The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Maybe Its Time You Wiped Your Cellphone Down

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Welcome to Week 31 and a collection of stories you just find useful.

and hello there Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily and welcome to week 31 well it is a Tuesday. So really, week 31 started yesterday. But as you know, that was Thanksgiving. I had a great Thanksgiving Day weekend, and I hope you were able to have a good one as well. The weather wasn't perfect here, but it was good enough. And we had a great Thanksgiving Day turkey. Smallest crowd ever in our little household, our little bubble.

Because Cynthia has made a habit of both Thanksgiving and Christmas of inviting as many people as she could in the years gone by. Family and friends for both those big turkey dinners. But this weekend we followed the suggestions and kept it just to our immediate household. So it was different. But it was still great. It was still wonderful and turkey was great too. Of course, as usual, I ate way too much. But nevertheless, it was great.

Okay, so it's Tuesday of week 31, and we're going to get things going. It's kind of one of those potpourri nights, days. Tomorrow, of course, Wednesday, hump day, is our regular day for the race next door. And it will be the race next door tomorrow. Bruce Anderson joining us, as he always does, for the race next door. And he'll be jumping on the line from Ottawa. And we're going to, we haven't really decided yet for sure exactly what we're going to talk about. Because that story keeps changing changing like by the hour.

Who knows what will be happening by tomorrow. But we will have it and we know that it's popular because the numbers I see are quite dramatic in the popularity of the race next door. People really tune into that podcast. They're actually tuning into all of our podcasts right now in terms of the race next door and the bridge daily. So the podcast within a podcast and then the big podcast itself. The numbers have been great. I don have been great.

I don't understand them. I don't kind of get it. As I've told you before, how downloads work and who's listening and where they're listening from. I don't understand the charts on Apple. We do very well on the charts or the number one political the number one Canadian political podcast of the political podcasts that are listened to in Canada

if you can follow all that we're consistently the top rated Canadian political podcast but sometimes that means as it was the last time I looked at it, we were like number eight in the top ten. And they publish, you know, the top hundred. But we were number eight. And we've been as high as, I think,

number six or number five. But the top ones are all American political podcasts. So I don't know how they come up with that list. I don't know how they come up with that list. I don't know how they come up with any of their lists. But suffice it to say, we're happy to be where we are, and we're happy that a lot of people are saying nice things about us. And some of you have been taking advantage of rating the podcast, and that's great.

You can do that. It apparently helps in some fashion. I don't know how, but it does. Anyway, moving on. As I said, we're going to do kind of a potpourri today. There's a number of things that have come along in the last couple of days that I've seen. I put them aside because I wanted to spend a show doing them. So the first one deals with this whole issue of, you know, the glass on your cell phone. Right?

I mean, first of all, let me back up. Ever since all this started six, seven months ago, 31 weeks ago, we get kind of conflicting news about the virus in terms of does it stay on counters? Is it here? Is it there? Mask, quality of mask, how you wear the mask, all of these things. There have been changes, and that doesn't bother me. It seems to bother other people, but it doesn't bother me because we're dealing with a virus that's never existed before. And so they're constantly learning new things about it. Not just how dangerous it is, because it can kill you,

but also how it survives, what impact it has. Now, some people get really sick, and others don't get really sick. And what you can do to help prevent yourself from getting the virus. Anyway, so let me get to the point I was going to make. Because there's a new study out. Those familiar words, right? A new study is out. This one came out a couple of days ago,

but I haven't had a chance to talk about it before. It's from Australia's National Science Agency. They're called CSIRO. Ciro. Ciro. And this study that they've been involved in, or they kind of initiated, is actually the work of a collaboration with five different countries. They're called the 5RD Council, Research and Development,

which compromises representatives from the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Each country is conducting research on different aspects of virus survivability where the results shared as they become available. So that's what this latest study has been focusing on, and that is the survivability of the virus on certain surfaces. Now, you know we've all been told to wash our hands, keep counters clean, doorknobs, this, that, and the other thing.

