The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Searching For Some Optimism

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Second thoughts on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, and some welcome thoughts on the power of optimism and the value of a smile.

and hello there Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily it is Thursday of week 31 welcome to Thursday so before I really get going, I've got to react to something that happened on the podcast last night, the race next door with Bruce Anderson. At one point we were talking about the hearings that were taking part, taking place in the U.S. Senate this week on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. And we had a bit of a difference

on how those have actually gone for the Republicans because I basically argued what I believed to be the case, which was that I thought Judge Barrett, you know, all things considered, had handled herself pretty well, and that nothing happened in that, in those hearings that were going to cost her the nomination. The numbers are in her favor, the Republicans are all on side, and that she should be able to hold on to the nomination of President Trump to put her on the Supreme Court, in spite of the kind of crazy way this whole thing has unfolded. Bruce didn't agree.

He didn't think her performance was very good at all and made issue on a number of points. Well, so we disagreed at that point. Now, as it turned out, we were recording last night's podcast before the end of the day's hearings. And when I finished the podcast, I went out and switched the television on and saw the very end. And I saw an exchange with Judge Barrett that made me change my opinion of how she'd done. I still don't think there's any question that she's going to get the nomination because the numbers are in her favor, as I said.

However, I was basically appalled at the way she handled the issue on climate change in her back and forth with Senator Harris. And here's why I was appalled. You know, the overwhelming majority of Americans believe climate change is real. There's a group that do not believe it's real. She didn't side with either of those. You know, she sided with issues like the smoking caused cancer. But on the issue of climate change, she said, oh, it's very controversial, and I haven't studied enough

to make a determination on where I sit on the issue of climate change. She hasn't studied enough on climate change. Climate change, global warming, call it whatever you want, has been an issue for at least the last 10 years, more like the last 15 and perhaps as many as 20 years, where it's been an issue in the public domain, in the public square. People have debated it, talked about it, and made their conclusions.

But Judge Barrett, well, she hasn't actually studied it enough. Now, you know, I would have more time for her if she'd said, I don't believe it. I don't believe in climate change. But then to take this, you know, wobbly answer of, I haven't studied it enough. She's at the leading edge of the discussion of public issues in her country, and she hasn't studied it enough? I just find that, as I said, I find that appalling.

And my view on her performance for the week changed on that issue. Again, I still don't think it's enough to disqualify her or make Republicans suddenly go, oh, my God, we can't have her on the court. She's going to get on the court. Unless she takes the advice of what was it? 88 of her fellow profs and assistant profs at

where she teach? Notre Dame? Who have called on her to recuse, or not to recuse herself, but to step down from this process, let the election happen, and then have the vote in the Senate about her. Either that or wait for whoever is the president after November 3rd to make another decision

about who should go on the court. That's her own colleagues, right? At her university she hasn't she wasn't asked about that as far as I saw in the hearings anyway I thought I should

update my views on on Judge Barrett as a result of what I saw after we recorded the podcast now I've been waiting to do this as a result of what I saw after we recorded the podcast. Now, I've been waiting to do this for a couple of days because I wanted to do, you know, forget the first six minutes of this podcast and judge it on the next whatever, 15 or 20 minutes. Because what I want to do is kind of,

I want to put a positive spin on where we are on COVID-19. Now, I know that's hard. That's especially hard right now. But there are reasons why we might want to at least be aware of the achievements we have made, be proud of them, and look towards them to be a little more optimistic

about the direction in which this is heading. Because as we've said from day one, this is going to end. There will be a time at which this ends. Our question is, when will that happen? So I was really pleased when I saw this pop up. A couple of nights ago, I read it online. It's a piece that is in the New York Times

by Donald McNeil, who has written on the story of COVID-19, the coronavirus, more than a few times over the past year, almost. So he has a piece in the October 12th edition of the New York Times, and it's headlined, A Dose of Optimism as the Pandemic Rages On.

