The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Could This Be The Summer of the UFO?

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

Learning from the lessons of the summer of 2001.  Sharks to UFO's?  Plus, an important discussion on second doses and Astra Zenica.   

Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's 20 years since the summer of the shark. Why are we going to talk about that for a moment? You'll find out. Are you still trying to find ways to get into the world of crypto? Well, look no further. Bitbuy is Canada's number one platform for buying and selling bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies bit buy has launched a brand new app and website with a new look lower fees and new coins bit buy is your one-stop shop to get involved and super easy to use for beginners visit bitbuy.ca or download the bitbuy app enter referral code podcast 20 to get 20 free when you

make your first deposit. And hello there. Yes, it's Peter Mansbridge here on The Bridge, and we are going to do our regular Monday. Look at the situation in terms of the pandemic and the terms of the vaccines. And we've got Dr. Isaac Bogoch with us today for his view and his take on all of this. But first, I'm going to start with something completely different, for a few minutes anyway. 20 years ago, this summer, was called the Summer of the Shark. And it wasn't a fine moment in the history of the North American media.

Because the media got consumed by the shark story. There was a shark attack in early July on the east coast of the United States. And suddenly, in that summer where there didn't appear to be anything going on, the North American media, we all got caught up in it, was consumed by the story about sharks. There's sharks everywhere. There are sharks attacking. When, in fact, was consumed by the story about sharks, there's sharks everywhere, there's sharks attacking, when in fact, sharks weren't everywhere. And the number of shark attacks was actually less than it had been the summer before.

But nevertheless, in a media star for stories, shark attacks became the thing, up and down the east coast of the United States. And it scared a lot of people. We all remember Jaws. If we weren't old enough to see it when it came out, we've probably seen it since. Now, the shark story disappeared overnight september 10th

2001 was i think the last night that there was a shark story on of any consequence because just hours later on the morning of 9-11, everything changed. So, this is the summer, 20 years later, and on 9-11, it'll be 20 years. Since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. And how our world has changed since then. But let me back up. Why am I mentioning the shark attacks, the shark story of that year and how the media covered it?

Well, one of the reasons was last night on the, you know, the number one news program in the United States for decades, 60 Minutes. What does 60 Minutes do? They're all in on the story of UFOs. I had a pretty fascinating list, and I love UFO stories. Ever since I was a kid, whenever I looked at the sky, I was convinced, listen, I love UFO stories. Ever since I was a kid, whenever I looked at the sky, I was convinced, man, unidentified flying objects. They're up there.

We're being visited by machines from another world. Well, the CBS 60 Minutes piece last night was basically suggesting that the U.S. Pentagon, for years having kind of dismissed UFOs as just the latest conspiracy theory, seems to be taking UFOs a little more seriously. And there's going to be a big commission report of some kind this summer on them. And so they dragged out all the old videos that we see, these blurry images taken from cockpits of fighter jets.

And somebody can see something in that picture. I'm still, a lot of them, I still can't see what they're talking about. But nevertheless, there are people who believe this. We live in an era of conspiracy theories, and this has been one of the longest running ones. And this summer, it appears it's going to take off a little more. So it wouldn't surprise me in a society that's desperate for something else to talk about than what we've been talking about for the last 14, 15 months, the UFOs could be a good one. In fact, I heard a kind of mini panel discussion on this this morning on one of the U.S. morning shows,

and a couple of the panelists actually said, I love this story. I love talking about this. Don't believe it. Don't believe any of it, but I love talking about it. Well, that's kind of what happened with the summer of the shark. Are we going to have a summer of the UFO? Who knows? Every time somebody sees something twinkling in the sky, not sure about

what it is. Perhaps it's something. When I talk to and have talked to a number of them, the astronauts, Canadian and American astronauts, you always get around to asking them at some point, do you believe that there's something else up there? None of them rule it out. They're all very careful the way they answer that question. Anyway, I wanted to, I wanted to, A, remember the summer of the shark and the disdain eventually that the kind of North American media was held in because of their fascination with that story.

Until, boom, a real story came along. And the shark disappeared. Like, it just totally disappeared. Like it just totally disappeared. And, you know, in the last 20 years, occasionally there'll be a shark story, but never like that summer, the summer of 2001. And we all know why it ended. Okay.

