The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Are The Right People At The Head Of The Vaccine Line?

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Lots of questions still persist about vaccines and variants.  Today we go to Edmonton for some answers from infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynora Saxinger.  And there are some encouraging signs.��  We also talk about Dan Levy, Lorne Michaels and The Weeknd.  And then a very special guest on the late great Christopher Plummer.

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, and you're just moments away from today's episode of The Bridge, the latest on the fight against the pandemic, and hey, another edition of The Bridge. Peter Mansbridge here. And it's great to have you along with us no matter where you're listening. It could be on Sirius XM channel 167 Canada Talks, where it airs every day at noon or 5 Eastern. That's every day, Monday to Friday. And, of course, wherever you pick up your podcasts. There it is, The Bridge. Well, quite up your podcasts. There it is.

The Bridge. Well, quite a weekend. Hope you enjoyed it. And it was certainly a good weekend to be a Canadian in the respect that Americans sure love us, right? This is one of their biggest weekends of the year that we just went through. You know, we call it the Super Bowl weekend. Although, careful, you're not allowed to actually say Super Bowl unless you pay for the right to say it. You've got to call it like the big game.

Super Bowl is owned by the NFL, the term. And Super Sunday, I think they own that one as well. And you can't use those terms unless you pay for them. So that's why you saw people doing handstands on the weekend calling it, you know, the big game or game day or whatever. But that's not why they love Canadians. They love Canadians because we were all over their big game weekend. Started on Saturday night with Saturday Night Live. Who was the host? Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek. There he was hosting the biggest comedy show that's out there on television.

Now, I guess we shouldn't be like overly surprised. Saturday Night Live, you know who created it. You know who the executive producer is still after all these years? Lorne Michaels. And Lorne Michaels is a Canadian. Proudly wears his Order of Canada. You'll often see that on the lapel of his tuxedo or his suit jacket. Now, Lorne Michaels, you may not know this. It takes an old guy like me to remind you of this.

But Lorne Michaels started sort of on the comedy circuit in southern Ontario and in Toronto and on CBC Radio. He used to have a program called the Hart and Lauren Terrific Hour. This would have been late 60s, early 70s. Just before, actually, he moved to New York and came up with the idea behind Saturday Night Live. It was called Hart and Lauren Terrific Hour because it was a partnership between him, Lorne Michaels,

and Hart Pomerantz, a Toronto lawyer. Both real funny guys. And that was a funny show. And that's kind of one of the places he kind of became known. And that led eventually to, as I said, to New York. So that was Saturday night. Dan Levy. Produced by Lorne Michaels.

Canada. And then the big game itself. The halftime show, where so much hype has been made over the years about the halftime show. Whether it was, you know, Madonna or... Did Michael Jackson ever do it?

Janet Jackson did it. Anyway, lots of big names did it. Who did it this year? This year, in the midst of a pandemic, who did the halftime show? The Weeknd. Toronto guy. Toronto area guy. Toronto area guy.

Hugely successful. Known now around the world. And known especially now after doing the halftime show. And I thought it was spectacular. I guess I'm biased a bit. Cheering for the homegrown guy. But it was quite the performance with the restrictions that must have been placed on it

in terms of how to do a show in the midst of a pandemic using what appeared to be hundreds, if not thousands of performers with you in the dance format on the field of a football game and a light show, you know, fireworks, the whole bit. It was pretty spectacular. And so headliners for the weekend, where they go for?

