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The AIH Transcript for March 30, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

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CH: Tonight:

CO: Covering their AstraZeneca. There are a lot of questions about the roller coaster of a rollout for one COVID-19 vaccine, so we'll put some to a member of Ontario's vaccine distribution task force.

CH: Safety stance. Two weeks after a man shot and killed eight people in Georgia with a gun he purchased legally just hours earlier, state Republicans respond with a bill that loosens gun restrictions.

CO: Reckless abandonment. Years after Canada committed to resettle members of the Syrian White Helmets civil defence group, dozens of them and their family members still languish in a Jordanian refugee camp, including small children.

CH: Sensors and sensibility. An international team tries to nail down the origins of the pandemic, but the report is criticised for avoiding lines of enquiry that might be critical of the Chinese government.

CO: The doctor will be you now. New research says conventional wisdom that advises against Googling your symptoms may be misguided and that an Internet search could sometimes be just what the doctor ordered.

CH: And mullet over. Once again, the classic business in the front party in the back hairstyle is under attack, this time at a private school in Australia where officials refused to back off from their demand that students cut the back off. As It Happens. The Tuesday Edition. Radio that supports that hair choice, and that is the long and the short of it.

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Part 1: Astrazeneca Problems

Astrazeneca Problems

Guest: Isaac Bogoch

CH: It was approved, then questioned, then recommended and now suspended, partially. The AstraZeneca Oxford COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be offered to people aged 55 and under in Canada over concerns that in extremely rare cases it could cause dangerous blood clots. It's the latest problem to plague the rollout of this particular vaccine. Earlier this month, its distribution was temporarily halted in more than a dozen European countries. Dr. Isaac Bogoch is an infectious disease specialist and a member of Ontario's vaccine distribution task force. We reached him in Toronto.

CO: Dr. Bogoch, is there really enough scientific evidence to justify suspending the use of this vaccine in people who are younger than 55?

ISAAC BOGOCH: Yeah, I think if we listen to the words that NACI used, they kept using the term abundance of caution. And I think that's an appropriate term. We know that there have been this rare form of blood clot, although it was predominantly but not exclusively in women -- and predominantly but not exclusively in people under the age of 50. I think when we factor in the following things, number one, the potential harm of blood clots, number two, the potential harm of COVID-19. And number three, the tremendous benefit of AstraZeneca vaccination. I think that they made the right decision and saying, you know what, it's a temporary pause in those under 55, the data will evolve over the next few weeks, everyone is going to keep a close eye on it, if we need to pivot, we can always pivot.

CO: But meanwhile, we have a situation where there's new infection rates, another wave. We have variants that are hitting younger people or it appears that they're hitting them. And we're seeing the evidence of people who are older, who are getting the vaccine, where the infection rate is plummeting. So, I mean, on balance, is it not more reasonable to say, let's carry on with this and accept that there may be some consequences for a very small group of people?

IB: Yeah, I completely appreciate that sentiment. And, you know, really, this is a bit of a tug of war between a public health response and a clinical medicine response. The public health response is, hey, this vaccine works really really well, there's some very, very rare side effects and we're in the middle of a third wave. This is the house is on fire. Let's use whatever we can at our disposal to extinguish the fire. And if you're going to take that approach, you would say we're giving AstraZeneca, but there's a potential risk, we're not entirely sure what the true incidence of this risk is, it's pretty rare, and taking a more of an informed consent approach. That could also be a right approach. The other right approach is saying, listen, again, we don't really know what the incidence is. We know that people that are under the age of 50 are far less likely to land in hospital and far less likely to succumb to this illness compared to people over the age of 60, for example. And why chance it? We will just use the vaccine in the older crowd, then we have other alternatives to use in everybody else.

CO: But what about the drip, drip, drip of questions about AstraZeneca that turn up in the news every week, which leads to vaccine hesitancy, makes people sceptical? Look at the remarks that Ontario Premier Doug Ford made yesterday -- I'd rather wait if it means a month or two for Pfizer and Moderna, then have a roll of the dice on AstraZeneca. These kinds of remarks, doesn't it create a kind of scepticism about this whole program? Isn't that a danger?

IB: Oh, we can't ignore that. I mean, long before this most recent issue with blood clots started to come up, there has been a tremendous erosion of trust with this vaccine. And I would say it all started with the very first phase-three clinical trial when they messed up their dosing regimen. And there have been what I would think of as preventable communication gaffes and then non preventable communication problems. So the preventable ones were, of course, screwing up the dosing. Then they had the most recent issue where the company says, oh, here are interim results show 79 percent efficacy, and then they were called out publicly by their data safety monitoring board saying, no, no, that data is out of date. You know, this is completely preventable and totally erodes trust.

CO: Okay, but are you saying this is a public health issue or a communications? This is the public relations...

IB: All of the above. And all of it. All of it. It doesn't matter what it is -- it erodes trust, as you point out.

CO: Now, the Oxford University professor, Sir John Bell, who was the driving force behind the development of AstraZeneca, he said in recent days that AstraZeneca is getting a bum rap, that it's developed by scientists and academics, and they're doing this not for profit. Others have pointed out that the big pharma like Moderna and Pfizer standing to make more than 30-billion dollars US from this. Did they know how to play the game with regulators and to give the data as they like it -- and AstraZeneca, the scientists and academics don't? So is that an issue?

IB: My take on this is let's cut out all the crap, right. Let's sift through all the BS, let's sift through all the politics, let's sift through all the mudslinging -- and what's the question at hand? Is this vaccine truly associated with a very rare type of blood clot? The answer is very likely to be yes. The next question is what is the true incidence of this very rare type of blood clot? The answer is it's not entirely clear, but it's probably very, very, very rare.

CO: Is there data to show whether Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are producing the same issues with blood clots?

IB: To date, we have no data to suggest that. This is a very specific type of blood clot. The syndrome is called the heparin-induced thrombocytopenia like syndrome, there's also a terrible acronym called VIPIT, it's all the same thing. And that has not yet been seen with those other vaccines.

CO: The number of women are commenting that birth control pills or oral contraceptives have warnings about blood clots, that you are three or four times more likely to get a blood clot with birth control pills. 1 in 1000 get blood clots from taking oral contraceptives, and yet they don't get taken off the market. So what is different about this?