As promised, we're going to talk a little bit about where we are on the pandemic and especially on the vaccine front. And as you know, for every Monday going back, well, quite a few Mondays, we've had one of the country's top infectious disease specialists on the air. We've had Lisa Barrett from Halifax, who's, you know, must be calming down after a hectic last couple of weeks in Nova Scotia. Things seem to be settling down on the new case front there. We've had Eleonora Saxinger from Edmonton, we've had Zane Chagla from Hamilton, and we've had our guest for today, once again, is Isaac Bogoch, University of Toronto,

infectious disease specialist and part of the advisory group on vaccines. And Dr. Bogoch has never been shy about giving his opinion on the way things are unfolding. And once again today, he's not shy either, and you may want to pay particular attention, especially if you're one of those waiting for a second dose, especially if you're one of those who had a first dose of AstraZeneca,

you may want to pay particular attention to what Dr. Boguch has to say. Caught him at home last night. And often when we find any of these infectious disease specialists, they're either at work or at home. And, you know, sometimes the sound is a little hollow because of the room they're in or the pressure they're under at the particular time, you know, trying to get a conversation in while their demands on them are equally difficult in terms of their work. So anyway, we appreciate all of them,

and we understand when sometimes it takes a trained ear sometimes. You know, 15, 20 seconds, you get used to the sound quality. But that was the case with Dr. Bogoch. No complaints here at all um because the conversation is fascinating fascinating so let's uh let's get into it then with dr isaac bogach okay let's start on vaccines because we've got a huge amount of vaccine coming in this week um and i i want to get a sense from you as to how that changes the equation. Yeah, it's pretty impressive, actually. I mean, it looks like the provinces are pretty good at doling these out.

Every day I check in on vaccines delivered versus vaccines administered. We're all pretty comparable. Some are a bit farther along than others, but in general, it appears that the provinces are really good at administering the vaccines that they get. I'm a little slightly biased towards Ontario because I look at that data more closely. We've had, for example, this weekend in Ontario, some massive clinics, for example, the Michael Guerin hospitals currently administering 10,000 vaccines today in one of their clinics. Yesterday in Peel, there was a 36-hour blitz to administer

about 7,000 or 8,000 vaccines in Peel. And like, there's capacity. So with greater shipments coming in, the public health units are really doing a lot of heavy lifting, getting needles in arms. We are, you know, over 50% of uh vaccinated now in many parts of the country and we're doing we're doing pretty good i mean obviously there's no time to let up but we're doing pretty good you know the pollsters in the last couple of days a couple of them have said they're seeing a trend um for acceptance in other words the numbers of those who were hesitant or basically saying they weren't going to take the vaccine, those numbers have come down. And the numbers saying they're now accepting the whole idea of vaccines has gone up. Are you noticing that at the vaccine injection points?

Are you seeing that happening? I think so. I mean, it's very hard to make anecdotal observations and translate that into data. But, you know, I show up to some of the vaccine clinics. For example, I was at the vaccine clinic in Peel the other day, and it was just impressive. Like it's impressive. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people showed up uh from every walk of life and you just take a minute to chat with people who are coming in there and i mean there's clearly there's a selection bias there's no hesitation because they're there but you know and you also look at the bigger picture and look at the polls you know 70 high to 80 low percent of canadians are going to accept. I think there's a, there's a bit of a,

a wave right now in terms of, you know, we can do this and you're seeing this in the headlines and people know others that got vaccinated and are seeing the vaccine programs come to their place of work or seeing these clinics spring up in their communities. Like it's visible. You can actually see it happening. It's not just something that you hear about on the news or on social media like everybody knows someone who's been vaccinated and chances are you know they might have been vaccinated so it's just kind of

like the cool thing to do and there may be a bit of peer pressure there may be a bit of social pressure there may be a bit of social acceptance but it's happening like there's a huge wave coming in the midst of crashing over canada and it's great i mean more and more people are getting vaccinated and really i mean this is our way out of this like this you know we're this is really the silver bullet like this is how we end the pandemic in canada and we're actually start to see the benefit of these vaccines very, very soon. Like somewhere between 50 to 60 percent with the first dose, we're going to start to see cases plunge even faster than they are now. What do you say to people who had the AstraZeneca shot on the on the first go around and who are now in this kind of pause position, not sure about what happens for them in terms of a second shot. What do you say to them?

