The Current for July 30, 2021
Today on The Current:
Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, announced Wednesday that the province will lift nearly all restrictions related to COVID-19 in the coming weeks. As of August 16, people who test positive for the virus will no longer have to isolate. We speak with Ilan Schwartz, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Alberta, who says it's far too early to lift the restrictions; and Lori Williams, an associate professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, says Premier Jason Kenney is "gambling" with his political base with the decision.
China's Henan province saw a year's worth of rain in just three days last week. At least 99 people have died, and hundreds of thousands more have ben displaced. What's happening on the ground now, and how is China preparing itself to deal with future flooding linked to climate change? We speak to Keith Bradsher, Shanghai bureau chief for the New York Times; environmental scientist Faith Chan; and climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll.
Crocs are back. Not the reptiles, the shoes. Those foamy, floatable, squeaky and comfy clogs were everywhere in the early 2000s — then they disappeared. But they've made a comeback during the pandemic, with the makers raking in record earnings, to the horror of some fashion-minded commentators. We speak to Carolyn Mair, author of The Psychology of Fashion, to better understand the shoes' resurgence.
We revisit Alison Motluk's documentary, And That's Why Everything is Different, which tells the story of a family who discovered their daughter was the biological child of their now-disgraced fertility doctor Norman Barwin.