The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Are We Beginning To Turn The Corner on Covid?

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

A lot of indicators suggest things are improving quickly on the Covid front, but does that mean we have turned the corner?  Two of the country's respected infectious disease specialists have their view.  One in Halifax and one in Edmonton.  Plus, is Israel trading vaccines for hostages? And, what would you charge researchers to be deliberately infected?

Well, hello there., start of another week. And you know, it's interesting, this is week 50 for the bridge since we went daily on COVID last March. Man, it just seems like yesterday. Actually, it doesn't. It seems like years ago that we went daily on COVID and that we've all been dealing with COVID. There have been a number of things that have happened in the last couple of weeks that are making some people ask this question about whether or not we've actually turned the corner on COVID. We're going to have a real good discussion on that this morning with, you know, I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of infectious disease specialists in the last couple of months, and they've all been terrific, and they've been from all different parts of the

country. Today we're going to put, they're all my favorites, but today we're going to put two of my favorites together. One from the East Coast, one from, well, not the West Coast, but today we're going to put two of my favorites together. One from the East Coast, one from, well, not the West Coast, but almost the West Coast, Halifax and Edmonton. And we'll talk to Dr. Lisa Barrett, who's at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and Dr. Lenora Sassinger, who is at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. And we'll get their thoughts on this. And it'll be interesting, I think, to hear where they think the same way, where they perhaps don't think the same way on this particular question. But before we get to it, I just want to give you a couple of my, I don't know,

favorite, if you want to call it that, vaccine stories over the weekend. Because today's episode is basically all about COVID. All right? Just want to let you know up front. Mondays, we try to set the lay of the land in the country on this battle of our lives. And today, it was certainly no exception. We've got a number of angles on this battle of our lives. And today, it was certainly no exception. We've got a number of angles on this, but the centerpiece is this discussion between the two doctors.

But I noticed over the weekend when I was flipping through The Economist, they have a piece on vaccines and the current world supply, and they make the argument, when they've crunched all the numbers, that half of the world's current supply of vaccines has been reserved for just 15% of the world's global population, and that there would be enough vaccines to go around

if the country shared and diversified their distribution. The United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and Canada have the most surplus at the moment. Don't tell anybody in Canada we've got a surplus thing, because it's a surplus in mind in terms of what we've kind of ordered up for the future. But nevertheless, the economist argues we have the most surplus at the moment, while elsewhere the predicted supply is tighter at one and a half doses ordered per adult. All right, that's in the economist, and it runs kind of counter to the current thinking in Canada

about where we are on supply. But they're looking big picture and long-term, and that's what they see. Now, this is yet another story that piqued my interest, certainly. And it's the debate that's going on in the United Kingdom about which vaccine to use. We haven't had that debate here. Just give me a vaccine, right?

That's the debate here. In the UK, they're going, well, you know, I don't know. Do I want Pfizer? Do I want to wait for Moderna? Or do I want the homegrown version, which is AstraZeneca, or what they call there the Oxford vaccine? Now, you just heard me say Moderna, wait for Moderna. In Britain, they have not received their initial supply of Moderna yet.

We have in Canada, and obviously they have in the States. But in the UK, they're still waiting. They've authorized Moderna, but its 17 million doses won't begin to arrive until the spring. At least, so says the Washington Post in the piece they wrote over the weekend. So the debate then becomes AstraZeneca or Pfizer. And most people in the UK, and it goes beyond that into Europe as well,

they want Pfizer as opposed to the homegrown version, AstraZeneca. Why is that? Well, Pfizer has a much better efficacy rate based on the test trials. It's well under the 90% range. AstraZeneca is as low as in the low 60s percent, which still for a vaccine, when you look back at other past vaccines, that's still, you know, 60, 70% is pretty good. But it's not good enough for a lot of Brits or a lot of Europeans.

We have yet to see AstraZeneca. It hasn't been approved yet on the Canadian level. So it's not in play yet in Canada. It's going to be, but it could be a few weeks away yet. But it's interesting to see that people want Pfizer. They call it the sexy vaccine. I guess because of its efficacy rate. But as I said, it's not just the UK.

