The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - How Do You Enforce Self Isolation?

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Tens of thousands of 'Snowbird' Canadians are coming back to the country and are being told they have to self isolate for fourteen days. Right. How do you enforce that? It's the question the prime minister couldn't answer today and it has a lot of people very worried.

and hello there peter mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily well it was kind of a normal day for me watching a lot of different news conferences here and there. As I said the other day, I'm trying to, you know, kind of pare down a little bit on some of the stuff. There are things to do during your day, even in isolation, where it isn't totally focused on the story. You need it for your own sanity to kind of get away from it for a while. But I did watch some, and I watched one that I try to watch most days, and that was the statement by the Prime Minister outside of his home in Ottawa, where he's in self-isolation with his family because his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, is recovering, it appears, well, as we all had hoped, from a positive test on COVID-19.

Now, as for Justin Trudeau, while I was watching him, and for the most part, I think he's done these well. There have been some hiccups, and clearly he had to deal with this issue of what's being called a power grab on the legislation that they got through finally during the night to help Canadians, both individuals and businesses, through this crisis. For the most part, I think, though he's done fairly well on this, but there was a point today where I felt that he stumbled.

He stumbled because he was unable to answer a pretty straightforward question about those Canadians who are returning to the country. And we're talking, I think, for the most part now, about snowbirds who are coming back from the southern United States after spending the last few months there. The question was simple, because the government has said that they want to isolate, they want all these people to isolate for 14 days. Go straight to their homes. So the question was, okay, fine.

How are you going to enforce this? We talked about this a couple of days ago. How do you enforce that? These people come home, they land at the airport, or they drive across the border because they've had their cars with them in the southern states, and they reenter their country, and then they're heading home. The problem with home is there's nothing there in the fridge, right?

So how are they going to stock the fridge without going to the grocery store? Well, there are ways to do that. Friends, neighbors, relatives, family, sons, daughters can prepare that for them. But anyway, the question was, how are you going to enforce self-isolation on the part of these people who've come home after being away for months in some cases? How are you going to enforce it? How are you going to make sure they don't do that,

break the self-isolation? And he was basically flustered. Now, later in the day, some things became clear, but in that moment, it looked awkward. And here's what's at stake. Here's what's at stake with returning Canadians. This came out today, this afternoon, in Newfoundland. Health authorities, I'm reading from the CBC story here, health authorities in Newfoundland

and Labrador say at least 44 of the province's 67 coronavirus cases are connected to one St. John's funeral home where someone returning from a trip outside the country attended a funeral. One person comes home for all the right reasons to attend the funeral of somebody they obviously cared about. But they were, I assume, carrying, without their own knowledge, the coronavirus. They flew home, they went straight to this funeral. And of the province's 67 cases, 44 of them are a result of that one visit to a funeral home.

Now, if that's not going to tell you about the issues surrounding isolation, nothing will. 44 of the province's 67 coronavirus cases from that one moment. So that's the importance of self-isolation immediately upon returning.

For those people who are crossing the border who have no symptoms, feel they have no symptoms, feel they have no symptoms. They return. They're supposed to go straight to their homes. Go in, close the door, and don't come out for 14 days. And if after 14 days they haven't developed any of the symptoms, they're kind of home free. Even then, home free is limited as to what you can do. You've got to stay at self-distancing from other people. Go for a walk.

But basically you're staying at home. Unless you have to go to the grocery store. Unless you have to do certain things like that. But that's okay after 14 days, not okay before 14 days. Now, I saw a couple of nights ago, Jason Kenney, put a thing out on Instagram and Twitter, I think, as well, directed at those people people are coming home. And, you know, in Western Canada, a lot of people are,

snowbirds go to, you know, Arizona and other places in that part of the United States. They come home. They come across the border at Cootes, Alberta. And he was directing his message specifically to them. Isolate for 14 days. And if we find out for any reason that you don't, we're coming after you.

The Quebec government, I think the premier of Quebec, yesterday in his briefing, kind of suggested, directly or indirectly, that they had people giving them information. Snitches, neighbors, we saw so-and-so come home. We know they were in the States for the last four months, and they were outside.

They ran out grocery shopping. People care about this issue. They want it looked after. So as for Justin Trudeau's government, later this afternoon they did announce that in fact they were going to enforce this. They were going to take everybody's name and contact information and they were going to check them. This is when they crossed the border.

They were going to check them to make sure that they were self-isolating and there would be fines if they weren't. So that's why this is important. And if you're on your way back, if you have parents or grandparents who are on their way back, this is why it's important. Just look at that story from Newfoundland. That'll tell you why this is a critical part

of the bigger story. I don't know what the numbers are in terms of how many people are coming home from spending the last few months in the warmer climate of the southern United States. But the number I've heard just for Ontario, just for Ontario, is 300,000. I'm not sure how you police that.

I don't think, you know, taking contact information at the border, I mean, it's a start, obviously. And there is the implied threat there that you're going to be watched. You're going to be monitored in some fashion. But that's a lot of people. And that's a lot of potential risk. That's what community spread is all about.

