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The Current Transcript for March 20, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I was the first. It's unbelievable. I'm really excited about that. It was it was easy, like a flu shot.

MATT GALLOWAY: The hunt for a vaccine is one of the most pressing concerns is the corona virus pandemic spreads. A look inside that search. Coming up a little bit later on this show. Also this morning, Canada's relations with China have been, well, let's just say chilly, of late. Could the pandemic help far that?

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China has expressed gratitude to Canada in the fight against the epidemic. The foreign ministry commanded the statements by the Canadian health minister as a sign of science-based and rational judgment.

MG: In 30 minutes, China's ambassador to Canada on what's happening there. How that could shape our response here and why in the midst of this, China continues to hold Canadians in detention. As well, on this extended edition of The Current three great Canadians, the astronaut Chris Hadfield, the Olympian Clara Hughes and the author Madeleine Thien on the things we as a nation can accomplish under tough circumstances. We begin, though, with the woman at the center of those tough circumstances. The health minister, Patty Hajdu. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Interview with Patty Hajdu

Guest: Patty Hajdu

MG: Just a note about today's show before we start. These are, as you know, extra ordinary times. It's tough for a lot of you out there and there's a lot to process. Starting today, The Current will be with you for a bit longer each morning as we try to make sense of everything that's happening here and around the world. When it comes to COVID-19, like many of you. Much of our team is working from home. I'm here in our studio with a great small little crew. So the show might sound a little different. But we're trying to make it's our best and make sure that you have what you need when it comes to the latest most accurate information. And as we did yesterday in our call in, were hoping that we can also connect with each other through the radio as we go through all of this together. So thanks for listening. And let's get to it. There's a lots to talk about. The number of COVID-19 infections in Canada continues to rise. More than 870 people have tested positive for the virus. At least 12 have died. And there are questions about how many new patients our hospitals can handle. Health Minister Patty Hajdu is the face of the fight against this crisis in Canada. And it's up to her to balance sharing accurate information with keeping the public calm. She joins me now from Ottawa. Minister, good morning.

PATTY HAJDU: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How are you doing?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I'm I was just saying to your folks here in Ottawa, it's it's surreal in a way for all of us. And I would say I'm like every average Canadian trying to make sense of it while also being in the thick of it.

MG: What is that like? Because we see you every day now delivering the news to the public. And it's it's hard news. It's scary news. And there are a lot of people who are feeling anxious about it, just receiving that news and absorbing it. What is it like for you bringing it to Canadians?

It's really, it's, it's really hard, obviously, because people's lives have turned upside down, and I know that and I know that people are scared and I know they're lonely and they know they're they're worried about their families, their finances. And when this is all going to end, these are the three questions I keep in my mind every day, that I know Canadians are worried about. And I tried to have honest, direct answers. I mean, I believe, as you know, as a politician, sometimes the tendency is to want to make people feel better. But actually, I think it's a radical honesty that's gonna get us through this.

MG: Radical honesty.

PATTY HAJDU: Yes. You know, because people know that things are drastically different and they need to have information as quickly as possible about what the real circumstances are. And that information is not always easy to obtain or sometimes it's evolving. So but I think, you know, people need to know that this is obviously a real health risk, but also a real economic crisis for not just Canada, but the entire world.

MG: You were speaking on Tuesday and you asked Canadians to be kind to each other at this time and you became emotional when you were talking about that. Who are you thinking of when you said that?

PATTY HAJDU: I was thinking, I was thinking you're gonna make me optional again, but I was thinking about all the people that don't have anyone. You know, we all know people in our lives who are isolated, whether it's the, you know, the elderly lady whose children have died before her that counts on the neighbor to snow blow her driveway, whether it's the, you know, the young 20 something year old who's left home and doesn't have any family or whether it's, you know, just the average person that has mobility issues that can't go out to the grocery store and get stuff and is feeling like, you know, they've left behind. I worry about the people that live paycheck to paycheck that get social assistance at the end of the month, and that's when they do their grocery shopping. And what if they show up at the grocery store and there's nothing there for them on that particular day or the day after? Those are the people that I'm thinking about when I ask Canadians to be kind to one another. This is going to be hard on all of us. But there are going to be people, particularly vulnerable people, and that are going to be, you know, even more fragile in this time. And we need to take care of them, too.

MG: Are you encouraged by what you've seen in the last few days in terms of how- We were talking. Yesterday we did this call in across the country. And the thing that kept coming up is we're all in this together. Are you encouraged by that?

PATTY HAJDU: I really am. And I think, you know, crises like this can either put people against each other or pull us together. And I have seen in Canada this incredible pulling together, you know, even in my own team, where, as you can imagine, the tension that's going on as we try to make these extremely difficult decisions in very rapid time to, you know, arrive at a solution sometimes that's obviously imperfect. And but I watch even my own team pulled together in times of incredible tension, where you oftentimes have portfolios that have opposite goals and some ways in this crisis. And I've been so encouraged by the capacity of Canadians to keep coming back together and having these difficult conversations together, the small businesses in the community that are, you know, banding together to figure out ways that they can survive and also meet this need in the community for for all kinds of things that are now going to go unmet for a while.

MG: Let's talk about what's happening in this country. We hear constantly the urge to flatten the curve. Yesterday, Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer, said not just flattening the curve. We need to plank the curve. Are Canadians doing enough yet to stop the spread of this virus?

PATTY HAJDU: It's really hard for me to generalize like that and I won't because I can't see into every community. I can't see into every corner of Canada. But by and large, yes, what Canadians are doing are listening to their public health officials. And that is the most important part of this. You know, people are confused somewhat. There's different, you know, recommendations coming from a local public health unit versus a provincial public health unit. We're all working really hard to make sure that our message is unified, but they will be slightly different depending on the particular region you're in, depending on the particular activity of the virus. The epidemiology is very, very important. But my message to Canadians is keep listening to your public health officials. They will tell you what you need to do to keep your family safe and to keep your community safe. And by and large, we're seeing that Canadians are doing that.

MG: Why are there those different recommendations? We are speaking about this. Earlier this week on the program, Andre Picard's was here, health writer from The Globe and Mail, talking about the need for a unified message that in some areas daycares are open. In other areas, daycares are closed. People have different interpretations of what social distancing means. Why are there different recommendations in different bits of guidance being offered?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I'll say there's from my perspective, three reasons. One, we are a country where there are provinces who have jurisdiction over health. And so they all have their own medical officers of health and they all are working with their own epidemiology of their particular province and their own particular guidances. This is guided, by the way, at the federal level through something called the special committee. I don't know exactly the name. But anyways, Theresa Tam leads this committee of chief public health officers across the country and they work to solidify that guidance. So that's one reason, though, is because there are different jurisdictions. The second reason, I think, is because the epidemiology is not the same all across the country. I think, you know, the third reason is this is relatively new. Using social distancing. I can't remember a time when we've had to do this approach to a public health crisis. It's 100 years since our last huge pandemic in this way. You know, this is a new a new, I guess a new, a very old new tool, a very old tool that we have not had to use in recent times. And so people are learning as we go, including from other countries. And so that's part of why you're seeing some dissidents. But I will also say that as much dissidents as it might feel, when I look at it from a national perspective, people are more or less falling in line. If I can just say one last thing about day daycare's, it's really important that people have a place to care for. Children, as they're going to the hospitals to provide care, as they're going into the retail stores to make sure that we can still get our groceries so provinces and local public health units are working really diligently to figure out a way to do that safely, but also keep those essential workers, all those people that are going to the pharmacy, going to the retail stores, making sure the lights are kept on, that they have a place to care for their children.

MG: One of the things that we have heard and one of the reasons why those directives are important is because health care workers and hospital administrators are concerned that our hospitals are going to be able to cope with the surge that is coming, the surge that's on our doorstep. What are you hearing from those frontline workers?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, obviously, I'm hearing, you know, anxiety. A lot of anxiety from whether we're talking about doctors or nurses or other allied professionals about what may happen is should they see a surge. But I'm also working very closely with the ministers of health who are preparing for that surge in their own jurisdictions. And part of that work is happening at the provincial level and part of it's happening at the local level. At the federal level. We're trying to support all that work by making access to cash and to things as quickly as we possibly can. But part of the work is also really clearing out hospitals for what might happen. So you're seeing across the country people postponing things like elective surgeries, you know, clearing out the hospital from non essential- I shouldn't say nonessential - but non urgent kinds of care and looking for alternative levels of care so that they can actually be ready. The local example I have is in my own community and I talk to our chief of staff yesterday, as a matter of fact, just to check in as a local MP doing my job as a local MP, and his name is Dr. Zacky. And he assured me that that work is happening right now. And as a matter of fact, I don't know if you'd call it a silver lining, but he's saying the emergency room is less busy than it's ever been because the province has been setting up all kinds of alternative screening measures and the hospital has an offsite like a separate unit that they can screen outside of the emergency room. And thirdly, he said he thinks that there's a lower incident of urgent care because people aren't going anywhere. So there's less vehicle collisions and there's less accidents.

MG: The other side of that, as you said, is that hospitals have to make choices about what they're doing. And doctors have to make choices about the procedures that they undertake. Have a listen. Yesterday on our call in, we heard from a woman named Nancy. She was supposed to have surgery. It has now been told that it's been canceled for the time being. Have a listen to her.

