The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - How Green Is Your Garden? And Why?

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

The impact COVID-19 is having on the environment and how it may be having an affect right in your own garden. And some early indications of the impact of "reopening" - how comfortable are we in getting back to the way we used to live?

and hello there peter vansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily as we enter week 13. Lucky 13. Maybe it is lucky 13. Let's hope it is lucky 13. As we start off another week talking about the situation that's consumed us for the last 13 weeks. It's just been one of the big issues

consuming us for the last two weeks. We talk quite a bit about the other issue resulting out of the death of George Floyd, the killing of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd. We talked quite a bit about it last week. We're going to get back, at least for today, onto some developments on the COVID-19 front. But we'll start, you know, with the question I asked on the cover. The cover art for today's podcast, which is how green is your grass?

How green is your lawn? How green is your lawn? How green is your garden? And I ask that because, you know, I spend a lot of time outside now. These last couple of weeks, the weather's been so gorgeous, with a couple of exceptions. But for the most part, it's been gorgeous. And it's safest outside, especially if you're distant, very distant from others. So even if you're just sitting in your backyard, which is much of what I do in the days now, and I'm writing a lot, but I find that the garden, I mean, we're lucky we've got a nice garden,

but the garden just seems so much greener than I can ever recall it. And when I look around town, Stratford, and even when I was in Toronto for a bit last week, things just seem greener. Now, there's an easy explanation for that, I guess. In spite of the fact we're fighting this virus, we as humans are fighting this virus,

nature seems to have it pretty good out there. Because the environment's better than it's been in decades because things have stopped, you know? Air travel has basically stopped. For most of these 13 weeks, there have not been many cars on the road. And you look at the pictures from the big superhighways around the world, and there's not much on them. And it's pretty clear, although we don't have, like,

real hard numbers yet, we will, I guess, as things move on, that what's been going into the air has not been what we've seen going into the air in the last God knows how many decades. So the air is cleaner. And as a result, I guess, things are growing better. I'm seeing

a lot more bird activity than I noticed before. I'm seeing a lot more bug activity than I've noticed before too. But listen, if the environment is better, that's all good. So what do we learn from this? And I, you know, I, there's a piece in the Guardian today that talks about cities that have noticed the difference for their environment as a result of the shutdown on traffic and air traffic and vehicular traffic and certain factories not being open. These are all problems because it's cost jobs. But when you look on the other side for the moment, you say, okay, these are all going to change and go back to some sense of normalcy, but what can we learn from this period and what

can we embrace in such a way that it will help us with the environment and our job of trying to make the environment better, whether it's for the fight against climate change, whether it's for whatever. What can we incorporate? So that's what cities, smart cities, are looking at. And they're big cities like Copenhagen, Oslo, London, Paris, Rome. They're all trying to find a way to take advantage of this past 13 weeks

on the good side and try and take from it something that we can use going into the future. So it'll be interesting to see. And, you know, it's not just big cities. I know they're doing it here in Stratford, and I'm sure they're doing it in your town, wherever you live. They're thinking about how do we deal with this, right? So let's, you know, let's wish them luck on that.

Let's see what they can take away from this experience that's going to make life better in the long run. There are enough things here that have happened in the last 13 weeks that have made life terrible for a lot of people and difficult and challenging. But maybe there's some silver lining in this too. There were a number of things that are worth noting that came up today in terms of the fight against COVID-19. We still don't have a C-U-R-E.

That's not there. But listen to these numbers because they're pretty encouraging. There are at least, I think it's 160 now, different attempts, different research projects underway to try and find a cure. They're happening all over the world. We've talked about them before on this podcast, back when there were sort of 80 to 100. There's now almost double that number. talked about them before on this podcast, back when there were sort of 80 to 100, there's now almost double that number.

And one of the encouraging things about all those different universities and research labs and countries that are working on this around the world, many of them talking to each other, trading information back and forth. Of those 160 or so, 10 are already in human trials. Now, keep in mind, this, you know, they only determined that there was a problem here six months ago. Already they're up and off the ground, deep into research, deep into testing ideas,

usually on animals, but they've progressed in at least 10 cases to human trials. That's no guarantee that any of those human trials will prove to be the cure or one of the cures. But hey, we're a lot closer than we were 13 weeks ago. It's encouraging. there are, they say, 230 different therapy possibilities that are in the research phase right now. Cure is one thing. That could stop a dead in its tracks.

