The Current

The Current for Dec. 15, 2020

Today on The Current: The first COVID-19 vaccines administered in Canada; Brayden Bushby is convicted of manslaughter in the death of Barbara Kentner; connecting families with critically ill loved ones in a COVID-19 ward; and Jill Lepore on how the polio vaccine changed history.
Matt Galloway is the host of CBC Radio's The Current. (CBC)

Today on The Current

Health-care worker Lucky Aguila was among the first in Canada to receive the COVID-19 vaccine Monday, and Tamara Dus gave him the shot. Matt Galloway talks to both of them, and asks federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu about plans for wider distribution.

Plus, Alvin Fiddler, grand chief for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Thunder Bay, Ont., joins us to discuss the manslaughter conviction for Brayden Bushby. Bushby was found guilty Monday in the 2017 death of Indigenous woman Barbara Kentner, after hitting her with a trailer hitch from a moving car.

Then, social worker Scott Graney discusses the work he does in the intensive care unit of St. Joseph's Health Centre, which is part of Unity Health Toronto. Graney is there for almost every conversation between critically ill COVID-19 patients and their families, because he's the one holding up the iPad. He tells us about working to connect those families, and the hardest part of his job.

And in a conversation first aired in June, historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore looks at how the polio vaccine saved lives and changed the course of history, and how resistance to it may be repeated in the era of COVID-19. Plus, we hear how that interview inspired an art project for Pierre Oberg, a fine arts instructor, and his class at Portage College, in Lac La Biche Alta.

Full Episode Transcript