The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Has The Vaccine Changed What You Can Do?

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

You had the vaccine a week ago, is your life really any different than it was a month ago?Dr Zain Chagla joins us.  But also, the Suez Canal and why its blockage is so important.  And the sound of history, we take you back thanks to the US Library of Congress. "Holy Cow"!

Hello there, Peter in a moment. But first of all, we're going to start talking about the Suez Canal. You're going, the Suez Canal? Really? Sure, I saw the ship sitting there, but I hear that it's, you know, it's freed up now. Well, it's kind of partially freed up. It may take a while before it gets going again. And I'll tell you, as long as it takes, it is going to affect millions of people around the world and quite possibly you too. Now, I don't know about you, but you may not have heard about the Suez

Canal at all since you were in like grade school because it was part of geography class. But you haven't heard about it since. I've been through the Suez Canal twice. Once going from Britain to what was then Malaya, and once coming back three years later. Now, I was only two going and five coming back, so I don't remember an awful lot. I do tend to remember that it was really narrow. You could kind of reach out and touch either side at certain places.

That's kind of what I remember. But listen, the Suez Canal is one historic place, right? I mean, it is one of the, if not the, major waterway in the world. Constructed in 1869. It's had a huge impact on the world mainly for trade reasons right europe trying to trade with asia and before the suez canal existed you had to go around Africa by sea. And that added anywhere from 20 to 40 days in the travel and huge extra costs. The Suez Canal made it like a thruway, bang, right through.

Much faster, much safer. Going around the Cape of Good Hope is no fun at the best of times. That's the cape around the bottom of Africa. So going through the Suez, big deal. Saved tons of money. 10% of global trade goes through the Suez, big deal, save tons of money, 10% of global trade goes through the Suez Canal, now that doesn't sound like a lot, but 10% of global trade represents 50, 50 ships the size of, or almost the size of, of the ever given that's the one that has been caught up in the suez for the last week

lots of container ships lots of ships carrying consumer electronics big huge deal right now moving consumer electronics and semiconductors and food, chemicals, ore, petroleum. They all go through the Suez Canal. 50 ships like that a day, representing 10% of global travel. What does that represent in bucks? About $10 billions a day 10 billion a day and as i said if you don't have the suez and you got to move your shipment you only have well you have three options.

The most common option is to go around Africa. No matter which direction you're traveling in, you've got to go around Africa. That adds extra time and extra cost. And as an indication of how much extra time, say you're going, you've got a ship, you're moving it from the Suez Canal

to Amsterdam. All right, a major port. That would take 13 days. That's the estimate. 13 days, Suez to Amsterdam. Going through the, you know, you go through the Suez, you go through the Mediterranean,

you go up the coast of Spain and Portugal and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you end up getting to Amsterdam. 13 days. If you go around, if you go, okay, I can't get through the Suez, so I've got to go back down around Africa. How long is that

going to take to get to Amsterdam? 41 days. That's at an average speed of 14 miles an hour, 12 knots. That's route number one. That's option A. Option B is you're sitting there somewhere in the Mediterranean and you find out you can't get through the Suez, and you're taking your shipment to Asia. So option B is, okay, I'll cross the Atlantic, go through the Panama Canal, and across the Pacific to Asia. That's option B.

That's a long way around, right? But that is option B at a huge extra cost. Now, there's only one problem with option B. That problem is the Suez Canal is wider than the Panama Canal. And so certain ships, like the Ever Given, will not fit through there. So when you've got the big super ships, option B doesn't work for you.

And there's one other option, and this is the least attractive right now. You know, we talk about the Northwest Passage going across the top of Canada through the Arctic. Well, there's some traffic there in the summer, the late summer, kind of,

you know, August, September. But still, it's kind of unproven. Now, there's something called the Northeast Passage, which is over the top of Russia, basically. That has been proven to work under certain conditions. And some of the big container ships have tried that route. They don't find it a preferred route, but they have actually done it. So, that's your option C.

And obviously, if option C ever came to work and global climate situations continue with climate change, it does augur well for those who believe that the Northwest Passage should become a major commercial route as well. Not everybody believes in that for lots of different environmental reasons, but nevertheless, it is also on the table.

So there you have kind of a snapshot of the importance of the Suez Canal, the role it plays in the big picture of world trade and world relations. There's only one other time where the Suez has been closed for any length of time, and that was closed for eight years. And that was after war broke out between Egypt and Israel, the 67 War. Ships were forced to divert around the tip of Africa. So the movie has been seen before at some considerable length and some considerable cost, and nobody wants to see that duplicated.