IB: It's not just a run of the mill blood clot where you can stop the offending agent and put on some anticoagulation therapy and everything is going to be okay. This is a type of blood clot that would be on the more dangerous side of the spectrum. I'm not here to alarm people. That's just what it is. And I think the other point is I can't you know, in the same sentence, I say that it is still an extraordinarily rare event. We're sort of talking about apples and oranges here, like we're talking about blood clots like they're one thing and we really should be separating them. What we're talking about with this VIPIT syndrome is actually very different. Yes, it all results in a blood clot, but it's actually more severe.

CO: Finally, what do you say to all the people who have already had an AstraZeneca vaccine and who might be getting one soon?

IB: I think the risk of this is extraordinarily rare. If you're in Ontario, we haven't been giving this to people who are under the age of 60. And quite frankly, we're going to get more AstraZeneca vaccines in Ontario. It's going to be dished out to primary care and the pharmacies. And I really hope people who are 60 and above in Ontario continue to get this vaccine. I think it's a very very effective vaccine.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there. Dr. Bogoch thank you.

IB: Have a great day.

CH: Dr. Isaac Bogoch is an infectious disease specialist and a member of Ontario's Vaccine Distribution Task Force. He's in Toronto.

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Syria White Helmets

Guest: Farouq Habib

CH: It's been more than two years since Canada received international praise for helping members of the Syrian White Helmets. The government agreed to resettle members of the volunteer organisation who took part in dramatic rescues of civilians during the conflict. Except as the Globe and Mail reports, Canada has not kept some of its promises. The newspaper reports that 43 evacuees, including many children, are stuck in limbo at a Jordanian refugee camp. Farouq Habib is a White Helmet who did make it to Canada. He's the deputy general manager of the organisation and we reached him in Montreal.

CO: Farouq, I believe you are in touch with some of these families who are waiting to come to Canada. Are they still hoping that that day will arrive, that they will come here?

FAROUQ HABIB: Yes, definitely. Despite the frustration, the pain and the disappointment, they still hope that their children will have a better life than what they had.

CO: They are in a camp in Jordan waiting to come. They had been promised that they would be expedited, brought to Canada very quickly, these families of these White Helmets. What's the life like for them in that camp right now?

FH: Definitely it's difficult. All the refugees are suffering, and they are not in ideal living conditions. Plus for those families in particular, because of their special situation, because they are at risk and because of the misinformation about the rescue workers in Syria, they are in a separate area in the camp. They cannot mingle with other refugees. And also they cannot work, for example, they do not have job opportunities. They cannot go outside the camp to have access, for example, for hospitals or other centres.

CO: And these are White Helmets that are at risk. What is the threat for them in that camp?

FH: Well, the Syrian regime and its allies, they have their agents everywhere. They have their arms. And this regime have been responsible for decades for de-stability in the whole region in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Turkish borders. So they have no guarantees and they feel unsecured.

CO: So the agents of Bashar al Assad, of his regime, are in that camp. And if they could find the White Helmets...

FH: They may face harassment. People may look for more information about them or may hurt their families and their relatives who are still in Syria.

CO: And it was for this reason that Canada had said that it would bring these people over very quickly as other countries have helped White Helmets to leave Jordan with their families after that escape that they made. So do these people do they feel that Canada has broken its promise to them?

FH: Well, first of all, we all as Syrians and as the White Helmets, we remain grateful for the Canadian people, first, and the Canadian government, for the support which have been provided so far. Many of our colleagues, many of the rescue workers who have been evacuated, they have already arrived to Canada. And Canada played a leading role in sponsoring this international operation to rescue the rescuers. However, definitely we are disappointed that a few of our colleagues have not arrived to their final destination that can be Canada or that can be a third country wherever -- we just need to ensure a good situation for them and that they arrive at a peaceful place.

CO: When we're talking about a group, as you mentioned, there have been a number of these families who have already arrived in Canada as they have gone to other countries. But these 43 refugees that remain include children, some of them are infants and toddlers. How many families are we talking about here?

FH: We're talking about eight families, eight principles, yeah.

CO: And what's your understanding of what's holding things up for these eight families?

FH: Well because of the privacy laws and constraints, these informations aren't changed so we don't have full information or picture about the exact situation of each one. It's delayed in the bureaucratic system. And we were promised and on multiple occasions that their files, their cases, are being considered and hoping to reach a solution soon. But even the families themselves, they do not have full details and they don't know when this process will be completed.

CO: There are some suggestions that the Canadian security believes that these remaining White Helmet people have a connection to the insurgency that they were militants in some way. Is there evidence of that?

FH: Regarding this particular issue, we don't deny it at all. It's declared and we are proud that many of the former fighters who were involved in the beginning in the war, they chose the way of life instead of way of death. They lay down their arms and they joined the rescue teams to rescue others. So that's not something we hide or they hide. And that was clear from the beginning -- our donors, including Global Affairs Canada they know about it. And this is actually, we believe, something positive which helps to demilitarise the region and the area.

CO: Let's remind people, the White Helmets are believed to have saved tens of thousands of lives. They were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. But at the same time, we know that Russian and and Syrian agents have conducted a disinformation smear campaign against the White Helmets. There's been a lot of propaganda suggesting that they're not real saviours, that they're militants. Do you think that the Canadian officials might have been exposed to that propaganda?

FH: Well, I'm sure the Canadian officials say at the political level they are aware of that these are all fake disinformation campaigns. But at the level of the bureaucrats, the security officers, maybe they don't have the full picture. I don't know maybe they Googled and found something that misled them. We don't know, actually. But we trust the system in Canada and we trust that definitely the immigration system by itself, it cannot be misled by the Russian disinformation. This is something that should be obvious for all the officials in charge.

CO: Well, we will be watching to see what happens Farouq. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

FH: Thank you very much.

CH: Farouq Habib is the deputy general manager of the White Helmets. We reached him in Montreal.

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Googling Symptoms Study

Guest: David Levine

CH: Right now, many of the symptoms I'm experiencing are no mystery: ennui, fatigue, and acute desire to be in a crowded room full of moist talking strangers. But if I were overcome by any of those feelings pre-pandemic, I might have been inclined to Google them, especially the last one. It's a temptation that conventional wisdom tells us to fight the kind of doctor Google intervention that's likely to lead to worst case scenarios, misplaced anxiety, and miscommunications with actual doctors or in a word, cyberchondria. But now new research out of Harvard suggests that may be a misdiagnosis. Dr. David Levine is a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the study's lead author. We reached him in Boston.

CO: David, first of all, is Dr. Google a reliable source for my self-diagnosis?

DAVID LEVINE: Great question. It's certainly something that we wanted to answer with this study. And I think we probably have part of the answer, which is at least to say that when you use the Internet to search, you actually get better at diagnosing yourself.