We got to make this weekend big. Where do we go? Let's go to Canada. And that's what happened. All right. Let's talk the pandemic for a moment. I like to try on Mondays to kind of set the stage for the kind of, not the kind of week we're going to have,

but sort of where we are in this story. And I go to the science of it as opposed to the politics of it. And we've been really lucky over the last few weeks. You know, we talked to Dr. Isaac Boguch in Toronto, Dr. Zane Chagla in Hamilton, Dr. Lisa Barrett in Halifax. And so I wanted to branch westward, seeing as we hadn't talked to a doctor in Western Canada over this in the last little while. We talked to scientists and researchers in Saskatoon

early on on this who were working on vaccine potential. But I wanted to talk to an infectious disease specialist today and I found a great one to talk to. You may have seen her. She's been on a number of programs in the last few months. Her name's Dr. Lenora Saxinger. She's an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. She's in Edmonton, where most of the country's been pretty cold

the last few days, but hey, they know how to define cold in Edmonton, where over this weekend it was, I don't know, you know, with the wind chill and all that, minus 45, I heard, that's cold. It reminded me of my old Churchill days, when it was really cold, and continuously through the winter. And then, of course, the further north you went, the colder it got. And so I, you know, it wasn't as shocking for me to experience days where it was like with the wind chill minus 55 degrees, you know, you wore wind pants and it just, it was like you were wearing shorts. It just got was like you were wearing shorts you could it just cut right through you

anyway dr sassinger was good enough to have a chat with me about all things pandemic and i think there's a lot of interesting material in this interview, and I hope you find it as informative and as interesting as I did. So here she is, Dr. Lenora Saxinger. She's an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. Doctor, you're seeing and hearing about COVID every day. And I'm just wondering, you know, in your own head, where are you right now this week? Are you feeling better than you were a week ago? Not as good as you were a week ago? Or kind of in the same area?

I think that over the last week or two, I have my anxiety around the world of variants has not necessarily decreased, but I've become accustomed to it again. I found it very unfortunate when we had to, you know, have our good vaccine news chased so quickly by alarming variant news and trying to figure out what that will change as we move forward through vaccine rollout challenges. And so that's a big wild card and it still is a wild card. I still have some worries about it, but I'm feeling, you know, at least in places where we're able to track this closely, that we still have a reasonable chance of keeping it, keeping a lid on the variants

while we try to get vaccines out. But that does still remain to be seen. I mean, we have to do things right. And we really have to apply the hard-won lessons from the last year really well right now. When you determine your mood on all this, who do you listen to? Like, what are the voices that you go to or the information that you go to to make up your mind on how to feel right now? You know, it's interesting because I usually start,

and this is probably because I've ended up in a position of trying to be the sensemaker between a lot of other areas. So I'm trying to be a sensemaker of public health data and scientific data and, you know, clinical data. And that's kind of where my practice has been. And so it's a good place for me. So I usually go directly to primary data sources and I want to see the epi data. I want to see the reports. I want to look at the preprint and I start to evolve my opinion. And then I have some, you know, other figures that I usually find

have a balanced take. And I'll cross-check my opinion by looking at certain key scientists and epidemiologists. And I'm really worried because I also think that there's some people whose opinions that I really value, but who I think might be tending into more polarized positions that can be very influential. And I really have to guard against blindly following.

So I always try to go right to the sources. As a result, I usually find myself in a position that's kind of in between the polarized areas, often anyway, or at least partially, I usually find myself in a nuanced position that's hard to explain, honestly. And, and that can be actually a bit of an uncomfortable place these days. So it's, it's's interesting when you try to forge your understanding directly, it can be different than when you're just kind of following other people's opinions. You know, it's funny, we live in such a polarized world on so many different issues right now outside of health issues. And yet, polarization has become become as you suggest you know a real issue on on kovat and on our

own vaccines and on the variants and you name it there is a you know polarization is is out there so I'm glad to hear that you're trying your best to stay stay away from that let me Let me ask you a couple of specifics in terms of the issues you've raised. On the vaccine issue, where there's been so much talk about the rollout in the last week or two, is our system fair? Do you think our system is fair on the way we're rolling out vaccines? That's a surprisingly difficult question because I think you have to have some principles underlying what you're planning to do. And I think that, you know, the NACI guidelines kind of laid out

sound ethical rationale for the way things were meant to roll out. And then everyone's applying those in their own context. But I think that the difference between the principles and the actual carryout have been challenging. And another thing that hasn't gotten a whole ton of airtime, but which I'm interested in is, you know, it feels like the doses being dispersed to provinces