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I try to keep it together. I've had a bad experience as a result of COVID-19. I'm not worried about the virus itself. Oh, boy, I'm 66. But a week ago I was, I was at [unintelligible] surgeon at Mount Sinai. He told me that I have a salivary gland tumor in the upper palate that needs to come out. It tested benign, but it's still a 20 percent chance of cancer. So my surgery was going to be pretty promptly this Monday. Yesterday I received word that it's been canceled. I'm just looking at an e-mail from this morning because I know my surgeon has tried to go to bat for me. He has his assistant. But they say there's a province wide shutdown, not just at Mount Sinai, but almost all Ontario. And they were given certain guidelines that they all to follow.

MG: Patty, how do what goes through your mind when you hear that caller?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, first of all, I hear the anguish in Nancy's voice. And I mean, I can only imagine the anxiety that she's feeling. I mean, what really stood out for me is that there is a 20 percent chance that this might be cancerous. And she's worried about that, obviously. And these are the kinds of things we've come to count on in our public health care system that we can get the treatment that's appropriate for us as diagnosed by our physicians and or experts.

MG: Do you think that Canadians should expect health care professionals to have to make more choices like that in the days ahead?

PATTY HAJDU: I think if we don't flatten the curve, absolutely. I think that there are going to be choices like that and even more horrible ones as we see people get sicker and sicker. I don't think anyone's not watching the news obsessively and reading articles obsessively. And I am also privileged to hearing ministers of health from all across the G7 countries every single week. And last week, the minister from Italy, the minister of health from Italy, I could barely hold back my tears in the G7 call as he talked about the excruciating choices that physicians were making, whether or not someone was going to be able to receive the kinds of intensive care that they needed. These are the kinds of things that countries are finding themselves facing. And that's why we're working so hard as a country to flatten this curve. As Theresa Tam says, it's essential to the lives of Canadians. And so we are all like, Nancy, making large and small sacrifices every day. And I do not for a moment forget that this is a huge amount of sacrifice in ways that I can imagine, in ways that I can't even imagine.

MG: We know that many Canadian hospitals run at more than 100 percent capacity. The idea of hallway health care is a familiar one to so many people. What are you learning about the consequences of that in the midst of this?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, listen, there's been a fight going on, as you know, for decades about transfer money from federal government to provincial government and choices that we've made about how we spend our money. I think the silver lining to all of this, when we get out of this and whatever that looks like, is that people will revisit the value of investing in strong public health and strong access to health care. And obviously, as the health minister for what is it now, six months? I don't even know. I will be advocating for that. There is no way that we can, I mean, I think it's it's really a sad reality that sometimes we take for granted what we have. And we also we also sort of accept that we can't change things. And yet look how fast things are changing right now. Look at the rules that are quote unquote, being broken as we work at warp speed to try to shore up our health care system, shore up our financial systems, make sure people have money to get through this tough time. Listen, you know, if anything, this is making me even a braver politician. And it wasn't like I wasn't afraid to speak my mind before. If we can do this quickly, then we can we can look at the things that are most critical to people's wellness. That is, their family and their health, their financial health and having some form a functioning society where there is more equality. That's why we got into politics, most of us, I would say, and obviously what we're learning is some of the assumptions we had were incorrect in that we need to take this as an opportunity to learn how to do things differently.

MG: Just a couple of things before we let you go. You're busy and we're getting a bit of your time. I really appreciate that. One is about the equity piece. We met at the homeless shelter that used to run in Thunder Bay. Shelter house. And we know that some of the most vulnerable in this country may be even more vulnerable to this virus. What is the impact that this disease could have on them? And how do we go about making sure that they are taken care of in this?

PATTY HAJDU: So I'll answer that in two parts. One, you're absolutely right. Vulnerable people, people who are at risk of a whole bunch of things, you know, are more at risk when there's something like this, because it is easy to leave people behind that are already, that are already not seen, if you will, in our society. But I am incredibly, incredibly proud of my colleagues, members of Parliament from across the country, from all sides and stripes. And the finance minister and the various different ministers that have worked on this piece to make sure that we can get money directly to homeless shelters to help them with whatever they need. I think what's really great about the package that the finance ministers put together and - he'll probably kill me, he is probably listening right now- but there's probably more coming just because of the enormity of this problem. But the packages he's put together doesn't require stringent applications. So, you know, we're working very quickly with homeless shelters, with food banks, with private sector, with provinces and territories to do what we can to actually make sure that people have what they need to take care of the most vulnerable in this crisis.

MG: What about within smaller, more remote communities that might not have the same level of access and care as in the big cities?

PATTY HAJDU: I think you heard Minister Miller yesterday speak about the work he's doing through Indigenous Services Canada. He's been an incredible minister for the short period that he's had this portfolio working so closely with individual chiefs, regional tribal council chiefs and national chiefs to get money to those communities as well. But money, let me just be clear, Matt, and I said this yesterday in the press conference, if money could solve this problem, we would we would have it solved. You know, this is with us for a while. And money's going to help. It's no doubt about it. It's going to help with a whole bunch of things, but it is not going to solve the problem. Research and science is going to solve the problem. Canadian individual action is going to solve the problem. And we're going to have to all band together and work our butts off as leaders in whatever way that we lead to help all of the people that are depending on us to get through this.

MG: These are anxious times. All of us are feeling this. And you in particular, among others, people on the front lines are very long days. And we've been talking to them about how they're coping and how they're processing this. What are you doing to look after yourself and stay healthy?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I first of all, I talk to my partner every day, sometimes twice a day. I try to do a morning and an evening call and he sends me pictures of the lake and he sends me pictures of the pets. He's retired now, so he has a bit more time. But, you know, for me, it's really connecting with the people that I love and talking to my children and trying to help them make sense of the fact that their world has just shifted in a very dramatic way in almost overnight. I'm still a mom. And somehow, even while I comfort my children, they comfort me. They're grown. And. And it's a wonderful thing to have grown boys who are there for me as well. It's a deep personal relationship time, I think, where we reach out, even though ironically, the more we are asked to be to be separate, the harder it is. Right. The more we actually just want to pull together. And so we're trying to find new ways to do that over the phone, using Skype, making sure that we talk every day. This is the way that we're all, I think, getting through it.

MG: And so to Canadians, what would you say? I mean, again, to those who have seen the things that they took for granted a week or two weeks ago, just gone in the blink of an eye, what would you say to them?

PATTY HAJDU: Well, I would say that we really are, it sounds so trite, but we really are in this together and that anything you can do to alleviate somebody else's pain and suffering or loneliness or loss or any kind of need. I think it's going to be good for you, too. I think what I find when I reach out to other people who are scared or lonely and when I listen to somebody or when I help somebody with something, it makes me feel like I have purpose. You know, this job is an amazing opportunity for me to gift my country and to give to the people that I love. And, you know, to support Canadians through a tough time. And so I would say that sometimes it's through the spirit of generosity in whatever way that presents itself. That really reminds us that we're not alone.

MG: We've seen people do extraordinary things. We've heard of landlords who are giving people a break on rent. We're hearing about hotels in Quebec that are taking on patients as the healthcare system there is creaking. We're hearing about people who are going, to your Hajdu take care of yourself.

PATTY HAJDU: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Patty Hajdu is Canada's minister of health. And we'll hear more about the work that's happening across this country on the frontlines of this fight over the course of this program. The CBC News is next. And then we'll hear from three prominent Canadians. They believe we have good reason to feel reassured, hopeful and safe, because even though we are in the midst of a crisis, this country is doing a lot of things right. I'll be speaking with Chris Hadfield, Clara Hughes and Madeleine Thien. That is coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Three of Canada's brightest on why they're proud of the country's response to COVID-19

Guests: Chris Hadfield, Clara Hughes, Madeleine Thien

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, social distancing may be easier outside of a city, but remote areas have their own challenges when it comes to this pandemic. We'll head to a few of those areas, coming up later this hour. But first, at a time like this, it's important not to lose sight of the good things.

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VOICE 1: Now, not everyone thinks physics is fun, but I do.

VOICE 2: We now have a charter which defines the kind of country in which we wish to live and guarantees the basic rights and freedoms which each of us shall enjoy as a citizen of Canada.

