The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - If You Haven't Already, Maybe Now Is The Time To Download The Covid Alert App

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Canadian Covid numbers are going up big time, so why is Ontario opening casinos?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of The Bridge Daily. It's week 29. 29! Just feels like yesterday that it was week one. And when you think back to week one, we thought we were in it for, what, three, four weeks maybe? If you'd been told then it was going to be 29 weeks, not only would we still be in it,

but we'd be starting to see numbers that were even worse than any of those first weeks. Because that's what we're looking at right now. In different parts of the country, the most populous provinces, there are more and more cases being reported each day. In Ontario today, Ontarians get told that there were 700 new cases. 700. Now that is more than at any time in March and April, which were the two worst months

up to now. 700 new cases. Just think, about a month ago, there were 60 or 70 cases a day. Now it's 10 times that number. So what are we supposed to think? Well, as we've been talked about many times, keep things in perspective. Keep things in some sense of context. So let me try that for a moment.

I mean, a week ago, we talked to the epidemiologist David Fissman, who's helped us throughout our 29 weeks of podcasting. And he said, look, you know, this is kind of expected. There's likely to be a second wave, and you can't start opening up on all fronts and not expect there's going to be some infection, increase in the infection rate. Well, all those things have been happening. But you know what else has been happening?

Testing. A lot more testing than we were seeing back in March and April. In April, when it was the last highest number for the day in Ontario, and that number was somewhere in the high 600s, there were about 10,000 people tested. Well, for yesterday's number, or which is today's number as it's released in the morning, at 700,

there were more than 40,000 people tested. So, the more you test the odds are you're going to get more examples of COVID and that's what's happening here but that's not to say

we should say oh well that's not a big deal you know the positivity rate is still I think it's 1.7 or 1.8, somewhere like that. The number of people who test positive out of the number who were tested. So, should we be worried? Well, we should be recognizing the fact that things are not in good position right now. The numbers are up, and they're likely to keep going up, but now the forecast is sort of by 1,000 a day

as we get into October, which is only a few days away now. And then hopefully it'll peak at that, and then it will start flattening again. But these kind of numbers are going to put pressures on a lot of places if the cases are bad. If the cases are bad, more people will be admitted to hospital. More people will be in the ICU. More people will be on ventilators. There will be pressure on our hospitals. All of those things.

So none of this puts us in a good place. So our government's saying, whoa, we opened up too much stuff, we've got to pull back. A little bit. A little bit. Keeping going with the Ontario example, I'm not trying to be Toronto-centric here because we're seeing similar situations, as I said, in the most populous provinces. Quebec, huge numbers.

Alberta's gone up, BC's gone up, and you've seen pullbacks in some areas. So in Ontario, on Saturday, they decided we're going to close down the bars earlier. Close at 10 o'clock. I never quite figured out the rationale there. It's like, really? 10 o'clock closing is going to make a big difference rather than, say, 12 o'clock closing or 1 a.m. closing? I'm not sure. They obviously think it'll have a positive impact.

And, hey, they closed the strip bars. Now, isn't that a concession? My gosh, because the strip bars were so integral to the economic situation in Ontario it was essential to open those strip bars they had to get them open now they've decided to close them okay so you've closed the strip bars, alienated the strip bar clients,

you've pulled back a little bit on drinking time, but you're saying no to moving back from stage three, which is a lot of things open, to stage two, which would mean a lot of things closed, bars, restaurants. They're not going to do that. At least they're not going to do that yet in Ontario. And you know what else they're going to do? This is while they're closing strip bars reducing drinking time in in uh you know pubs they're saying hey let's open the casinos all those people who wanted to go to the strip bars and have nothing to do now they can go to the casinos because they're open as of today. So it just seems to me like we're getting a lot of mixed messages going on here.

Close the strip bars, open the casinos. Really? Does that make a lot of sense to you? Because it sure as heck doesn't make any sense to me. But who am I? I'm not an expert in either. But I'm more than happy to listen to your thoughts on this. Most of the mail I've had in the last month when we started to see numbers in different provinces

starting to go up as we got to the fall, schools opening, numbers in different provinces starting to go up as we got to the fall. Schools opening. Some of these cases reported today are schools, students and teachers. Some of the mail I was getting and have been getting is close the bars, totally. Close in-restaurant dining, totally. But that hasn't seemed to have had an impact on the decision makers, those who make policy on that front. That's not happening.