is really kind of no favorite children approach in terms of being predicated, I think, mostly on population. But you might be able to make an argument that, you know, for the good of the entire country, putting more vaccine into hotspots actually would be a net positive in terms of averting more deaths in cases. And if there is cross-border travel, maybe a net positive for other provinces as well. And so that's something that hasn't been discussed too much in terms of fairness. But then it becomes very loaded. And there's so many different things at play in the vaccine rollout in terms of people's perceived risks, their own perceived risks, the risks of people in different areas in healthcare, the risks associated with medical conditions, that to some extent, the more you complicate it, the more you might actually foil your own response by slowing it down and making it unimaginably hard to carry out.

So there is a sweet spot, I think, in terms of finding something that's transparent and fair and also workable. And there's also, I think, some, you know, extra data and modeling might be useful to figure out what's the best way to actually strategically deploy vaccines amongst provinces and within provinces for the best benefit overall and making it clear enough that people are willing to accept it. You know, that is such a touchy subject.

You don't want to raise that with Lisa Barrett, your counterpart in Halifax, who worries, as many do in Atlantic Canada, that it's going to be... Punished for doing a good job. Yeah, exactly. Because they're doing a good job, the vaccines might be pulled back to go into areas that aren't as successful as they've been. And it's not just the Atlantic bubble. I mean, I've seen it here in Stratford.

We've had vaccines diverted from here to Toronto because they're in a much more difficult situation or were, you know, a month ago. But that issue is certainly an issue. And it does come down to this question, you know, are the right people at the head of the line? And it's not just about hotspots. It's about, you know, social classes.

It's about cultures. It's about all of that. You know, what's your answer on that about, you know, are the right people at the head of the line? I think that it does vary. I think that there have been, and this really tweaks people's moral outrage if their perception is that someone who's is higher, further ahead in the line because of a privileged position of some kind or special pleading of some kind, I think that really is offensive to people broadly. And a few cases like that really erode the public trust profoundly. And even within the healthcare, I mean, in healthcare, it almost has gotten unseemly when people

are jockeying for position about who's at higher risk or who's not at higher risk, when in fact, really the people at higher risk are elderly people in congregate living. And we should stay focused on that as well. So I think that just carry, like the carry out of the vaccine rollout has got to hinge on so much clarity and really human to human communication. Because I think people really can conceptualize the why better.

If it's accompanied by, you know, the narrative of why that is important and also the science of why that's important and I think the national kind of debate or discussions really if they can be held in a thoughtful way would really help. The one thing that actually I'm kind of pleased about in terms of the jockeying for position about vaccines is it really does illustrate how important they are and how, you know, if people are fighting to get them, I think that that might actually at the end of the day, increase vaccine acceptance

in the uncertain population as well. So that's the silver lining that I keep on hoping for. But yeah, I think that at the moment, especially with the supply being constrained and a little bit uncertain, and we're not sure when we're going to get access to the other very good but slightly less good numbers vaccines. I think that, you know, having really pristine strategy is going to be really important as we go forward. And, you know, you may well be right about the acceptance issue, because we've even seen in some of the research that's been done in the last couple of weeks, we've seen that number going up in terms of acceptance. You know, it's not jumping up, but it is going up, which is obviously good for those who believe that vaccines are extremely important on this. Can I ask you one question on the variants?

And it actually came in by mail. I think, you know, I think this has been addressed elsewhere, but I think it's still confusing to many Canadians. And that is this. I mean, at the moment we talk, when we talk about these variants, we talk about the British variant, we talk about the South Africa variant, we talk about the South Africa variant. We talk about the Brazil variant. And the question I got was, you know, these variants developed in those countries, specific to those countries. Is there any reason why one couldn't develop here, that there couldn't end up being a Canadian variant? Yeah, and I think that's actually an interesting point.