MG: This is some place. That's the sound of memorable Canadian triumphs. Sounds worth revisiting during these anxious and uncertain times. My next guests are feeling worried, too. And like a lot of you listening, they are coping with the new reality of self-isolation, social distancing, fear of the unknown. But these three Canadians also have unique insight into the remarkable things that we can accomplish, even under really tough circumstances. Col. Chris Hadfield is a household name in this country, the first Canadian to walk in space and command the International Space Station. Clara Hughes is the only athlete in history to win multiple medals at both the summer and Winter Olympic Games. She's also the founding national spokesperson for the Bell Let's Talk Campaign and Madeleine Thien on the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for her excellent novel: Do not Say We Have Nothing. Good morning to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Chris Hadfield, you have a perspective on this planet and on this world that most of us do not, having seen it from far, far away. When you pull the lens back and you think of the global challenge that we face, what stands out to you?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Yes, I've been socially isolated. That's for sure. I think what really stands out to me is how each of us chooses to deal with this. I think collectively that is going to determine the future of us all. And so it's really kind of a microcosm, I think, for Clara and Madeleine, who as athletes and authors have spent a lot of time socially isolated and working on their own as well. How you identify the actual threats that are involved here, don't just be afraid of something that you haven't tried to understand. You couldn't operate a spaceship that way and you sure can deal with, say, a big global problem like this one that way. So to me, the most important first step is to understand the actual danger and not just be afraid and run out and buy toilet paper, but actually learn about it and then give yourself things to do within the constraints of what you have. Define some objective as success for yourself. You know, not the end game, but what am I going to do today. And now that I know what the real problem is. What am I going to do today? And then take action and give yourself things to do? I've worked every single day on the space ship. And it it's working now with my family and extended family and friends as we deal with this global pandemic. But if there's going to be beautiful, delightful, very human things happening every single day. Don't miss them. Make sure you do you make the most of the serious nature of the things that are happening around us.

MG: I want to come back to that in a moment, Clara. Everyone is being affected by this in some way. When I last saw you on social media, on Instagram, you seemed to be hiking through the desert and now you are in self-isolation.

CLARA HUGHES: Yes, I am. I actually returned home on Friday the 13th, or Saturday the 14th, about 1:30 a.m. from Tucson, Arizona, and I was in a hotel room ready to set out on a 900 km desert mountain traverse. Oh, great. You know, looking forward to, but when I saw on Wednesday that the NBA had suspended their season, when I saw that things were unfolding as they were, I knew I had to come home. And coming home, I was on two flights, one international, three different airports. I had been exposed to people that were showing symptoms of, you know, through my own self education, as Chris said. You know, I understood what the symptoms were, what this was and I knew potentially I been exposed. I probably will never know. And we're doing everything we can in our household to keep me isolated from my husband, who has the most susceptible lungs, and, of course, keep me isolated from the greater community and keep me and anybody else out of the hospital, because they're going to be people that need to be there and need access. And I feel like I can do something. And it's allowing me to feel like I am achieving something every day, that I'm doing my best to keep everybody around me safe. I'm not doing anything anaerobic. I'm keeping my lungs healthy and not vulnerable and also getting out and moving in nature, which has been so helpful.

MG: I was going to say, physical health is one thing, mental health- and you have spoken a lot about, you know, movement is as medicine and meditation. How's your mental health in this?

CLARA HUGHES: Oh, it's you know, every day it's up and down. And it's been a real challenge to as much as I want to be informed and educated. It's been a challenge to not be over hyper stimulated. And one of the things that, you know, over the last especially three years, I've spent, you know, half of the year walking. It's it's been a really beautiful pursuit of quiet in nature on these long distance trails, particularly in America. The greatest thing for me has been disconnecting from social media, from the hyper connection of the device in the hand, because I have no cell service. And so being at home more, I've been struggling with finding that discipline because I want to know. But there is such a thing as knowing too much. Taking in too much information and stimulating the part of your nervous system and your chemical flow that can lead to anxiety, that can lead to stress. So it's a balancing act. And I'm connected with so many people who live with daily struggles with their mental health. And, you know, we've been encouraging each other and I've just been so inspired by what they're doing in terms of creativity, in terms of reaching out and then shutting off and monitoring themselves as much as they can in that way to keep themselves healthy, psychologically speaking.

MG: Madeleine, you've been in the United States living and teaching down there. And then you came home, what, last weekend?

MADELEINE THEIN: I came home Sunday night.

MG: How difficult of a decision was that for you to come home?

MADELEINE THEIN: Track breaking and we are only four or five weeks into the semester at the City University of New York. I felt very close to my students and many of them couldn't leave New York or were isolated, or were afraid to go back to their families elsewhere. And it was very, very hard to leave. You know, we are continuing, of course, remote teaching. So I see them several times a week online. And I think for all of that, it's been a really good sense of continuity. We're there for each other. It's creative writing. I teach novelist and short story writers. And in some ways it's also an important time because they're trying to think about what narrative and storytelling are in this moment and to try to push through some of the anxiety and uncertainty that they feel. And I I feel grateful that we're trying to do that together, all of us as fellow writers.

MG: There is a lot of work, Chris, being done here in Canada. And we're going to speak about this a bit later on in the program, also around the world, to try and find a vaccine for the coronavirus. And there is a scientific element of medical innovation that is at the forefront of this. You tweeted recently, the best antidote for fear is competence. What did you mean by that?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Well, the natural reaction to change is to be uncertain. I mean, what else could you do? But often within our carefully constructed lives, the changes are small. They're not radical and often the change is not externally applied. But in this case, the change is radical and externally applied. So it makes a lot of people feel uncertain. And when you feel uncertain is sort of that natural gorge that rises up in you, that you could hear in each of our voices here, can become sort of overwhelming. So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with sort of an unspoken fear or at least an ill defined fear? And for me, the the absolute key is to separate danger and fear. They're not synonymous. They're not the same thing. The danger is understandable. It's comprehensible. It's being dealt with, as you say, the trying to come up with all of the different types of scientific and societal inventions and changes going have to make to be able to thrive as best as possible during this. That's all being done. But at an individual level, I think you really owe it to yourself to not just get overwhelmed by all the noise. Don't listen to CNN screaming at you all day long. To actually use the Internet, which is a wonderful tool to have during isolation. And find out for sure the details of this, how it's spread and what you can do. Become informed with the reality of the danger, so that you're not just crossing your fingers and hoping, but you actually have an understanding of the risks involved and that will give a lot clearer purpose to your own actions.

MG: Part of this is also, though, about the fact that, I mean, you can imagine people would feel anxious, but we're also living in a time when things that would have seen unimaginable in years past- like we put you in a rocket. We shot you into space. You lived in the space station. These are things that actually happen. So given that, what should we be thinking about as we brace ourselves for the next few days, weeks, whatever lies ahead, Chris?

CHRIS HADFIELD: On board of spaceship, we constantly look and prioritize threats. And I think we need to do that. The vast majority of Canadians are going to get through this fine. It's definitely a significant threat to a subset of our population, my parents included, of course, and many others. So I'm taking that extremely seriously. But bottom line is we have a really strong, robust societal network in Canada. People are working hard to make sure that that continues. If you look at how they've made it through it in China and what they've done in South Korea and such, I think we can be pretty reasonably optimistic as to what the long term is going to look like, but it's going to take a lot of individual work and change of behavior. And so just accept that and then just shift to the new normal and move forward. This is not the end of the world. This is, you know, it's just a thing that we're all going to have to deal with. And it's really the onus is on each of us to find the beautiful stuff that's happening every single day and not allow the noise to overwhelm.

CLARA HUGHES: Clara, I think of extraordinary feats. And I mean, you've obviously accomplished them on the bike and on the ice. And people often say, athletes will say this loudest, that the biggest challenge they face might be physical, but sure, but then it's superseded in some ways by a psychological challenge. What have you in the midst of these anxious times, what have you learned that might lend itself to coping with a crisis like this?

CLARA HUGHES: Well, Matt, I think the biggest thing is, you know, in pursuit of that kind of athletic excellence, a big part of it is lessening the variables, taking control of all of the things that can go wrong before they do. And then there are going to be some but lessening the amount of those things and making those things unknown, putting those things into your power. And I think in this context, a lot of what people might see with sport is just these amazing moments of executing a race or a competition and perfection, you know, in motion and movement and sport. And for me, it was summer and winter sport. But what people don't see are the places and spaces in between, the calm, the quiet, the silence. The biggest challenge for me leading into every single Olympic performance was making myself sit, making myself not think about creating this situation where I am not thinking about what is coming. I'm present and that is mindfulness. And that is something that, I think as an athlete and as a human being, I've been working on. And it's been a life project of how can I be more present. And I think right now, as I've been in, you know, this self-isolation that I have been able to do and privileged to do, and I say that, you know, very seriously, because there are so many people that have to go to work that are not only having to go to work for financial situation, but they're going to do the work that we need. In that grocery stores are open, for that hospital, that first responders, all of those lines of work. I'm not in that position. And I want to say clearly that I'm so grateful for every person that is on the front line in any capacity right now. But what I'm doing at home and what I can share with people is you cannot control that unknown. But you can bring yourself into this present moment and you can cultivate energy that not only helps yourself, it helps everybody around you, it helps every person you may see if you're outdoors, walking and walking your dog or just getting out for a breath of fresh air and you practice the social distancing. It's a look that you give someone that lets them know maybe in their day that they're incredibly stressed and feeling anxious that they're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. We're human beings. We are together. You're not alone.

MG: And little smile, that nod, that wave that you give somebody.

CLARA HUGHES: And even just to look in your eye that says we're together. And I think as an athlete, when I look back at the moments of most power that I had, that I had those races that were so connected, I truly felt like I had 37 million people inside of me and I was connected to each one of them from coast to coast to beautiful coast to Canada. And it's a part of being a part of the human condition, the struggle and the joy. Sport. Yes, the Olympics is said to brought people together. But this is something that I think brings us together on a whole other level as citizens of this world.

MG: Madeleine, what is the role of creativity during these times of uncertainty?

