The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why Are Americans Getting Their Seasonal Flu Shots And We're Still Waiting?

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

Talk about a remote podcast -- this one is from the dock!Some important stuff about the seasonal flu vaccine, PLUS rating how the world feels about Donald Trump.

and hello there peter manspurge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily and we're coming to you today from the gatineau hills north of ottawa in quebec that's right i decided i'd drive up here today because I'm getting a little concerned as some of those COVID numbers in Quebec are starting to go up. The Premier of Quebec is making some noise that they may be closing parts of the province down from people from other provinces. And as a result, that would mean I couldn't get up here to our little log cabin

in the Gatineau Hills. So I wanted to get up here to at least prepare it in case I don't get back up here again this winter. So it's always sad to have to do that among other things i'm just walking down here right now to the water okay out on the dock oh gosh gorgeous day it's just beautiful today almost the entire sky is blue a couple little clouds off on the horizon to the southwest but the sky is blue not hindered by anything it's what you know it is a long one of the flight paths or overseas flights coming into north america especially if they're going to like tor or Chicago or Detroit, Los Angeles. Sometimes the flights take them more or less right over my dock. But nothing up there today.

And nothing up there today because there just aren't as many planes flying. You know that. But looking around this lake, it's such a gorgeous spot. So lucky we are in this region. We have literally hundreds of thousands of lakes like this. and if you get lucky, then you can have access to one of them, either through renting a cottage or, if you're lucky, owning a cottage or borrowing somebody else's cottage. This is always a great time to come. Summer's great. Swimming's fabulous. But this is one of those times of year where things are just starting to happen on the color front. They haven't really started yet, although when I look across the lake here, I see one tree, the tops of which are starting to go scarlet.

It always reminds me of some of those Group of Seven paintings that are done in the fall and you can see how the A.Y. Jacksons or whomever started just sort of using their brush to throw a little color into the tops of trees. And when I look across the lake and see that one with the red it looks like some artist has just gone and tossed little red paint there. Well in the next couple of weeks it will all turn. It will all start turning big time. And the colors here by Thanksgiving will be spectacular. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to come back up, but in case I don't, I'm catching these memories now.

Great time of year to be here, because I think I mentioned this some time ago, that you can often see the loons. We're lucky enough on this lake to have, I think there were six or eight of them this year. You heard me do my loon impression. You can't improve upon perfection, so I won't try it again. But this is a great time of year because the adult loons start teaching the baby loons how to fly.

And it's always fun to watch because loons don't spend a lot of time flying. So there's a lot of crash landings when they go by here. But I don't see them out today. But we'll be patient here for a few minutes. A couple of things to say here before we head back up. Got something in particular I want to tell you about before the podcast ends. But a couple of things from down here. I should, you know, because a couple of people have asked how long you've been there, how did you end up in that place.

As I said, I'm lucky, very lucky. I've been here since 1980. I think it was 1980. I'm pretty sure it was 1980. When I was a member of the Ottawa Bureau, when I was a parliamentary correspondent, we'd been through the 1980 election. Pierre Trudeau was back as prime minister.

And I had the opportunity. A friend of mine said, hey, there's this lake, and the fellow who owns quite a bit of property there is selling small pieces of property, but you have to agree to certain terms. And one of the terms was that you couldn't have a powerboat on the lake. You could have a boat with a small motor, four or five horsepower, that was it, just for kind of fishing.

But basically it was for canoes and sailboats. I thought, that sounds great. I'm not one of those guys who loves the sound of sea-doos going all over the place, or big power boats, cigarette boats. Don't like that. Just like the quiet. Quiet like this. You hear it out there?

Quiet. Just perfect. Anyway, so I bought this property. A couple of acres. Had to borrow money. Had a mortgage on the land. Took me a couple of years before I was in the position to actually try and build something on it. And built a log cabin.

Not me personally, but a couple of people who turned into great friends of mine built a cabin by hand. There's no power here, so they literally had to hoist up the logs, one on top of the other, the old Ottawa Valley-style squared white pine logs.

And so over the years since, almost 40 years now, I've been here every summer for parts of it. My kids and my grandkids have been here. And you know, in so many ways, the lake looks the same as it did 40 years ago. Those rules that the original owner of the property had put in place for people who bought here have been kept in place. It's still a beautiful lake, spring-fed. The water's clear, clean. They say you can drink it.

I don't. But they say you can. It's tested every year by our little association. So we're lucky. It's a great lake. And a lot of fabulous memories from here. And now I'm sharing one of them with you. All right, let's get on topic. On topic today, you know, as I was driving up, I was listening to a couple of American stations as I was driving along the border. And one of the big things that they're pushing is get your seasonal

flu shot. Absolutely. get your seasonal flu shot. This is the time to get it at a year where there's the potential for, you know, twin flus, the COVID-19 flu and the seasonal flu. You don't want to get either. You certainly don't want to get both. And while there's a vaccine for the seasonal flu, you should get it. And in the States, they've got it. They've got it in their doctor's offices and they've got it in their pharmacies. So they're calling on people, get it now. Get it while you can.

Well, that raises the question, fine. What about Canada? Where's the seasonal flu? Well, it is not available in Canada yet and won't be for, well, almost another month, probably the middle of October before it is ready. Now, is that, or is there some screw-up here somewhere? Not if you believe the experts.

What they're telling you is the Americans are in early this year because they have so many people they've got to inoculate. We have much fewer, and the seasonal flu season really isn't until December and January and February, and so you don't need it until October. And the window, the perfect window, is mid-October to mid-November. And that's when you should get it. And that's when it's programmed for. And I got an email from my doctor this week saying that his office will have their batch of seasonal flu vaccine mid-October.

