Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Guests: Dr. Annie Sparrow, Dr. Jeremy Faust, Dr. Mike Wilkinson

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The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing that the games of the 32nd Olympiad in 2020 are awarded to the city of: Tokyo.

[Cheers]

MARK KELLEY: Such excitement seven long years ago when Tokyo beat out two other cities to host what were supposed to be the 2020 Olympics. They are now hosting games a year late with little support from their public and with potential serious health risks. But still, the games are a go. We'll talk about the safest way forward. Also this morning:

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That one, you can see the colours a little bit darker. It's more like an ale. Citrusy, not too bitter. That's a very nice beer.

MK: Sounds like a beer. Looks like a beer, even. Tastes like a beer, but without the alcohol. In about 30 minutes, a growing interest in what's being called mindful drinking. But we'll start with those Olympic dreams and how to mitigate the danger to public health that goes along with them. Good morning. I'm Mark Kelley in this week for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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MK: A year late and in the face of very public protests, the Olympic Games will finally open officially in Tokyo next Friday. Already, athletes, coaches, support staff and media from all over the world are convening in the Japanese capital, all while Tokyo has just come under its fourth covid state of emergency. And plenty of Japanese citizens are unhappy about the games going ahead.

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It's rare that Japanese people stand up and voice the opposition in the form of protest or the demonstration by increasing number of people are going on the street and protesting. And this is incredible. It's popping up everywhere. It might be small, but total number is pretty large and people are appalled, honestly.

MK: As Japanese Professor Satoko Itani, Osaka's Kansai University. For many Canadian athletes like rower Jennifer Casson, it's about wanting to have the safest Olympics possible.

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There is so much that could go wrong, and I know that I speak for myself, a lot of other athletes that would never want the Japanese people to feel like we're doing this because like we don't care or like we've been we're more important than them, like any of that does not stand.

MK: And well, we've heard many times that come hell or high water or climbing case numbers, the games will go on. Some experts are still worried about the Olympics becoming a super spreader event for the virus. Joining me now, Dr. Annie Sparrow, a public health specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and a practising physician, and Dr. Jeremy Faust, a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School. Good morning to you both.

DR. ANNIE SPARROW: Morning.

MK: Dr. Sparrow, let me start with you. I know you've got some reservations about the games going ahead, but we've seen the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, even the Euro Cup yesterday where there have been fans in attendance. What do you think the risk makes these Olympics different from those events?

DR. ANNIE SPARROW: Well, by an order of magnitude, because it's such a big event. So and the timing of it, I mean, imagine that this time last year in March 2020, when it was cancelled, you know, there were about 350,000 cases in the world total. Now we have more than that every single day. And last year, there were no variance in to have to consider put into the equation. Now we have at least four and we know that the delta is far more contagious and possibly more lethal. We don't know the effects. It's not that I'm against the games going ahead. Sport is one of the things that binds us, moves us and brings us together. I just think that the IOC has not spent the money to make it as safe as possible and has not decided to put in place measures that should have been done. And there is still time to mitigate the huge risk now. But, you know, using your old science and trying to do it on the cheap doesn't work when you're dealing with such a big event during the middle of a pandemic.

MK: Dr. Faust, what's your view? I mean, let's look at the context here. Japan is barring tourists from attending there, barring spectators from attending there, even barring people from going to the bars to watch this in Japan. It certainly doesn't get the feeling like they've got this thing under control. What's your feeling about this?

DR. JEREMY FAUST: You know, I think there's a little bit of a mismatch between where we are today and how we are playing this out, a year ago when they cancelled these events and other events that have happened since, I think it made a lot of sense because we didn't have a vaccine at that time and we had cases that were often 100 times as prevalent. At the moment in Japan, you're getting about 2000 cases per day, which sounds like a lot, but it's really one and a half per 100,000 people, which is kind of the Green Zone in terms of what the United States CDC would tell you. So for the idea of cancelling the Olympics a year ago makes a lot of sense because we had uncontrolled spread. We had no test anywhere and nobody was vaccinated, but to me, when you look at a controlled space, the villages, the stadiums, these kinds of venues, you can say, look, are you vaccinated? Are you tested? And I think you can actually pull this off safely, if you put the resources towards it and really the kind of money you need to spend, just pennies in comparison to the billions of dollars have gone into it. So well, I think that it could be a complete disaster if they don't do it correctly. The opposite is also true. It could be a really shining example of how to do it right. If they'd like to do that and say, look, documented, you're tested, we'll make sure everyone's safe. Let's proceed with a modified event. That's how I would kind of look at the overall picture.