There's two things about that that i find kind of interesting one is it's kind of stigmatizing and we try to avoid with infectious diseases to name things by place like dating back to when syphilis was the french disease or the english disease depending on who you talk to um but that's a shorthand because the nomenclature is terrible like saying b117 all the time is really just klutzy. And there will be some nomenclature sorting. It's not clear for sure where they emerged necessarily. We just really can identify where they became dominant strains and transmission patterns. And, you know, it is likely that they arose in the countries where they were initially described, but it's not 100% clear.

And what we're seeing is that some of the variants coming up in different places share some common patterns, which tells us that when you have essentially a lot of transmission of the virus in a community, and especially if they're places where, you know, they might be using monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma, where there might be reinfections. And so anywhere there's people who have some antibody around from whatever source and a lot of transmission and the antibody that is around is not able to fully suppress the virus. So it's an odds game. We might end up with variants that arise that are better at transmitting in the setting of antibody and possibly better at infecting and causing illness in the presence of antibody. So it really remains crucial on a worldwide basis to try to reduce

transmission still to prevent these from continuing to rise and really starting to look more at how they arose. Like some people think that if someone is immunocompromised and has a really long-term infection, that's a place where you might start to see more of the variants. And those people might be people that we'd want to handle different medically to reduce that risk. So there's a lot of scientific questions as well. But yeah, they could happen anywhere. I love the way you cautioned us not to assume, just because we call it the British variant or the South African variant or the Brazilian variant that it didn't necessarily start there.

It's kind of like the Spanish flu, right, of 100 years ago. That really had nothing to do with Spain. It was just that it's kind of... Spain got tagged with it. They got tagged with it, and a century later, they still are. I risk asking you this question because the answer may be so confusing that I probably shouldn't ask it. I'll try my best. What's the basic difference or is there a difference between a variant and a mutation of the virus?

Actually, that's an important question. I mean, it's kind of funny because whenever I see, you know, something on Twitter or on social media talking about mutant strain, I'm like, oh my goodness, they're picking all of the scariest words to put together. But mutation just means that, I mean, this is an RNA virus and it's got a bit of a sloppy copying system. And so it will change over time. And so we've seen, you know, basically different variants, strains arising as the virus travels into different populations. And you can actually track how it travels by these little incremental differences over time. And when we talk about the variants of concern, it's not unexpected to have a variant. The thing here is that these actually behave differently. They have, you know, the

mutation patterns. So the mutations on their spike proteins mostly have allowed them to become more efficient at transmitting person to person and possibly better at causing illness, unfortunately. So it's kind of completely expected that viruses will change as they travel around the globe. It was hoped, and actually for a long time, it seemed pretty stable, that it wasn't changing into anything that was truly different. It was just the expected thing. The difference between a variant really and a strain is that once a variant of a virus lineage is well established to be different, like observably different in how it behaves, then it might be renamed as a strain. And I think that decision is still being made. So the terminology is confusing, but the mutations are expected. Some mutations can make a variant,

and some variants become worthy of being called a different strain. Okay, I think I've got it. I think I've got it. It's not easy. Listen, I really appreciate your time on this, and you really helped, certainly me. You certainly helped me clear up a few things in my own mind about all this. If I asked you to close this out with, you know, 20 or 30 seconds on something to make me feel good about this and to make our audience feel good about the situation we're in today, what would that be i think that although there are echoes to the early part of last year

right now because we're dealing with something now that we're uncertain about and we're learning about it's actually amazing like it is truly amazing that we have reached the point of having multiple effective vaccines against a virus that we didn't even know walked the earth last December. Like that's huge. It's been a devastating year. I mean, everything has been disrupted. It's been very, very hard, but I think it's allowed us to see a lot of potential in what we can do when people come together on things.

I think we have some challenges in making sure people stay together on things, but we've also seen some beautiful examples of things that work well and how we can learn from them. And so when I'm getting very stressed out, I like to look at the things that are working well. And there are some things that are working very well. We've learned a lot about how to care for people. We have some good vaccines and we actually have a really good roadmap for what we need to do. The challenge always lies in the application and in getting everyone on board all the time. But I think those things are doable, honestly. Positive way to look at it. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. My pleasure.