And it is raging on in many parts of the world. Not all parts, but many parts. Certainly in North America, certainly in Europe, especially so in the United States. But our numbers, as you well know, have spiked. And in Europe, across the board, they're facing challenges as the second wave hits. So I'm going to read a number of parts of this article.

I'm not going to read it all. It's quite lengthy. But I am going to read a number of parts of this article. I'm not going to read it all. It's quite lengthy. But I am going to read more than a few parts because it's good and it makes you consider a number of things that have occurred thanks to the work of researchers and scientists around the world, especially so in many parts of the United States because this article is American. Ignore the politicians and the political spin that's been put on things, but focus on the researchers and the scientists and focus on the researchers and the scientists, and focus on the people, the public, who have responded in ways that perhaps,

even seven months ago, we never thought would have happened. So, you may recall when everyone started to take this really seriously. I mean, I'm talking about the public at large, when we started to take this seriously. Politicians, apparently, in some cases, certainly in the U.S., knew how bad it was, but didn't tell anybody. And every day there's more evidence of that.

But the thing that kind of got us talking about it, got us concerned about things, was a model that was put out by London's Imperial College. And it was a chart illustrating what could happen if everyone didn't start taking this seriously to protect the public's health. In relation just to the United States, if no action was taken, the Imperial College said 2.2 million Americans would die.

Now, clearly, the pandemic has not ended. So that number still sits there. However, so far, some 215,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. A huge number. A huge number. But not necessarily on the path to 2.2 million. In fact, the latest number we've heard from Dr. Fauci suggests that the number in the United States could reach 400,000 before this is over. Now, there is, as the article suggests, collective accomplishment here that's worth acknowledging. In that report from the Imperial College back in March, February and March,

the authors underscored that their worst-case estimate would almost certainly not be realized thanks to human nature. It's highly likely that there would be significant spontaneous changes in population behavior even in the absence of government-mandated interventions. That's what the report concluded back then. But, you know, millions of North Americans were initially reluctant to accept sacrifices. For one reason, they, you know, they just couldn't believe that some of the things that were being suggested that would have to happen. So when you think back six or seven months,

when we were being told that, you know, schools, bars, dining rooms, restaurants, large public gatherings, the St. Patrick's Day Parade, March Madness Basketball Tournament, the Stanley Cup, the NHL, the NBA, regular season games. When we were being told, we've got to consider shutting all these things down, most of us went, oh, come on, that's not going to happen. It happened.

It happened, and we kind of, not kind of, we accept it now that it needed to happen. It happened. It happened and we kind of accept, not kind of, we accept it now that it needed to happen. You know, there was also around that time, there was this belief that was echoed by some leading health officials that only sick people and hospital workers needed to wear masks. Well, look at the mask acceptance now. You tend to hear about the whack jobs in the grocery store, the bank, or the wherever who refuse to wear a mask. Meanwhile, a lot of other people actually are wearing masks. They're widely accepted. Various polls show that the number of Americans,

reading again from the New York Times piece, who wear masks, at least when entering stores, went from near zero in March to about 65% in early summer to 85% or even 90% in October this month. So the slow but kind of relentless acceptance of what epidemiologists call non-pharmaceutical interventions, that's like masks and washing your hands and social distancing and avoiding large crowds. That's made a huge difference in the number of lives saved. The next step is pharmaceutical interventions.

Some are already mostly and modestly successful, such as the antiviral drug remdesivir and steroids like dexamethasone. But in the near distance are what's called cavalry, the vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. They're likely to be far more effective. So all these things are kind of happening. And they're happening because of that dual pathway that we talked about. They're happening because of us accepting certain things. And they're happening because of the success, the well-funded success on the part of governments.

Maybe the one thing they've done right is they've poured a lot of money into research and development. That path is happening as well, back to the article, with genuine confidence that the pandemic in the United States will be over far sooner than they expected, possibly by the middle of next year. It's hard to think of that today when we see the numbers going up every day. Almost everywhere, the numbers going up.