CO: Wow. And so we're told that we're not supposed to do this. Our doctors tell us, don't self diagnose, don't go to Google, come to the doctor's office, right? So is that bad advice?

DL: That's exactly why we wanted to do this, because, you know, we do hear that all the time, right? "Don't go to the Internet. Just come talk to me." And it turns out that probably is not the case. Probably we should be allowing our patients to search for their symptoms. The worst case scenario is that you end up at the doctor's office just like you were going to. But we do think that this is probably a nice first step.

CO: All right. So how did you test this? How did your team go about finding out if the effects of this kind of Internet research on people who have symptoms?

DL: So what we did was we were able to find a panel of 5,000 adults in the United States who use the Internet. And we essentially asked each of those adults to answer some questions about a case vignette -- supposing that their loved one was ill with, let's say, something like a hot, painful red leg. And we said, hey, what's the diagnosis when you read this case vignette and how quickly do you need to get care? And how anxious are you about it? How worried are you about this case? And we were able to then say thanks for those answers. Now we want you to go search the Internet. And after searching the Internet, however you want to use the Internet, come back to us and now tell us: What's the diagnosis? How quickly should you get care? And how worried are you about this case? And so it turns out that the Americans who participated in this, they did okay on diagnosis. They were about right half the time. They did pretty darn well on triage. Turns out, though, that when they were able to use the Internet, they got about five percent better a diagnosis.

CO: So what does that say about the information is actually on the Internet? Because anyone who's gone there for a Dr. Google diagnosis it is quite a range, isn't it, from things where as soon as you go on, you're getting all kinds of ads popping up with cures and treatments and snake oil. Were the people you tested, were they able to discern between good information and bad?

DL: Great question. And I can't tell you that I know the answer exactly. But it turns out that about half of people use just the search engine alone. About just under half the people ended up going to a health speciality site, something like WebMD or Medline. And then a very very small number of people ended up going to social media sites, news sites, public forum, things of that sort. And so we think that this is very interesting to show that actually folks are steering pretty clear that snake oil.

CO: Were there certain kinds of -- I mean, could you break people into different personalities or groups, genders or whatever, were some better at diagnosing than others -- or using Google searches and Internet searches better than others?

DL: You've got it. So this is an exceptionally interesting part of this study that I think surprised us a lot. Turns out women were much better than men at diagnosis. Turns out that folks who were older were better than folks who are younger. Also looks like folks that had more health care experience or were sicker in general were also better at diagnosis.

CO: Now, of course, there's a difference between trying to find out about toenail fungus versus trying to find out if you are going to get a reliable diagnosis if you have colon cancer, right? I mean, so it depends on what it is you're looking for, right?

DL: That's absolutely right. And what we did try to do here is select a representative sample of cases. So we took everything from the common cold to things like heart attacks and cancer and and really wanted to try to show the whole diverse array of cases. And by no means is this a perfect selection. That's definitely a limitation of the work, because you're right, you know, highly complex things definitely need more than a simple case vignette to diagnose.

CO: I'm old enough to remember that when someone had a symptom or something was wrong in my neighbourhood, my mother would consult somebody in the neighbourhood who knew things. [Chuckles] I mean, do you find is there any equivalent to that in the Internet or is that any more reliable, I guess, than going to Google?

DL: It's a great question. When you look at something like, for example, women being much better than men at diagnosis, right, our study certainly doesn't answer the question of why. A lot of potential things that we talk about in our study, for example, women are often caring for family members more often than men. And I think your story is perfect to that in that, that person that everyone went to to ask about the medical questions in the community, it's probably because they've had so much more experience and therefore they have a better idea of diagnosis.

CO: I understand you're also looking at the possibility that artificial intelligence can replace all of this, including the neighbourhood woman.

DL: [Chuckles] You've got it. We are actually really interested in taking that neighbourhood woman's knowledge and trying to bottle it up into some really smart machine algorithms, not just for doctors and nurses and others, but also for regular old folks who are searching the Internet. And maybe we can get a lot better at helping them get their diagnosis and triage right. So that it's not just a five percent improvement, but it's a much bigger improvement and that we're actually getting close to being just as good as doctors without even needing to involve them.

CO: David, it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

DL: Oh, it's such a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

CH: Dr. David Levine is a physician in the division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a researcher at Harvard Medical School. He's in Boston and his study is published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

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Mullet

CH: Society wants us to play by the rules and repress our wilder Dionysian selves. So the most courageous amongst us are those who defy society and acknowledge the business party dichotomy by embodying both through their tonsorial choices: those who wear the mullet. The meat and potatoes, top and sides, combined with the sweet salad at the back, threatens the establishment. So it's no wonder that the powers that be want to shut the mullet down. Most recently, an elite private school in Western Australia called Trinity College. In a newsletter, Trinity officials wrote, "The current trend of growing the hair at the back of the head and or closely cropping the sides of the head to accentuate the mullet style is untidy, non-conventional, and not acceptable at Trinity College." In other words, it's curtains for your hair curtains. Despite a brave defence by Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan, who said, 'I'm very pro-mullet. It's a unique Australian invention, one which we've been selling to the world. But I'll let the school make their own decisions.' Well, that's the right stance premier, but the wrong facts. The mullet is not a unique Australian invention. Canada is the country that invented and perfected hockey hair. Not to split hairs. Anyway, Trinity College you can't ban the mullet because you can't ban the human spirit. So stop getting so hot under the collar about the hottest thing to spill over it.

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Part 2: Georgia bill that loosens gun laws a 'slap in the face' after mass shooting, says senator

Georgia Gun Laws

Guest: Michelle Au

CH: It's been exactly two weeks since a gunman killed eight people, including six Asian women in Georgia with a gun that he legally purchased. But yesterday, instead of tightening gun laws, Republican state senators voted to loosen them. The vote on the bill went directly along party lines, and it now heads back to the state House for consideration before becoming law. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Georgia Democrats like Dr. Michelle Au are fighting an uphill battle to pass laws that would do the exact opposite. Dr. Au is a Democratic state senator in Georgia and the state's first Asian-American senator. We reached her in Atlanta.

CH: Senator Au, what message do you think Republican lawmakers in Georgia are sending with this legislation?

MICHELLE AU: Honestly, I think this piece of legislation, which was House Bill 218 that we just passed yesterday, is a real slap in the face to the communities here in Georgia that have still been reeling and going through a lot of grief about this mass shooting that we just had on March 16th. We've heard people from our community reaching out to us, asking us to please do something, please protect them, make them feel safer, please enact more gun safety legislation. And instead, they decided to pass a law that loosens gun restrictions and makes our communities less safe.

