The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Fauci Affect

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Watching Anthony Fauci today compared with March is not a comforting sight. America is failing him, can Canada avoid the same result?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the Bridge Daily. I want to talk for a moment today about Anthony Fauci. You all know who that is. Maybe the most recognized face and the recognized name on the issue of COVID-19, certainly across North America, if not around the world. He has been a dominant voice on this story,

and I've got some observations to make about him. You know, when all this really began to be the focus on our minds in early to mid-March, all those months ago, Anthony Fauci was somebody who we all looked to, to give us the truth, give us the details. And we still look at him that way. But he was originally sort of a guest on a number of shows as COVID-19 began to really grab our attention. And then when the White House finally started to act and put together their team headed

up by the vice president, Mike Pence, Fauci was on it. And so every day we'd get to see Dr. Fauci. And you kind of put the politicians aside. You knew that they were giving you spin, and it even got worse when Trump started turning up at those daily news conferences. But when Dr. Fauci got there, more than anyone else, you went, okay, I believe this guy.

He's telling me the straight goods. And the more he became that guy for all of us, the more it seemed the White House, and especially the president, kind of resented him being around. So he started not being there every day, maybe every second day or every third day, And having less to say at the podium. Especially then, those days when he did say something and it contradicted what the President had just said.

About how long this could be around. What we had to do to deal with it. But nevertheless, he impressed us on a number of fronts. One, he told us what we had to do. We had to wash our hands. Then he told us we had to have some physical distance from others. And eventually he came to the conclusion that we had to wear masks. He gave us hope in discussions about the potential for vaccine development,

although not false hope. Never said it was around the corner, but always said we have some of the greatest researchers and scientists in the world. They're all working towards looking for this solution. And they're looking for therapies. So he was blunt with us. And he gave us reason to hope. And I think, well, he may never well have said it directly,

when we were watching him in March and through the darkest days in April, there was this sense that, you know, there was a corner of which we might take, that things will start to turn, that the curve will be flattened, and we can start to look forward, not to the end of the virus,

but coping with the virus. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was watching Dr. Fauci, and he was speaking to a congressional committee. It almost didn't matter what he said. It was the way he looked to me. Because in all those times in March and April when he was talking to us bluntly because in all those times in March and April,

when he was talking to us bluntly but with confidence and with some degree of hope, it made us feel good. Yesterday, he's sitting in the committee room, and he's talking about a situation that is at another turning point, as if we haven't had enough of those already. But he's talking to us wearing a mask. All right? I mean, he'd take it off when he was actually speaking out of the microphone. But for most of the hearing, when others talked,

he was absolutely wearing his mask. And so were all of them. And I couldn't help but think, turning the clock back, thinking of those moments that I watched him in March and April. If you had told me that in June I'll be watching Dr. Fauci

sitting in a congressional hearing room with a mask on, I probably would have said to you at that point, I don't think so. He's really seeming to suggest to me that if we do everything right, reflatten that curve, that we're going to live to cope with this. We're going to find a way of coping while we're living with COVID-19. That is not the way he looked yesterday.

He looked tired, not surprisingly. The man's in his 80s. He looked upset about the way the turns this thing has taken, mainly because of the political direction that's been happening. I mean, as he was sitting there talking, the President of the United States was on the other side of the country in Arizona, talking, Arizona, where the numbers are spiking, talking to a group of more than 3,000 in a church hall where almost no one is wearing a mask.

There's no social distancing going on, unless you're anywhere near the president. Of course, you better be 6, 10 feet away from him. But he's not wearing a mask. He's not showing any kind of leadership on that front. And clearly Fauci is not happy with that. And he's looking at numbers spiking in Florida, in Texas, in Arizona, in California, kind of a southern sunbelt. And he's saying, are we going back to March and April?