According to the Post, that's the sense emerging across Europe where French healthcare workers and Italian teachers are demanding the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines where they can get them. And Germany is reporting no-shows at Oxford vaccine appointments. Make a vaccine appointment for an AstraZeneca or an Oxford, as they call it.

And people aren't turning up. About a dozen countries in Europe are also avoiding the Oxford vaccination for people over 65, noting that early trials didn't include enough volunteers in that age group to prove effectiveness. Hmm. We haven't had this discussion here. Which vaccine do you want? It's basically, give me a vaccine that's been approved

and let's quit screwing around on the delays. I want my vaccine now. That may be coming. As the vaccines start arriving by the hundreds of thousands each week now in Canada. More than 400,000 I think last week, more than even higher than that this week, and it's going to continue that way for the next,

well, the foreseeable future. All right. That's a little background on vaccines. But the bigger issue is, as I said, when you look at the numbers, and I'm not going to run through them all here, but when you look at the numbers on everything from deaths to cases to hospitalizations to use of ICUs, you name it, they are all seeming to be coming down in different regions of this country, different areas of the United States, and it's leading some people, some

scientists, some doctors to say, you know, we may be doing better than we thought we were doing. So are we? Here's our opportunity, as I said, to get a couple of different versions of how people feel about that. And as I said, these are two of my favorite infectious disease specialists. Imagine saying that a year ago. Oh, my favorite infectious disease specialists. Imagine saying that a year ago. Oh, my favorite infectious disease specialists are. Well, they are a part of our life now, and man, we're all better for it.

So let's get it started. Linking Halifax and Edmonton. Here we go. Start each week with, you know, a sense of where we are. Quite frankly, I'm kind of confused where we are right now on this story because, you know, on the one hand, a lot of the data looks pretty good, both in Canada and the United States. All those graphs that you see on no matter what the category, they all seem to be going down, in some cases plunging down. The vaccine rollout seems to be back on track. Yet at the same time, there's this great fear of the variants coming.

And so I'm left kind of puzzled as to how I'm supposed to be thinking about this story right now. So I want to get your two perspectives and seeing as you're, you know, almost different ends of the country. Why don't we start in Halifax because you see the future before we do because of time zones.

You get the advantage, Dr. Barrett. So why don't you start us? Where are we on this? That's funny because we get the advantage of time, but we're always a little behind everywhere else in terms of what we do with the pandemic and our case numbers. So when I'm trying to put together all the data and information, I'm a scientist, but the first thing I always think of is what's my gut right now? And am I relaxed, margarita drinking, kind of easygoing, pointing the pandemic for me, or am I still uber high alert, you know, first wave kind of feeling? And I'm somewhere in the middle, but I got to tell you when I synthesize all this information and data and put it together, not just for the East coast of Canada, but for the country.

And, and, you know, it is a pandemic. We have to think globally for the world. I'm still in the, I'm still at moderate alert level. I think it's great that all the cases are coming down. We've had our own little bit of excitement here in Atlantic over the last couple of weeks with Newfoundland having probably one of the most pure human experiments in variants that you'll find on the planet with a completely naive population seeing hundreds of cases from nothing for months go forward and go forward very quickly so to me i love to see cases going down i love to see that we have enough data and information that people understand what brings cases down and that's distance and all the other stuff we know about. Vaccines going up, that's lovely. Certainly we aren't seeing the impact,

I don't think hugely of that yet. But yet we still have some work to do. And I think the variants of concern, and I say this more as the virologist end of me than the clinician end of me, I still think we need to be very careful. And Newfoundland reminded me of that this week and the week before.

If you have an opening up that's not supported by enough public health measures and distancing, we're not quite there yet, nor will we be there, I don't think, in the next couple of months to rely on vaccines yet as the landing zone beneath your tightrope to catch you entirely. So coming along, I'm very excited and very hopeful, but we still have a lot of hard work to do, I think, in the next couple of months as individuals, people and policymakers to keep us headed in the right direction. So that's where I'm kind of sitting at the moment. Okay, well, that's the view from Halifax. Let's try Edmonton with Dr. Sassinger.