CO: Can you give us a sense of what's in this bill? How is it loosening gun restrictions?

MA: Well, there are a few things in this bill that are problematic. The primary piece is that it allows any person licenced to carry a firearm in other states to carry a firearm in Georgia. And it just basically increases the volume of guns, of dubious permitting are allowed to be in Georgia at any time. So that is the first piece of it. The second piece of this bill that I think is problematic with respect to gun safety is that it imposes restrictions during a state of emergency. Now, obviously, this is pertinent because we're under a state of emergency now because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, what this law actually says is that it limits the governor's ability to really restrict any number of things related to guns, including closing or limiting operations of gun shops or shooting ranges, limiting the ability to transact any sort of gun sales during this period of time, regardless of what else is going on. It seems very questionable to have this sort of bill that limits the governor's ability to keep our community safer. But again, that's sort of the general thrust here, isn't it? It's not a safety bill at all. It's a bill that makes it easier to buy and own guns.

CO: And that's what Georgia Senator Bo Hatchett said was the reason behind this. He said this is a Second Amendment protection bill that further recognises Georgia's commitment to protect its citizens and their Second Amendment rights -- that's a quote. And given the timing, as you've pointed out, two weeks after this mass shooting in Atlanta, what do you think that timing tells us about what he's saying?

MA: I think when your legislative focus and how it's presented is an effort to protect these, "Second Amendment rights" versus protecting your citizenry, especially in the wake of a mass shooting where people are really still recovering and processing their grief from this, that is bad timing. That's bad messaging. And that's really not what we were elected to come here to do.

CO: Can you give us a sense of the shooter, the Atlanta shooter? I know he bought a pistol the day of the shooting itself. There is no waiting period, I understand, in Georgia -- state of Georgia -- for buying a weapon. Where did he and how did he obtain the weapons he used in order to carry out this mass murder?

MA: The investigation is still ongoing. So I don't want to speak too much about that and give law enforcement the space and time they need to do good work. But you are correct that this gunman purchased his firearm on the same day of the shooting. So that morning he bought a gun and by that evening he had used it to kill eight people. By my understanding, he did buy it at a licenced gun shop. So he would have undergone a background check, one presumes. However, as you noted, there is no waiting period for deciding to buy a gun and for getting that gun into your hands. So that in terms of gun safety legislation is something that some of my Democratic colleagues and I are trying to work on. So not having a waiting period does not allow us to have this cooling off period and allows people who are in the moment deciding to carry out a violent act either towards themselves or towards others to do it basically immediately. And that's not in the interest of public safety. And that's what we would like to work on.

CO: You said elsewhere that this epidemic of gun violence in the US is not new and you implore your community and fellow legislators not to let this moment go by. The sentiment we have heard so many times after each time there has been something like we've seen in recent weeks in your country, and yet nothing changes or very little changes. Why do you think that is?

MA: I think that people in this country tend to view gun safety as a political issue, how I would like us to start approaching it is not from the point of view that this is a political or partisan issue, but that this is a public health issue. If you had another public health risk that affected 300 people per day or another public health risk that affected 3,600 children and teenagers per year, we would be looking at that problem and we would be getting research on it, getting people involved, and how do we make this better, how do we mitigate this risk. When the public health risk is gun violence doesn't mean that we get to step away from it.

CO: And given the tremendous resistance there is to arguments about gun control, do you think you'll get much traction with your arguments?

MA: So, look, I'm not naive to the fact that I live in America where these types of discussions about guns are, again, highly entrenched. I'm also not naive to the fact I live in the state of Georgia, which does have a very strong culture of what they call gun rights. However, I do think that views that we view as entrenched or immutable are not so over time. And all you do have to look at is the political landscape that we've seen here in the state of Georgia even in this over the past 4, 6, 10 years, right. And things that we thought were impossible and discussions we thought would be impossible to have had happened, right. We never thought that we'd elect two Democratic senators out of the state of Georgia. We thought it would be impossible for this deep red state to elect a Democratic president, but we did just that in November. So I think that it is overly fatalistic to think that things never change, though I understand why people feel that way, and I've certainly felt that way in the past. But that it's motivation to keep up the pressure, because when you see that things do change, you realise that you have to play the long game and not be discouraged or frustrated when things don't change immediately. But just to keep at it until we start to see the change that we want.

CO: So we will be watching how you do this. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

MA: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

CH: Dr. Michelle Au is a Democratic state senator in Georgia. We reached her in Atlanta. And we have more on the story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

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Bonnie Henry

CH: In British Columbia today, it's day one of a circuit breaker. After more than 2500 COVID cases were reported in three days, provincial health officer Bonnie Henry announced new rules yesterday, including restrictions on indoor dining, group fitness, and places of worship. This morning, Dr. Henry told the CBC why this needed to happen now and addressed concerns that the province is sending mixed messages.

BONNIE HENRY: It's always very hard to know if you're doing too much or not enough. And as you know, I've been quite nervous about the fact that we had sort of levelled off at rather high levels because that does mean it can take off quickly. So we've been watching for this, been concerned about it, hoping that we could get enough vaccine in and that people would be able to take out restrictions. But, you know, when we started to see the increase last week, the steady increase and then quite high numbers that we've not seen before. And we needed to take some additional action really to make people understand we're not through this quite yet.

STEPHEN QUINN: But you talk about you being nervous about this when we saw cases levelling off and the curve not bending down -- that was back in January. On January 25th, you said we were at a brink where we can see rapid take off, particularly if we start to see any of these new variants starting to transmit in our community. And now here we are two months later and you're calling for a circuit breaker now. Why the wait?

BONNIE HENRY: Well, because we've been able to manage it until now. And, you know, that is the important and the good part. You know, we got through most of this very long winter, being able to keep that in the balance where we're not overwhelming our public health system, where we had hospitalisations going down, where we were able to understand the role that the variants were playing. But we always knew that it was a tenuous balance and that this could happen. Watching it steadily climb has been the trigger for the actions that we took yesterday.

STEPHEN QUINN: Back in January, I mean, I'm going to go back to this because I just don't understand it. When we flatlined at roughly 500 cases a day for weeks on end, you said we were on a precipice. And you also said at the time that one regret of yours from the fall was that you didn't put in stricter measures as cases were rising in November. Would BC be in this position right now if we had put those measures in place sooner?

