The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Will The Global Pandemic Be Defeated By Some Amazing Grassroots Global Co-operation?

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

I had to go into Toronto early this morning .. a quick in and out but a revealing trip. And two anecdotes which just may give you hope, when hope is what we need.

and hello there peter mansbridge here with the latest edition of the bridge daily so how are you sleeping these days it's funny i'm seeing a lot more pieces out there on social media about, here's what you need to do if you're having trouble sleeping. You know, you find yourself waking up a lot in the middle of the night, having trouble falling asleep at night, waking up early in the morning. Well, hey, I'm not surprised if you are. A lot of people having problems sleeping because obviously they've got a lot on their mind. Not only about their own lives, but

probably more importantly about others' lives, about their family's life, about their kid's life. We're all having major thoughts about those issues. Not surprisingly so, given what we're dealing with. Well, I was up early this morning. I was up at 5 o'clock. And the reason I was up at 5 o'clock is And the reason I was up at 5 o'clock is I decided I needed to go into Toronto from here in beautiful sunny Stratford. I had to go into Toronto because there were a couple of things I had to do, needed to pick up.

It was an essential trip. But I decided I wanted to get up early to do this get in and out because I only needed to be in Toronto for about a half an hour so I would get that done and head straight back so in fact that is what I did I was up at 5, left at 5.30, was back before 10 o'clock

so it was a quick trip. But it was a trip that well, showed me a lot of things. The way from Stratford to Toronto is mostly on Canada's most traveled highway. Busiest highway in the country. The 401. And at times, if you make the trip early in the morning, you are going to get held up.

Back in the days of normal, it would be a traffic jam. Just bumper to bumper, especially when you get in around Milton, Ontario, and start to head in the final stretch into downtown Toronto. It can really get backed up fast. Doesn't need an accident. Doesn't need construction, although you have both of those on most normal days.

It's just an awful lot of people funneling to Toronto every day. Not so much now. However, I got to tell you, I was surprised at the number of cars that were on the road this morning. It was busy. A lot busier than I thought it was going to be. Now, traffic ran at our normal speed. It wasn't bumper to bumper. It was straight in. But there were a lot of cars. 95% of them with only one person in the car. Now, a month ago, we'd say that's bad planning. That's not the way this is supposed to work in our society. Either carpool or what have you. But now it's one person per car because of physical distancing. Because most families, only one of the parents is working right now

because somebody's got to look after the kids who are home. They're not at school. So I imagine that's part of it. But even with that, what surprised me was realizing that there are an awful lot of people still working whose jobs do demand that they're there, or who governments have said it's okay to be working. I got to tell you, when I got into downtown Toronto,

I was surprised at the number of construction sites that are wide open. They're busy. They're working. Now, you know, there was some discussion about certain construction sites that are, you know, long-term care facilities. Those are important to keep going. But the ones I saw today weren't that. They were part of the condo boom in downtown Toronto. They were busy and they were backing up traffic in certain parts of downtown Toronto. So there was a lot of that going on.

But overall, there must be an awful lot of people still working. Whose jobs are deemed essential and we know who the obvious ones are. The frontline health care workers, police officers and firefighters and ambulance drivers, and you know the list. Grocery store clerks. Certain restaurants

who are catering to delivery service. And I guess some offices, some government services offices, some essential places. But what struck me on the 401 today was there were more than I expected. It's the first time I'd been on the 401 in a weekday in the last three weeks or four weeks. And I got to tell you, I expected it was going to be a lot less trafficked than it was. So that was interesting to see. And I wonder how much longer it'll be like that. Because you can feel

there's a buildup going on on the part of governments. The sense that as the problem becomes more difficult, as the numbers in terms of cases and serious sickness and intensive care unit and deaths, as those numbers continue to go up and the pace of them continues to go up, that I think you're going to see governments get tougher and tougher

on the way they handle the issue of isolation, quarantine, physical distancing, all of that. So don't be surprised if that happens. When you hear the daily news conferences and the daily suggestions from the leaders, whether it's the prime minister or the premiers, and they're having a conference call tonight, and I'm sure among other things, among the major questions that still surround the delivery of essential needs, whether they're face masks or ventilators or what have you, will also be this question of, do we need to be tougher on citizens in terms of their freedoms?

And that's where it's going to get really interesting. Because when personal rights start to conflict with state rights, you're going to have some interesting discussions and arguments and debates. But governments are trying to worry about the overall situation, and it's not good. It's very difficult. And we are in the dark days. We have not yet reached the end of the beginning and we're certainly a far cry from the beginning of the end.