What do you think? I think there's a substantial overlap here because, you know, I think the news that we have effective vaccines, that we have a menu of vaccines coming, really gave me a lot more resilience over the latter part of December when things were truly awful here. And then the variant of concern signals actually brought back some of the prior anxiety. The lived experience here has actually been much, much better. The cases have dropped. The hospitals are no longer full to the rafters with COVID. The deaths are down. But this wild card of the variants and the fact that we're still developing an understanding,

you know, locally and across the country as to how much the variants have started to replace the regular strains, if we can put it that way, is leaving me unsettled. And I think I'm really quite concerned that should we open up without everything in place and without a full understanding of how much variant of concern circulation there is, that getting behind on these would be particularly disastrous. They're unforgiving because of the very high transmissibility. And, you know, we've seen them take off like a rocket in a number of places. And so I feel like it's almost a simmering pot and you have a lid on it. And we kind of have to

keep the lid on while we're figuring out a little bit more about, you know, where these are across Canada. And I must say our data is imperfect right now. And that worries me. I think our data in Alberta is very good, actually, but I'm not as sure about other places. And that's coming along. So we're going to learn a lot. And until we know, I would prefer not to be, I want to keep things on a short leash, basically, until we know more. And I think caution would pay off. Whereas taking risks with COVID-19 and the pandemic so far has again and again not paid off, if I say that we should we should learn from our history as well you know that's interesting can i just pull forward on that because i love that idea of the caution but also i think we're still living in canada in most of this idea that

this is not life like there has to become this realization that covid living is something that we're going to have to do and it's like crossing the street or deciding how you're going to build a house do you build it next to the ocean on a on a piece of sand or do you build it further back on a piece of rock but we need to to determine that covid living is here for a long time, I think. More than six, eight months. And testing, masking, distance, smaller groups and smaller social circles. I would love to see people starting to think of that as the way they live,

not something the government tells them they can stop or start for a little while longer. So if we stop asking that question, when can I stop doing this, but more, how much of this do i do i would be much more comfortable that to as dr saxander said we can we can maintain a reasonable risk threshold without driving everybody absolutely batty well okay but what are you actually saying when you say covid living is here you know for a while a while, if not to stay? I mean,

what does that actually mean? Well, I can take a stab at that. And I'm sure we each have different ideas of that. But for us, I mean, we've opened up a fair bit on the East Coast. And I think that is a bit different than what's happened in other parts of the country-ish. I mean, when other places opened up, they did so before all the numbers that I would love to see in a perfect place were in place. They weren't as close to zero in their diagnosed cases, at least. And to that point, you know, that's imperfect data on a good day with an asymptomatic virus. But they weren't as close to zero. So before you open up, you have cases that

are very, very low. All of your numbers around reproductive number, around seven day averages, hospitalizations are all in the right place. But then you still keep the gathering type small. It doesn't mean you can't open theaters, but they're at 10%. Dining is supported by testing, and there's a whole lot of asymptomatic testing that gets done over and over at a population level that keeps people understanding what's going on. You don't get rid of Q14, would be my thought, and you keep lots of travel testing.

And so for me, that's my expectation of life and living in the next year. And I think Dr. Fauci's right. I don't think we're headed to herd immunity by April. That's for darn sure. And certainly the world is not going to change with vaccines in three months. So COVID living, that's what I mean when I say that. What does it mean to you, Lenora, COVID living? How long are you thinking in your head that this will last? Well, I think we're, I mean, with the possible seasonality of the virus and with vaccine rollout, I'm hopeful that people will have, I think, a more positive summer experience, maybe akin to last summer with the wild card of the variants still being in the background.

So that's a very conditional response on what's going on with variant transmission. But, you know, I actually think a lot of people have kind of learned COVID living. And a great portion of the population, actually, have built in sustainable ways to reduce their contacts with others and that we owe those people a great debt.