MK: Yeah, but when you mentioned it could be a complete disaster, you get my attention there. Dr. Sparrow. You were saying, you know, the IOC is doing this on the cheap. They could do more, for example. What?

DR. ANNIE SPARROW: Well, they put a lot of it. When you look at the playbooks, they don't do any differentiation between so at the screening hand hygiene and cleaning the air. And what they you know, the athletes are living in a village and competing in venues that have, you know, have good ventilation. So that means that there's only two or three changes per hour that is simply inadequate to to protect athletes. And members, not just the athletes. We've just banned, the Japanese has just been spectators. That's the right thing to do. But it obviously doesn't protect the players, the workers, the officials. There are so many things that could be done. First of all, is put to an urgent assessment of the sports, wrestling, boxing, judo, one to one combat is not the same as surfing and doesn't carry the same risk. You know, we just watch the euro finals because they paid for over two hours on the field, a lot of contact and we know that outdoor transmission is possible. How could you then modify these things to make them less risky? So what I did was put HEPA filters in every hotel room, every venue, every corridor, every tunnel to pieces of heavy traffic, every cafeteria. Take out the chairs in the dining room because, you know, within the dining room, it's built for thousands and thousands. It's going to be ten thousand. In the village. There were chairs for that capacity. It only has half the ventilation that's required. And but if you put the chairs there, people will sit in them. So take out the chairs. You know, give them proper masks because face masks won't protect them at least at the [unintelligible]. The contact tracing won't work. You know, smartphones are ridiculous because no one is going to compete on the field and be carrying a smartphone. And as I said, you know, there are some sports with a lot riskier than others. You do need to test everyone, but not just the athletes, everyone in the village. And they should be vaccinated. And they should do this now because let's remember, it's not just the Olympics we're talking about is the Paralympics. And that's going to, you know, we can predict we will see a global spike after the Olympics. We see it every single time. Right now with thirty thousand cases, again, UK and they just had sixty thousand deaths. And we can predict where that's going to go. But and we know that vaccination is an incentive that's illustrated by the Ugandan athletes. So it's important to think about creating a human shield around the Olympics and Paralympics because they're much more vulnerable athletes, because they are not so vulnerable. And if you vaccinated all the workers, all the people with all the bus drivers, everyone that's around as well, then you're going to create another layer of protection, put the athletes in separate rooms, do real time genomic testing so athletes don't unwittingly take variant time to unvaccinated unprotected populations that might have very marginal health care infrastructure.

MK: Well, doctors, I'm sorry to interrupt because I want to bring in another guest. Dr Faust, stand by as well. Dr. Mike Wilkinson is the chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee. He's in Tokyo now. Dr. Wilkinson, thanks for joining us. You're listening to the conversation. I mean, you're there in Tokyo. I know you you're going to the village tomorrow, but you've got a bit of a lay of the land. Do you have some of these concerns that perhaps not all the steps have been put into place to properly protect the athletes and the entourage?

DR. MIKE WILKINSON: Thanks and thanks for having me on. I went before we came in and obviously we had concerns and have concerns about causing transmission of disease in Japan and amongst our hosts. I've been here now for 11 days, having come in early with the rowing team. So we are actually just outside Tokyo in a training camp in a city called Amhara. And the host cities for these training camps have been incredibly strict. They've also been incredibly good and very generous hosts, but incredibly strict. So we are in a very tight bubble. We basically we got tested at the airport, came straight on a secure bus to our accommodation. We have been tested every single day. We do monitoring of symptoms. Every day we have and within the team, we eventually got a continuation of the protocols we've developed over the last year. And as Doctor said, you know, we've learnt an incredible amount about this virus over the last year. These protocols have extended and even become tighter within the team. So not only are we in a single team bubble, but each crew is in a smaller [unintelligible], in a bubble, we go only from the accommodation to the training venue. Masks alone all the time. They are taken off only once the crew is out on the water and then put back on when they come. So, you know, from that aspect, it's been very tight on the

MK: On the broader level here, I was reading that only 16 percent of the Japanese population is actually vaccinated. So while I appreciate you are in that bubble, are you concerned about that broader context of the country you find yourself in?

