The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Self Isolation Hits The Bridge

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

The COVID-19 story got personal this week for me and my family just like it is increasingly for tens of thousands of other Canadians. How a moment like the one captured in this picture, helped put me in self isolation!

and hello there I'm Peter Mansbridge this is the bridge back on the 11th of September, 2001, 9-11 as we call it, when I was put into the studio, I was there, as it turned out, for I think roughly the next 40 to 44 hours, a couple of short breaks here and there. But one of the phrases that I used many times during that lengthy broadcast was, our world has changed today. Our world has changed in that moment. Those planes hit the towers. And our world will never be the same.

And, you know, for the most part, I think that was right. I was hardly the only one to use that phrase. A lot of people used it over the days that immediately followed 9-11. But our world did change. Everything about it became very different. And I don't think we've used that phrase against any particular issue ever since, until now. Because our world is changing. It is changing dramatically as a result, not of a war, but of a major health threat, a pandemic, the coronavirus, COVID-19. Our world has changed.

Even in the last week. You know, a week ago, it was kind of like funny to talk about, oh, geez, a shortage of toilet paper. Not funny anymore. Try going to a grocery store. Try to go to any store. And it's not just toilet paper they're out of. There are long lineups for all kinds of things.

And the television screens are focused on the story of, I don't know, was it panic buying? It seems to be in some cases, but very orderly. I heard from someone today who was in a lineup at the grocery store. It was very long, just like the ones you see on television. Shopping cart after shopping cart after shopping cart lined up at the cashier. But what they said was interesting. It wasn't just the seeming panic of all these people in the stores buying toilet paper, buying canned goods,

buying things that could last them weeks on end, bottled water. You name it. You can imagine. But what they said was interesting was that with all the scene going on around them and many, many, many people in the store, way more than usual, five, ten times more than usual,

a kind of eerie quiet. Like people were quiet. There was the odd, wow, what a lineup. But for the most part, just quiet. People consumed in their thoughts about what they were doing, whether they got the right things, whether there was something else they needed, and the very fact that they were doing it in this kind of bulk.

And when would be the next time they'd be at the grocery store? And when they were, would there be anything in it? When they were, would this whole thing be over? When they were, would this whole thing just be getting started? Maybe that was why it was so quiet. Well, here's what I want to talk to you about. Because, quite frankly, I didn't think I'd be in this position to talk about this. I want to talk about self-isolation, self-quarantine.

Why do I want to talk about it? Because I've been in it for the last 48 hours. Here's the short story, if I can make it short. I know some of you are going will chuckle out of that, but I do tend to go on at the pace that I normally go on at. Tuesday night in Toronto, my son Will, who I've talked about often because he's been a major part of making this podcast get off the ground. Will goes to the University of Toronto. He's in his third year.

But at the same time, he has a part-time job. He works for Uninterrupted Canada, which is a sports media company that only started last summer, and they're doing extremely well. And, you know, the support of LeBron James, who runs Uninterrupted in the United States. And I think Drake is involved somehow in all this too. But Will started off as an intern, is now involved on the creative side. And on Tuesday night, he was out doing a piece of video

with Serge Ibaka, who is one of the stars on the Toronto Raptors. And Serge has this little thing they do called a vet class where Serge is a pretty classy guy, great dresser. Takes a friend, usually a colleague from the basketball league, from the NBA, takes him out, shows him the kind of clothes he should wear. And they have a good time doing it, and them the kind of clothes he should wear. And they have a good time doing it, and it's kind of fun. Anyway, Willie was involved in that production,

along with a number of other people, and so they were out Tuesday night at a shopping mall in Toronto. And everything went great. They had a good time. They got all the shots they needed. They got the kind of dialogue they were hoping for. And that was that. That was the end of it.