I mean, I myself haven't been in a regular store since the pandemic just before it was declared. And so, you know, I think we have to give credit where credit is due, where people have developed some sustainable habits. I think that will carry forward. And I do think there's also a portion of the population kind of looks to the regulation to guide what they're going to do. And in that case, I think we have to provide some good basic guidance about if we can all try to keep our contacts down and try to maintain our distancing and do our hand washing and masking, we will probably be able to open more things out, variants willing, over the next several months,

because we will hopefully have a larger proportion of our very vulnerable population immunized and so you know that's that that i think is something that we can work for but right now i'm reluctant to open up because we still have too many unknowns as to what to expect with the variant transmission and it is one where like i said before the risk is very high but getting out of control so i also think about COVID living in terms of sustainable habits and things that you can do where you can manage a life that's acceptable to you, but take reasonable steps to reduce your risk on a very consistent basis. And I think a lot of people have really done a good job with that. And, you know, we should be looking at that particularly, like just saying, don't do this, I don't think is a really great solution for a lot of people. And talking about safer ways to do things and keeping those core principles in mind really does help, honestly.

Okay. First of all, you know, excuse me if I drop the doctors there for a minute and use your first names. But I find it actually works better in a conversation like this but give me your sense and uh lisa barrett let's start with you on this one of you know we're a country that is still allowing a you know a basically unrestricted access from one end of the country to the other there's some there are some buts in that story, but for the most part, you can travel from one province to another. Is that okay in the sense of the situation we're in,

that there are these, it's like a checkerboard situation where some provinces have different, even within some provinces, there are different restrictions and protocols on some of the things that people are allowed to do in terms of businesses open and schools, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just wondering, because you kind of said that part of the problem in Newfoundland was that there was a sense that perhaps they reopened too soon in some situations. Is there this problem within our country that we have this these different sets of protocols across the country or is that okay yeah it's it's um that's that's three things wrapped up together one nifamon didn't reopen too early i don't think it just

had there were certain pieces that got opened up which were inter or sorry provincial tournaments where people from all across the province came together with orders that you know still had some porosity to them if you will and that's what happens especially with a variant in the circulation and that is a real thing unless you've got excellent testing and testing is also part of your everyday habits unless you've got excellent testing. And testing is also part of your everyday habits that you've made part of life and world. So that's Newfoundland. The second part about whether or not I think having travel unrestricted between our provinces, that's a kinky one.

No one wants to hear anyone say don't travel between provinces in Canada. However, we kind of have a little bit on the East Coast. We've said if you come from outside the Atlantic bubble, it's Q14 for you. And likely most of our provinces are going to start to add in a heck of a lot more testing over the next number of weeks to support control and identification of variants very quickly. And that's also probably going to become part of a national perspective as well. Do I think that's a bad idea? No, I think when the variants, it's likely these are going to spread, but we want them to spread in a controlled way. It's almost like a forest fire with a controlled burn versus an uncontrolled burn. I don't think we're going to stop these all together to be honest but i do think restricting

travel again so that there's a supported 14-day quarantine and testing even within our borders for domestic travel as well as essential travel only is really important do i think the same thing has to be done in every province and we should have a federal direction on this? That one's tough because not even all regions of each province are the same, right? Northern Ontario is not the same as Peel and Toronto and York. So I think that's a really tough question there. When it comes to travel and people movement, I think we're stuck with, I think it would be actually quite useful to see some federal direction on that and to see some homogeneity around Q14 and some additional testing even domestically. And, you know, that's for the control burn, not the prevention. I'd love to see some of that play out between the feds. Federal-provin provincial relations always are more than a little bit interesting.

Dr. Saxinger, how do you see it on that? Well, I mean, just focusing on the idea of movement, I've always really thought about COVID-19 in terms of gradients of risk. And, you know, no matter how you define the geography, if you have an area that's higher risk of transmission that might be undetected, higher risk of now transmission of variants that might be undetected. I don't like people traveling from a high to a low risk area. I think that that's equalizing risk in the wrong direction. And I, therefore, am generally very cautious.