DR. MIKE WILKINSON: I think when one is concerned about the hosts and that's why we put these very strict measures in amongst ourselves so as not to place them at extra risk. You know, the vaccination programme with the IOC and Pfizer have instituted was instrumental in getting, what, 80 percent of the visiting teams vaccinated. And I can tell you from a Canadian point of view, we well over the 90 to 95 percent of all delegates in the Canadian team are vaccinated fully. So every team and every NOC. is doing so - that's National Olympic Committee - is doing what they can to minimise that transmission.

MK: Are you concerned about the prospect of false positives that could sideline an athlete and ruin their dream?

DR. MIKE WILKINSON: Well, this is something that we work very closely with the IOC and the Japanese organising committee to manage and look at how do we manage potential false positives and looking at things like seat values, looking at their exposure, their medical history, et cetera. And there's been a lot of media about that. And, yes, it's a concern, but it is also something that we've put a lot of effort into, looking at how we minimise certain we mitigate that risk.

MK: And Dr. Wilkinson, in terms of the team itself, I know you're with the rowing team now, not the entire Canadian team. But how would describe their feelings going into this as they prepare to be to be gathering, as I said, with 80000 people who will be part of these Olympics?

DR. MIKE WILKINSON: It's been very interesting watching the changing in atmosphere, you know, prior to coming to Japan, there was understandably a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of angst. There was also a lot of anticipation finally getting to be able to compete. Now that we're in Japan and the energy is extremely high amongst the team, they very keen to get going and to do what they've been training to do and that's compete on the field of play while we've been in these bubbles. I've also been involved in virtual outreach with local communities and the schools and the kids, and there's been a lot of excitement and that has been built up that way in the community. I think as a whole, if you if you had to ask athletes, they just they would like to get on the field of play, compete and do what they've been trained training to do. And there is this general sense of finally, as I think it was, Dr. Sparrow said earlier, that, you know, sport is one of these incredibly powerful pieces of our community that inspires hope and we are seeing that starting to happen and, you know, not a lot of the teams have come in yet. They're starting to come through into Japan. As you know, there is a limit on going into the village five days before you start the competition in order to minimise the time people are in the village. And so we will start seeing them coming in, about the 17th of July is when they will actually go to the village. We'll go in and prepare beforehand.

MK: Well, I wish you all the best. Dr. Wilkinson, of course, then the Canadian team as well. And I hope all of you stay safe.

DR. MIKE WILKINSON: Thank you very much, and we'll do everything we can to stay safe and as you said, not bring any veterans home, that is one of our other concerns as well.

MK: Indeed. Dr. Mike Wilkinson, chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee. We reached him in Tokyo. Dr. Faust, I want to talk to you about that that last point that was made there about bringing home, you know, the possibility of bringing home variants. Do you see this as, you know, a clear and present danger?

DR. JEREMY FAUST: I think that variants are a real danger anywhere in the world, and the idea right now that the high population of athletes that's highly enriched to be vaccinated, that highly enriched to be tested every day, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what's going on in almost any nation in the world. You have 80000 people who are descending in Japan right now. And again, these are people who are the most likely to be vaccinated, the most likely to be tested every day in a country of 126 million people. So the idea that this would be the thing that would make things worse to me doesn't make any sense or anything or just because there's so much anxiety and concern. There's just escalation of increased vaccination. The vaccination rates in Japan have been slow, but have been increasing steadily and part in part because of this. So, you know, the thing I want to make very clear is that we're not a year ago. A year ago, for every case, there was a hospitalisation risk. And then and according to risk, the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths was very, very steady and knowable. And that link has been severed by vaccinations. And so in areas and in people who were vaccinated, it's just not the same story. So being vaccinated, which most of these athletes are, tells me that the risk of infection is lower, the risk of disease is lower. And we also think that the risk of new variants coming out of those individuals is likely to be lower as well. So, yeah, I think that my main concern with variants is an area as and in people who are not vaccinated, it gives people less time to make the right choice because these vaccines, these variants are quicker and that they may be more deadly. We don't know that. But amongst the vaccinated, look, this is our only way forward is vaccination and this is the new normal. So we can't get to zero risk, but we can take the risk of the death and coronavirus, which is probably one percent less than one percent when you really do the maths divide that by 20, because that's what the vaccines do, keep lowering the cases pretty soon. Coronavirus is no longer the most deadly virus in your community. That's mission accomplished. But I agree. We want to get everything down to zero, but we can't get there tomorrow. But we can do a lot that resembles normal while we get there.