So watch out for that over these next few days. As more than a few people have suggested, this next week is critical. This next week to two weeks is critical in terms of just how exactly the country is responding to the calls for help from governments, help to fight this by staying at home. I don't think there's any question that there's a lot of staying at home going on, a lot of it. But is it enough?

And does it have to be more? And if it has to be more, how do you make it more? How do you enforce more? All right. Here's something different. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine who has a cousin who works in New York. She's a doctor. And she's in one of the hospitals that is being almost overwhelmed, and at times overwhelmed, by what's going on.

I want to tell you something that's a glimmer in the midst of this horror that is going on in New York, and God help us that it doesn't reach those limits here, but it might. That's why they keep warning us. New York could be the canary in the gold mine. And if it's the canary in the coal mine, it's a coal mine we don't want to see. Anyway, here's her story. She says every day, every day,

when they get an opportunity, they're talking with their colleagues in other parts of the world, including Wuhan, China, where this is all said to have started. They're talking to each other, doctor to doctor, on how to handle some of these cases. They're helping each other. On that level, on that big global level, they're bypassing, you know, the politicians, the administrators. They're bypassing that.

They're going direct. They're talking to each other through connections they've made at medical school, connections they've made at conferences over the years. They're talking to each other about how to handle this. Because some, like the doctor in Wuhan, has done this, knows this, learned from the horrors that he experienced, and is trying to help prevent the horrors that this doctor in New York City is facing. That's encouraging. That's good to hear.

And here's something else that's good to hear. And here's something else that's good to hear. It was in this morning's New York Times. And it kind of relates to that. Story written by Matt Apuzzo and David Kirkpatrick. Matt Apuzzo is a journalist who I have a lot of admiration for. He's a political reporter, but like everybody else, he's on the biggest story in the world,

biggest story he's probably ever covered, biggest story he ever will cover. He's on the COVID story. So what's his story in the New York Times today about? It's kind of similar in a way to that story I just told you about the doctor. This is it. I'm just going to read you a couple of paragraphs from it.

Using flag-draped memes and military terminology, the Trump administration and its Chinese counterparts have cast coronavirus research as national imperatives, sparking talk of a biotech arms race. In other words, you know, like China and the U.S., they're scientists, they're researchers, going head-to-head trying to come up with the way towards a solution. So this is what the Times says, what Matt and David say.

The world's scientists, for the most part, have responded to that thing about a biotech arms race with a collective eye roll. Absolutely ridiculous, said Jonathan Heaney, a Cambridge University researcher working on a coronavirus vaccine. This isn't how things happen, said Adrian Hill, the head of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, one of the largest vaccine research centers at an academic institution.

I never hear scientists, true scientists, good quality scientists, speak in terms of nationality, said Dr. Francesco Peroni, who is leading a coronavirus clinical trial in Italy. My nation, your nation, my language, your language, my geographic location, your geographic location, this is something that is really distant from true top-level scientists. You know? Kind of rings like that story about the doctor, talking to the doctor in Wuhan. These men and women, the scientists, the researchers around the world, you got it right, they're desperately trying to find a solution,

but they're doing it together. They're not letting borders block them. They're talking to each other. They're encouraging each other. They're sharing what they're finding. In some cases, if you read this article, within hours of discovering it, not through some paper that gets printed months from now, they're talking all the time.

The way forward to a global solution is global cooperation. And that's what's happening. And that's why I take great encouragement in stories like these. Like the one in the Times today. Like the story I told you about the doctor from New York. And I'm sure you can find similar stories with doctors and researchers and scientists in Canada who also are reaching out, talking with their colleagues around the world.

Whether they're at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, whether they're at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, whether they're at the University of Toronto, UBC, Dalhousie, you name it. We've got researchers and scientists all across this country working on this, and my bet is they're working as closely with these other researchers and scientists and doctors around the world as the two little anecdotes I just gave you. So on that, I'm going to close out today, get you ready for tomorrow. I have received a lot of letters, and I'll run some of them on tomorrow's broadcast,

with ideas that many of you have about how, what you're doing to help get through this with your own time. Right? How are you spending your day? You're taking part in the fight by staying at home. That's what you're being asked to do. That's no small part of this. But what else are you doing? What are you doing to pass the time?

What are you doing that you hadn't done before? A lot of you have written in, and I hope more of you will. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's where you'll find me. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Don't be shy. Send me whatever you're doing. And we'll read those letters.

We'll also update you on a couple of things about farming and trucking, which were the focus of a couple of the podcasts earlier in the week and a lot of reaction to those as well. So listen. I hope you had a good sleep tonight. Keep in mind, this is a tough, tough situation. A lot of people hurting. But there's also a lot of people working awfully hard

to deal with it on a day-to-day basis and to help find a solution so there will be an end to this story. All right, I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.