I think that, you know, we are getting a better idea of the national landscape of the spread of the variants of concern. And, you know, I often think of Canada almost as being more like the European Union than like an actual country because of the whole federal provincial territorial thing. We have fewer languages to negotiate, and yet we're also still sometimes less functional at working together. So when you look at what the European Union has said, they're very concerned about the variants of concern. And they're recommending enhanced public health measures right now and attention to spread of variants within vulnerable populations. And they're ahead of us because they've had the variants arise closer to all of their borders. So I think that I would take that signal very seriously. And I would tend to want to keep things buttoned down until we get a better lay of the land, what's going on. And I also do have concerns about border travel because we do have a very long land border with the U.S. And the U.S. does have a lot of COVID still compared to us,

although it's improving. And I'm not sure how their surveillance of the variants has been and how consistent it has been as well. So there's an evolving story there that we have to pay attention to because the goods and services and people that are traveling across the border there are also an issue. And if you have a lot of crossing in your province, that's a lot of possible introductions of variants.

And it's just an odds game at that point. Like, can you contain the ones? Can you find and contain? Can you find and contain? The more times it happens, the more likely it is that you're going to miss some and you're going to start to see more community transmission. Okay, I'm almost out of time.

I've got two minutes left. So a minute for each of you on, and I think you both set the stage really well as to sort of where we are and the pros and the cons. So let's try to end anyway on a positive note. What's the most positive thing you can think of right now in terms of the situation we're in? Lisa Barrett, first. As much as we don't know, we have a heck of a lot more knowledge than we have before

in terms of vaccines and actually how this virus works and what works when people do it full out to prevent spread. And because of that knowledge, I think we have a lot of history, even if we're not perfect at interprovincial relationships, with learning the fact that we have to work together. And I think there may be some appetite at the federal level to provide some more direction around this particular issue of travel, which is going to be huge for the next number of months. So I think we have, combined with vaccines, combined with experience and knowledge,

some great opportunities here to see things go better. And maybe that's a sustainable thing between the FPGs. Yeah. Okay. Dr. Lenora Saxinger, what do you say? I think that the fact that we have an expanding menu of effective vaccines and we currently have decent numbers puts us in a good position. We also, as noted, have a lot of knowledge about, you know, lessons that were hard, hard to learn, but learned. If we can apply those lessons right now and keep things under control and keep transmission down while we roll out vaccines, which I think is eminently doable, we'll be able to see our way to a much better experience over the next six months and certainly over the next 12 months.

But right now, I think it's just a time to be extremely strategic and apply what we've learned and, you know, be very strategic in our vaccine rollout. And I think that we can do okay. We just have to, you know, basically try to consolidate our gains so far and not mess it up by doing anything rash. Good advice, as always, from both of you doctors. I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

And, you know, I think there are a lot of important analysis in those comments. And let me also thank you for being patient, listening to them, because I know for some of you, the audio quality isn't always exactly the best when we do these interviews, especially with people in their homes, which is the kind of situation we're in because of the pandemic, right? Not everybody has a mini studio like I do here in Stratford in their homes. They're living their lives with their, you know, their, their pets and their kids and their spouses and their cooking and they're doing this and that and the other thing. And they're squeezing us in as well. And as a result, you know, at times you get us, as we did, uh, bits and pieces there, uh, it's almost sounds kind of hollow at times you get, as we did bits and pieces there, it almost sounds kind of hollow at times,

but it's there and the information is there. So thanks, you know, most of you understand that and have written that, but occasionally I'll get letters saying, why don't you have, you know, better audio? Well, you know, we're not in studios. That's part of the problem, right? And that's kind of the COVID way of life, at least for the time being. But

I think it's pretty important to get both of those doctors on. So I appreciate their time. Still to come, did Israel use vaccines to do a prisoner swap with Syria. Okay, closing out with a couple of stories. The first one is from the UK once again, and it's about vaccines. Both these stories are about vaccines. And here's the issue. Obviously, there were lots of trials done on the vaccines to get approval, like Pfizer and Moderna and AstraZeneca. They all had to go through this period of test trials.

But one of the things that some researchers and scientists have been wondering about is how much of the virus does it take for you to actually catch COVID or have a severe case of COVID? Are there degrees of infection? Well, how are you going to do that? How are you going to find that out? Well, the only way you're going to do that? How are you going to find that out? Well, the only way you're going to do that is by actually giving patients the virus. And that's what they've now had approved in the United Kingdom. Excuse me, I got the hiccups. Anyway, they've now approved this in the United Kingdom.