MADELEINE THEIN: You know, I thought last night, and one of the things the writers are saying was that they felt that everything they'd been thinking about for the last few years was now irrelevant. That the paradigm had shifted, that they didn't know how to address this moment. And I asked them for the next five years, for the next five years do you really only want to be reading novels about a pandemic?

MADELEINE THEIN: And they immediately laughed and said no. What I think we're waiting for is variety and complication of this world. and something about making art. About writing and about any of us who turned to that world outside of ourselves and in our world and imagined to foiled. Something that I feel I've received from writing novels is that you have to transport yourself into other ways of thinking, other times, other, sometimes other catastrophes. And when you when you do that imaginatively, you return yourself to a time when other people could not see around the curve of the future. They could not anticipate what was coming next. And they were trying to figure out how to live moral and ethical lives, when to take collective action, when to be silent, when to speak. All those complex decisions of living. And I think that we turn to whatever it is. Painting music, not just for that space to morn everything together, but also the joyful places, you know. I also told them that there is so much value in describing the world that led up to this moment. In fact, it's as important and relevant as ever to know the ground that we're standing on, how we got here, what kind of inequities are making this catastrophe worse, but also what kinds of collection make a better future possible. And that feels more relevant than ever.

MG: Chris Hadfield, are you surprised by the prime minister talked about extraordinary times needing extraordinary measures and we've seen people do extraordinary things. I spoke yesterday with a 10 year old who's writing a coronavirus musical. We've heard from doctors and nurses stepping up on the frontlines. We've heard from people self-sacrifice so that they can build a bigger community and help people. Are you surprised by that?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Not, kind of the opposite, Matt, I'm delighted, I think, to underestimate your creative potential, every single one of us is a pretty common thing. But every single person you meet knows things that you don't know and has done something brave that they haven't told you about. And when we get a little slow down at the daily pace like this is enforcing, when people have a chance maybe to reflect and reprioritize, a lot of that creativity that Madeleine was just talking about, that comes out. And I think our leadership is doing a good job trying to, you know, whether it's business or political or whatever there they are trying to do what they're in those positions to do. And I'm really happy to see it, but I'm really delighted by individual acts. It right down to the very point of how do you treat someone that you're walking by at an appropriate two meter distance. You know, it's a wonderful time to just sort of re-think and make sure that you're trying to do the right thing. And there's going to be countless examples of that, including musicals coming from ten year olds.

MG: Then just before we let you go, I'll ask all three of you this and hopefully we have a chance to talk again, because I think we might be in this for a while. But what is one thing that you've seen or heard already during this that's made you proud of Team Canada? Chris?

CHRIS HADFIELD: I think actually it's one of the biggest people's fears as food and the regular ability to feed their families and themselves, and to have that become a national priority and have the people that run the biggest food distribution networks in the country to stand up and say unequivocally, that is fine, you're going to get regular food and we're going to be some small adjustments. But do not worry about this. It's going. The shelves are going to be stocked enough to take care of everybody. I think that that was really important in the last few days.

MADELEINE THEIN: Madeleine Thien.

MADELEINE THEIN: I think it was when Bonnie Henry in British Columbia gave the news conference and she became emotional, talking about the people that we collectively need to protect and that only through each of us, you know, caring for each other well, we get going to be able to protect as many people as possible. And I was at a different tenor than I was hearing in the United States in such a different level of tenderness and compassion and speaking to what has to bind us together at this moment.

MG: Did it feel like a Canadian moment to you?

MADELEINE THEIN: Yes, it did. It was unafraid of emotion, unafraid of the complexity of the situation, unafraid of asking something of each other.

MG: Clare Hughes, for you, what is what is a moment that you've seen in the last little bit that is, as I say, made you proud of Team Canada, if I can put it that way.

CLARA HUGHES: Without a doubt, Hayley Wickenheiser and her statement to the International Olympic Committee, calling them out on not looking after the health and welfare of the athletes that are still thinking they're preparing for an Olympics in Tokyo. Hayley is a doctor in residence right now. Of course, everyone knows [unintelligible] 18 million time Olympic gold medalist [unintelligible]. She, my teammate and three different Olympic Games. And she lead by example. She is a rock star. And she's she. Her statement said it all. And it makes me see that Canadian women in particular continue to lead in the world of sport. And she said it exactly as it should be said right now.

MG: Were you surprised ? Grateful that she said it, are you surprised that it took someone like her to say that, that there's still this fantasy that these Olympic Games are going to happen later on this summer?

CLARA HUGHES: With everything that has unfolded in the Olympic movement in recent years, I'm not surprised by the rhetoric by the International Olympic Committee. I'm grateful for the messaging that the Canadian Olympic Committee is giving out to its athletes. So leadership [unintelligible] and people in that in the roles of the current, you know, team, that is probably not going to Tokyo for the Olympics. But I think it took Hayley - and she's in the medical field now and she has so many grounds that she's standing on with authority and with respect. And, you know, it had to come from someone. And I'm proud that it came from my teammates, from Team Canada.

MG: You are all among our best. And it's inspiring to hear what you think we are capable of and where we may go from here. Thank you all. And I hope we get the chance to talk again.

CLARA HUGHES: Thanks, Matt.

MADELEINE THEIN: Thank you.

CHRIS HADFIELD: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. Clara Hughes was tied with speed skater Cindy Klassen as Canada's most decorated Olympian. And Madeleine Thien is the author of several books, including Do Not Say We Have Nothing. That book, if you're looking for things to read while you have time. It's amazing. It won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the governor general's literary award. We would love to hear from you. You can write us or tweet us with your thoughts on how we've got what it takes to get through these difficult times. Are there moments in this country's history that would lead you to believe that, yes, team Canada has got it, that we're all in this together? Sure. But as this hashtag that keeps spreading on social media says, we've got this, let us know. You can reach us through the Web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent click the contact link. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or send us an email, thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up on The Current China's ambassador to Canada, our two nations are cooperating to fight the Corona virus. That's a surprise to a lot of people. There is still much to be resolved for walkway to the two Michaels. We'll cover all of it. Coming up in about 90 seconds time. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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Chinese ambassador, Porch concert

Guests: Cong Peiwu, Kaia Bryce

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. The pandemic we are experiencing right now began months ago in central China. And since then, China has carried out the largest scale quarantine type action in human history, including a lockdown in Hubei Province, covering something like 50 million people. China's response is something that will certainly be discussed and debated for years to come. Right now, I'm joined by China's ambassador to Canada Cong Peiwu. Ambassador, good morning.

CONG PEIWU: Good morning.

MG: Based on China's experience with COVID-19, do you believe that Canada is taking the necessary measures to contain this virus?

CONG PEIWU: First, I would like to say COVID-19 i a common challenge for mankind. We relate to the difficulties Canada is going through and express our sympathy to those affected by the disease. Here, I would like to share with you some of our experiences. Hopefully it will be helpful to your ideas of how to combat the disease. First, it's fast speed. Fast speed is needed with a strong leadership presence. Present Xi Jinping of our country has given instructions and mapped out plans in person since the outbreak. So more than 40,000 medical workers have been sent to Hubei Province to assist epidemic control, and within merely 10 days, two make shift hospitals were completed. These measures have quickly eased the pressure of treatment and the hospital beds are well prepared for patients. Also, decisive measures are necessary during the Spring Festival, actually, a few days before that they suspended large scale personnel movement in Wuhan. And also here we have noticed that that in Canada, provinces have declared a state of emergency during March break. Then comes the nationwide efforts, thanks to our institutional advantages, governments at all levels are mobilized and a one point four billion Chinese people are united as one. Prevention measures were in place in communities throughout the country. And I have noted the Canadian expert, Dr. Albert, who was in China, he, a highly commended China's efforts and said it's really a kind of collective view of the whole the government, the whole society.

MG: Let me let me just stop you there and unpack some of the things that you've mentioned. One is the fact that there were institutional advantages in China. Do you think that liberal democracies have the capacity to carry out the extreme measures that we saw in China?

CONG PEIWU: I think each country can have its own ideas on how to cope with the challenge because each country has its own unique situation.

MG: But China trying to lock down entire cities, you used mass surveillance. You had people who were locked in their homes. There were drones that were sent out to order them back inside if they were seen walking about. Is something like that possible in a country like Canada?

CONG PEIWU: That's up to your government to decide. But I have noted that here the governments, whether it's a federal government or provincial governments, they all ask people to stay at home. That's the best way to cut off the virus. So that's also the experience for our part, because we believe that the early reporting, early isolation and the early treatment are the best ways to make sure that the virus, the speed is not delayed, the spread of that.

MG: Mainland China had its second consecutive day with no locally transmitted cases. There were 39 imported cases, apparently, but no locally transmitted cases. What is the state of the virus in China now?

CONG PEIWU: Because of the tremendous efforts we have turneded around the trend of the virus and we are making a very important progress in containing the speed of virus. Of course, as you mentioned, the problem is now how to handle the cases from abroad. But also from the very beginning of the fight against the disease we have realized that the virus knows no borders. So that's why President Xi, he emphasized much on the public health security. He said that it's a common challenge for humanity. So since the very early days, we have shared our genetic sequence of the virus with W.H.O. in many other countries. And also we have donated 20 million U.S. dollars to W.H.O. We've provideda number of countries with our medical supplies. And from Iraq to Italy, we send medical experts, from EU to AU, African Union, we held videoconference. And from the Caribbean countries to Pacific Island countries, we shared our experience. So it'slike, you know, we are contributing our wisdom and the strength to the [unintelliglbe] of community with a shared future for mankind. I think that's very important.