BONNIE HENRY: You know what? Your guess is as good as mine. We can't predict the future. What we're trying to do, and what we've continued to do, and I think the success of it is that we have managed to to keep schools in place safely, to keep most businesses operating safely with the strict safety protocols we have for as long as we have. And I think that's the good thing. And trying to find that balance, trying to make sure that we're not going overwhelming things and we started to see and as soon as we started to see this increase, then we took the action that we did.

CH: That was BC's provincial health officer Bonnie Henry speaking with the CBC's Stephen Quinn this morning on The Early Edition.

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WHO Origins Report

Guest: Daniel Lucey

CH: Over the last year, COVID-19 has ended up in every corner of the world, but scientists still don't know how it started. Today, the World Health Organisation released a 124-page report by international experts who travelled to China to try to pin down the virus's origins. The results are frustratingly inconclusive. The report presents some likely scenarios, including the theory that it jumped from an animal host to humans from a wild animal that was farmed for food. But it's coming under criticism for not pursuing angles that might have been critical of the Chinese government. Dr. Daniel Lucey is an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University. We reached him in Washington, D.C..

CO: Dr. Lucey, does it seem that we will ever know exactly how COVID-19 started?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, I hope so. And I think it's still possible, although I was somewhat discouraged by today's report from the World Health Organisation in China as far as their team that was there in Wuhan from January 14th to February 10th. But, yes, I think we still will find the source of this virus and this pandemic.

CO: When you say, somewhat discouraged, but were you surprised that the report didn't reveal any reason for it?

DANIEL LUCEY: No, not really surprised, but still a bit disappointed. I thought that there would be more clues, you know, some animal that may have been found positive somewhere of the many thousands of animals that were tested, or particularly I thought they would be more patients found to have the infection before December 8th because 174 people were found to have COVID between December the 8th and December the 31st of 2019. And there must have been more before December 8th. But they didn't find a single one. So I was very disappointed in that.

CO: We know that it was very difficult for the World Health Organisation to even set up this investigation. It was cancelled and postponed a number of times. There were 17 scientists from around the world chosen by the WHO, and then they added that to 17 Chinese scientists, many of whom are working for the government, they're working at government run institutions. And those Chinese scientists apparently supplied the research data that the foreign scientists could review. So how much freedom do you think they had in order to really investigate this?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, not as much as I think many of them would have wanted. In other words, to get primary source information or so-called raw data rather than they already analysed and to some extent interpreted data such as mentioning about the 76,200 people who were evaluated for possible COVID. And then it got down to 92 and then it ended up with zero. So I think that's a drawback of the study that the international team didn't do the primary assessment of raw data.

CO: Calling it a drawback as a bit of an understatement, isn't it?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, I live in Washington, D.C. -- I have -- for 30 years so I tried to learn it's not my temperament, but I've tried to learn to be more diplomatic.

CO: Well, it wasn't so diplomatic over this past year when former President Donald Trump said, without presenting any evidence that he knew that he had seen and knew that the virus originated in a Chinese lab and had leaked from a virology lab. What have we seen of those accusations from President Trump?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, I haven't seen anything to validate or verify those accusations. And the phrase that was used by both the former secretary of state and the former president was that there was, "enormous evidence" -- I still haven't seen or heard and don't know of anyone who has any validation or verification that the virus originated in any of the multiple labs in Wuhan.

CO: And this WHO investigation, did it investigate that possibility?

DANIEL LUCEY: I don't think that it did. And I think it did something worse, which is to have made an assessment of the lab origin hypothesis, calling it, "extremely unlikely." And why I think that that was misplaced and really not legitimate to make any assessment, let alone that one was because, first of all, the terms of reference, the written agreement between the WHO and China, it didn't mention a thing about investigating the lab or origin hypothesis. So there was no mandate. They went to these labs and then they reached the conclusion that it was "extremely unlikely" to have come from a lab in Wuhan. They talked to people at the labs over a couple of hours, but they didn't actually do any kind of forensic investigation. Then they concluded it was extremely unlikely that the virus came from the lab. So I think this was a really a coup by China as far as this report and everything that it said about the lab origin hypothesis.

CO: We know that Beijing Chinese authorities are very happy with this report. Do you think it's a big public relations coup for them?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, certainly, in my view, as I mentioned, I think it is a coup in terms of the laboratory origin hypothesis. I mean, they got more than they could have hoped for or had anticipated. So I think that China must be quite happy. But as far as, frankly, a coup, I think it only applies, in my view, for the lab origin hypothesis.

CO: So it's a whitewash, in other words?

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, again, I try to not use words like that. And to me, it's baffling as a physician and practising physician how this study came up with not a single human being with the infection before December 8th -- I just find that...I'm very sceptical. It's very hard for me to believe. And it makes me wonder what's going to come out of any ongoing investigations, including the animals, you know. So the conclusion was that what needs to be done now is to go back and trace the supply chain of animals that came to the Wuhan markets, including that seafood market. It's not believable for one moment that China didn't already do this. Of course, they would have understood this possibility of how the virus got to Wuhan if, in fact, it came from somewhere else. They didn't need an international team to come 14-15 months later and explain that to them. They understood that. They did it in January-February of 2020. They've done it. I'm sure that they've done it. But why they didn't say they did it and why there's no data presented in this report? I don't know that.

CO: Well, there are a lot more questions and answers in all this Dr. Lucey. It's not for your attempts to explain it. But I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

DANIEL LUCEY: Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much Carol.

CH: Dr. Daniel Lucey is an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University. We reached him in Washington, D.C..

[Music: Guitar Music]

Caught Cooking

CH: Being in hiding is hard. One day you're living the dream as a member of one of the most powerful and most feared crime syndicates in Europe, just minding your own highly illegal business. The next you're just some schmuck forced to live a quiet life in the Dominican Republic. And then you have to go ahead and live your life on that beautiful island for years where once you were free to express yourself with inventive tattoos and creative drug trafficking schemes, now niente. So one night, maybe after a few glasses of wine, you decide you can't hide your light under a bushel any longer. It's time to escape this hellish, gorgeous prison and explore a long simmering idea. You and your wife will start your own YouTube cooking channel, showcasing your love of Italian food. You'll hide your faces and your real names. Show off your knife skills maybe. What's the harm? Well, sadly for the actual fugitive in question, his arm was the harm and maybe other parts of his body because, sure, he hid his face while making pasta, but he just wasn't using his noodle when he failed to cover up his distinctive tattoos. And now his goose is cooked because the police somehow got a warrant to watch public YouTube videos. So a word to the wise guy, if you want to stay on the down low, you should really avoid the uploads. And if you can't stand the heat, you should really stay out of the kitchen.