First of all, I say congratulations. Like good for you. You got a great vaccine. We have just overwhelming data that it's a very effective vaccine. And we know the risk of course, isn't 0%, but it's still a very low risk. So for starters, way to go. Terrific, terrific vaccine and way to get your shot. The second thing is you're going to be okay. Everyone in Canada who's had a first dose of AstraZeneca or any other vaccine is going to get a second dose and they're going to get it in a timely manner.

So with AstraZeneca, there's going to be two likely scenarios. Number one, you're going to get a second dose of AstraZeneca. Or number two, you're going to get a second dose of one of the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna. And regardless of what you get, you're going to be protected and you're going to be just fine. That's just what's going to happen. I appreciate that there's a bit of anxiety and that comes with perhaps not having the clearest crystal ball as to how the next few weeks are going to unfold. But the most likely scenario is that people are going to have the next few weeks are going to unfold but the most likely scenario is that people are going to have the option you're going to either have astrazeneca

and or maybe that's not the right term astrazeneca or an mrd vaccine in regards of what people end up getting they're going to be in good shape do you feel at all uncomfortable knowing that you know there are you know a lot of people who are ready for that second shot, AstraZeneca first dose people, who are ready for their second shot? There are hundreds of thousands of AstraZeneca doses sitting in warehouses in Canada or wherever they're kept ready to go. It just feels kind of odd because especially when the first, the first situation came down saying, we're going to pause on no more first doses for the time being and left open this question about the second doses. And now it's sort of still up in the air about second doses.

It just feels a little awkward. Pardon me? Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I thought you were saying pardon me. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, doesn't it feel a little awkward that we've got this situation?

Yeah, yeah, it does. And I think we're going to be in this situation for a grand total of 72 hours or something like that. Like, it's not going to be a period of uncertainty for long. I think we're going to hear an announcement that we're either going to, I mean, we're going to be using these for second doses. We are. They're going to be used for second doses. We know that that's a safe and effective approach. Some people are going to jump in with two feet and say, great, happy to have my second dose of AstraZeneca. We know that

actually the antibody response is best if that second dose is delivered at the three-month mark. So ideally people will get AstraZeneca at the three-month mark. And there's probably going to be some people who are going to say, you know what, I'm not, I'm not comfortable with that. And I'm going to want a second dose of the mRNA vaccine. And in which case I'll get the Pfizer and Moderna, and they'll also mount a very good immune response and be protected either way they choose. That's the very, very likely scenario.

That's very likely, very likely scenario. That's very likely how this is going to unfold. Let's move on to the variants for a moment because we've watched the situation in over a period of just a couple of days in Britain where you've had Boris Johnson, you know, doing everything but claiming victory a couple of days ago over the virus. And then suddenly, within a matter of hours, he came out to say,

you know, we got a problem with this variant from India, and it could be a bad problem. And we got to be very, very careful about what's going to happen here over these next week or so as we watch it unfold. Where are we on this variant from India? Are we worried? Are we as worried as they are in Britain at the moment or what? I hope we're careful.

I mean, we've always got to be cautious. It's interesting. When you look at some of the data that's coming in, I think it's fair to say that we don't have all the answers. I think that's probably the most honest answer here, is that we don't have all the answers. The other point is that there's emerging data that the existing vaccines are going to be effective. They're just it. And it's not perfect data, but it's emerging data that the existing vaccines are going to be effective.

There just is. And it's not perfect data, but it's emerging data. And it's positive. So that's good. Then, of course, there's still the unknown. That's not perfect data. That's lab data and some extrapolation from real-world data. So the quality of that isn't ideal.

But it all is pointing in the direction that the vaccines will provide a pretty decent degree of protection against the variant initially discovered in India and will be okay. Having said that, no one can look you in the eye and tell you with 100% confidence that that's going to unfold. And, you know, we have to be careful. You have to proceed with caution. It's important to have good

surveillance have a good understanding of what is circulating in your community that means you really have to do the surveillance that we're doing for the other variants for example to really have a good understanding the uk is excellent at that they certainly have seen cases you know rise but that's a relative number of cases rising. The absolute number is still very low. It's pretty clear that there's not a ton of breakthrough infections to date. It's not spreading like wildfire in the UK. It looks predominantly to be spreading among non-vaccinated individuals. Having said that, we don't have all the information.