MG: Let me ask you about those early days. In the early days, there was a Dr. Li Wenliang, who first warned about COVID-19. He was warned not to spread rumors. The Chinese government has since apologized to his family for that. Why was he warned not to spread rumors about this virus?

CONG PEIWU: At the very early days, because it's a new virus, so people had to deepen the understanding of the virus and the government should make the decision based on scientific evidence and know the facts, but also we commanded Dr. Li for what he had done in this fight against the virus.

MG: That was after he died of the coronavirus. And I mean, one of the things that people have been saying is that China was slow to respond to the outbreak because the warnings that people like the doctor were raising weren't actually taken seriously. Why was that the case?

CONG PEIWU: I just mentioned that actually, you know, we are approaching this issue from the very beginning in a way thatt is science based, evidence based. And that's exactly what the W.H.O. had suggested. So there's nothing like we were not transparent. But actually we have been very transparent and he approached the issue in a very rational and responsible manner. I can share views of the facts [cross talking]. On January third-

MG: I apologize for interrupting, but the sense of transparency is really important because we've heard from observers in China that local officials, not just Dr. Li Wenliang, but other local officials, didn't tell the central leadership in China about the outbreak fast enough because they were worried about the consequences of reporting bad news, that this would look bad on the Chinese leadership. Why would that be the case?

CONG PEIWU: We had a very good system and also they reacted in a promptly. And I just let you know the facts. So on the 3rd of January, you know, just two days after the first date of the New Year, we shared the information with the outside, with the United States. And also, we had continued to do that on a regular basis. And on the 29th of January, we welcomed the experts, U.S. experts to join W.H.O. group for visiting China and the U.S. also expressed gratitude to that. So that's just a few examples of how we adopted an open and transparent manner towards the handling of the disease.

MG: What about the issue, though, again, of local officials who are worried about telling the central leadership in China about this outbreak because they were worried about bad news and reporting bad news?

CONG PEIWU: I think I made it clear that the system worked well to cope with the disease. So otherwise you wouldn't see we have made such a big progress in making sure that the virus has been contained, generally speaking. Otherwise, it will not happen.

MG: What mistakes did China to make in its response to COVID-19 that perhaps other countries should avoid?

CONG PEIWU: Of course, we have some rooms for improvement, like those emergency medical materials that sometimes, you know, there's such as a shortage of that. So also we want to make sure that we will continue the process of modernizing our system and ability for governments, and that's for President Xi himself also mentioned in a few meetings that's important. We also want to have even more modern health care system to make sure that will be, even more in a better position to cope with that disease in future time, something like this.

MG: Do you think the lockdown of 50 million people, was that excessive or was that a necessary step?

CONG PEIWU: I think facts speaks for itself. You can see now by in just less than two months, you know, we have this situation being turned around. That's a very great achievement. But of course, that's the contribution, also the sacrifice that Chinese people have made to combat the disease.

MG: The U.S. president, Donald Trump, keeps referring to a COVID-19 as the Chinese virus. What do you say to that?

CONG PEIWU: I think our government had made it very clear and also the W.H.O. has declared COVID-19 as the official name for that disease. So the origin of the coronavirus is a matter of science that requires professional and a science-based assessment. The W.H.O. and the international community [unintelliglbe] the linkage between the virus and specific countries and regions. So we are very much express our strong indignation over these kind of remarks.

MG: Do you think it's a racist remark to call it the Chinese virus?

CONG PEIWU: We urge certain U.S. political figures to respect facts and to stop slanders against China, because that does nothing helpful in the fight against that disease. And these kind of remarks, certainly, will not only be opposed by the Chinese people, but also by the international community.

MG: What progress is China making not just on stopping the spread of the disease, but also on treatment for COVID-19, particularly when it comes to a vaccine?

CONG PEIWU: So the vaccine, I believe that the scientist now accelerating the research and application of vaccines on the premise of ensuring the safety and effectiveness in accordance with relevant regulations and the technical requirements. And also, we are working hard with scientists outside of China. So we are[unintelliglbe[ to strengthen the joint scientific research and the cooperation with international experts, including Canadian scientists.

MG: What cooperation are you getting from Canada on COVID-19?

CONG PEIWU: I talked to a lot of people, including the NRC people and the Canadian Institutes of Health Care in the health research, and they all expressed great interest in having this kind of cooperation. You know, obviously the Chinese scientists and actually our doctors also shared some of the experience with your counterparts, through video conference just a few days ago. And we will continue to provide our wisdom and experience in this regard.

MG: To a lot of people, this is a promising sign of perhaps a brighter day on the horizon when it comes to the relationship between Canada and China. That relationship has been, I think it's fair to say, rocky over the past year or so since the detention of Meng Wanzhou, senior executive of the tech company Huawei. What steps is China willing to take now in this moment to repair that relationship for the relationship?

CONG PEIWU: You know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between China and Canada. We value this relationship because for the past five decades, you know, a lot we have learned it's a strong and stable relationship is in the interests of our two peoples. And there's another important experience we have learned that is the principle of mutual respect and equality must be followed. So we honor our commitment, you know, to follow this principle. So we also hope the Canadian side will also be doing so. So that's why we would like to hope that the Canadian side will take necessary steps to address the Meng's case.

MG: What does that mean, necessary steps?

CONG PEIWU: That means that to let her go back safely to China. Because anyway, it's a in the first place. She was not going to be supposed to be detained here on groundless accusations. So hopefully we would like to see these kinds of matters would move our relationship back to track that's good to our two peoples.

MG: She's under house arrest because of charges in the United States, Canada is following following the rule of law. Are you suggesting the Canada should abandon the rule of law?

CONG PEIWU: That's the abuse of the treaty between Canada and the United States, because, of course, it's a political incident prompted by the United States that she was detained here. So that's why it is our hope that you will take measures to resolve that issue.

MG: And so you believe that Canada should just let her go, despite the rule of law, despite the fact that Canada is following that rule of law to the letter?

CONG PEIWU: It's nothing to do with the rule of law. You know, as I mentioned, it's abuse of the treaty between Canada and the United States. So we hope that you would take the right steps for.

MG: In the midst of this, there are two Canadian citizens, Michael Spavor, Michael Kovrig, who are being held in China in Chinese prisons. In the midst of all of what's going on right now and as you say, perhaps an opportunity to renew relations, why not release them now?

CONG PEIWU: For the two Canadians you have mentioned, their cases are being lawfully handled by our competent authorities and their legitimate rights are fully guaranteed. So that's, you know, what we are doing. And I can also let you know that after the COVID-19 outbreak, they are overcoming conflict and inconvenience and the difficulties that Chinese competent authorities took timely measures to ensure the health and security of all detainees, including those two Canadians.

MG: Were they tested to see whether they had COVID-19?

CONG PEIWU: I said that their lawful rights, legitimate rights, are fully guaranteed. And and I believe good health, of course, it's also included as a legitimate rights.

MG: Were they tested to see whether they had COVID-19?

CONG PEIWU: I would refer you to the [unintelligible] authorities for the details. But I would like to make sure that they are in good health because that's the legitimate rights.

MG: Why can't they access a lawyer?

CONG PEIWU: Your newspaper had already talked something about that, the access to a lawyer. So I would refer you to all those newspapers and for the detailed information to the competent authorities.

MG: I'm speaking with you, though, as the ambassador, the Chinese ambassador to Canada. Why can't these two men get a lawyer?

CONG PEIWU: No because I think that they are at a stage, you know, to have the access to a lawyer, you know.

MG: So when would they get a lawyer? They've been in prison for over a year.

CONG PEIWU: Yes. So that's have to be arranged for, between the lawyer and the competent authorities in China because their case related to those suspected crimes of endangering China's national security. So they will be looking out the exact way of how to make that happen.

MG: There is no evidence that has been prevented that either Michael Spavor or Michael Kovrig have engaged in any espionage whatsoever. When will that evidence be presented?

CONG PEIWU: They will be presented in due time, because for these crimes that you can imagine, you know, it takes time, but their cases are being lawfully handled by competent authorities. So they [unintelliglbe], I ensure.

MG: You talked about Canada doing the right thing, and the right thing, in your words, was releasing Meng Wanzhou. There are many people who believe that these two men are being held specifically because Meng Wanzhou, is under house arrest in a multi-million dollar mansion here in Canada. What's the connection between these two stories?

CONG PEIWU: Those cases in the nature, you know, they are totally different. For Meng Wanzhou, I mentioned she was never supposed to be a detainee here in the first place. So her rights had been seriously violated. So that's why be opposed to this kind of practice. And therefore, those two Canadian citizens, they are suspected of crimes endangering China's national security. So that's the difference that you can see.

MG: Are they being held because Meng Wanzhou, is in detention?

CONG PEIWU: I think that I have made it clear the case is very different in nature and there's no linkage, as you have mentioned.