Well, I told you a lot of information in there from Dr. Lenora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. She joined us from Edmonton. Before we leave this topic, let me, because, you know, one of the things at a time when there is so much difficult news and bad news is to try and look for areas where there's hope and there's a sense where we're using this time for some good. And there are lots of examples of that, both on our personal situations

and on various situations in our country and around the world. And I saw one come by in the New York Times, I don't know, a week or two weeks ago, and I wanted to save it for this kind of day. Because it's just a little thing, but it shows where the difficulties posed by the pandemic have allowed an opportunity for something good to come of it. Have you ever been to the Louvre, you know, the museum in Paris, in France? I've been lucky enough to have been there a couple of times because I've been lucky enough to travel to France because of work over the years and various conferences that I've covered and summits from world leaders, etc., etc. And one of the things I always found about the Louvre,

as opposed to the, well, not as opposed, but aside from the fact that it is so spectacular and has some of the great exhibits in it, is it's always packed. You're absolutely packed. And you can get trapped in there for hours. Trying to get your moment in line in front of the Mona Lisa or whatever it may be. So the pandemic closed the Louvre a number of times, I think.

But the most significant one was last October, and it still hasn't reopened. It's hoped to have been reopened within the next week or two. But what have they done? Have they just kind of locked up the doors and, you know, get in there just before it reopens and dust off a few things? No, they've actually done a lot of work in it

and they've thought through how the Louvre will be used once people come back. So reading briefly from this Times piece, some of the work is relatively simple, like dusting the frames of nearly 4,500 paintings. Some is Herculean, like makeovers in the Egyptian Antiquities Hall and the Sully Wing. Nearly 40,000 explanatory plaques in English and French were being hung next to artworks. Even before the pandemic, the Louvre was taking a hard look at crowd management because mass tourism had meant many galleries were choked with tour groups. That was me. While travel restrictions have slashed the number of visitors, the museum will limit entry to ticket holders with reservations

when it reopens to meet health protocols. Other changes are planned, like new interactive experiences. I love this. Including yoga sessions every half hour on Wednesdays near Jacques-Louis David and Rubens' masterpieces and workshops in which actors play scenes from famous tableau right in front of the canvas. That's going to be pretty neat.

You got to admit. Again, I'd like to see that happening. And just to conclude, when asked, why are you doing things like that, having the actors play in front of the paintings that they're acting out? Marina Pia Vitale, Deputy Director of Interpretation, who oversees the projects, has this line. It's a call out to say the museum

is living and that people have the right to do these things here. Okay. So there you go. How the Louvre is making its way through the pandemic and changing and adapting to the dilemma that has been put before it. Okay, more to come, including where we're heading during this week.

Tomorrow, a very special program. And it's basically an inside look at how the travel industry has tried to adapt to the changes that are being forced upon it by the pandemic. First of all, how it shut down, how many of them went out of business. And I'm talking about travel companies.

I'm talking about those companies that organize tours. And they're not just cruise ships, right? They're bus tours. They're all over the world. And a lot of them got crunched when this hit a year ago. So what have they done in that year? And how is that business going to look different by those who've survived but we got an inside look at that tomorrow on the bridge and i think you might find it

you know equally fascinating because i know a lot of you and i've heard from many of you who are missing that element to their lives obviously to travel to travel, to get out. Now, there's traveling in your own car and going around the country, which is great and we all should do when we can. And there's traveling around the world, which given the opportunity, many of us want to do, especially in our later years. So what's it going to look like when that happens and opens up again? As I said, an inside look at that. Then on Wednesday, smoke mirrors and the truth, Bruce Anderson will be here

from Ottawa. We haven't decided yet what we'll talk about. It wouldn't surprise me if we ended up talking about Donald Trump and the impeachment trial going on in the U.S. Senate. It starts tomorrow. By Wednesday, I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about. Thursday is traditionally a potpourri day. Lots of different things to talk about. And Friday, the weekend special, which is your thoughts and questions and letters.