Now, that was 24 hours after Serge Ibaka and his teammates had played in Utah against the Utah Jazz. So Wednesday night, 48 hours after that game, one of the players on the Utah Jazz tests positive for COVID-19. Turns out it was the player that Serge Ibaka was guarding that night. So there was kind of a closeness to that arrangement, guarding. And as a result, there was some concern about whether or not, not only Serge, but any of the other members of the Raptors, might have somehow had that disease transmitted to them, and as a result, anybody that Serge had come in contact with in the hours after that game.

And one of those people, obviously, was Will. So the advice that Will got and I got as somebody who was then with Will, from our doctor, was self-quarantine. You've got to go into a quarantine situation for as long as 14 days to find out whether you develop any of the symptoms and whether Serge develops any of the symptoms and if Serge tests positive. Well, that was a very strange feeling to happen because the first thing you do is immediately, who did I see on that day since I saw Will come back from the video shoot, who else have I seen?

And there was one person who I had lunch with on that Wednesday, and I had to give them a warning. And they had to self-quarantine as well. So when I say it's been a strange week it's been a strange week self-quarantined and that means basically you you're at home you're not seeing anybody it's more than just social distancing it is you're you're in kind of lockdown. You are in lockdown. Fortunately, we had enough food in our place here in Toronto, our condo in Toronto,

for Will and I to hunker down for a couple days. But you go through a lot. You think a lot about the consequences of the situation you're in, the potential consequences, the dilemma of not really knowing. You're constantly looking at what are the symptoms. And, of course, when you look at a page of symptoms, you immediately think you have them all, right? Well, yeah, actually I do feel a little

feverish, even though when I put my hand on my forehead, it doesn't feel like that at all. Even though when I take my temperature, I'm absolutely normal. Am I coughing? No, I'm not coughing until I suddenly start to think about coughing, and then I cough. You know what it's like. I'm not telling you anything you haven't experienced. Anyway, you go through that. You're constantly checking yourself. You're looking at various tests that are said to help you determine whether or not you're short of breath.

Anyway, you keep doing this and you're doing it or thinking about it constantly you have to keep reminding yourself you are self quarantining self isolation because of the possibility

that you might have picked this up. Not that you did pick it up, but that you might have. Anyway, as it turned out, after 48 hours, a little more than 48 hours, no symptoms of any kind, no indication that Serge or anybody else who was in the group of the film shoot have any symptoms.

And the doctors say, you know what? You can relax a little bit from the self-quarantining. You should continue with social distancing. In other words, at least two meters, six feet apart. Don't get into any conversations or be around anybody for more than 10 minutes. And follow all the other lists of instructions, all of which are constantly reminding you of how serious this situation is and the direction in which it's going. It's not a good direction.

Everything you read would indicate we're just at the tip of this. There's a long way to go and things are going to get a lot worse and a lot more people are going to get infected. But there are ways we can have an impact on, as they say, flattening the curve to the point where there isn't this huge onrush of people who are suddenly infected, to the point where they need medical help, to the point where they overwhelm the hospitals, to the point where the people who work in hospitals are overwhelmed.

Not just tired, but overwhelmed, to the point of actually being infected and sick. That's what they have to stop. That's where they need all our help. That's where they need us to be focused. And I've got to tell you, in my case, if 48 hours of self-isolation helped me focus, well, it sure did. I'm focused.

To the point where I'm, you know, it's not so bad in here. Maybe I'll just stay here in isolation. Probably won't. Probably will go at least out to Stratford. I think Willie and I will head out there this weekend. Join Cynthia and Bella, our dog.

And, you know, take it easy. So that's the kind of situation that I've had the last few days, and as a result, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about anything else. I hope you can understand that. That's why the podcast is, once again, solely focused on this. I've been getting mail. It's almost all about COVID-19. It's almost all questions about how do we handle this or that.

I had some snowbirds in Florida writing today, a couple of them, asking what's new for them. I said, you know, check in on the different rules that are put in place by the Canadian government today as they have been. I think the prime minister announced some new travel rules. And you've got to stay in touch with that because really the news is changing every hour on this story. But the one thing I said to keep in mind for them was that Canadians will never be barred from their home country.