I had an email the other day from one person who said, look, if it's so important to get kids back to school, and this writer actually agreed with this, if it's so important to get kids back to school, then close everything else and just keep the schools open. That alone. And you'll stop the spread.

Go back into lockdown except for schools. So that was one idea. Don't be shy about sending in your ideas. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Now, there have also been a fair number of questions of late about the COVID Alert app that you can have put on your phone. I've got it on my phone. I did it right away. It came out, I think, at the end of July.

And the whole idea of the COVID app that you put on your phone, it's dependent on other people putting it on their phones. And if somebody who has it on their phone tests positive for COVID, then others who are in their proximity will be warned that they have been in proximity of someone who has COVID-19, and therefore they should be tested. The whole idea here is you'd find out before you had symptoms, you could get properly prepared for what was likely to come your way.

But more importantly, you would take the proper precautions not to infect anyone else. You'd hopefully quarantine. You'd certainly wear a mask if you were outside. So that's the kind of theory behind the COVID Alert app. But as we told you almost two months ago now when it came out, there were those who were going to say, no, this is an infringement on my rights. It means somebody is monitoring where I am all the time. And, you know, that's obviously a legitimate concern if you don't believe

those who have put the app out, which is the government of Canada. Some provinces have signed onto it. Others have yet to do that. Others are saying they're about to do that. I want to tell you a little bit about the app today because there are misconceptions. A number of people have been trying to fight So let's talk about it a little bit. First of all, is your privacy protected? This is what your government says. COVID Alert does not use the GPS or track your location. It has no way of knowing your location, your name or address, your phone's contacts, your health information, the health information of anyone you're near.

Nobody will get any information about you or the time you were near them. Learn more about how the COVID Alert protects your privacy by going onto the Government of Canada COVID Alert site. Alright, those are all guarantees, promises, pledges from the Government of Canada. How does it work? The app uses Bluetooth to exchange random codes with nearby phones. Every day it checks a list of random codes from people who tell the app that they've tested positive. The phone doesn't test you.

You have to tell your phone that you've tested positive. And, I mean, download the app, you'll see, or go on site and you'll see exactly how that works. If you've been near one of those codes in the past 14 days, you'll get a notification. Here are the provinces where you can report a diagnosis and use the COVID Alert app to report a COVID-19 diagnosis if you're in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Saskatchewan. It's still helpful to download the alert even if you can't use it to report a diagnosis

because you'll be notified if you come into contact with someone from a reporting province or territory when people in your area are able to report a diagnosis. Okay, there are some basic facts about the COVID Alert app. Obviously, you've got to be comfortable with this idea if you're afraid that somebody's kind of monitoring you all the time, I mean, let's face it, if you've watched enough television and read enough in the newspapers and magazines, legitimate ones, about the world in which we live. And, God, I can remember doing a documentary in the early 1980s about computers and how they were tracking us all. I mean, you use a bank card all over the place.

They trace in exactly where you are. They know exactly where you are when you make that purchase in a store. They know where the store is. They know it's an in-store purchase, so they know where you are. When you're making phone calls, they know where you are when you made the phone call. They being the, you know, the mysterious they that control all things computer-wise. Anyway, if you're concerned about privacy and you believe that this breaks your privacy, COVID Alert app,

then by all means, nobody's forcing you to do this. They're asking you to do it because it helps everyone. The idea is to protect others and to give you some indication of whether or not you should be concerned about where you've just been if you've been in contact with somebody. All right. I'm sure I'm going to hear from some of you about this. I'd love to know, I wonder how many of you

are actually using the COVID Alert app. You can always write me and tell me that. Now, here's my last point about the COVID Alert app. I saw this on Twitter yesterday, which, yes, I know, not the most reliable information source out there. But Adam Radwanski is a reliable source. He's a journalist and a good one with the Globe and Mail. He tweeted yesterday, I think it was yesterday,

he tweeted, I'll read it, an interesting idea suggested by a friend. Maybe proof of having downloaded the COVID Alert app should be required for customers to enter restaurants and bars. Hey, that's a heck of a good idea. Suggested by a friend of Adam. So now you can add, should be required for customers to enter restaurants and

bars and casinos. You don't have to say strip bars anymore because strip bars in Ontario are closed. So you make it a requirement, along with masks, to get into certain places. You have to have downloaded the COVID Alert app. That may be one way of encouraging more people to download it. I haven't seen the latest count.

