The Current

The Current for Nov. 18, 2020

Today on The Current: Could ‘COVID Zero’ be possible for Canada?, Concern over delay to White House transition, Odeuropa project aims to bring you the smells of the past, How former Edmonton Oilers player Joe Murphy went from winning the Stanley Cup to living homeless.
Matt Galloway is the host of CBC Radio's The Current. (CBC)

Full Episode Transcript

Today on The Current:

After a strict lockdown, Melbourne in Australia has gone two weeks without a new COVID-19 case — but what does it take to reach "COVID Zero," and is it feasible for Canada? Matt Galloway talks to Melbourne journalist Karen Percy; Dr. Andrew Morris, an infectious disease specialist at Sinai Health and University Health Network in Toronto; and Dr. Martha Fulford, an infectious diseases specialist and an associate professor at McMaster University.

Then, two weeks after the U.S. election, President Donald Trump is still refusing to acknowledge he lost, or begin the transition process for President-elect Joe Biden. White House transitions expert Martha Joynt Kumar discusses the risks posed by that delay. 

Plus, what did the past smell like? That question is at the heart of a new project called Odeuropa. It aims to catalogue Europe's historical smells. Historian William Tullett tells us about the project, and why smell is an often neglected sense.

And author and journalist Rick Westhead tells us the story of Joe Murphy, the former Edmonton Oilers player who went from winning the Stanley Cup to living homeless. Westhead says Murphy's story is part of a bigger part of brain injury and mental illness that the National Hockey League needs to address.