The Current for May 7, 2021
Today on The Current:
Despite a fourth wave of COVID-19 and a state of emergency in Tokyo, the Summer Olympics are going ahead. We talk to Satoko Itani, professor of sports and gender studies at Osaka's Kansai University, about growing local opposition. And two Canadian athletes — runner Madeleine Kelly and swimmer Sydney Pickrem — discuss how the pandemic has impacted their training, and their hopes for the Games this year.
Then, Dr. Peter Hotez is developing a new COVID-19 vaccine that could cost less than $2 per dose — far cheaper than most other vaccines against the virus. Hotez, the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, joins us to discuss his efforts to create an easily-produced, affordable vaccine, and why manufacturing around the world needs to ramp up.
And the opioid crisis has taken many lives in Kainai First Nation, in southern Alberta, but a new documentary, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, explores how the community is overcoming the crisis by redefining what harm reduction means. We talk to filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and her mother, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, who is a family physician on the Blood Tribe reserve.