MG: People have seen this, again, as an opportunity for closer relations between Canada and China. Why should Canada have a closer relationship with China, given this, given the fact that these two men, plus other men, Huseyincan Celil Jahleel, a Uyghur man, has been held for more than a decade in a prison. Why should Canada have a closer relationship with your country given what is currently unfolding?

CONG PEIWU: The Canadian people will have their own judgment. So that's why I arrived here. You know, I also visited several provinces and I reached out to the public, general public here. And I can also sense the feelings of a lot of Canadians. They value the relationship. And I think there's a support in here in Canada for a better relationship. So that's for you to judge. But for our part, I believe that for two countries, you know, there is a lot of things that we can do together to cooperate in many fields like in the multilateral areas. We are all for free trade and multilateralism and we are all in strong support for climate change. So that's why, you know, we together with Canada and other countries, for Paris agreement. Well, some other countries, you know, the United States, they are exiting from the Paris agreement.

MG: What conversations have you had personally with Canadian officials about everything that we've been talking about, particularly the state of the relations between these two countries?

CONG PEIWU: We have maintained regular contact. Our channels are open and we also compare notes on the important issues regarding our bilateral relationship. So hopefully I'm looking forward to this more extensive and in-depth exchanges with our [unintelliglbe] counterparts here in Canada.

MG: It's important to hear from you, Ambassador. I really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

CONG PEIWU: Thank you.

MG: Cong Peiwu is China's ambassador to Canada.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

MG: What your hearing now has become known as a 'quaran-tune'. We're learning a whole new vocabulary in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic. A quaran-tune. It's coming from a front porch on Willow Street in Halifax. Adrian Esau and Kaia Bryce are two local musicians and this week they joined a lot of other Canadian performers who took their shows out of bars and other venues and instead performed at home. In this case, it's a porch concert. Kaia Bryce is on the line from her home. Hi. Good morning.

KAIA BRYCE: Good morning, hi.

MG: What is a porch concert?

KAIA BRYCE: We wanted to have a way to connect with our neighborhood and share music in a unconventional then you that was like accessible for people, given these quarantine time. And so we we played some music on our front porch and amplified it so that other people could listening from their own porches and listening from a distance that they felt comfortable with.

MG: What a great idea. Tell me how it looked. Paint the scene for us when you get out there on the porch and as you say, amplify the music.

KAIA BRYCE: Yes, was really fun. We are festooned our porch with all kinds of colorful tapestries and then we brought out some amplification and we started playing music and then we noticed some people starting to poke their heads out. And, yes, there were still a few people wandering by and so they would stop and listen and we just ask that people maintain a good distance from each other. And before you knew it, there were all kinds of people that were kind of like visible but distant. And they were like dancing in their puffy coats is a beautiful sunny day. And I think a lot of people were happy to have some sunshine and music and a reason to get together a little.

MG: So you didn't give people a heads up. The music just suddenly appeared.

KAIA BRYCE: We gave her a heads up to our neighborhood. Just through the e-mail list that we're all part of this in this neighborhood. So we didn't advertise it widely because I didn't want to have large groups of people coming. But yes, it was it was kind of word of mouth.

MG: There are musicians all across the country that are doing this. You know, people from [unintelligible] were giving guitar lessons. Yesterday. Jim Cuddy and his friends and family got out in the studio and performed live. And we've seen this kind of coast to coast to coast. Why did you really want to pull this together?

KAIA BRYCE: It was really disappointing to us and to many other people to have these concerts and tours that we've spent months and months planning, just, you know, get pulled off the shelf. And and we wanted to have some other way to continue to play music and continue to connect with people. So this was something that was very accessible to us because we play on our porch pretty frequently, actually.

MG: You've a popular house.

KAIA BRYCE: We just practice on our porch pretty often, actually, and people wander by and say hello. It's when we moved out to Halifax from British Columbia. We really noticed that there's some really awesome porch culture out here and people spend a lot of time actively hanging out on their front stoop and drinking coffee and playing music and reading news. We embrace that.

MG: What was the sign that you had in front of your porch?

KAIA BRYCE: We had a sign that said presenting a concert: Quaran-tunes, bring your own quaran- teenies and noticing the musician.

MG: [Laughs] Quaran-teenies. I like this. Again, we're learning a whole new vocabulary, words that we never had to use before.

KAIA BRYCE: Yes.

MG: You've been baking bread as well.

KAIA BRYCE: Yes.

MG: This is something close to my heart, tell me about more about this.

KAIA BRYCE: Oh, great. We're really into baking sour dough bread.

MG: Yay.

KAIA BRYCE: And we actually we brought a sour dough starter with us from B.C. when we moved out here. And we started baking some bread and sharing it with our neighbors, who offered to buy or trade it with us. And so, we've kind of continued to do that and offering to deliver bread to people in our community who don't feel comfortable going to the grocery store. And so we've got a a fun little network now. That's also a nice way to connect with people and leave a loaf of bread on their doorstep and then wave as they come out to pick it up.

MG: This is a really positive, generous story. And I mean, we've been saying this over, it seems like the last few weeks, that these are difficult times, these are anxious times, but people are pulling together. What would you say to listeners to how to make the most of things during these difficult times?

KAIA BRYCE: I really feel like this is an interesting opportunity where people have a lot of time on their hands and even though we can't physically connect with people, it's a really important time to check in with each other. And I know I've been making a lot more phone calls out to my friends and family, and to be creative in the means that you have to continue to bring some brightness and laughter into the world.

MG: It could be more music from the porch.

KAIA BRYCE: I hope so, yes.

MG: You're not going anywhere.

KAIA BRYCE: Nowhere to be. So, yes, we will be playing tunes out there when the rain clears.

MG: Fantastic. I appreciate what you have done and I thank you for telling us all about it, Kaia. Stay healthy and thank you.

KAIA BRYCE: Thanks very much.

MG: Kyra Bryce is a musician from Halifax. She organized a porch concert so her neighbors could enjoy her music from a safe distance. Here's a bit more the show.

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[Song]

MG: Sounds from the porch in Halifax. The CBC News is next, and then we're going to talk about vaccines and hear the latest from a Canadian team working on a vaccine for COVID-19. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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In the race to find a COVID-19 vaccine, this epidemiologist urges governments to set aside nationalism

Guests: Alyson Kelvin, Seth Berkley

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. And you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, he's a microbiologist who wanted to start a brewery. What's he doing now? It's kind of perfect. I'll tell you all about a brewer of hand sanitizer, in half an hour. But first, finding a vaccine for Coronavirus.

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MG: Just a bit of business before we continue, I know that many of you are used to hearing Q with Tom Power right now on your CBC Radio One. Never fear. You're still going to hear Tom on the network, including on this very program. But we have had to change a few things up to cover everything that is happening with this pandemic. And so The Current is going to run a little bit longer for the next little while and that will allow us to bring you the most up to date information COVID-19. As I said, Tom Power will be popping up occasionally on The Current starting next week. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, we're off to the laboratory.

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VOICE 1: Hi.

VOICE 2: Hi.

VOICE 1: Jennifer, right?

VOICE 2: Yes.

VOICE 1: All right. [Unintelligible] Right, Jennifer? All right.

MG: Cameras clicking as Jennifer Haller becomes a human guinea pig. She is the first person to be injected with a possible COVID19 vaccine. And all of that happened earlier this week in Seattle.

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JENNIFER HALLER: There's the usual vaccine kind of potential side effects, you know, soreness at the site of injection, fever, chills, nausea, things like that. And I actually have not experienced those at all so far. In fact, my arm feels better than it has with a previous flu shots. So, of course, this has never been tested on a human before. But I'm doing great. Everything's good.

MG: Everything's good here in Canada. There are also teams working towards vaccine teams that include Alyson Kelvin and her colleagues. Alyson is an assistant professor at Dalhousie University and a researcher with the Canadian Center for Vaccine Allergy. Alyson, good morning.

ALYSON KELVIN: Hi, how are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. What do you make of this? What happened earlier this week in in Seattle, where, as I mentioned, Jennifer Haller essentially becomes a human guinea pig?

ALYSON KELVIN: Well, I guess it's interesting. And of course, there's a lot of compelling reasons for putting out a vaccine right away, as we've seen the SARS CoV-2 to virus spread throughout the world. There's a lot of unknowns so far about this vaccine. And all I can do is wish it the best because we really need a vaccine right now.

MG: What stage is your team at? In developing a vaccine for COVIC-19.

ALYSON KELVIN: So Dalhousie has what we've called COVID-19 Rapid Response Team. And this is made up of researchers at Dalhousie University in the Canadian Center for VAccinology. We have four different vaccine platforms. This means four different vaccine types. So the first one was developed by Roy Duncan and he has what is known as a DNA vaccine. So that enables your own body to make the viral protein and produce antibodies to it. And the good part about DNA vaccines is that because it's just DNA and it uses your own cells to make the protein, we can scale it up really quickly.

MG: So you mentioned there and I guess that's the first of four of different kinds of vaccines, right?