So make a point of coming in at that point. So that's the differential. That's why it sounds like the Americans are way ahead of us on this. It's kind of programmed that way. But you do want to get it. Now, here's an interesting sidebar to the whole seasonal flu story. There's a new study out of Australia. Now keep in mind they're sort of polar opposites to us.

They're just like coming out of their winter as opposed to us coming out of our summer. So they've just been through the seasonal flu time. So how was it? How was the seasonal flu this year in Australia? Does that give us any reason to compare what it might be like here? Well, the seasonal flu numbers in Australia, I'm sorry if there's wind here. I'm feeling wind in my face coming off the lake. Gorgeous here, as I said. It's cold. Cool. Not cold, but cool. A bit of a wind, so it might be impacting the mic. But in Australia, the seasonal flu numbers were way down this year. Way down. Now, is that because everybody got their vaccine?

Well, that may well have had something to do with it, but you know what they determined has had the greatest impact on the seasonal flu numbers in Australia? Here's the answer. The answer is that because of COVID-19 and the guidelines and restrictions in place, most Australians wash their hands, social distance,

and they wear a mask. That's because of COVID-19. But that's obviously, when you think of it, if that can have an impact on prevented COVID-19, one assumes it can also have an impact on the seasonal flu. And that's what the experts say has happened. Exactly what's happened in Australia. And that's why their numbers are way down.

All right. Off the dock, walking back up towards the cabin. And I'll sit outside going to my laptop to talk to you about this other issue I wanted to mention Have you heard of the Pew Research Company? Probably. Pew Research is recognized around the world for the data it does, the collection of research that it does around the world.

And every once in a while, they'll come out with something that reflects world opinion on different topics. They got a good one this week. Pew has been around since 1999, 20 years. And one of the things they do every year is they kind of gauge a country's impact on the world, how other places see any particular country. And this year they wanted to know who had a favorable view of the United States.

Now, it's been a tough year for the U.S. and it's been an interesting presidency, shall we use that term, for Donald Trump. Not making a lot of fans in certainly some of the countries that have always considered themselves close allies of the U.S. So here was the question asked of thousands of people in different countries around the world. Okay. Okay. The question was, what percentage have a favorable view of the United States? Here are the answers. In the United Kingdom, close ally of the U.S.

In 1999, first year of this study, it was 83% had a favorable view. This year, 41%. Less than half. France, 62% in 1999. 31%, exactly half. This year. In every case, the numbers are the worst they've ever been for the U.S. in terms of the way it's seen by other countries. It was pretty bad in 2003 in a lot of countries because of Iraq,

but not this bad. In Germany, 78% in 1999, 26% this year. Japan, 77% 20 years ago, 41% now. Australia, 59%, not big numbers to start with 20 years ago, 33% today. And the sixth country, that's right, Canada. 72% of us apparently had a favorable view of the U.S. in 1999. Today, 35%.

So once again, every country seeing its worst view of the U.S. in the history of this Pew Research number. Now, there are a lot of different graphs and tables in this study. I'm just going to read one other one. They asked people in 13 different countries, and Canada was one of them, whether they had confidence in certain leaders to do the right thing regarding world affairs. and basically the results say that Trump is less trusted than leaders of Germany, France, UK, Russia, and China. Here are the results. What percentage have confidence in Angela Merkel to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

76% say they have confidence that she would do the right thing. Only 19% say they have no confidence. Monsieur Macron in France, 64% say they have confidence he'd do the right thing. 32% half don't have any confidence. Boris Johnson in the UK, Bojo, it's pretty much half and half. 48% say they have confidence he'd do the right thing. 46% say they don't have confidence he would. Now, here are the bad actors in this survey Vladimir Putin in

Russia only 23% say they have confidence he'd do the right thing in world affairs 73% say wouldn't President Xi of China 19% say they have confidence he'd do the right thing. 78% say they have no confidence. Those are pretty bad numbers. It couldn't possibly get worse numbers than that, right? Putin and Xi. Oh, wait a minute. There's somebody else here. Donald Trump. 16% say they have

confidence Donald Trump would do the right thing. 83%. 83% say they have no confidence that Donald Trump would do the right thing. The survey says... There you go. The Pew Research Company. All right, so I've got work to do here. I've got to get the boat out of the water, the little aluminum 25-year-old kind of rowboat that I stick a little four-horsepower on the back of sometimes.

I've got to get that out of the water. Turn it upside down on the dock for the winter. Already got the canoe put away and a couple little kayaks and a paddleboard. That was the new acquisition to the Mansbridge Navy this summer, the paddleboard. I was out on it. I kneel on it really well. I have yet to be able to stand on it for more than a second and a half.

So that will be the project for next summer, to learn how to do that properly. Anyway, so chores to do and a chance to just let you know that if you have something you'd like to say, don't be shy, drop me a line at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. I've had a fair response to the issue about school in terms of personal anecdotes from either parents or kids or teachers or bus drivers, school bus drivers, you name it, anybody, who wants to ride along that lines, I'd like to kind of make it mostly from them for tomorrow's weekend special. So I'll be looking for those

stories from you. So, you know, drop me a line if you can. Try and get it to me before noon tomorrow, noon Eastern tomorrow. But, you know, get it to me whenever you can. Try and get it to me before noon tomorrow. Noon Eastern tomorrow. But, you know, get it to me whenever you can. That's The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. This has been The Bridge Daily. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.