And it's the first human challenge trial, they're calling it. And what are they doing? They're paying young people in the sort of 20 to 30 age group, which appears when you look at all those stats these days, that's the age group that gets the most number of cases of COVID right now. But they're paying them up to $6,000. That's U.S., so what, 8,000 Canadian, to accept the virus, like to be given it, knowing that you're likely to get COVID. But people are being given different degrees, different amounts of the virus,

and they're trying to determine, okay, so what causes, what actually ensures that you get it, COVID, and what may suggest you're going to get it bad? I don't know. I don't need $6,000 that bad. But that's what they're doing. And here's the other one. This one, nobody's actually talking about this, but Associated Press is pretty convinced of it

because they've written it. But the countries aren't talking about it. You know that Israel periodically does prisoner swaps with different organizations and different countries. And they've been trying to achieve a prisoner swap with Syria of late. And according to Associated Press, they pulled it off, the prisoner swap, because they agreed to one of the conditions that the Syrians placed on it,

which was you have to buy vaccines from Russia as part of the deal to give to us. And apparently they agreed to do that. According to AP, Israel paid Russia $1.2 million to provide the Syrian government with coronavirus vaccines as part of a deal that secured the release of an Israeli woman held captive in Damascus. This is according to a number of different reports that circulated in the Israeli media over the weekend. Remember arms for, what was it? What was it the Reagan was on the Contra arms deal?

He made a swap on arms to get certain information back from the Contras in Nicaragua. Anyway, on this one, Israel wanted their hostage back, and according to all these different reports they did it with vaccines partially anyway there was an actual prisoner swap as well but they threw in the vaccines to cement the deal

Israel, there's been a lot written about Israel in the last month about how successful their vaccine program has been. And it has been. They've got a very high vaccination rate. And their caseload is well down. There has been this issue between the Palestinians and the Israelis about whether or not Israel was making available to Palestinians the vaccine

or whether the Palestinians would even accept a vaccine from the Israelis. So that's been kind of a side issue that's been going on there as well. But many of those who are kind of surveying the landscape around the world of who's doing what on vaccines point to Israel as one of the countries that's been so far very successful with its vaccination program. All right, I want to mention a couple of things about the days ahead. You may recall on Friday during the weekend special, one of the questions was about the safety of your personal computer

if you've been using it a lot at home for work. How safe is it? We found Amber Mack. She's going to be on the program tomorrow with the answer to that very good question because I didn't have it. Amber Mack does. Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. We're going to start a two-week kind of series this Wednesday.

We're going to look at the issue of oil from the perspective of a major announcement by one of the big international oil companies that they have reached the peak of production and they're going down and they'll never go back up again. So that's kind of the first indication that we may be, you know, on the edge of looking down at the end of oil. Or are we? So Wednesday we talk about that. The following Wednesday, because a lot of smoke and mirrors in that statement, right? What's the truth? And the following week, we're going to look at EV, electronic vehicles. There seems to be some smoke and mirrors on that story, too.

What's the truth? So this week, oil. Next week, electronic vehicles. Good series, I think. Thursday, the debut not here on the bridge, but on SiriusXM, 5pm Eastern, the debut of the new political panel show called Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert joins Bruce and I, and we start talking national Canadian politics.

That'll be once a week, one-hour show, really looking forward to it. And also, I should tell you, don't have a firm date on when I'll air this, but I spent a remarkable, I guess about an hour, with a fellow by the name of Caleb Dahlgren. Do you know that name? Caleb was one of the players on the Humboldt Broncos. And we're coming up on the third anniversary of that terrible, horrific bus crash, April 6, 2018.

Well, Caleb has written a book, which will be published next month. And he was kind enough to spend some time talking to me from his home in Saskatoon about that whole experience and the road back. He had terrible, terrible injuries, but he survived. And it's a survivor's story. And he tells it expertly in the book, but also in the interview. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with you in the next couple of weeks. So that's kind of a glimpse into the future of the bridge and what we've got in store for you. So we're going to wrap it up for this day.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. We'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.