MK: Dr. Sparrow, let me when you get that combination of vaccination, you've got the bubble lockdown down. You've got rapid testing. I mean, it does seem to be that they are going to great lengths to protect the athletes. Or do you find that reassuring?

DR. ANNIE SPARROW: No, not at all. The IOC, one of the first things it does is make the athletes sign away or, you know, take on all the risk and sign away all of the IOC responsibility. At the high level, the IOC has transferred to the at the lower level. It's all on the athletes as it's normally, and that's normal for a normal time. When you take on the risk of falling off the beam or being injured on the field, that's not normal when it's cold. And let's remember that, you know, a positive test might end up getting cold before an athlete can destroy it or might actually reduce their performance by half a percent. And that might be enough to be the difference between a medal and not a gold and silver. And as for the you know, the symptom checking, we know that it's contagious, contagious well before symptoms appear. Delta, and there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that says Delta has milder upper respiratory tract symptoms and is less likely to display the anosmia, the loss of smell of the parts of the morning symptoms that are more useful. Athletes are not going to report symptoms because the last thing they want to do is be excluded from competing after they've worked so hard. And this is the other thing that vaccination is only going so far. That is not the solution. Many athletes are not vaccinated and some of them, you know, some of the [unintelligible] in the youth athletes cannot be vaccinated because they don't have it available or to chose or they are concerned it might affect their performance. And Pfizer that we've just seen the data that Pfizer is not it doesn't make you virus proof, because in Israel, we just saw that the efficacy of the vaccine went down from 94 per cent to just about 60 because of Delta. And this is where, you know, we have to put in the other things. We have to have the ventilation. We have to have the education. The Canadians have an amazing device called the bio cloud, which detects in the air in indoor venues very quickly. And now that's a great thing to know and also give the athletes more confidence to compete. The Germans have developed it aerosol technology that deactivates coronavirus in the air again. And those things are very useful technology that should be employed right now. And again, remembering the Paralympics, because, you know, these are things that must be done to supplement vaccination in order to move forward.

MK: I just want to give Dr. Faust the last word here, because we're running out of time and we only have 30 seconds left. Dr. Faust, in the end, do you think it's worth it given all this? Is it worth it to go go ahead with these games?

DR. JEREMY FAUST: The game is going forward no matter what. So the way you do it is to do testing every single day. And if somebody does come down with the virus, then they don't compete and or if they you know, they don't be doing their mettle. I'm sorry. That's not the reason we have the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games are not about medal in there, about participating. So, look, I think that with the proper test and vaccination rates, this can be done relatively safely and safely enough. I think that the decrease with the variance is notable with infection rates, but we see the hospitalisation rates have not gone up in response to that. That, to me, tells me that it's working, the vaccines are working, and that's the way forward. And I think that's the message to vaccinate you test. And actually we make modifications that we can do things. We don't have to stop everything, but we have to do things differently until we're completely safe.

MK: Dr. Faust, thanks so much. Dr. Jeremy Faust is a physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Massachusetts, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Annie Sparrow, public health specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. Well, yeah, a pandemic is easing up. So is it time to put down the beer or at least the one with alcohol in it? In six minutes, the rise of so-called mindful drinking. I'm Mark Kelley. Stay close. You're listening to The Current.