Middle of next year? That's still some time off. And as this piece in the Times says, experts warn that this autumn and winter may be grim. Indoor dining, in-classroom schooling, contact sports, jet travel, family holiday dinners may all drive up infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. Cases are rising in most states in the U.S.,

just as they are in the populous provinces in Canada, and some hospitals already face being overwhelmed. Even if the cavalry is in sight, those vaccines, it's it and they are not here yet. As Dr. Fauci says, if we're going to prevent in the U.S. the numbers reaching 400,000, they're at 218 or 219 today. Dr. Fauci has warned that if we're not going to get to 400,000, we all need to hunker down. Already, again to the article here,

the U.S. is faring much better than it did during the Spanish Influenza. That's back 1918, 1920. And once again, you know, it is generally called the Spanish Flu. What happened then? Although Spain had nothing to do with it. It didn't start in Spain. It started being talked about when soldiers in the Spanish, the conflict in Spain, when they started getting it, soldiers who were fighting in Spain, when it was first kind of recognized as something that could be a real problem. But it didn't start in Spain.

There are a number of theories of where it started. Some say China. Some say the U.S. Some say Canada. With soldiers fighting in the First World War in various training camps. Somehow it started. Anyway, the one thing that everyone agrees is it didn't start in Spain, and so calling it the Spanish flu is probably crazy.

Anyway, the U.S. today is faring better than it did in the Spanish influenza, as it's called. The worst pandemic to hit the country to date, that was, and the one to which this one is often compared. It began in early 1918 and did not completely fade away until 1920. Cost 675,000 lives. Now, keep in mind, you can't compare that figure to this figure for a number of reasons, one of which is the country's population. Back then, the U.S. population was 103 million.

So that toll, the 675,000, is equivalent to 2 million dead today. Pandemics don't end abruptly they decelerate gradually like super tankers that's the image in this New York Times piece once again by Donald McNeil Jr.

and I love that image because we all know how long it takes a supertanker to slow down and stop. Well, that's what the suggestion is of how pandemics end. Decelerating gradually. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that about 10% of the American population

has been infected. As that figure grows and as people begin to get shots after a vaccine is approved, transmission should slow. There's your supert tanker slowing down. The average age of each new person infected is almost 30 years lower today than it was in March. Fraternity brothers may be reckless, but few older Americans are.

Nursing homes have become better at protecting their wards. The death rate per nursing home resident in states that were hit by the virus in late summer is about one-quarter the rate in the northeastern and southern states that were hit first. Simple interventions like pulse oximeters are detecting pneumonia before it becomes life-threatening. Steroids like dexamethasone have lowered the number of deaths among hospitalized patients by about a third. Rolling patients onto their stomachs and delaying ventilator use also has proven to help. Talk about a simple thing that saved lives. Because people thought about it. Doctors

and nurses who saw the difference when they had a patient who was struggling to breathe and they simply flipped them over onto their stomach. And it made a difference. Now, as I said, I'm not going to read all of this. It goes on and on and on, but let me make just a couple of last points in here because the whole idea of this is that there are some things that have been happening that have made a terrible situation a little less terrible, still terrible, still awful, still unacceptable in the world we live in. But there are some things that we as people and as researchers

and scientists and doctors and nurses have done right. Here's another good omen from the article. Although in the spring health experts were fearful that a bad winter flu season could send thousands of patients to hospitals, all competing for ventilators and medical attention, the possibility of a twindemic of coronavirus and influenza, the seasonal flu, now seems far less likely. Flu is seeded in the United States each year by travelers from the southern hemisphere after the winter there ends.

But this year, their flu season was almost non-existent because they were socially distancing and in some countries wearing masks. And in this country, being the U.S., flu shots became available earlier than usual. So many Americans are rushing to get inoculated that spot shortages are developing. So many are trying to get their shots. If flu does arrive, those shots and our masks should blunt it.