So the news this morning that the potential existed for things to look up in terms of the blockage of the Suez Canal is great news for those who are relying on global trade. I guess the next few days will tell the story. It's not fully open yet, and the ever-given is not fully floated yet, or at least it wasn't the last time I checked. But they're hoping that something can be done within the next couple of days,

at worst, the next couple of weeks. So there you go, a little history about the Suez Canal and the importance of it in terms of the big picture of global trade that affects everyone around the world and the impact that's going to have on everything, quite possibly the cost of certain products that you may want to buy, even for this little hit of so far a week that may stretch into a couple of weeks or longer. All right, I told you we're going to listen to talk a little bit about vaccines.

And here's my issue is very simple. Vaccines are out and man, they are plunging into arms at a considerable rate especially in the u.s but also in canada the it's things have ramped up considerably we're getting a lot more vaccines into the country and more and more people are getting their vaccines i was lucky enough to get mine hit the right age limit and um was able to get into a pharmacy to get my vaccine a little more than a week ago. So I haven't hit the two-week moment yet, and this is just the first dose. But nevertheless, it does give you this feeling that, okay, things are going to be much better now for me. The question is, really? How much better? How is my life going to be much better now for me. The question is, really?

How much better? How is my life going to change? Or is it going to change at all? So, who do you call? You call one of your infectious disease specialists who we've been relying on for most of the last year. And so I've got hold of Zane Chagla, who's an infectious disease specialist, doctor based in Hamilton at McMaster University, but serves in different areas and hospitals in many different parts of southern ontario so let's uh let's connect with dr chagla find out what he says on this question here we go

all right dr chagla here's the situation i've uh got my uh first vaccine like a lot of canadians i've got uh number one still number two the second vaccine still to come at some point in the next four weeks to four months is what the pharmacist told me. What does it mean that I can do now that I couldn't do two weeks ago? It's a really good question. And so, you know, what we see in people that have been vaccinated, particularly those under the age of 80, those without major medical conditions like cancer, is that most people do make an antibody response within about two weeks. And really, that response is what protects them from getting symptomatic COVID-19, protects them against hospitalization, protects them against death. Now we know the best data from these trials is people who get the full series, where they're getting that 95% protection,

really no risk of hospitalization and death, or very minimal. The real life experience is a little bit more hazy. You do see studies where people are hospitalized, and unfortunately do die after a first dose of vaccine and acquire COVID-19, but the rate is lower. We were talking 50 to 60% likely for the Pfizer, AstraZeneca in the same ballpark after the first dose. And again, hospitalizations really, as you get further and further and further from that first dose, getting better and better and better in terms of that risk. So all that to say, listen, people probably still can't do everything they wanted to do right now. They probably can't have an indoor gathering, an indoor event, a closely close contact setting, poorly ventilated indoors.

Lots of people probably not a good idea. But I think brief fleeting outdoor contact is probably reasonable for the upcoming weekend so you know hugging your grandkids outdoors with the mask is probably not an unreasonable expectation very short exposure you have some antibodies on board you have some protection aids hospitalization and death but again people have to make that risk judgment it's not going to be perfect it's going to be somewhere to the point where it prevents some of those complications, but it's not going to get rid of them altogether. What we'll see kind of after that second dose is where we can get to more absolutes in terms of you can do this safely moving forward. have a uh an indoor meeting just with um you know a couple of other people who have who are in the same situation situation as i am that they've also had their first dose yeah and again there's where

that you know escalation of of um of the you know all three of you almost like a mini herd immunity scenario where all three of you have a lower risk of COVID-19 kind of bringing it into the household all three of you have a lower risk of acquiring COVID-19 from exposure all three of you have a lower risk of hospitalization all three of you have a lower risk of death again it's not going to be 100 you can probably benchmark things at about 60 to 70 percent at the point where you get a first vaccine so you know if you're someone who's at a high risk of dying of COVID-19 you really have to think about okay if if this is the worst case scenario what does that mean for me but if you have three low-risk

individuals who are low risk of complications that have that type of encounter right now that is probably within reason and again this, this is what many in our government and many public health agencies and people like myself have been asking for to get there to the public. You have to actually incentivize people to get these vaccines and say the world is going to change what you can do with them. The CDC has given advice again for people who have gotten a full series of vaccines because we know they're at the absolute potency then. It's just with this one

dose series and us not knowing exactly what the stability is if there are people that are exceptions to the rule where you know no one wants to necessarily give that advice it's a risk discussion it's what's your risk you know about a complication uh and how much risk are you willing to live with it's not going to be a zero risk but it's going to be a lower risk scenario you know we're at the intersection of um you know a number of different holidays here right we're going to eastern we got passover we got ramadan um are you how concerned are you about this next you know week couple of weeks yeah i mean it's tough because we are seeing transmission across the country outside of the Atlantic. We're seeing case numbers grow.