How sober curious people are questioning their relationship with alcohol

Guests: Kerry Benson, Laura Willoughby, Bob Huitema

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Well, you may have noticed posts for dry July or hashtags sober is sexy and sober, curious on your social media feed. Lately, more than a year into the pandemic, some folks are now saying no thanks to that next glass of wine or beer. Recent numbers from Stats Canada show that while some people are drinking more during the pandemic, nearly as many alcohol drinkers are actually scaling back in Quebec's cherished craft beer market. The non-alcoholic options are soaring.

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What's interesting now nowadays is that you can purchase a non-alcoholic beer that has all the flavours, details of a craft beer, you can now have an IPA, you can have a pale ale, you can have a rattler, you can have a sour all different types of beer. And then in the normal, what I call a version of 10 years ago, you'd see someone drinking a non-alcoholic beer. It often resonated with someone who had a history of alcohol problems. As to now we're seeing a consumer who is drinking alcohol, but instead of drinking alcohol five, six days a week is saying, well, I'm going to try to cut down to only three or four days a week and buy on those other three or four days. I'd still like to enjoy a beer or something good and tasty.

MK: That's Sebastian Paradis. He's the vice president of the Association des Micrograsseries du Quebec. Well, joining me now, Laura Willoughby, the co-founder of Club Soda, a mindful drinking organisation based in London. She's also the co-author of How to Be a Mindful Drinker. Cut Down, Stop for a Bit or Quit. Kerry Benson is a registered dietitian, cocreator of the Sober Dieticians and co-author of Mocktail Party. She's in Philadelphia. And Bob Huitema is president of Distilled Beverages, which makes the alcohol free gin sober. He's in Toronto. Good morning to you all morning. Laura, let me start with you. You're sort of the pioneer behind this mindful drinking movement that's been alive and well for several years now. Explain that one to our listeners. What is mindful drinking?

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: What really is, is anything you want it to be, but if you're looking to change your drinking habits, whether that's to be more moderate or to take a break occasionally, like on a dry July or dry January, or you're looking to go alcohol free, which is what I've done. It is all of those things. And I think we often think about diet in terms being about the food we put in our mouths. But the drinks are just as important in terms of how we live well and how we have a fit and healthy lifestyle. And so Club Soda is about encouraging anyone to think about their drinking and make the right decision for them, whatever that might be.

MK: And Laura, why did what did you go alcohol free?

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: Because I was a bit of an idiot with drinking, right.

MK: You're honest about it.

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: I have been there and done that. I was beginning to get worried about how much I was drinking. You know, I'm British. We do it really, really well. And I decided that I really had to knock on the heads. And to be honest, and still I'm reaping the rewards of that nine years later. But, you know, I don't want to tell anyone what to do. And I felt that that there was a need for a community that supported people to change that, drinking a bit like Weight Watchers, but with these. Right. So that's my club soda came from. And I now we've got this great growing market in the UK of lower alcohol drinks. But there seem to be the leading market, I guess, that we might have started from a very low base. And so we're very passionate about all the alternatives you can drink instead as well.

MK: Kerry, you talk about sober, curious living. Fill me in. Is that the same thing? Is that just just just drinking less?

KERRY BENSON: Yeah, I think this is a similar idea, I think all of these terms are kind of fluid and people can kind of apply them to their lives as they want to. I believe this term, Sober Curious is actually coined by Ruby Werrington, who is the author of a book entitled Sober Curious. But again, it's just being more mindful of what you're drinking, why you're drinking and how you feel while you're drinking and exploring your relationship with alcohol. And I think for some people that will lead towards drinking less, potentially, or maybe not drinking at all, which for my friend and co-author, Diana and myself, led to us actually removing alcohol from our lives, just like Laura was speaking to.

MK: Yeah. Tell me about your journey and what prompted that.

KERRY BENSON: Sure, so our journey was kind of interesting and to make a long story short, Mocktail Party is actually our second mocktail recipe book. We wrote our first mocktail recipe book, drinking for two nutritious mocktails for the mom to be, for women who wanted to cut back on alcohol, either leading up to during or after pregnant season after pregnancy and wanted healthier alternatives to alcohol. So we wrote that book. And then when we were having the opportunity to write the second book that was coming during the time of COVID, when we were seeing a lot of people drinking more alcohol. And as we were doing research on the link between alcohol and health, it just kind of started to make us question our own relationships with alcohol and the place that alcohol had in our lives. So we decided to do -- it wasn't lined up with dry July or any established month-long challenges where people remove alcohol. We just decided to give up alcohol for a month. And after that months, Diana actually went completely alcohol free. She never reintroduced it. For me, I went back to drinking a little bit, but just from that month, I became so in tune with all of the options that were available and just how good I felt and the transformation that I had over that past month, that alcohol really lost its appeal for me. And then within a few months, I stopped drinking entirely.