Isn't that great? And there's some evidence of this. We've seen it in Australia where, you know, the seasons are backwards to us. But the seasonal flu infected far fewer people this year than last year. And the credit is going to the fact that people are wearing masks and socially distancing and all that. And it's become a benefit. And those preventive measures against COVID-19 have become a benefit against the seasonal

flu. Now, that should happen here as well. But get your flu shot right get your flu shot and i know already you know we talked a couple weeks ago how pei seemed to have it before anybody else and good for pei but it's pretty well everywhere now but the lineups are long and where you can book ahead book ahead i'm getting my old man flu shot i call it because there's two flu shots there's one for most people and then there's one for seniors, certain seniors. Well, all seniors of a certain age, and I'm of that age. So I'm getting mine this afternoon, but, you know, I've had to, I'm going to have to drive into Toronto to get it from Stratford because in Stratford they're already out of it.

And hopefully they won't be out of it where I'm going this afternoon, or this evening, I guess, that they'll still have at least one shot left by the time I get there. Anyway, it's important. You know, the sooner you get the flu shot, the seasonal flu shot, the better. But, you know, you've still got time, right? The real flu season doesn't hit until kind of December and January, February. So as long as you can get it before December, that's all good.

But the sooner is always the better. You know, the vaccine, you've heard all the stories, and I'm going to go through them all. And the vaccine has taken a couple of hits this week because a couple of the test cases that look very promising may still well be promising, but they've had to pause because of an unexpected illness in a couple of the people who are being tested. But overall, you know, most people seem to agree that within the

next three months, there's going to be at least one accepted vaccine. And despite the chaos and day-to-day politics, this is from the New York Times article again, and the fighting over issues like masks and lockdowns, Operation Warp Speed, which was the code name for trying to find a vaccine, and it basically was a program to subsidize vaccine companies' clinical trials and manufacturing costs, appears to have been working with pretty remarkable efficiency. It's put more than $11 billion into seven different vaccine candidates,

and the FDA has said it will approve anyone that is at least 50% effective at preventing infection or reducing severity. Then the next issue will be whether or not people will accept a vaccine. And you've seen the debate. We've had a debate around vaccines for a number of years. It's also cropped up a lot here because people don't trust whatever Donald Trump says about vaccines. And that's proven in poll after poll after poll. They just don't trust him.

They trust Fauci. They trust the healthcare professionals. They don't trust Trump. So they want to hear it from there, which will make a difference. I mean, a lot of people have said they won't take the vaccine if the only people or the only person hyping it is Trump.

So, and this will be the last part I'll, excuse me, the last part I'll read. Some health officials fear that when a vaccine arrives, many Americans will be reluctant to take it. Indeed, about half of Americans have told pollsters that they feel this way. Nonetheless, I believe, and this is from the author of this great piece in the New York Times, I believe that hesitancy may dissipate if no major safety problems emerge as the first few million Americans are inoculated. And, you know, he backs that up by doing the polio example of the early 1950s, that when there was a lot of concern about that vaccine initially,

especially after there'd been a horrifying incident in 1955 when one of the labs put out a bad batch of 200,000 doses, and it partially paralyzed 260 children, killed 10 of them. Obviously, that was a huge error and a huge problem to what eventually became the successful Salk vaccine that eradicated polio from our lives. Okay, last point. In September, Jennifer Garner, she's an actress, right? Really good actress.

She conducted an entertaining interview with Dr. Fauci. This was last month on her Instagram feed. During which she asked when it would be safe to attend live theatre again. A lot of people sort of wondering about that, whether there'll ever be live theatre again, just like some people wonder whether there'll ever be a packed hockey arena again. So what was Dr. Fauci's answer to that question from Jennifer Garner? It was the end of 2021, or maybe even the middle of 2021. By then, he explained, many Americans would be vaccinated or immune by virtue of having survived an infection,

that it would be safe to sit unmasked in a crowded theater. It's funny, eh? These days, you can't imagine that moment. I can't imagine a moment where I'll sit in a theater without a mask on. But Dr. Fauci is saying it could happen as soon as next summer. Safer to bet end of next year. But he does see that moment. He does see that time.