When it comes home from a foreign country and then is planted within your community and then it spreads by itself within the community. That's the fear here. So we'll keep our eye on that story and see how it continues to unfold over these next days and weeks. We worry about our friends in the South. We see the situation that's happening

in New York, and it's horrible, just horrible. And the fear on the part of many health authorities in our country is that's what it could look like in certain places in our country if we don't practice isolation, if we don't stay in our homes, if we don't resist the temptation to see friends close up, to go to places where there are people congregating. Can't happen. We've got to get through these next few weeks and months as part of the flattening the curve idea. This is going to be around for a while, for a long time. Yesterday, remember I told you there was going to be fallout from the,

we'd watch other organizations make tough decisions about what they're going to do after they witness what happened with the Olympic Games. I'm sure that's going to happen. I'm sure we're going to start hearing that popping up over the next days and weeks from any number of different organizations without having to delay or cancel or postpone. So this is going to be around for a while. And the way to beat it is to listen to the advice we're getting from the medical authorities, the health people, the doctors,

the nurses, the hospital administrators, who are in so many ways the front line of our defense. Now, you've heard me mention often in the last, whatever, week, ten days, about that front line, about the health care workers, about the first responders, firefighters, police officers, ambulance riders, those people, all of whom, who are working through this for us, to be there for us. They could be grocery store clerks. They could work in pharmacies. There's a lot of different places where people are working so we can have access to the things that we need. And we owe them our deep, heartfelt

thanks. I want to mention one other area too, and I'm obviously partial to it, but it's important. I mean, how we get our information is thanks to the media, whether it's newspapers or radio, television, online. That's how we get it. And that's why you're hearing Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, going out of his way yesterday to thank the media for organizing the transmission of these stories and the live news conferences so information could get to people. Well, this doesn't happen automatically. I mean, I'm doing this podcast from my home.

I don't have to go out to do it. But for the most part, the men and women in Canadian news organizations, all of the ones I just listed in terms of their different platforms. For the most part, they've got to go into work to make this happen. So they're working. They have kids. They have families. They're making the tough decision, not just because it's a job, but because it's a public service at a time of crisis. So when you're watching or listening to or reading your favorite news organizations, the one you trust or the ones you trust, when you're watching them work, keep that in mind.

I mean, some of them are able to do their job from home. Some of the writers, some of the anchors. I saw Adrian Arsenault on the CBC. He's in our backyard, hooked up doing the newscast. But most of those who put those programs on the air are at work, are going into work every day, working long hours, because they want you to get the information you need to carry on day to day

dealing with the situation. Okay. So keep that in mind. Thank them too. Now, here's something I was thinking about. I was telling you when I started doing the program from here in the podcast,

doing the Bridge Daily from my home in Stratford, Ontario. I told you that I would try to sort of point out one thing in my new digs. They're not really my new digs. They're my normal digs, but not in the downtown Toronto doing it. Won't be. I imagine it'll be a while before I'm back there. But the home we live in here in Stratford is more than 100 years old. It was built not long after the turn of the last century.

And it was finished and first occupied in 1914, so 106 years ago. And, you know, over the years over the basic structure is still the same, but over the years lots of things have changed and been renovated or updated. But of the many parts of it that are the same as they were the day the house was first occupied is the huge stone that you step on and over when you come in the house.

In some ways, it's kind of like a, to me anyway, it's kind of like a cornerstone. It's a big slab of rock. And I often look at it and I think, wow, more than a century since this was put there, since this stone was laid there, all the different families that have crossed this mark, all the different things that have happened during that time. But lately, when I've been looking at it, as I did today,

and as I took a picture of it, it's the background for the cover art in today's kind of promotion on Twitter and Instagram for the Bridge Daily. When I was looking at it on this day, I was thinking, wow, in those days immediately after the house was first opened and first occupied, the First World War began. Which members of the family that lived here then

went off to war to fight for Canada in World War I. And immediately after World War I, when they came home in late 1918 or 1919, this country, like countries in many parts of the world, was hit with the Spanish flu, the pandemic of its time, the last great pandemic to hit this country.

So I look at that stone and I think about how the family that lived here must have dealt with that time of crisis, how they dealt with it, whether anybody in this house suffered as a result of it. I'm sure they lost friends. 55,000 Canadians lost their lives because of that flu epidemic. So here we are, you know, 100 years later from that moment, and we're crossing that

same rock. And I hope 100 years from now, somebody will be crossing it too and thinking back to the history that that stone has seen, has felt, has heard during its time. All right, there we go. The Bridge Daily for this day. If you have comments or thoughts or questions, don't be shy. Send them along to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. That's the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. As I said, we'll have another day this week with letters. There have been a lot of them already this week with lots of good comments. You know, sometimes when I have time, I try to respond personally, but most of all, I save them for a moment when I can read them

and talk about them all in general. So we'll do that with some of those emails later this week. I hope you have a good day, that you're staying safe, being well. And if you need to be, as most of us need to be right now, you're finding time in isolation. We hooked up a basketball net inside the house today. We're going to have a tournament tonight. Got my old hook shot down.

Don't worry, it's not a real basketball net or real basketball. It's one of those kind of have fun with. It's not going to break anything. At least we hope not. All right, take care. This is Peter Mansbridge for The Bridge Daily. We'll talk to you again in, well, 24 hours.