MK: Bob, listening to Kerry and Laura talk, this must be music to your ears for a guy who makes an alcohol free gin called Sobrii. What prompted you to put that out on the market?

BOB HUITEMA: Yeah, I went down a very similar journey, probably to carry in it for me was a productivity thing. I found myself doing the wrap it to yourself. So I'm always doing a different project on the weekends. I found it more and more difficult as time goes by, as probably everybody does, that the effect alcohol has even a couple of drinks on the next day. So I love cocktails. I hated hangovers. And I decided that, well, you know, there are always products coming out in the marketplace, particularly from the England, from the UK. And I took a look at them. And when I first tasted them, I thought, yeah, this is good. But then two things hit me. Well, first of all, I thought I could do it better. I could do better here in Canada.

MK: Laura, you know, we're talking about this mindful drinking or sober, curious. Call it what you want. I mean, it used to be you just stop or you went to AA or something like that. It is. Do you find it's more effective if you wrap it up in this sort of social movement?

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: Well, AA is 70 years old, and it certainly helps a lot of people, but it wouldn't have been for me. I am a woman. I'm not going to surrender to another higher power. And I don't like the religious elements. And to be honest, I wanted to use behaviour change science rather than an idea that that abstinence and I've got an illness. I don't have an illness. I'm just a bit of an idiot. And I wanted to feel that I had control over changing my drinking, and understanding the levers to change. In fact, all the things I've learned about changing my drinking I've also used to change my diet. So, you know, it's a win-win as far as I'm concerned. So, but we're not all the same. We need different things for different people. It's not one size fits all. So it is really important that we find different ways to change drinking. And the reason why I wanted to create a community of change was because we get drunk together, so why do we need to get sober alone? You know, alcohol is a part of our social fabric. And so the idea that somehow if you give up, you've got to sit home alone is ridiculous. In fact, I go to the pub just as much as I always did. I really I spend as much money in venues as I always did. I just want to be treated like an equal consumer. And so now there were drinks that that help do that. But also that helps me keep to the goals I want, which is to be alcohol free and certainly helps people in our community are moderating, still socialise, but take days off.

MK: Kerry, I want to get the women's perspective on this because, you know, I've seen a certain glorification of alcohol use, especially for mothers, you know, memes merchandise describing wine as mommy juice or mother's little helper and a lot of talk of women, especially during the pandemic, drinking more wine. Do you think that this is something that's really attuned to women especially?

KERRY BENSON: KB: Definitely, I think there's even evidence to suggest that alcohol marketing is targeting women specifically and even mothers now, and it's not just alcohol companies. There was a larger brand that put out an ad last year that got a lot of pushback that showed a woman trying to escape her children, drinking a mimosa in a closet, and that was received very poorly. And they ended up pulling the ad and apologising for it. But there's definitely targeting of women, just like cigarette ads for targeting women at one time. And it's kind of twofold. I think there are ads that are targeting mothers specifically and saying that alcohol is kind of a reward and escape from motherhood. It will, you know, like you just like you said, mama's little helper. It'll help you get through the day and through the stress of parenting, which has become, you know, it's all of these, you know, negative emotions. And the stress has really been exacerbated over the past year with the pandemic. But there's also targeting of women who are in the professional space as well. And, of course, there's overlap of the two. But, you know, women who are living busy, professional lives, you know, the pressure to kind of keep up with male colleagues as far as drinking and happy hours, you know, drinking during Zoom calls, drinking to get away from the stress of your workday and to escape. There's definitely targeting. I think I saw something earlier today or yesterday when I was poking around on the Internet that said that, I don't know what the timeframe was, but it came down to there was an alcohol ad every like 30 seconds. Wow. Which was just mind blowing to me. And I think it's something that I personally didn't register until after I went alcohol free and then just saw how we were bombarded not just from the advertising specifically, but also how alcohol is woven into the storyline of TV shows and movies. It's just so ever present and normalised.