We're seeing hospitalizations. We're seeing variants take hold. Yes, we have a lot of vaccines out there, which is probably the most beneficial part of this as compared to a year ago in this scenario. And I think we have fatigue and reasonable fatigue. People have been locked down for the last three, four months, and they're seeing that things are getting worse not better they want a weekend to go go get together with their family i think my only hope for this weekend is the fact that the weather is better people know that outdoors is better than indoors and hopefully they use that as their risk mitigation technique rather than necessarily you know getting to that indoor event where it's going to be high risk of transmission.

Hopefully people use their common sense, do it outdoors, and again, get some of that personal connection without necessarily introducing that much risk. Are you concerned that governments have begun the sort of relaxation, seemingly a little early, considering numbers are going up? Yeah, I mean, again, it's a difficult balance right because you want to incentivize people to do the right thing you want to give them hope you want to give them a light at the end of the tunnel look a year ago we were not talking about vaccines we were talking about all these mitigation techniques to get us to a point where we have vaccines well we have vaccines now right the rollout's not going as fast as we would like to make sure that society is well and open in the next few weeks to months. But, you know, I think at some point you do have to relax things,

see what happens, react to it, rather than necessarily keeping people in an indefinite lockdown, especially because you need them to cooperate when the time comes to actually do it right and if you keep people you know in in the form of shell shock you know until april may when they they are you know sick and tired of it you're not going to get the buy-in when you need at that point um and i think you know the relaxation needs to be done appropriately needs to be done carefully needs to avoid those close contact and poorly ventilated settings but prioritizing outdoors prioritizing people to socialize outdoors prioritizing outdoor establishments you know at this point in pandemic we know that's a low risk scenario and there's got to be some

recognition that those types of things can continue moving forward despite what the community scenario is last question and i i know it runs the risk of oversimplifying things, and I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but where are you as this week begins? Where are you on the optimism, pessimism scale? Yeah, I mean, long-term, very optimistic, right? And I think we are getting good supply of vaccine. People are getting vaccinated every day. I mean, Ontario is hitting 70 to 80,000 vaccines a day, nearly half a million vaccines a week. And so those are going to have profound effects. It's just community rates are high and there are still at risk people out there and i still have some there's still vulnerabilities in people that

are at low incomes they're still vulnerable peoples in you know racialized communities there's still vulnerable people that are essential workers um and you know they're not necessarily getting protected with the strategies we have right now and so there is turbulence and there are still vulnerabilities but again you know the hope is with supply, with good messaging, with community outreach, even those communities get reached in the next month or two. Dr. Chagla, as always, thanks so much for your time. No problem. St. Chagla from McMaster University, infectious disease specialist,

a doctor who works in a number of hospitals in southern Ontario, from Toronto to Woodstock, which is just south of here in Stratford, Ontario. Anyway, very good of him to talk to us, as he often does. Got something that's kind of different, different for the bridge, but special nonetheless. And we're going to get to that right after this. Okay, so every year, the Library of Congress in the United States, they enter into their big database special recordings, the talk to the history of their country,

recordings, actual recordings of events that happened so obviously there's a kind of a time space here on this because recordings didn't exist before i don't know what middle of the 19th century somewhere kind of in there things started to get recorded in different kind of as we look back at it now in extremely primitive ways um but they put in 25 of these things each year and they could they come from all over the place you know some are are found in in recording studios in the you know basement storage areas some are found in people's attics um some are found at uh at radio stations that have been around for a long time that also have kind of stored stuff and forgotten about it.

And so they come out of different areas, and they end up going to the Library of Congress. So it's a big deal, and it's a part of their country's history. We have something similar at the national archives in ottawa but just a couple of days ago the library of congress announced which 25 were going in this year and made some of them available online to listen to so I thought I'd grab a couple of them and play them because the two that I'm going to play are a big deal to me. They're part of my early life. One of them was actually during my time. The other one was before my time, but did have an impact on me.

And that one, you know, I'll play first. It was Louis Armstrong. The great jazz. I mean, he did everything. Trumpet. Sang. And Louis Armstrong, at least for me, was known for one song in particular.