It is a new variant. Of course, it's a variant of concern. We've got to take it easy, take it slow, watch it, and see if we need to pivot on any of our strategies. I'm a bit confident, though, that the emerging data to date demonstrates that our current vaccines will work, though. So that's helpful. Much of Canada, or many parts of of Canada are still under restrictions,

in some cases, you know, severe restrictions and lockdown. While we're watching Britain and the United States open up fairly quickly, now they've had a real success in their distribution of vaccines, their rollouts, but are you worried they're moving too fast? No, I think in general, I think they're doing things okay. Like we can debate the pace and the extent of reopening, but that's what vaccines afford us, right? The whole goal of the vaccines is to protect the individual,

protect the community, and really use these to work our way back to what we remember in the pre-COVID-19 era. So, yeah, we call it BC before COVID. So, like, that's the whole goal. Like, that's the plan. And, you know, we don't have to look too far to see what that looks like. Israel, United States, and the UK. We're only about six to eight weeks behind

them at the most. We are rolling out vaccines quickly here. We will start to be afforded the same benefits that they have. First, we have to get our case numbers down. We've got to decompress our hospitals. We've got to keep the pedal to the metal on our vaccine rollout. But with those three

aspects, once those three once those three are taken care of, the rollout is fast. The hospitals are decompressed and the community case burden is decreased. We should start to see a lifting of public health restrictions. We should mean the, the measures have to be aligned with the reality on the ground. Otherwise the measures don't make sense. And then you lose trust. So you have to be aligned with the reality on the ground.

If there's very few community cases, if your hospitals are decompressed, if you've got a vaccinated community, you've got to allow outdoor gatherings. You've got to start to allow indoor gatherings. You've got to start to allow more and more people to gather together you've got to start thinking about when it's time to lift mask mandates it's got to be a proportionate response and a data-driven response otherwise people will make up their own response so if we're six to eight weeks behind them um what does life look like here come July? If there are no sudden surprises in that six to eight week period.

It should be really good. I mean, our case numbers are dropping pretty quickly in most parts of the country. They're still dropping almost everywhere, but faster in some places than others. But regardless of your, it's not nice to say this, almost everywhere, but faster in some places than others. But regardless of your, it's not easy to say this, but regardless of the effectiveness of your provincial strategies, if you throw enough vaccine at the problem, the problem will go away.

And we're really at a point in Canada where we're starting to be able to throw enough vaccine at the problem so that this problem will really start to go away regardless of how the province or territory has managed the pandemic like once we really have you know somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the population vaccinated and once we're really starting to get second doses and hopefully soon starting you know more vulnerable populations that are more likely to end up in hospital i mean we're really on the back nine of this pandemic and we're really starting to see the end in sight um and that's not i think that's closer than what many people think but again i like how you pointed that out we've got to be humble there always could be a curveball thrown at us you know there can't and we have to stay vigilant and it's not over until it's over.

But based on how everything's going right now, the pace of vaccination, the drop of community rates in most of the country, hospitals slowly being decompressed. We're well on our way. We're not there. Can't let up now.

I mean, it would be crazy to let up right now we'll just end back up with a lockdown but uh but we're well on the path and you know july should be a very very good month like july and august should be fantastic in canada things continue to go the way they're going right now um you're sounding i gotta say you're sounding, I got to say, you're sounding more optimistic than I've heard you in all our conversations in the past. Um, I don't want to end on a negative note, but what could, you know, what could throw when you were talking about we got to be vigilant? What could happen to turn this situation around or at least stop the progress? A couple of things. Number one is if there is a variant that truly evades vaccination that's that's problematic we'd be in big trouble uh the second

would be if the provinces let their foot off the gas and relax restrictions too quickly and too soon right not enough of us are vaccinated just yet. We'll end right back in lockdown again. The third would be if there are delays in supply chain issues and we don't get the vaccines delivered for whatever reason. Those would be the three big things. Some places, we talk about vaccine hesitancy

and some places may have better uptake than others, but in general, in Canada, we know that the vast majority of Canadians are going to get this like 70 high percent, 80 low percent of Canadians are going to get a vaccine, maybe even a little bit higher than that. So the want is there. The programs are rolling out. I mean, you just look at every province like they're're effective. Like we're vaccinating very, very quickly. So only a variant that evades shipment delays or policy failures will throw us off. Well, let's hope we're able to avert all those three things. Listen, as always, you know, we thank you for your time and stay well, stay safe, keep the energy up. Thank you. Great to chat. Have a great weekend. Okay, take care. Dr. Isaac Bogoch in