MK: Laura, you've talked about how heavy alcohol use can be disempowering for women. Can you explain a little bit more of that?

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: It was more about whether you that there were different methods and the AA method is that one that talks about surrendering to a higher power in order to give up drinking. And of course, I'm a woman who's wanted to learn to empower myself and have agency over my own life so that that's where that that comes in. And you know, I think it's really important that we realise that there are different routes to people changing their drinking, including the fact that for some people, moderation is also possible, undesirable, and that and with work, that's also a possibility. And so, you know, if people are considering changing their drinking right now, they might want to look at taking a break, maybe look at some moderation rules for themselves and give it a go and begin to look at all the alternatives out there in the books produced a wonderful product that people can take out and have a drink when they're out. And when you begin to open your eyes to the alternatives, it's a bit like going vegan as well that things are better than they used to be. You realise that change might be easier than you think.

MK: Bob, I was reading somewhere that said consumption of no alcohol or low alcohol drinks is expected to grow by 31 percent by 2024 in 10 major countries, including Canada. Why do you think that is?

BOB HUITEMA: Well, I think people, as Laura said, I mean, they are looking for different options and they're becoming more aware of their own health and how alcohol affects that. I think that's been the major sort of change in attitudes and probably the last 10 years and years have certainly led the way to a certain degree in terms of producing products that people like a lot better than they used to. And that helps them do that. It helps them cut down their alcohol consumption. So I think that that's driving it. And then as you get more people interested in it, more producers, more manufacturers are making products and the products are becoming a better quality. So you've got a full circle of, well, you know what? I want to cut down on alcohol because of whatever reason it might be. And then you have better products to satisfy that need. And then, as Carrie said, as you go along this journey on many people, a lot of my consumers have said this back to me and myself personally as well, I've experienced this, that as you cut out alcohol, you find very little reason to go back to it. And there's a ton of reasons why that is. And just that, number one, for most people, I sleep better, ideas better, and they become what we call in the industry. You have a flexitarian approach to drinking, which is the flexitarian, is basically you have a flexible as you have a flexible diet, as you know in terms of flexitarian diet. You aflex to flexitarian cocktail hour drink menu, which is I have my regular drink, maybe one, and then I go to something else. So rather than have consumed two or three alcoholic drinks, you have you split it between alcohol and non-alcoholic, you feel like you're part of the party. You never miss out on the social elements and you sleep much better and you have a much better day the next day.

MK: Who's your target market here in Canada, Bob? I'm wondering who's like really driving this? What segment of the population is driving this here in Canada?

BOB HUITEMA: Yeah, that's an interesting one, because I actually did attend one of Laura's club sort of events, a mindful drinking back in 2019 and basically there and what I found here is that the target market is all over the place. I mean, there is it's everywhere from 22 to 60 plus. Really the common denominator between amongst most people is this concern about health or some sort of interest in their health. And when that comes into play, you find and you find women between 28 and, say, 40 really playing a big role because they are the ones that actually take the most action, it seems. So demographic across.

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: It's really interesting what you say, because when I first proposed club soda, everyone was talking about wanting to change their drinking, to lose weight. And then we've recently updated that survey, and the number one reason is mental health and that certainly a cross-generational concern.

MK: Kerry, what about what role did the pandemic play in all of this? Because, you know, I sort of had the impression that people were drinking more during the pandemic, but certainly as people were shut in at home, it must have given you no time to consider their lifestyle, time to consider their habits. So how have you seen the pandemic playing out in people's choices about alcohol?