A couple of weeks ago, there were well over 2 million people had downloaded the app. It sounds like a lot, but hey, we're 35 million people in this country and probably 25 million of them have phones. So we've got our ways to go on that program. It's operating really well in other countries. We don't seem to have that same concern that many Canadians seem to have. Okay.

One other topic. It would be surprising if I didn't have something to say about our neighbor to the south who happens to be the president of the United States. The New York Times, that bastion of fake news, according to Donald Trump, had a full page exclusive. Well, almost a full page exclusive. Well, almost a full page. It certainly looks like it when you look at the front page.

The banner headline certainly crosses the full width of the page. And it's all about Donald Trump's taxes. Remember the taxes? I mean, here's a promise that he kept, and obviously didn't tell a lie when he kept that promise. His promise was in the 19, or sorry, 19, the 2016 election, that he wouldn't release his taxes until the audit, this mystery audit that's supposedly going on, was finished.

Well, kept that promise, never released his taxes. But the New York Times claims it has now seen about 10 years' worth of his taxes, up to and including the second year of his presidency. And this is a guy who you may recall in the last campaign said he was worth $10 billion. So a multi-billionaire. And in the 10 years of taxes that the New York Times has looked at, he paid no tax in eight of them,

and in the other two, which include the first year he was president, he paid, wait for it, $750. $750 total. That's it. That's all. And he was incurring huge losses. Apparently owns more than $400 million. And those loans are coming due in the next couple of years.

This guy is supposedly worth $10 billion. All his golf courses, at least most of them, all the ones that I've seen, and I've played on some, and I've certainly seen some in the States, and I haven't played on them during the term while he was president. Some in the U.S., some in Scotland, two in Scotland. Anyway, this sounds like one heap of trouble.

But then again, this guy is always in one heap of trouble. What have we talked about lately on The Race Next Door? However, it's kind of like every three or four days, there's some other huge thing that hits him like a semi-trailer. And, you know, knocks him over and then he bounces back up again. As if nothing happened. He throws out a some kind of deflection. Hey, look at this shiny ball over here.

Forget about my taxes. Forget about my derision of those who served in the military. Forget about everything you read in Bob Woodward's book. Forget about everything you read in Michael Cohen's book. Forget everything you read about in my niece's book about me. Just forget about all those things. Because this shiny ball over here, that's much more important. So he's looking for one now to try and take away the stain of the New York Times tax story. Tomorrow night's the debate.

Will they still be talking about the tax story tomorrow night? Certainly Joe Biden's going to be able to use something on it in the debate. But Trump will throw out some other outlandish thing. I love the one yesterday where he was doing, Biden should take a drug test. That's right.

Yeah, he should take a drug test. Because there's so much evidence that he's on drugs. I can't remember who said it once but in a similar situation with a couple of politicians and one said this person should take a drug test their answer was okay I'll take a drug test when you take an IQ test that might be worth a try you know that might be worth a try. You know, every time I say to myself,

I'm not going to get caught up in talking about this story anymore. I'm just sick of it. Just go to the election, have their vote, get it over with one way or the other. And then I find myself waking up the next day talking about it all over again. So I guess we've still got a few more weeks left of doing exactly that. 28th of September today.

If my mother was still alive, it would be her birthday today. So happy birthday, Mom. Tomorrow is the debate. The presidential debate. Biden versus Trump. You going to be watching? I'm going to watch. Bruce Anderson's going to watch.

And on Wednesday, we'll have the day after assessment of what the heck just happened? There isn't a poll in the U.S. right now that is in conflict with all the others. They are all showing Biden ahead and quite significantly ahead on the national numbers and in almost all of the battleground states. Not all of them, but almost all of them. So with roughly a month to go, Trump is in one heap of trouble. And if he's looking for the so-called October surprise, he might have thought he had it in the Supreme Court pick.

Doesn't seem to have been. He certainly had a surprise in the New York Times story yesterday, but not the kind he's looking for. But there's a month to go, and with the short attention span of everybody, including the news media, anything can still happen. Anything can still happen.

I think he's cooked. That I've been wrong before. We'll see. All right, so tomorrow, I don't know, we'll have something to talk about in the hours before the debate. And Wednesday, the race next door, Bruce Anderson joins us from Ottawa. We will look at what happened and try and break it down for you. So with that, we kick off another week, week 29 of the Bridge Daily.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. It's been great talking with you. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.