Toronto, as we thank all of our infectious disease specialists and those who are working at the front lines of this story across our country and pitching in in terms of advice and and learning uh with other parts of the world as well um something completely different next And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge. You're listening, well, you're listening either on SiriusXM Canada, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or you're listening on your podcast that you've downloaded

on whatever platform you use listening on your podcast that you've downloaded on whatever platform you use to get your podcasts. Wherever you're listening, we thank you for taking part. We really enjoy bringing the bridge daily, Monday to Friday anyway, in whichever format you choose to listen to it. Now, as I said, something very different, and this is like to put us all in a very different headspace, literally. So here's the question. This is based on a piece I saw in the New York Times over the weekend. if you have to guess how many people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world's 8,000 meter peaks, okay, we're talking mountain climbing here, we're talking about Mount Everest plus, right, the top seven summits over 8,000 meters in the world. There are, or there is a kind of unofficial club of mountain climbers

who try to reach that. That's kind of the summit of the summits, right? Can you say you've climbed all eight? Well, the number who claim to have climbed all eight is 44. Now, when I saw that number, I was struck. That's a lot of people. You know, when you consider the first person to, you know, climb Mount Everest or Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norquay,

I think was his co-climbers name. That was like early 1950s. So in a half a century, there are 44 people who claim to have climbed not only Mount Everest, but all seven other summits of the above 8,000 meter category. That's a lot of people. It's a dangerous sport. We all know of the, unfortunately, the many deaths that have occurred.

Now, the article in the New York Times, in a way, well, not in a way, it is questioning that number of 44. Not saying 44 people haven't got to the kind of top of these eight mountains, but did they actually get to the summit is the question. Now, if you see pictures from, you sound of summit of mount everest and others when you get right up there to the top a couple of meters or a couple of feet even can make a difference some of these summits aren't like absolutely defined in terms of where their height is. So there are questions circulating in the mountaineering community about how many of these people have actually made it

to the real summit of the summit. And they're questioning them, and some of the 44 themselves question. They have a story in here about one of the fellows who made the climb, Ed Visters. He's an American, and in fact, he's the only American on the list of 44. And he calls a climb he did in 1993 of one of these eight mountains into question. He was climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen or ropes.

He reached what's called the central summit of Shishapangma, Shishapangma, the world's 14th highest mountain. Most climbers turn around there at the central summit, calling it good enough. The actual summit is maybe two meters higher. It's within sight, but there's a ridge that you have to cross to get to that point.

Just a few meters higher in elevation. Too dangerous, Visters told himself in that day in 1993, so he retreated. But he felt bad about that, so he went back in 2001. That's quite the year on today's podcast. He went back in 2001, and there's this incredible picture of him moving along that ridge. And we're talking about a real ridge, so tight, so narrow,

that you had to straddle it to move along. It's like you're actually riding horseback to get over to the spot. And there's a picture of him in yesterday's New York Times doing just that. But he did that because he wanted to be able to say, I have truly climbed to the summit of all these particular mountains. 14 of them. Above 8,000 meters. So the whole story in the New York Times is a fascinating read. So you might want to grab it. Have a look at it.

Yesterday. Has anyone really summited the world's 14 highest mountains is what it's called Some spectacular pictures too But interesting that they're calling themselves out on this As Feasters did You know, kind of lived with it for eight years and said, you know, I've got to go back I've got to go back and do it right. Which is what he did.

Just checking one thing here. I want to make sure because I want to make sure that I got that name right, but I'm not sure it's in this particular story. It's not. Do you know where all 14 of those peaks are, by the way? They're all in the Himalayan and the Karakoram ranges of Asia. They include Everest, you know, the famous ones, Everest, K2. I can remember flying over that area.

I was in Delhi, and I think I was coming in from Canada. Those were back in the days where you used to have the nonstop flight from Toronto to Delhi that flew over the top we used to have the non-stop flight from Toronto to Delhi that flew over the top, like, and flew over the Soviet Union. And there was air routes arguments about who could go where. I don't think they still have that flight. But anyway, on that day, on that flight, I think it was around 2004, 2005, we flew right over that area of nepal coming into delhi and that's as close as i got to the summit of any one of those mountains all right that wraps her up for this day for monday start of another week here on the bridge and we should have some interesting

programming through the week wednesday of course smoke mirrors and the truth with bruce anderson friday is the weekend special your comments your thoughts so don't be shy the man's bridge podcast at gmail.com you can write about any topic you wish but we will be back tomorrow and who knows what surprises we might have then. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening to The Bridge. We'll be back in 24 hours.