[Music: Pop Music]

Michael Joyce

CH: Yesterday, the west coast of Newfoundland was hit with a nasty mix of snow, rain and some remarkably high winds, with gusts clocking in at 150 kilometres per hour in the Bay of Islands. Michael Joyce of York Harbour got the full experience of this windstorm and unfortunately, so did his house. He told the CBC about it today.

MICHAEL JOYCE: Well, you just hear this big roar of wind coming and all of a sudden everything went crazy. We hear stuff breaking and feel the house shake. Now, everybody jumped up and start running to the porch. And it was pretty scary. And I didn't know if the truck came into the house or what. It was just really loud. But anyway, it was pretty scary when I looked out and seeing whatever happened and stuff. And so then we basically just tried to scramble and hurry up and get out because we didn't if the roof...

MARTIN JONES: So there you are, sort of half asleep, half awake, knowing that it's stormy outside. But then everything just sort of -- all hell breaks loose, really. I mean, so what kind of damage are we talking about here?

MICHAEL JOYCE: I had a 20 foot trailer out back and the wind blew in there and turned it and beat up. My house -- a section of the roof came off. [Inaudible] So that roof that actually came off. So there's a fair bit of damage done to my property. And even one of my, fisherman, one of my lobster traps went about 700-800 feet -- it cleared my house I found one of those.

MARTIN JONES: When suddenly your house is sort of peeling apart in front of you there during this storm, I mean, what goes through your mind?

MICHAEL JOYCE: I've thought about it -- well, we've been living there for probably 20 years and that was built, we built that 10 years ago there. And after going through some pretty bad storms there for sure, and there's lots of times we've actually went out for southeaster, easterly winds, which probably actually a couple times a year I take my wife and the kids, we go to Corner Brook and get a hotel room.

CH: That was Michael Joyce of York Harbour speaking to Martin Jones on Newfoundland Morning today.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Part 3: Anti-Trans Bills

Anti-Trans Bills

Guest: Syrus Hall & Carla Saunee

CH: Right now, US state politicians are spending a record amount of time talking about trans kids. In South Dakota, the governor just signed an executive order effectively banning transgender girls from sports teams. Yesterday, Arkansas lawmakers passed a bill that denies trans youth access to gender affirming health care. And 20 other states have similar bills on the table. But some of the toughest legislation is in Alabama. The state House is currently considering bills that would ban treatment for trans kids and even send doctors to prison for up to 10 years for prescribing puberty blockers or hormones. It's called the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. Syrus Hall is a transgender teenager from Alabama and Carla Saunee is his mother. We reached them both in Mobile, Alabama.

CO: Syrus, I'm going to begin with you. What would it mean for you if this act were passed in Alabama?

SYRUS HALL: I believe that it would make me stop taking my hormones, which would really hurt my body. Like already putting hormones into my body and then having a sudden drop when I have to stop, it's very dangerous because it's like, oh, well, you know, my body is going to go through rapid changes because it's not taking the thing that it has already started to take. And not even with physical, but it would be very mentally damaging to me. It would make me very very upset. I would be so heartbroken. Like I can't even explain how upset I would be.

CO: You're 17 years old, is that right?

SYRUS HALL: Yes, ma'am.

CO: And how long have you been in treatment for your transition?

SYRUS HALL: About nine months. I started hormones in August of 2020.

CO: I'm going to ask your mom, Carla. Hi.

CARLA SAUNEE: Hi. How are you?

CO: I understand getting treatment for Syrus is already difficult in your state of Alabama. What do you have to do?

CARLA SAUNEE: Well, we get up about 2:30 to 3 o'clock in the morning, a.m., then we drive four hours to Birmingham to get treatment. And our doctor's appointments, usually at last anywhere from three to four hours, you know, just because there's four to five different people on the team that you meet with. And so then we turn around when we're finished and drive home. So it's an all day process. We get up at 2 o'clock and we probably won't get home till after 6:00 p.m..

CO: How often do you do that?

CARLA SAUNEE: And we do it every six months or as needed.

CO: And what has it been like seeing your son go through this treatment?

CARLA SAUNEE: I know it's been a huge change, just his overall happiness and well-being and the cohesiveness and close relationship that we have -- closer relationship that we have now -- especially since he can truly be himself. And so he and I hang out a lot more and he hangs out with his twin sisters a lot more. And so it just seems to be better overall.

CO: Syrus, I'll ask you, how has your transition changed you? How does it make you feel? How has it changed your life?

SYRUS HALL: It's a lot easier for me to go in public now. Like, I'm not as uncomfortable and scared as I was to go in public. And I just feel more comfortable. I don't feel like upset about how I look or how I sound or how I feel all the time. It's just been a lot more like I feel better.

CO: But this anti-transgender bill, as it's called, going through not just Alabama, other state legislatures are doing the same thing -- it would make it a a felony to provide transition related medical treatment, puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery to transgender minor. When you learnt that, when you learnt Alabama your state, was passing this legislation, what did you think?

SYRUS HALL: It made me very very upset because not only is it prohibiting people from being happy, but here you're not an adult until you're 199 years old. But also it's just very heartbreaking. You know, it could heighten the risk of suicide amongst the people who I'm friends with or who my friends are friends with. And like when I heard about it, I just started like crying on my couch because I was just so upset about it.

CO: Not just the risk of what you described amongst your friends, but also there are other physical risks. I just want to ask Carla about this, because you're also a teacher. This act would force school staff to out transgender kids to their parents.

CARLA SAUNEE: Yes, ma'am, it would. When a student came to me and asked me to use their pronouns, at that point, I would have to call their parent and I would have to out them to their parent.

CO: And is it all the more troubling because you yourself have a transgender teen?

CARLA SAUNEE: Yeah, I would say it troubles me probably a little more just because I am closer to the issue. But also I would hate for somebody to take that away from my child and myself. When he felt it was time to let me know when we have the conversation, we talked, I asked questions, he told me things, I learnt things. And so you take that opportunity away from the child and the parent. And I feel like that's wrong. That's not anybody's place to do that.

CO: This bill in Alabama is called the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. Syrus, when you heard that that was what it was called, how did you react?

SYRUS HALL: It just doesn't make any sense to me. How is it a compassionate act when they're actively putting children into a more stressful environment? The man who proposed the bill has never even met a trans kid, and he said that. How can he know how a trans kid would react to this bill? And why is he taking away a parent's right to choose what is best for their child when he's never even talked to a parent of a trans kid or a trans kid themselves?