And it every once in a while goes kind of back and forth. You get a study that says, well, you know, it doesn't stay on counters or it doesn't stay on certain counters. It doesn't stay on certain doorknobs. I don't know. I don't go around studying the different doorknobs. I just decide I'm going to clean whatever I see in front of me that has the potential of carrying the virus. But this is interesting because, you know, what do we use more than almost any other device in this day and age. We use our phones, our smartphones, our cell phones, our mobiles, call them whatever you want. So this latest study has a number of interesting factors in it,

and one of them is the survivability of the virus on the glass on your mobile phone. Our results show that the COVID-19 virus can remain infectious on surfaces for long periods of time, reinforcing the need for good practices such as regular hand washing and cleaning surfaces. This is one of the lead scientists for the Australian, you know, what do they call themselves? Ciro, C-S-I-R-O.

This fellow says, it's actually not a fellow, it's a woman, Dr. Debbie Eagles. She's the deputy director of one of the key agencies. She says, at 20 degrees Celsius, you know, 20 degrees Celsius, that's kind of room temperature. We found, says Dr. Eagles, that the virus was extremely robust, surviving for, wait for it, 28, not hours, days. On smooth surfaces such as the glass found on a mobile phone screen. And on plastic banknotes. Plastic, not paper. Now for context, similar experiments for influenza A,

you know, your basic seasonal flu, have found that it survived on surfaces for 17 days, which highlights just how resilient the COVID-19 virus is. It lasts 11 days longer. So the key in this study is survived longer at lower temperatures, tended to survive longer on non-porous or smooth surfaces, such as glass, like in a foam, stainless steel, and vinyl, compared to porous, complex surfaces, such as cotton.

Now here's an interesting factor I never considered. The study was also carried out in the dark to remove the effect of ultraviolet light as researchers demonstrated direct sunlight can rapidly inactivate the virus. Remember we talked about that in the middle of the summer? Dry your masks in the sunlight. Just put them out in the sunlight when you've used them. It's going to kill the virus on an extended stay in the sunlight. But certainly better than bringing it in the sunlight, but certainly better than, you know,

bringing it in the house and putting it on your desk or somewhere in the dark. Get it out in the sun. While the precise role of surface transmission, the degree of surface contact, and the amount of virus required for infection is yet to be determined, Dr. Eagles once again talking here, establishing how long this virus remains viable on surfaces

is critical for developing risk mitigation strategies in high contact areas. So, I found that all pretty informative. 28 days? I guess we'll be wiping the glass on our mobile phones a little more often than we have been doing. Because I tend to forget that. Shouldn't, but I do.

So I'll be doing that. All right, moving on. Have you been following what's been happening in the United Kingdom lately? Old Bojo has been on the move, right? He's been taking, their numbers have been going up, like just about everybody's have been feeling the criticism and he's been getting it and so he's made a couple of moves today he announced they're going to buy 400 million doses let's put it this way they've made arrangements with six of the leading vaccine makers who are trying to get a vaccine. None of them have been confirmed yet as being a vaccine. But the six leading of the dozens and dozens who are trying. The six leading ones, at least considered the leading ones by the United Kingdom,

Bojo has got 400 million doses guaranteed from those six firms. So he's kind of crossed the top six, and he's got some from each. Right? Considerably more than he needs for his country, depending on where, even if you have a vaccine that needs two shots. He's stocking up. Also, as much as the UK braces for the double punch of Brexit and the pandemic impact, AP, Associated Press, reports that England is preparing to have a three-tier lockdown system in response to the virus resurgence.

The new lockdown system, which is intended to simplify the process by which local restrictions are imposed, has been widely anticipated for a couple of weeks now, following a sharp increase in new cases. So they're ready to go. In fact, I think in some cases they've already started, especially on the pubs, which you've seen happening across the UK, closing, shortening the hours, pub hours. But they seem to be willing to go much harder

and perhaps very soon. Here's something. According to McKinsey, you know McKinsey, the audit firm, do a lot of studies. More than half of all executives recently surveyed say economic conditions in their own countries will be better six months from now, while another 30% say they will be worse. It's the smallest share of respondents all year to expect declining conditions. And except for those in developing markets, respondents in every region

are more likely to predict that conditions will improve than that conditions will worsen. So you've got more than 50% saying things are going to get better. We're talking about the economy here. That within six months things will be much better than they are now.