Well, that's what some might argue is exactly what's happening in the southern states. And does that mean it's going to be happening in other parts of the states as well? Because people move around within their country. Well, I tell you, that's what I was thinking of when I looked at him yesterday. I was looking at him and saying to myself, if you'd told me in March or April that this is what Anthony Fauci would look like in June,

I would have been devastated then. So we better be realistic about what our southern neighbors are facing and hope to hell that is not what we end up facing. I mean, like you, I listen to the numbers every day that are put forward in Canada by the different provinces and by the federal government. And you can get overly caught up with daily numbers. They go up one day, does that mean, oh my God,

things are starting to go into the tank again? They go down one day, are we mean, oh my God, where things are starting to go into the tank again? They go down one day, are we saying, well, we got this beat? Neither. We can't say either. But right now, in Canada, things are doing well in the big picture overall. Are there pockets of concern? Absolutely. But overall, pretty good. I was worried yesterday in Ontario I got carried away when the number spiked over 200 new cases

after six days of being under 200 and in some cases well under 200. But today I see, bang, they're way back down again, around 160-something. But just like I shouldn't have got overly concerned yesterday, I shouldn't get overly excited today. What I should get is making sure I wear my mask, is making sure I wash my hands,

is making sure I stay socially, physically distant from others. And that gets hard to do when you have this sense that things are going well around you. Well, every time you think that way, look into the southern states. Remember we were told, oh, when the hot weather gets here,

that virus is going to disappear. It doesn't get hotter than it got in Arizona yesterday. It was 109. They set a new record for new cases. And I heard a couple of the medical experts today saying no matter who was in that room with Trump of the 3,000, there will be somewhere between 150 and 250 cases that occur because they were in that room, because they weren't wearing a mask, because they weren't socially distant. So we've got to watch that, and we've got to learn from it.

Okay. Moving on. And this is part of the reason, actually, why things are going up in the states, in terms of the various states where there has been reopening going on. It doesn't mean if you reopen, things are going to be a disaster. We've proven that in Canada.

That doesn't necessarily happen. But there are issues in some states that have reopened. New York Times. After months of stories about outbreaks centered in nursing homes, prisons, and meat packing plants, we now find the nation is now seeing new COVID-19 clusters tied to various places from a church, nightlife spots, casinos, restaurants, even summer camps. The new emerging clusters reflect the unpredictable course of the pandemic

and underscore the risk of states reopening without a vaccine. Fauci was clear on that. He says it's not a question of if there'll be a vaccine, it's a question of when there'll be a vaccine. And he doesn't see one before the end of this year, at the very earliest, more likely early next year. Which, if you've been listening to the Bridge Daily all along, we told you this in...

When did we do that feature on Saskatoon? It was at the end of March or early April. We told you the earliest would be the end of the year. When a lot of other people were still saying, you know, end of next year. But hey, you come to expect that the bridge daily will be on the leading edge of this story, right? All right, so that's the situation in the States.

Meanwhile, we're watching what's happening in the EU and the European Union. I'm sure you've seen the graphics that have been on various programs in the last couple of days showing the numbers going down right across the EU while they're going up right across the United States, right? Reverse of three or four months ago. So diplomats from the 27-nation EU in Brussels are scheduled to discuss the criteria for lifting a curb on non-essential travel

to the bloc as of July 1st. And one of the items up for discussion is whether or not Americans should be barred from entry to the EU due to health reasons as Europe tries to revive domestic economy, its domestic economy, through the summer tourism season, which is huge, always in Europe. You know that. I'm sure many of you have been to Europe in summer's past. So they want to revive the domestic economy through the summer tourism season

while guarding against a second wave of infection. So they got a problem. A lot of their tourist dollars come from the States, but they don't want Americans in Europe right now. Not with the numbers we're seeing in the States. As Bloomberg reports, America would join Brazil and Russia as a country that seems unable or unwilling to control the virus. Okay. One other area.

This is kind of, this will make you wave your Canadian flag a little bit. You may well have heard about this yesterday, but it got a lot of play in American and European news articles today. You know what Shopify is? Of course you know what Shopify is. Shopify is based in Canada, right? Shopify, for those who don't know, is kind of like Amazon, right?

It's an e-retailer, and it's huge. I think, what's the figure I saw for last year? They did $61 billion worth of goods. They helped move. $61 billion for a company based in Ottawa. So the Chief Executive Officer Tobias Lutke, this comes after Trump and another one of his decisions

that he was going to restrict visas, those with visas coming into the U.S. So Tobias Lutke, the chief executive officer of Shopify, is touting Canada as a relocation option after President Trump temporarily suspended several employment-based visas. Here's the quote. This is the one that's getting lots of attention.

If this affects your plans, consider coming to Canada instead. If getting to the U.S. is your main objective, you can still move on south after. The rules change. Now listen to this. But Canada is awesome. Give it a try. So much for our secret about being awesome.