CO: This is Senator Shay Shelnutt who said he had never spoken to a transgender kid. He also said that the bottom line -- this is a quote -- "The bottom line is we have a responsibility to protect Alabama's children. Minors are not mentally capable to make a decision of this calibre." Carla, what would you say to him?

CARLA SAUNEE: Well, I would ask him to have a conversation with a transgender youth, build a committee of transgender youth that he could speak with and talk to and have a Q and A with so that maybe he would have a better understanding of the transgender population, because it just seems funny to me that you want to protect children, but you're only having one subset of kids that you're trying to protect. So to me, that's a bias. That's not a protection.

CO: And Syrus since this Senator Shelnutt has never actually spoken to a transgender kid, if you could speak with you, what would you want him to know?

SYRUS HALL: I'd want him to know that him trying to protect us isn't exactly the protection he thinks it is. It's just putting us into a more stressful situation where we have to wait longer to be happy. We have to wait longer to actually be ourselves. We don't just decide one day that we're trans. It's a process and it's a lot of, you know, "Oh, I feel this way, but I don't have the words for it." And then you learn the words for it. And it's not like we just decide to start hormones. You have to talk to a mental health professional. You have to talk to medical professionals. And the parents have to say that they're all right with it. It's not a decision we just make on our own. It's a decision that includes many adults as well.

CO: And as this is going on in Alabama and other states are considering similar legislation, you do have at the same time there is an assistant secretary of health that's been nominated by Vice President Biden who is transgender. Does that give you some encouragement?

SYRUS HALL: I think so. I think that it's good to have trans people in the government when there are so many things happening to trans people because it says to us as trans people that we have someone on our side who knows the things we deal with and can give their two cents into situations so that it helps protect us.

CO: Syrus, thanks for speaking with us.

SYRUS HALL: Of course.

CO: And Carla, thank you.

CARLA SAUNEE: Yes, ma'am. No problem.

CO: Take care. Bye bye.

CARLA SAUNEE: Have a great day.

CH: We reached Syrus Hall and Carla Saunee in Mobile, Alabama.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Teddy Frenette

CH: Seven women in seven weeks, all killed by their intimate partners, all of them in Quebec. The startling statistic prompted Francois Legault government to launch a task force to fight domestic violence. And according to the government's own public security minister, charges related to domestic violence have gone up 45 percent in the past five years. Teddy Frenette doesn't want his sister's death to be in vain. 29 year old Rebekah Love Harry died in hospital last week. Police say she was assaulted by her boyfriend, who's now been charged with second degree murder. Teddy Frenette spoke out about his sister yesterday in Montreal.

TEDDY FRENETTE: Rebekah Love, that was her actual government name. Love was what she gave everyone she's ever encountered. A 29-year-old mother of one, auntie to 13, sister to five, daughter to one, loved by a million, but murdered by one. Rebekah Love a story much too often heard. On March 20th, she was finally beaten by a man she gave all her love to. On March 23, 2021, she passed away from those injuries and became the seventh woman in seven weeks to be murdered by a boyfriend or a husband. Rebekah Love Harry, Elisapee Angma, Marly Edouard, Nancy Roy, Myriam Dallaire, Sylvie Bisson, Nadège Jolicoeur. Seven women leaving 14 children orphaned due to domestic violence. Seven women who still had so much to give to the world. But seven women who will now try to save this world by bringing light to this vast issue in today's society, domestic violence. We hear the stories, but we choose to close our eyes. We think that it can never happen to me, it can never happen to my mother, it can never happen to my sister and my friend. We say things like he was drinking, he was really mad, it was my fault, I deserved it, he won't do it again. Just examples of what we trying to make ourselves believe. But we are wrong. And this needs to stop. Rebekah Love, our sister, our [inaudible], our friend, our rock. Even if you didn't know her, you saw that she was a life of the party. She was a gatherer, always dancing, always cracking jokes with her infectious smile. Always singing like an angel and trying to freestyle rap for those who knew her.

CH: Teddy Frenette is the brother of Rebekah Love Harry, one of seven women killed in the past seven weeks in Quebec, all of their deaths are related to domestic violence.

[Music: Piano Music]

Palma Mozambique Killings

Guest: Manuel Ernesto

CH: For people in parts of northern Mozambique, it has been a week filled with horror. Starting last Wednesday, insurgents launched a well-planned days-long attack on the coastal town of Palma, forcing people to flee by water and air or to head for the forest. Thousands have been displaced by the violence, and government officials say dozens of people, including locals and foreigners, are dead. Some were killed when they attempted to escape in a convoy after hiding in a hotel. It's the latest stage in an escalation in violence that has left thousands dead in recent years. Manuel Ernesto is an Anglican bishop in the region who has been talking to people displaced by the violence. We reached him in Nampula, Mozambique.

CO: Bishop Ernesto, can you tell us people who have witnessed the violence, what are they telling you that they saw?

MANUEL ERNESTO: Yes, I've just arrived from Cabo Delgado, Ancuabe, Chiure, and the Pemba area. I met some of the people who fled from Palma. They are telling experiences of terror. The village was attacked by a group in various directions. And the people just fled to the forest. And yes, they have seen people decapitated and yes, bodies of children and the aged scattered around the forest. And that is what they are saying.

CO: How were they able to escape, the ones with whom you spoke, how were they able to get out of Palma and out of this massacre?

ME: People fled to the forest, just hiding in the nearby area. But as someone warned that after destroying the village, they would come and hunt for those who were in the suburbs. And then people -- everyone just tried to try to run for their lives.

CO: And they said that these militants, these terrorists, were hunting them in the forest. Is that right? Hunting people, civilians?

ME: Yes. Yes. I think the message is just to terrorise people and to give a message of terror and probably try to expel people from the area. I think that is why they say they are terrified. And I have seen women and children who spend the whole week trying to try to find their way to safe areas. But many men are still in the forest and some are missing.

CO: One of the targets of the attack seems to have been a hotel where a lot of foreigners are. A lot of foreigners work there -- the gas industry and gas extraction. And apparently private security companies evacuated people there by helicopter, but many of those foreigners were also targeted. Do you think that they were a target? Do you think that the foreigners were part of what these militants were after?

ME: Yes. Yes, they came in and they attacked everyone. But I think when they learnt that civil servants and workers were taking the refugees at a hotel and then they concentrated their efforts in the hotel, maybe just to give you more expression in the message. But, yes, it happened and it took almost a day before the other expatriates started to be evacuated by helicopters to up north and then from there to Pemba.