Don't be shy. You weren't last week. You got a tremendous amount of mail last week. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Drop me a line, and we'll keep it for the Friday broadcast, podcast. Call it whatever we want, because we own those names, right? This ain't the Super Bowl.

This is the bridge. On Friday, not long after we'd put the weekend special on the air on SiriusXM channel 167 and available on your podcast. Not long after that came the news that the great Christopher Plummer had passed away at 91 years old in his home in Connecticut.

Well, Christopher Plummer is very special to this town, Stratford, Ontario. Been here many, many times. Performed on the stage here many times. And so it hit pretty hard here. We sort of consider him one of our own, as does every stage and theater and film screen in the world, I guess, from his amazing career.

But a lot of people who had worked with Chris Plummer talked on Friday and over the weekend about what it was like to work with him. And I kept hearing in my own home someone talking about Chris Plummer. And that, of course, my wife, Cynthia Dale, who has a pretty spectacular career as a triple threat, stage, screen, dance. But I also had the amazing opportunity and the fortunate opportunity

to have worked with Chris Plummer on a couple of vacations. And so I asked her, you know, Synth, would you do something? Would you just record your feelings about this moment? And if you do, I'll put it on the podcast. Not an interview. Just record your feelings.

And so she agreed to do that. And it's, you know, it's three or four minutes long. I'm going to play it here, and it's, you know, it's three or four minutes long. I'm going to play it here and it's one of those things where it's awfully hard to say something after it ends. So I think when it does end, I'll just slowly fade up the theme music and that'll be it for today's podcast. But as we always say, you know, we'll be back in 24 hours.

But first, I want to leave you with this. Because it's, well, as I always tend to say, and maybe overuse this phrase, but I think this is pretty special. So here we go.

Here's Cynthia Dale on Christopher Plummer. I was lucky enough to work with a legend. He was a legend of the stage from Broadway to the Stratford Festival here in Canada. He was a legend on screen that saw him win an Academy Award for his magnificent portrayal of Tolstoy and saw him go up over the Alps to save his family and to voice a dastardly villain in Up. He was Christopher Plummer, and I was lucky enough to call him a friend. In 1986, we did a film together, The Boy in Blue, where he played my uncle.

I was in awe and starstruck. He was classy and gentlemanly, giving as an actor, very funny, and a consummate professional to work with. He took me under his wing and he guided me and he taught me so much. I remember one day on set, I had to sing. In a scene, I had to just do a little bit of singing. And he sat watching me and supporting me and leading and guiding me. He knew what it cost and what it meant. He was so giving and so generous. We spent months together filming and then years later, I was lucky enough to spend some special times together here in Stratford, where he came and saw me do The Sound of Music. And his hug and the twinkle in his eye after that performance meant so much to me. But The Sound of Music wasn't the first time I'd ever seen him. In fact, the first time I think I was aware of him and saw him was in a production of Cyrano.

It was a musical of the life story of Cyrano de Bergerac. It was in 1973 in Toronto at the Royal Alexander Theatre. And that's when I fell in love with him. Do yourself a favour. Seek out that production, that soundtrack. You will not regret it or forget it. Christopher Plummer as Cyrano will inspire you. It will change you and your heart and your soul and you will be grateful you did it and you will be forever changed. I listened to it again yesterday after I heard that he was gone and I wept. I wept sitting there in my little office listening to him and those words that I felt were indelibly

ingrained in my being. I'd heard them for so long in my life. I wept like I did as a 13-year-old girl who saw him play that part many, many times. I begged my mother to take me to see it again and again. I wore out that vinyl record way back before the resurgence of vinyl records in the original time of vinyl records in my parents' basement. Listen to his command of the language. listen to his command of the language listen to his command of that heartbreaking character listen to him and know in fact that he is not gone he will live on in edelweiss in barrymore in hamlet his villains, and in his sublime comedies in Cyrano. Christopher Plummer, you magnificent man, what a gift you gave me, sharing your gift with me, me with all of us Godspeed rest in power rest in peace Thank you.