They may have to go through a period of, you know, being held to ensure that they're not infected. But a Canadian is a Canadian who is always welcome in this country. Anyway, that's where we were this week. I have one other thing. By the way, on the mail, I keep forgetting this each week, but if you want to write, comment on anything, ask any questions. It's always game for questions.

I'll try to answer them either directly to an email or if there's something I want to talk about on air, I'll put it on the podcast. But the email is themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. So, when we come back in a minute, I'm going to update you on something we talked about last week. Still about COVID-19, but I got a lot of mail about it.

A lot of people were thinking about the dilemma of our friend Rebecca. So I'll bring you up to date on Rebecca's situation right after this. You know, I love the drum part of that piece of music. We haven't played that one for a while. We'll start using that again more often. It's a great one. Okay, Rebecca. Copenhagen, remember? Told you all about Rebecca last week.

She's in Copenhagen University. She goes to U of T, a really good friend of our family and this podcast and especially a very good friend of Willie's. But Rebecca is taking her second semester for her third year at U of T in Copenhagen at the university there.

And she's loving it. loves Denmark, loves the people, loves her fellow students. But this whole COVID story has been a challenge in Europe, as we all know, and it's affected all kinds of things. And this week, it was Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday, the students were told, Monday or Tuesday. The students were told, that's it. No more in-class teaching.

Everything would be online. Which is all because of wanting to distance people from crowds, from gatherings. And we're seeing the same thing starting to happen here. We're a few days behind on that. I mean, U of T just did it today. But it is tough. They got very little warning. And Rebecca, suspecting it may be happening,

and thanks to her mom who called from Vancouver and said, you know, before they made the announcement, said to Rebecca, you should go out and buy groceries, buy toilet paper, buy all the things you absolutely need. Buy them now. And so off she went that day. And when she went to the stores, there was nobody there. Within a couple of hours after the announcement,

those stores were full. And it became a TV story there in Copenhagen, just like it has become in the last 24, 48 hours here in Canada as well, about people hoarding supplies. Anyway, then kind of the second shoe dropped. I mean, that was difficult enough. You imagine you're a foreign student. You've got great friends, other foreign students,

who are sharing some of the residences with you. And so you've kind of made a life, and they have made a terrific life, traveling to other countries on weekends because it's so cheap to travel in Europe for students. I don't understand why that can't happen in North America. It doesn't, but it does there. And so they've been going to different places. Suddenly, boom, that's gone.

That travel is not allowed anymore. And the hardest part to grasp is, like in Rebecca's case, one of her best friends has become this young woman from California who goes to Berkeley and is here on the, you know, kind of an exchange thing where she's taking her semester here. But here's the difference between Berkeley and U of T.

U of T is great. According to Rebecca, checking in, everything okay, anything we can do to help, blah, blah, blah, all that. Berkeley said, you got to come home, like now. And they made that decision, I think, yesterday.

And the students, including Rebecca's friend, were told you got to be out of there within 48 hours. So she's gone. So tonight, Friday night, podcast night for the bridge, they're having a party in Copenhagen for their friend who's leaving, heading back to California. And, you know, there's real mixed feelings about that. I mean, mixed in the sense that they're going to have fun tonight,

but they were going to have fun tonight, but they were going to miss her. And, you know, these kind of friends you have that you make in situations like this are not ones you want to give up easily, but unfortunately, that's what's going to happen there. So all around the world, these little challenges are being placed in front of us. No challenge greater than the health of individuals, their friends, their families. And that's what the focus is on now, in trying to deal with it, trying to lessen the conditions that could cause serious individual problems. So that's what we ask of everyone. Read up on this.

This is not a hoax. This is not a joke. This is the real dealax. This is not a joke. This is the real deal. Our world is changing right in this moment. And all of us can play a role in trying to make that change one that we can live with. All right. That's the bridge for this week.

What a week it has been. Who knows what the next seven days will be like. But we'll be here in seven days for the next episode of The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you.