ALYSON KELVIN: That's right. So this particular one, we can see it. We're looking at possibly having vaccines ready to test in the next three days, which can make it their human clinical trials in the next three weeks. The other vaccine platforms were developed by another researcher at Dalhousie named Chris Richardson. So his vaccines are protein more protein based. So, again, these are based off of pieces of the virus, but they're proteins. So they're not just the genetic code and which we will inject into a person and hopefully induce an immune response.

MG: How long is this process, if you're if you're talking about where you're at right now? What is the timeline for it for this process?

ALYSON KELVIN: Right. So typically vaccine development will take over a year. And that's because, you know, first you have to start with the genetic code of the piece of the virus that you think is going to induce an immune response in a in a person. So, again, we want to make those neutralizing antibodies to block infection. So after that, either, if you go with a DNA vaccine, this can again be done quite quickly, because all we're doing is making the genetic code and then using a person's own cells to make the proteins. So your own cells become like factories making this protein that will hopefully induce an immune response. Whereas for a protein vaccine, we need to make the protein and this takes a lot longer to kind of scale up the protein in the lab. And then, of course, we like to test the vaccine in animals. I use ferrets because for this particular virus, the SARS CoV-2 virus, ferrets, we hypothesize, will be susceptible to this virus. So they'll be infectable, which means we can immunize the ferrets and then see if they're protected from this virus challenge later.

MG: It sounds like with these different types of approaches that there's a lot of collaboration with other researchers. How common is that?

ALYSON KELVIN: Well, it's common, but you know what, right now, in the state of emergency that we're in. We're all I think all the scientists are ready to collaborate and move this forward as fast as possible, so we really see the urgency. And in that way, it's been a really good time for science in kind of that collaborative atmosphere.

MG: But in the midst of that collaboration, you're also working in the middle of a pandemic. How does that affect your work, given what we're all involved in right now?

ALYSON KELVIN: You know that it's been tiring times, you know, even to go to the grocery store, which means that it's harder for us to get in regents that we might need to make these vaccines and test them. So even getting in our DNA or kits that we might need to assess the immune response, it's harder because, you know, to even begin with, some of these regents are typically made in China. And we know China is going through a hard time right now. So it's harder to get those regions from China here to Canada. And now with a lot of the shut downs, it's harder for movement inside North America.

MG: What about in the lab itself? I mean, our labs staying open and we keep being told that you need the social distance. Can you social distance within a lab as you're trying to work on a vaccine?

ALYSON KELVIN: Well, we're doing our best. A lot of the labs have started to ramp down here in Dalhousie, but there's been a prioritization for COVID-19 work. So we're trying to manage using social distancing practices while being in the lab. So this is cleaning surfaces often and maintaining a certain distance from people not coming in, obviously when you're not feeling well reporting symptoms. So doing what we can to make sure that we're getting this vital work done and but also keeping the community safe.

MG: What sort of pressure do you feel in the midst of this work? We keep hearing world leaders, health experts, you know, the average person who is worried about this, talking about a vaccine and talking about the need for a vaccine. You're in the midst of this work. What kind of pressure do you feel?

ALYSON KELVIN: Well, I feel pressure. But really, I feel an overwhelming sense to want to help. So I guess that's the biggest feeling I have. And It's hard to see your neighbors and your colleagues, you know, be sick. I have lots of colleagues in China and in Italy. And it's horrible to watch what they're going through right now. So I wish I could do more.

MG: But in the midst of that, I mean, maybe it's not pressure that you feel like you have an opportunity or a responsibility to help, for example, those colleagues in China and in and in Italy.

ALYSON KELVIN: That's right. I really do feel like this is what my job is for. You know, I think about pandemics a lot. My whole, all of my work revolves around what could be the next pandemic. So even though that was skewed more towards the influenza virus, all my work is easily applicable to this current situation.

MG: Just before I let you go, this is a difficult time in a dark time for a lot of people. What is giving you optimism in your work?

ALYSON KELVIN: Well, again, that sense of collaboration and wanting to push the science forward. There's some good candidates for antiviral, but also the communities. So I look out and see a lot of members of the community trying to help either by practicing social distancing or making social distancing practices in their own, I guess, businesses. So you see a lot of that. And I really hope everyone the best.

MG: These are long days, I'm sure, for you. I appreciate some of your time today. Thank you.

ALYSON KELVIN: Thanks. Thanks for having me. And I wish everyone well.

MG: Alyson Kalvin is an assistant professor at Dalhousie University and a researcher at the Canadian Center for Vaccine Anology. She was in Halifax. As you can imagine, there are people who are investing a lot of hope in this Corona virus vaccine research. Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist, a doctor and a global vaccines expert. He's also the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. It's a global organization that helps get vaccines to developing countries. Seth Berkley, good morning to you.

SETH BERKLEY: Morning to you.

MG: We heard just moments ago about the efforts here in Canada. If you step back and look globaly at this. Where are we at in terms of the development of a vaccine for COVID-19?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, first of all, it is a very exciting time on the scientific front. We're seeing unprecedented efforts around the world and obviously speed is critical. So we've seen, for example, some novel techniques like the messenger RNA vaccine go from a genome sequence of the virus into a vaccine, which is in a vial in 42 days, and that clinical trial has already started. Now, of course, the exciting new technologies allow things like that to happen that quickly. But we also have to pay attention to make sure traditional vaccinology is also moving forward, because longer term, we're going to have to worry about how do we produce this product at scale? How do we technology transfer to many manufacturers if we need large quantities? And of course, we want to make sure we understand the safety of the vaccine and how it would work in different groups. So these are all some of the challenges that are in front of us. And but I am excited by the way science is attacking this.

MG: How much collaboration is there between different countries and different organizations and trying to create a vaccine for this pandemic?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, I think what's interesting about that are, there are some global efforts, for example, CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, you know, has now funded seven different vaccines to move forward. And those are different locations, different technologies. So, you know, that's a great effort to try to have a portfolio of vaccines. But what we know is that there's vaccine efforts going on around the world in places like China, in South Korea, in Germany, U.K., many, many different countries.And I think what's important is that we don't end up with these being seen as national efforts, because we're going to need to be not only sharing information as we tend to do in science, but also we may need special techniques. For example, we want a vaccine that works well in the elderly. It is hard to get an immune response in the elderly. We use a stimulant called an adjuvant. So you may need to add that to vaccines. And of course, we want the best adjuvants with the best vaccines. And that's going to require a level of cooperation that, you know, needs to happen for the good of the world. And yet we've seen some stories now about how there's a sense that one should do this in a national fashion. That wouldn't be good for those countries and it wouldn't be good for the world.

MG: Those stories presumably referring to what was happening in the United States, where reports were coming out that the president, Donald Trump, was attempting to buy a German vaccine company, or there was talk that a billion dollars could be offered so that the United States would get exclusive first access to a vaccine. What did you make of those stories?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, I mean, you know, again, I don't know what really happened and I don't know, you know, about that particular story. But what I've heard now in many countries is saying, 'Well, gee, we need these products for ourselves. Maybe we ought to be thinking about, you know, doing this just for us,' and I think that's the wrong way to think about it. For example, if we manage this epidemic well and we're able to slow down the infections - that's, of course, what we want to do now - it may mean the most efficient place to test new vaccines may be the next place that has the raging epidemic. You may not even be able to test it in the countries that are producing the vaccine. And that's why it's critical for global science. We saw that with Ebola where some great efforts came with new vaccines. And by the time they got there, those vaccines weren't able to be tested because we got the disease under control. But other vaccines were able to be tested. And that's why we have now an Ebola vaccine that has license and has been used in the field.

MG: So what happens, then, when a vaccine is actually developed? Who gets first access? How do you figure that out?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, what should happen, of course, is that the places that have the immediate need at that time should have access to the vaccine. That hasn't always been the case. In 2009 when we had the flu pandemic, those vaccines were bought up by a number of countries and it wasn't made available across the world. In this case, we're going to start out thinking about access from the beginning. And the challenge will be to make sure there is adequate quantities of vaccine produced. Of course, there's never going to be from day one enough vaccine to cover the world. And that's why it really should be prioritized by where it's needed and not necessarily by the worried well or by, you know, the wealthiest country. That's the goal we'd like to get.

MG: Well, we were talking about politics. I mean, is there some - pardon my ignorance in this - but is there some sort of body that determines where the vaccine goes? I mean, how how do you get to that best case scenario, where it ends up where it's most needed?

MG: Well, there isn't a body now, and one of the questions is should the G7, G20 leaders be thinking about this coordination effort. Of course, W.H.O. plays a critical role. They are the organization that sets the normative standards. Our role at Gavi is we provide vaccines for 60 percent of the world's children. And what we do is negotiate to make sure that there is adequate quantities of vaccines using different financial instruments and work with companies to make sure it's available. The problem we tried to solve was that powerful new vaccines were being used in in wealthy countries but weren't made available in developing countries. And frankly, you know, we've now solved that problem, at least with existing vaccines. We want to do the same to make sure for new epidemic vaccines that that's the case as well.