It's now blaring around the world. That's what the headlines say. Shopify CEO calls Canada awesome, says move to Canada. I'm reading a Bloomberg piece here. Trump ordered the freeze on new work visas this week, impacting those seeking employment in technology and hospitality industries in the U.S. The directive is in place until the end of this year

and has garnered significant backlash from tech Bahamuts like Amazon.com and Microsoft Corporation. Shopify is on a hiring freeze. And man, oh man, they're thinking, we're on a hiring freeze. We can get the best people in the world, the ones who wanted to go to the States. They can't go. They can come here. And the old Shopify CEO is making it clear that Canada is awesome.

So there you go. How big is Shopify? The company's share price has more than doubled since January. And it now vies with RBC, the Royal Bank of Canada, as Canada's largest publicly traded company. Go figure, eh? Shopify. I bet some of you had never even heard of it.

A year ago, two years ago. Why am I confident in saying that some of you have probably never heard of it two years ago? I'd never heard of it two years ago? I'd never heard of it two years ago. I know I'm the last one to figure out some of these things, but whatever. Anyway, love that story. Before we go on this hump day of week 15, I want to plug last night's podcast,

last night's Bridge Daily, one more time, if you didn't catch it. And the reason I'm doing that, I don't often do this. I mean, I always say you can go back and catch past editions. You can go back. If you can't find a past podcast, go to my website, thepetermansbridge.com. And on there, you'll find every podcast we've done since we started, more than a half million downloads ago, last fall during the election campaign.

Does that seem like 15 years ago or what? Anyway, more importantly, for these last 15 weeks, they're all there, every one of them. But last night's is a pretty good one. And I can tell it's a pretty good one. And I can tell it's a pretty good one because it rocketed up the download chart faster than I think any that I've seen before in the whole time we've been doing the Bridge Daily.

Now, it's just an interview, but it's an interview with a pretty sharp guy, and that's Bruce Anderson, the chairman of Habakistata. And he's talking about the survey, the poll that they've done, of Americans, more than 1,500, trying to gauge the mood of America, especially as it relates to the way they've been governed, especially as the way they see Canada.

There's a lot of stuff in this poll. We kind of scratched the surface in the interview last night, but it's a good 20, 22 minutes interview, and there's a lot of stuff in there. It's very interesting. Now, I did get some mail going, hey, Mansbridge, you always crap on polls. And I do. You know, I have issues with polls.

I have issues sometimes with the methodology. I have issues with the timing of some polls. But that doesn't mean I don't look at them. I always put my cautions up front, as I did last night. But look, I tell you, Bruce comes out with a survey that shows, in the horse race number that Trump's behind Biden by 14 points.

14 points. And when his numbers first came out on the weekend, some people are going, oh, there's no chance of that being right. It can't possibly be right. Remember, it's a snapshot only. It's not a predictor. It's a snapshot of when the poll was actually taken

of what that vote differential was in those surveyed. Well, guess what? Guess who came out with their own poll today? The New York Times. Guess what the difference between Trump and Biden was in the New York Times poll? Biden by 14 points. Go figure. Anyway, there have been a number of polls of late where the gap is widening. 14 points is a lot of points. Keep in mind that,

and it is important to keep this in mind, that Hillary Clinton won by, I think, three points, two or three points in the popular vote in 2016. But so what? You know, I think she read three million more votes than Trump. But the presidency isn't decided by the total vote. It's decided by the electoral college, in other words, the states you win.

And he won the states he needed to win to win the presidency. Could that happen again? Sure it could happen again. But it's awfully hard to come up with that map if there's a spread of 14 points. Well, the election isn't today, and it wasn't last week when the poll was taken.

It's in November. There's a long way to go yet. Who knows what may happen between now and then. All right. Anyway, if you didn't catch it, I suggest you listen to it. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in there. That's the Tuesday night podcast.

June 22nd. But this was the Bridge Daily for this day. Wednesday, hump day. Did I say June 22nd for the poll show? No, it was June 23rd. This day is June 24th. I got my calendar right yet. Notice how they all kind of blend in one to the other?

It's like when you get to the weekend, you go, really, the weekend doesn't feel like the weekend. Every day feels exactly the same. Every day feels like a weekend, or every day feels like a weekday. Anyway, this is hump day. exactly the same. Every day feels like a weekend, or every day feels like a weekday. Anyway, this is hump day. This is Wednesday. It is June 24th. And that was the Bridge Daily.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.