But until you get that cure, that vaccine, a therapy helps prevent the spread of COVID-19 and helps in the situation of dealing with patients who have the disease, how they can make it easier on them. Therapies can work on that front. 230 different research projects dealing with therapies. That's all encouraging. That's all on the science side of all this.

And the WHO, and I know some of you are going, oh, please, don't tell me about the WHO. There's no doubt when this is all over, there's going to be a lot of questions asked of how the WHO handled all this. But on one side, they've been dealing with the unknown, and therefore that's probably part of the reason why things change in terms of their analysis

of how to deal with this. We saw it with the masks situation, but we've seen it with other things as well. And today, they're saying, with their latest studies from around the world, that there seems to be an indication that those who are asymptomatic, in other words, they don't know they have COVID-19 because they're not showing any symptoms, they can be tested and determined that they are positive, so they in fact have it.

But when you don't have symptoms, it's unlikely you're going to go get tested. But the fear has always been that asymptomatic can spread the virus. If you're asymptomatic, you can spread it. And the WHO has said that in its early goings a couple of months ago, that it was highly likely. Well, now they've seen enough research that they're saying it's highly unlikely, not impossible, but highly unlikely if you're asymptomatic that you will spread the disease. So, you want to believe that?

Or do you want to be a little bit worried about that, given the origin of the statement and where they've been back and forth on a number of issues in the past. Anyway, those are all three of those things, about vaccines, about therapies, and about the situation around asymptomatic. The new announcements today are encouraging. There's more and more places reopening. New York reopened today on phase one of their reopening plan. Ontario, Canada's largest province, is about to go into phase two where some areas will open up restaurants to a degree

with sidewalk patios and a few other things. So it's all good. But there is no cure yet. So the basic issue is still out there. And we have to keep conducting our lives in a way to ensure that this thing doesn't go crazy again. And that means, you know, the simple things. Physical distancing. Washing your hands. Masks.

You know, I took some wine bottles back to the beer store, where you can cash them in today. And there have been quite a few wine bottles in the last 13 weeks. But I took them back, and it's crazy busy there. People bringing beer cans, beer bottles, wine bottles, back to cash them in. Lots of people. Very few wearing masks,

including some of those who worked there. Some of them did. I think more than half of the people I saw who worked at the store were wearing masks, but not everybody. And certainly not anywhere near half of the customers who were coming. I was wearing my mask. Wear the mask. I'm telling you, wear the mask. I'm telling you, wear the mask.

You're protecting others when you wear the mask, and to a degree, you're protecting yourself. Anyway, the first results from reopening are starting to trickle in Mainly in the states Because there will be more reopening there than anywhere In terms of numbers, right? So CNBC, the business channel of NBC Published some data over the weekend

That's worth considering. Because people are wondering, okay, how much, because this is all important to the economy, how much is this helping bring people back? Getting things started again. So there are four or five key points here, and I'm going to quickly go over them. You know when you use your smartphone,

especially if it's an Apple iPhone, to get directions? You know? You want to find such and such a place, and you pop it into the phone, and it tells you exactly how to get there. So here's one of the ways you find out whether people are on the move a little bit more.

Right? Data from the navigation app Apple Maps shows an upward trend in requests for driving and walking directions. However, with people continuing to work from home and wary of catching the virus on crowded trains, cars, or buses, transit directions remain more than 50% below levels seen in January. And they've got some, you know, they've got some charts that show you, you know, driving is up after being way down.

Walking is up after being way down. But transit, I mean, I think I told you the last week I saw it. I was in Toronto, downtown Toronto, past two streetcars, and there was one person in each of them. I mean, I'm sure that one person was very happy. But it doesn't do much for the transit business. Restaurant bookings. Multiple states have allowed restaurants to resume indoor dining

so now customers are returning to booking sites and apps to make reservations so how do we get a national kind of sense in the united states of the states that have opened you go to open table restaurant bookings are now at 80% below their levels from last year, according to data from open table. But in April, they were down 100%. So it's slowly coming back. And when you see that graph for restaurant bookings,

it's still way, way down there. It'll be interesting to see what happens now with the good weather and patio openings for restaurants in a number of provinces in Canada. We'll see what impact that has. Hotel occupancy. Boy, there have been some horror stories on the hotel front. It's just like nobody there. And many hotels closed.