CO: The group is being called the Mozambique Chapter of Islamic State. Who do you think these men are? What's your sense of who they are and what is their attachment to the region?

ME: Well, it's difficult to identify the attacks, but also to link them with any international group. But hearing from what the witnesses are saying, the senior members of the group were speaking Swahili, which is spoken in northern Mozambique, eastern Africa. But the young ones probably recruited from the area nearby Cabo Delgado area. They were speaking Kimwani, which is the dominant language in oil field area. So it's a difficult task to link the group with the -- but local people, they call them the Al-Shabaab because the way they are operating, they compare with the Somalian Al-Shabaab. It is difficult to, from the community's point of view, to identify the attackers.

CO: This region we're talking about has multi-billion dollar gas projects. International companies like Total from France are operating there. There is lots of money being made there. But I understand the province is actually very poor. Is it possibly that poverty is why they are able to recruit local people into this terrorist organisation?

ME: Yes, I think poverty is one of the major triggers of the situation in the area because, yes, we know that there is that public and private partnership for the companies. But the community level, I think needs to be taken seriously and especially with the people.North of Cabo Delgado is a very isolated area. And in terms of education and education for the young ones, it was just very difficult to get a job there. Yes, I think poverty, local animosities between people. And yes, it is one of the triggers of the situation. And people are vulnerable, especially young ones, and they are praying for anyone who can just hide them, yes.

CO: Bishop Ernesto, I appreciate you had some time for us today. It's just an awful situation in your province, but thank you for finding time.

ME: You are most welcome. Thank you.

CH: Manuel Ernesto is a bishop with the Anglican Diocese of Nampula and Cabo Delgado areas in northern Mozambique. We reached him in Nampula.

[Music: Synth Music]

Blood Quantum Awards

CH: When it comes to the team behind the made-in-Canada film, Blood Quantum, success appears to be infectious. Together, they've picked up an impressive 10 nominations at this year's Canadian Screen Awards for everything from best screenplay to stunt coordination. Probably no surprise for a movie as bizarrely timely as this one, the tale of an imagined Indigenous community whose members find themselves unexpectedly immune to a zombie plague. But creator Jeff Barnaby thought of the premise long before our current coronavirus pandemic. And when Carol spoke with Michael Greyeyes, one of the movie's lead actors last year, he said its symbolism extends well beyond what's happening now.

MG: Blood Quantum is a horror film. It's actually set in 1982 on a fictitious reserve based on Jeff's community of Listuguj. And it follows a family. I play a character named Traylor, who's the sheriff on the reserve. And a mysterious virus is present and turns everybody into a zombie except for the Indigenous people in Red Crow.

CO: Even if you have just a drop of Indigenous blood in your veins, you are immune to becoming a zombie.

MG: Well, that's a question that remains at the heart of the film. I have two sons played by Forrest Goodluck and Kiowa Gordon. And one of my sons, his teenage girlfriend is pregnant and she's from the town. So she's a settler. And everyone's wondering through the course of the film you know, like because she's having a mixed race child, will it be immune? Will there be enough Indigenous blood in the baby to allow it to survive like we're surviving? So that actually forms the crux of one of the central questions.

CO: And your character also has a son appropriately named "Lysol."

MG: [Chuckles] Yes. Yes. That's played by Kiowa. A lot of people refer to, I think, in the early responses to the film that Lysol is a villain, but I don't really see him that way. I don't think Kiowa or Jeff's saw in that way either. Of course, Lysol is a disinfectant. Think about what a disinfectant does. His actions through the film, his point of view about who's coming into our community and how do we keep our community safe are actually pretty relevant. And I think the genre itself, the zombie genre, has always been interested in social commentary. So for me, the pandemic that the community in the film faces is about late stage capitalism and environmental degradation, because if you look at it from our point of view, from an Indigenous worldview, we've been surviving a plague after plague, colonialism as a plague. So the metaphor of the film, is pretty obvious even to a casual observer.

CH: Michael Greyeyes spoke with Carol last April about his role in Blood Quantum. Yesterday, the film picked up 10 Canadian Screen Award nominations, including a best actor nod for Mr. Greyeyes.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Tommy the turkey

CH: Lakeshore, Ontario, just outside of Windsor, has a traffic problem. And it is a turkey's fault -- by which I mean an actual turkey with wings and feathers and that weird wattle and nerves of steel. This large, inedible bird has developed a habit of running around roadways and brazenly facing down drivers. And he's so well known that locals gave him a name: Tommy the turkey. Lakeshore resident Robb Meloche spoke to CBC's Windsor Morning about catching Tommy the turkey in action with his drone.

ROBB MELOCHE: He's fearless. He'll stop right in front of your vehicle. And sometimes he'll puff right out and call out at you. And he won't let you move. Like you can keep going and he just knows how to move with the traffic to where you don't really stop, but you just kind of keep going slow, slow, slow because you don't want to run him over. And the last time I seen him was maybe two months ago. But other people have run into him. It's been going on for at least a year. And I was out flying my drone and there's Tommy the turkey in the middle of the road. And he's holding up the traffic. And people were getting out and trying to get them off the road and he wasn't moving. And sometimes he gets aggressive, he'll come at you. It just depends on what kind of mood he is in that day. He'll stay there and he'll peck away at the cars. I don't know how this turkey hasn't become like a meme yet for Belle River. He's almost out there all the time that he should become like the official mascot. And someone made a joke to me and said that there should be like t-shirts made saying, like, "I got pecked by Tommy the turkey." [Laughs] Or even some bumper stickers. But he's been around Belle River for a bit. And all jokes aside, they probably do need to do some kind of control with them because it's dangerous. You can see in the video, like some people go right off the road, he's like running his own ride program out there. And I'd hate to see him get hit because people have become attached to him from him being around for so long now, like he's got a name. You know, now that he's got a name, we've got to protect him. It's been crazy, honest to God. Like I'm telling you, he's been around and just on different streets and he travels too. That's why we assume it's just when we see him, it's him, because he's always by himself. And I've seen him all the way from like Broadway Street up Belle River Road to 42. People have seen him like on the other side of Belle River by the bridge and everything. It's always just the one. He's doing the same thing in the middle of the road, stopping the traffic, people are getting out, trying to chase him away and he isn't having it. He'll square up. Tommy the turkey fears nothing. [Laughs]

CH: That was Lakeshore, Ontario resident Robb Meloche speaking with the CBC's Talish Zafar. Mr. Meloche caught the local delinquent Tommy the turkey on video using his drone.

March 30, 2021 Episode Transcript

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