KERRY BENSON: Well, that's definitely accurate, I think there's a component of both, and I know from myself and from Diana's experiences covid was a time that caused us to question our relationship with alcohol. I think it's just the fact that people are talking about alcohol use more. And like Laura and Bob were saying, the mental health connection. I think all of those factors have caused people to kind of be more aware of the increase in the level of drinking that's happened during covid and caused people to try these challenges, explore alcohol-free options. But I think there's definitely a component of both. I think people are drinking more. It was sort of a make or break opportunity, I think. And the evidence shows that people are drinking more. So there were a couple of studies that showed that there was a significant increase in the frequency that people were drinking. I was reading yesterday that in April 2020, there was a study that showed that 16 percent of adults who are reporting that they were drinking more and millennials specifically were drinking 25 percent more. We saw that alcohol sales went up. But I know anecdotally, from what I've seen on social media, from my interactions with people in the sober and sober, curious community, I see a lot of alcohol free dates in the range between March of twenty, twenty and now. So I think it was just an opportunity for people to kind of think more critically about their relationship with alcohol and whether they wanted to include it in their lives or how they wanted what they wanted, unquote, to look like.

MK: Bob, the sceptic in me also looks at this and thinks this is just a marketing ploy, that this is you know, you're just trying to reach more people perhaps who are ambivalent about alcohol or not. I mean, is what you're doing a response to a genuine demand in the marketplace? Or is this just a new marketing technique to reach more people?

BOB HUITEMA: So I would clearly say that's a demand that we're trying to address in the marketplace, that that's growing. Again, the evidence from, you know, I take a look at the non-alcoholic beer market because it's probably the most established, you know, variant of alcohol versus non-alcoholic products that are out there. It has grown tremendously in the last 10 years and it's got no signs of abating at all, even in Canada, which is a little slower to adopt, particularly from, you know, versus the U.K., it has been taking off and it has been very solid. And there's domestic players have been growing dramatically. So if you look at that and you look at even you know, you suggest that, you know, what is what is growing this what is this a real demand thing? Look at the meatless burger side of things, because I took a lot of cues from what they were doing. It was at a marketing ploy. No, there's an actual demand for it. And when they started winning, they started winning because they started targeting people who actually eat meat. So in the nonlocal comparison, we're targeting people who drink alcohol whereas I think years ago, nonlocal basically targeted people who couldn't drink, which is still an important part of the market. But if you really want to become mainstream, you want to really normalise the behaviours of of being sober, then you must target the same people that that want to drink.

MK: And that's going and that's a good point. You know, I was watching the euro and, Laura, at Wembley Stadium, you know, you saw the signs for Heineken, zero point zero were everywhere and a huge market there. So that shows me that certainly that these products have now arrived big time, mainstream.

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: Yeah, I can't believe you brought up the Euros, I mean, come on, it was only last night we lost.

MK: I'm sorry, is it too soon?

LAURA WILLOUGHBY: But yeah, but the important thing is, is there was zero and every company at the stadium, I went along to say, and they were advertising and yes, of course it's marketing. Every product in the world is about marketing. But they wouldn't be investing the stock market if they didn't think that there was a demand for it. Right. And then buy big companies like Heineken budget behind it. It begins to normalise. And that's great for brands. The smaller brands are coming up underneath it all the craft beers. And you've got some great choices coming from. So all of these things help. And there is a great response from the consumer. And so it's very exciting. You know, when I gave up nine years ago, there wasn't anything. And now I can go into the pub and there's more than one beer and there's an alcohol free spirit and there's a kombucha, and I'm spoiled for choice. And for me, as somebody who likes socializing, that's great. I don't feel like I'm being treated differently anymore.

MK: It's a wonderful conversation. And I really thank you all for talking about this today. Lots to think about here. Laura Willoughby, co-founder of Club Soda, co-author of How to Be a Mindful Drinker, Cut Down, Stop for a Bit or Quit. Kerry Benson, a registered dietitian, cocreator of the Sober Dieticians, and Bob Huitema, president of Distilled Beverages, which makes the alcohol free gin Sobrii. Well, that's our programme for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Unforked. Host Samira Mohyeddin will be diving into the mystery of why MSG has such a bad reputation and what some people are doing to change that. So stay tuned for that. But before we go, it's Monday. But you know what? It's a July, Monday, and the pandemic appears to be easing up. And we can get out onto those patios that are opening up and maybe even have an alcohol free drink. So with that spirit in mind, we will leave you with Bill Withers and Lovely Day. I'm Mark Kelley, in for Matt Galloway. Thanks so much for listening to The Current.

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The Current Transcript for July 12, 2021

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Prologue

Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

How sober curious people are questioning their relationship with alcohol

Monday July 12, 2021 Full Transcript

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