you for the work that you do with the Health Foundation and your podcast. It's fantastic. You know, we need to have people like you and our community that are community-minded and community-driven, which is something that I enjoy and is close to my heart. So thank you, Sean, for the work that you do. Appreciate it. Thanks again. Hey, folks.

Thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast.

Kess Fix. Until next time.