Here's how the article in the New York Times ends, as I skip down to the end. Once the pandemic is over, one more mission lies ahead to make sure this does not happen again. We must search for the viruses in nature that are most likely to infect us and spend the billions of dollars necessary to create vaccines and designer antibodies against them. So that next time, we are ready. You know, here's my comment on that. That obviously is what we all wish. That's what everybody wished in 1919, 1920,

as that pandemic wound down. We will now focus on the future and ensure that this never happens again. What did they do? They didn't do that. They did a few things. They created departments of health, which didn't exist before in Canada.

But did they look for a national plan and ways to ensure this never happened again and spend money on research on finding ways to prevent viruses of this nature? No, they didn't. And the 20s, the 1920s, soon became the roaring 20s, and people started thinking about other ways of life after the war, after the pandemic. They just wanted to have a good time.

And then the market crashed, and then the Depression hit, and then another war came along. Things get in the way. Things take over the minds and preoccupy the minds of leaders who worry about other things. And the whole pandemic issue got put on the back burner. Will it this time? Let's hope not. Okay, one final thought.

Not on that issue. I've done my bit on that. And I hope you found it interesting. I did. Washington Post earlier this week, on Monday, what was our Thanksgiving Day? Headline, you should smile behind your mask. And here's why.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, this is written by Washington Post reporter Pam Moore, before the coronavirus pandemic, I always smiled at other runners as we crossed paths. Now that we're wearing masks, I rarely bother. And when I do, I have no idea whether the intended recipient even notices. I never gave much thought to the momentary connections created by exchanging smiles with a stranger before the pandemic. Now I miss them, leading me to wonder, does it matter whether I offer an unseen smile to someone I don't know? The short answer, yes, because it can affect your emotions as well as theirs. A smile can speak volumes, but so can body language.

This is especially relevant for people with autism, for whom masks create a significant barrier to reading other people's expressions, and for people with hearing impairments who rely on lip reading. A nod, a wave, or a hello can also create connection, but it's harder to spontaneously engage in friendly gestures without a smile. The face, voice, and body normally hang together. In other words, you're naturally inclined to wave enthusiastically if you're already smiling. If your expression is neutral, it takes more conscious effort to ramp up your body language. So smile behind your mask as you wave hello. Not only is your obscured smile

still discernible, but it will also help you find the energy for the nod or wave, something that will say hello and seal the sentiment. Masks shouldn't keep us from doing all the things that you might normally do to acknowledge another person's humanity when you encounter them. In light of that, I've started nodding and smiling at fellow runners as we pass. It could be the endorphins, but I swear, I feel better. Got it? Smile. So we'll add that to our list, right?

Our list of washing our hands, socially distant, avoid crowds, wear a mask, and smile. So that's the Bridge Daily for this day. One where we've tried to put a kind of bit of optimism into the chain of thought for this day, one where we've tried to put a kind of bit of optimism into the chain of thought for this day. Tomorrow, Friday, you know what that means, the weekend special. So if you've got something you want to say, get it to me at the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, the

Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. A couple of other reminders. You can always find back issues of this podcast on my website, thepetermansbridge.com. You can also click on the link to Extraordinary Canadians, top of the homepage. I'll take you to a little bit about the book that's coming out in just a couple of weeks. I've got a lot of publicity I'll be doing with Simon & Schuster

on a lot of different networks and programs and newspapers because there seems to be some excitement around this book. I think you'll like it, and you can pre-order it on my website. And also if you're listening to the, um, podcast, this podcast, uh, don't be shy about rating it, uh, which you can do through Apple podcasts. Um, we appreciate that. And, uh, you know, I'm told I don't understand how these things work, but that the rating matters for something. So don't be shy on that.

There are five stars. You can choose the star you want. The fifth one, I find, is the easiest one to hit. So why don't you try that? Okay, I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge Daily. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.