30% say, no, it's going to go the other way. So 50-30 is still not a convincing margin, but it's certainly better than 30-50. But positive thought sometimes helps. So if they're thinking positively, that, I'm assuming, is a good thing. MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MIT Tech Review,

reports that researchers found that women received an average of 12% more abuse on Facebook than male politicians. So this is a female versus male politicians. I don't think that should surprise anybody that that's what's happening because we keep seeing evidence of it. We see evidence of it in our country, I think, of two female politicians on the national level

who take a lot of abuse on social media. Catherine McKenna, cabinet Minister for the Liberals. Michelle Rempel-Garner on the Conservatives. They both take a lot of abuse from almost always anonymous trolls. But abuse nonetheless. On Twitter, only between 5

and 10% of male politicians mentions were considered abusive, while mentions of female politicians on Twitter contained abuse between 15 and 39% of the time. As I said, those numbers, given what we keep witnessing, don't surprise me.

If anything surprises me is that there's much abuse at all on Facebook and Twitter of male politicians because usually these gutless wonders who take this approach towards politicians target women, not men. So Facebook and Twitter, who appear at times to be trying to clean up their act in terms of the way they are being accountable themselves for what their social media platforms are putting out there. They've taken down a number of things from the Trump campaign

and the Republican campaign in the states in the last little while. But on these situations, they've got to be on top of it. They've got to be on top of it fast. All right, here's the last one. I'm going to lighten it up a little bit here. All right, here's the last one. We'll lighten it up a little bit here. This was in the New York Times. Have you ever heard of COVID-19 Essentials?

That's actually a company. It's in fact a retail chain. The New York Times is reporting that COVID-19 Essentials may be the country's first retail chain dedicated solely to products required because of an infectious disease. The chain has seized on the closures of many storefronts to sell items like an abundance of masks. Now, let's think about this for a minute.

You've got a store opening, not just one, it's a retail chain. So I'm assuming it's in different places in the United States. I haven't heard of it here, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's called COVID-19 Essentials. Think about that. They're opening stores just to help you deal with the pandemic. Now, we're kind of hoping this is going to end, right? So does that mean we're hoping that these guys go out of business?

Well, if we do hope that these guys go out of business, we're not alone. Because the retailers themselves say they have an unusual business mindset. And it is summed up in this phrase that one of their executives uses. I can't wait to go out of business eventually. Well, we join you in that wish. I mean, that's innovative and it's enterprising.

And good for you if you stock good stuff that does help deal with this virus one way or another. But man, oh man, I hope you're not around a year from now. I hope you're not around six months from now. But something tells me we're going to be living with this probably one way or another for another year. The numbers continue to be challenging in our country. They continue to be going up. They seem, and I say this very carefully,

they seem to have kind of leveled off in Ontario and Quebec from the rapid rise they took over the last month. They're still very high, but they seem to have leveled off. BC seems to have leveled off. We've seen small spikes in New Brunswick and where was the other one the other day? Was it Manitoba or Saskatchewan? I think it was Manitoba.

But if we can level it off, then we can start working it down. But you've got to level it off to start. So all those things that we know are still critical. You know, hand washing, social distance, stay away from crowds,

and of course, wear a mask. And I know, hey, listen, I know, as well as anybody, that remembering that routine can sometimes be challenging. This morning, here in Stratford, I went out to the dump because I'd spent some time with Willie, our son, on the weekend, putting together some stuff that had to go to the dump. Some old things that were of no use to anybody else,

and so it was dump time. Some really old, moldy doors that had been in the shed. And so, we did that on, I guess, Saturday, after the dump had closed for the day, so I had to wait until this morning to take them out to the dump. Which I did. which we did. But, you know, I got all the way to the dump and realized I forgot my mask. I forgot my wallet too. So there I was out driving my little

truck without a driver's license, without any money, without my credit cards, and most importantly, without my mask. Now, that wasn't some, you know, action on the part of somebody who doesn't believe in masks, because I do believe in masks. It's just that I forgot, and sometimes, even in this day and age you forget so we scrambled and I came up with a solution to the problem for the moment and

we dumped the doors and got out of town anyway COVID-19 essentials coming to a shopping mall near you, but hopefully not for long. All right, a reminder, tomorrow is The Race Next Door with Bruce Anderson joins us for the podcast within a podcast right here on The Bridge Daily.

We haven't determined what our topic is for tomorrow, but you know it's going to be interesting, whatever it is. So I hope you'll join us. That's the Bridge Daily for this day, Tuesday of week 31. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.