And I used to sing it all the time. I used to sing it at summer camp. I used to sing it at home. I used to sing it on the way to school. And that was When the Saints Go Marching In. It was a part of my early childhood life, and now I haven't sung it or even heard it for years. Now, when I was young and growing up in the 60s, I can remember, you know, Louis Armstrong was still around. And, you know, I'm sure it was either like on the Ed Sullivan show or the Dean Martin show

or one of those shows that I saw Louis Armstrong. And I saw him doing when the Saints go marching in. So it was a big, big deal for me. Now, the recording that they entered into the library of Congress last week is a historic recording of when the saints go marching in, because it's the first jazz recording of Louis Armstrong introducing what they describe as this unusually atmospheric recording of when the saints go marching in.

Now, hey, I'm going to play 30 seconds of it here. It's scratchy, the whole bit, but man, you get the sense that this is history. And this is Louis Armstrong And this is Louis Armstrong. A young Louis Armstrong. Playing for the first time in this recording. A song that would, you know, last in the annals of history. Would end up in the Library of Congress.

Be there forever. So let's listen in to Louis Armstrong when the Saints go marching in. Now when the Saints go marching in when the Saints go marching in, when the Saints go marching in, yes, I want to be in that number when the Saints go marching in. Wow. Isn't that something? Didn't you love that trumpet solo when it came in?

Come on, be with me on this one. There's Louis Armstrong, man. How can it be better than that? Okay, the second one, the second one's for sports fans. 60 years ago, this summer, there was a tremendous contest going on between two members of the New York Yankees,

the beloved Mickey Mantle and not quite as beloved, Roger Maris. And they were both in this incredible home run race to catch Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in one year. And Maris always seemed to have the edge, but it was close. It was really close. Until it got to the day, October 1st, 1961. So it'll be 60 years ago

this October. Where Roger Maris came to the plate. Phil Rizzuto was the radio play-by-play guy. And it was like a height of radio sportscasting, and baseball especially, where they can just let the sound play, the sound of the crowd, the expectation of the crowd.

Phil didn't say much until you heard the crack of the crowd. Phil didn't say much until he heard the crack of the bat. Now, I'm not sure where I was that particular day, but I do remember in those days, and I was, you know, I was at school. I would have been, what, 13? 13 years old. And there used to be a time, like all like, this wasn't a World Series game,

but the World Series, which would have just started another week or so after this, those used to be day games. And so when you're at school, it's awfully hard to listen to the World Series, which was a huge deal at the time, especially when the Yankees were in it. And so I used to take my little transistor radio and sneak the earphone wire up the back of my shirt and try to listen to the game during class.

Got away with it a couple of days, then got nailed. And I ended up having to stand out in the hallway for being bad. Now, I don't think it was this day. I'm certain it wasn't because this was before the World Series. But nevertheless,

I have heard this before, and it's an absolute treat to hear it again. So here's the day Roger Marris came to bat. October 1st, 1961. Looking for his 61st home run with Phil Rizzuto behind the microphone. Two balls, no strikes on Roger Mara. Here's the windup. That's all.

He's got it. He's got the hit. Way back there. Oh, he's got it. He wants to run. the wind-up. Holy cow. What a shot. Phil Rizzuto with the, I don't know, one of the calls of his life. Holy cow. Roger Marris hits his 61st home run, breaks Babe Bruce's record.

Now, I don't know whether you could hear, but when the pitcher was pitching to Maris, the first pitch or maybe the first two pitches were outside. There weren't strikes. And the crowd booed. The crowd wanted the pitcher to throw strikes so that Maris could have a shot at breaking the record. Well, he eventually got one in there, and Maris took him downtown, took him out of the park.

Anyway, a little bonus slice of history coverage today. Little Louis Armstrong, little Roger Maris, little Phil Rizzuto. That's going to wrap her up. Let me point you ahead for the week. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, but you know we'll do something. Wednesday is Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. And we'll have a fresh new topic to discuss then. Thursday, Potpourri Day.

And later in the afternoon on SiriusXM, Good Talk with Chantelle Ibera and Bruce. Friday is Good Friday. We're going to take that day off. Probably take Monday off as well. Have a little break. So I'm not sure what will happen this week to the weekend special.

I'd like to do one. And so that will depend on you if you want to get your letters in on any topic you wish. Were you a Mantle fan or a Marist fan? I think everybody, most people were Mantle fans, but everybody was pretty excited to hear that one run go up. Anyway, if you want to have a discussion about any topic, you know we've had lots of them

in the last few weeks on everything from vaccines to the Prime Minister's comments on our exclusive interview last week on SiriusXM to a variety of other areas. So don't be shy. I'd love to hear from you. Let me know how you're going to try and celebrate whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, given the conditions. All right. So that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge.

Thanks so much for listening. And, of course, we'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.