However, in the States, hotels have begun welcoming more guests as their occupancy rates near 40%, according to data from the global hospitality research company STR. Top travel markets like New York City and Atlanta even had hotel occupancy rates above 40%. However, typically popular destinations like Oahu Island in Hawaii and Orlando, Florida reported low occupancy. So you look at the numbers there, and it's pretty clear that that's not happening yet on the hotel front.

Air travel. Air travel still struggling amid the pandemic based on the number of travelers passing through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. So this is a pretty accurate reflection of what's happening. The airlines have been saying certain things, but the TSA in the States tells you this is the number of people who actually went through the checkpoints,

and you've probably got a good idea of what's happening. And they say passenger numbers have fallen more than 80% when compared to last year, but there are slight increases in May, and June is starting off that way. And we're not yet into the busy summer travel season that normally happens. So if people get more used to the idea of getting on an airplane, in a mask, with reduced seating, so there's some sense of physical distancing, we may see those numbers spike up.

Home purchases. Recent boosts in mortgage applications. These are all in the States, remember. I haven't seen this data yet for Canada. Recent boosts in mortgage applications for purchasing single-family homes could be attributed to pent-up demand, according to one of the forecasting agencies. The applications are up nearly 20% when compared to last year,

according to data from this particular agency. The recent increase might also signal a desire to move from crowded cities to spacious suburbs. Now, isn't that interesting? Because we've seen kind of the reverse going on for the last few years, especially among young people who wanted to move, you know, into the inner core of downtown cities as the inner cities got more and more affluent, perhaps, with the spectacular rise in condominiums.

You see it in some of the major cities in Canada. But now, the suggestion that people are saying, you know what, I don't want to live downtown. I want to get out. It's safer in the suburbs. Or it's safer in the country. We haven't seen some data yet on that in Canada, but I notice in Britain, there's kind of a rush to move to out-of-the-city properties,

especially ones along the coastline in Britain. So, there you go. Home purchases. Home purchases in the states are now back to almost exactly where they were before COVID-19 struck. They took a huge dive.

But they've gone up. Now, that doesn't reflect what the prices are like. And you hear varying things about have prices dropped? Have they dropped a lot? Have they dropped enough to get people into the house purchasing market that weren't there three or four months ago? Same with rentals. Rentals up.

Anyway, that's all Canadian, or sorry, American data, and it'll be interesting to see when we can what the American, or I'll get this right yet. Those were American stats. It'll be interesting to see what Canadian stats are when they come out on all those fronts. And I think we'll start to see them in the next couple of weeks because more and more places are opening up.

Ontario being the latest one here. Only in certain areas. And parts of Ontario are still in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic. I mean, we all are to a degree, but certain parts of Ontario are having a really difficult time. Toronto is one of them. But there's a good chunk of the province that coming this weekend, they're moving into phase two of the reopening,

and that involves things like patio service for restaurants on the sidewalk outside. So we'll see how that goes. All right. Let's say you're Monday. You're Monday Bridge Daily. Get us started for week 13. You can always write at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com,

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, or you can go to my website, thepetermansbridge.com, and you can find any number of things there, including directions on how to buy the book that will be coming out in November, written by my good friend Mark Bulgich and moi. So it's not about COVID-19. It's not about the pandemic. It's not about me. It's not about COVID-19. It's not about the pandemic. It's not about me. It's not about Mark.

It's about a group of extraordinary Canadians, most of whom, if not all of whom, you may never have heard of before, but you should hear about them. Anyway, there's some data on that on the website, links towards it, just to let you know that it's coming it won't be it's in the kind of final editing process right now and they're you know

trying to determine what the cover is going to look like and and all that and they are making arrangements this is simon and schuster is publisher, and they're making arrangements with a number of places who are anxious to be involved in the selling and marketing of this book, which is called Extraordinary Canadians. So, listen, have a great Monday evening or Tuesday. Get outside if you can. The weather's going to be nice here in this part of Ontario for the next few days.

Very hot. I think it's going up to like 32 tomorrow. But it's safe outside if you're smart, if you're wise about how you conduct yourself. You're better off outside than you are inside. Open the windows. Get some fresh air in the house. All right.

Enough babbling from me. Enjoy the evening. You know that the bridge daily will be back in 24 hours. Thank you.