MG: If you stand back from this just a little bit, knowing what you know about vaccines, how prepared is the world to deal with outbreaks like the one we're seeing right now?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, we are better prepared than we- I mean, it's funny because Bill Gates and I did back to back Ted talks in Vancouver. Now, right, you know, after the outbreaks occurring in Ebola in West Africa. And we talked about the importance of the world preparing. There are new institutions. There have been more discussions globaly. But many countries recently have backed away from that, have stopped funding global health security activities. There's been a lot more interest in nationalism. They're not thinking about multilateralism and global systems. And that makes me worried because, obviously at the end, we are only as strong as the weakest link. So if epidemics are going on anywhere in the world, that threatens the entire world and not just those regions. So we have to have a different mindset about that.

MG: You've said that with increasing population and increasing environmental destruction, we are likely to see an accelerating rate of these types of breaks. Tell me more about that.

SETH BERKLEY: That's absolutely true. This is an evolutionary certainty from my perspective. This, by the way, is not the first time we've seen a coronavirus jump from animals into human. This is the third time that we know of. But of course, coronaviruses are, some of about a third of the common cold viruses we get seasonally are coronaviruses, and those you can trace back to having jumped, you know, many, many eons ago into human. So as we have larger populations, as we have more environmental destruction, as we move into the forest areas, we're going to see more of these outbreaks occur. And that's why we have to prepare for them. The Global coronavirus database shows that there are over 30,000 different coronaviruses from many different animals, and many of them have the spike proteins, which is how it attaches to humans that are similar enough that they probably could jump. But we haven't fully done that research and that's the type of work we could do to prepare for the future.

MG: How much work is being done on vaccines that will look ahead? There's a metaphor that's being used in Parnet here in Canada. It's a hockey metaphor. That you don't want to be where the puck is, you want to be where the puck is going to be, and you can apply that, you know, whether it's soccer where the ball is going to be or what have you. But it's about creating in some ways the conditions so that you're not responding to what's happening right now, but you're prepared for what's about to happen. Can vaccines work in that way?

SETH BERKLEY: Absolutely. And that was part of what I tried to argue for five years ago and what SEPI is trying to do now. So what you can do is you can first of all, pick agents that you think might cause outbreaks and you can actually take that vaccine development as far as you can go. The reason we have an Ebola vaccine today is because Canada in its national laboratories making Ebola vaccine, it wasn't available. It was frozen. But when the outbreak occurred, it was able to be taken out and it already had been produced. And that made us be able to move quicker. Of course, you may not be able to fully test the vaccine if there is not an epidemic at the time. But then, you're that much further ahead. But you also can create what we call platform technologies. And the way to think about that is every year when flu occurs, we take the flu strains from that year and we put them in the backbone that we've been using as a flu vaccine forever. We don't have to start from scratch doing, you know, early stage trials and run through the whole process, because all we have to do is make sure that that vaccine is safe and gives the immune response and then it can be used. And we could have a series of technologies that we know how to manufacture, how to scale up, how to grow for a range of different organisms. And then what you do is when a new agent occurs, you put it into that platform and then move it through clinical testing in an accelerated fashion. That's the type of preparatory efforts we should be having. We've started down that pathway, but of course, we're not as far as we could have been if they had had that constant attention. If I could just make one more point.

MG: Yes.

SETH BERKLEY: That is, you know, for war, we prepare. We have multiple different lines of preparation. You know, we have first lines of defense, second line, third lines. For epidemics, we tend to have interest and everybody says, 'my God, we have to deal with this,' and then as soon as the epidemic is over, people move on and we forget about it. We need to have sustained finance and attention as a global health security issue and not this kind of ebb and flow of activity and interest. That's what's going to be perfect.

MG: Is that what you mean when you say that vaccines in some ways are a victim of their own success?

SETH BERKLEY: Well, that's a little bit of a different story. As you know, one of the problems we have now is vaccine hesitancy, ironically, in wealthy countries and often with the most educated populations. The reason is in my developing countries, you know, you see the diseases everywhere. And of course, every parent wants to protect their children from being killed or maimed or having a permanent disability. So they line up to get vaccines. Whereas in the West, because we don't see the diseases anymore, people say, oh, well, it can't be that bad or I'm not going to get it or, you know. So in a sense, the reason you don't see those diseases because vaccines have reduced them to such a level that nobody has experienced with them and therefore the fear has stopped people from really wanting them.

MG: Is this, just finally, what we're seeing right now, but also that collaboration and the scale of this pandemic, is this a game changing moment, do you think, in this conversation?

SETH BERKLEY: You know, in some sense, some tragic sense, I hate to say the scale is because I don't want that to be true. But I hope it is going to change our views. I mean, I remember Ebola was not a global threat, although it was seen, it was the label, was ISIS of infectious disease and the news story of the decade. But after that happened, I was trying to raise funds for Ebola vaccines and people said, oh, that's yesterday's disease. And, you know, my worry is we've been through this cycle many times. I hope that this global pandemic, one silver lining might be that we take this seriously going forward and not just solve this epidemic, but prepare for the ones that will occur in the future.

MG: Seth Berkeley, it's great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

SETH BERKLEY: Thank you. Great talking to you as well.

MG: Seth Berkley is a doctor, epidemiologist and the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. We reached him in Geneva.

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MG: Coming up in about 90 seconds time, Canadians in rural communities have unique challenges when it comes to responding to this crisis, access to health care clinics, or food supply that might struggle to cope with increased demands and other issues as well. We'll talk to some people in smaller and more remote areas who are in the midst of figuring out solutions to these problems. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current. Stay with us.

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Rural Canada, Hand sanitizers

Guests: Jason Alsop, Alan Drummond, Euan Thomson

MG: I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current. You know that under normal circumstances you'd be listening to Q right now. These are not normal circumstances, though. And so we have expanded our coverage to help you stay better informed about the latest developments around this pandemic. You'll still hear from Tom Power, though. He will pop up around these parts starting next week. As we watch COVID-19 spread to every corner of the world, some people are watching from a distance, for now. The virus hasn't reached many of Canada's remote and rural communities at this point. But if and when it does, the threat to those communities will present a unique set of challenges. First, we go to the small archipelago of Haida Gwaii. Why the islands are seven hour ferry ride off the coast of British Columbia. And that community has just issued a travel advisory telling visitors to stay away. Raven Ann Potschka lives in Massett and Haida Gwaii.

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People are still coming over on the ferry to come over here for their spring break vacation and they're not taking the warnings, the health warnings seriously. That makes me feel really uneasy about the vulnerable people in our community that we already have a lot of elders [unintelligible]. We don't want to compromise their health and their well-being for something that can be preventable and prevented.

MG: Jason Alsop, who also goes by the name of Gaagwiis, is the president of the Haida nation and is on the line with us now. Good morning.

JASON ALSOP: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Why did the council decide to put the island on self-isolation?

JASON ALSOP: Well, I think at this time we recognize that prevention is the highest priority and we wanted to make sure that, you know, not only that island residents weren't off, you know, leaving it's unnecessary, but also make sure that we wouldn't have non residents coming to Haida Gwaii and increasing the risk of contact in potentially bringing the coronavirus here to Haida Gwaii. And obviously we're on an island we're isolated and our health care resources here to deal with the pandemic are limited. So the hazards are quite high and we want to manage that situation the best we can and get ahead of it. If something were to happen here, we have only 12 acute care beds, the two hospitals that are already mostly full and two ventilators. And, you know, the statistics show us that if it gets here, we could have as many as 400 people sick that would need hospital care. So really we just don't have the resources to handle that.

MG: For people who might not know the geography in British Columbia. How isolated is Haida Gwaii from the mainland?

JASON ALSOP: So we're about 100 kilometers from the mainland and only accessible by ferry and to airports. But as of Tuesday, we'll also have no more air service to Haida Gwaii, which is good in one sense, in terms of people, visitors coming, but it affects our essential services right now and that's become a concern as well.

MG: Do you have a sense, because of the fact that Haida Gwaii is such a big tourist destination, do you have a sense as to how many nonresidents might still be there right now?

JASON ALSOP: We don't have exact numbers right now, I think, I don't think it's as high as people might be fearing at this time, because of a lot of anxiety. Obviously in the community, as there is around the world right now, as you know, a lot of people are self isolating and social distancing and taking the steps necessary. But that obviously leaves you, you know, concerned about everything and everyone trying to do their best to make sure this pandemic doesn't spread to Haida Gwaii.

MG: In that anxiety, some people might be looking to social distance outside perhaps of larger communities. Do you have the sense that people might be coming there specifically to get away from larger cities?

JASON ALSOP: Well, I think, you know, I think there is that concern. You know, steps have been taken. I mean, Gwaii Harnesses is now shut down. I think. You know, this is a beautiful place. And, you know, obviously, if people might think that would be a good idea to come here and get away from it all. But we're discouraging that. We really are discouraging anybody from coming to Haida Gwaii at this time while we're in the height of the pandemic spreading here in B.C. and Canada and really for the protection of our people and our elders, our language holders, knowledge holders, it's really best that people stay away from Haida Gwaii at this time.

MG: Tell me more about that production protection and how high the stakes are for you in Haida Gwaii. What would it mean to keep this population safe from the virus? What are you worried about?

JASON ALSOP: Well, I think as many people may know, obviously, indigenous communities have been affected severely by the spread of viruses and diseases, the history of colonization and genocide. And right now, you know, our our population here is still around 2000, 2500 Haida people. So we're we're just recovering from those effects of colonization. We have very few Haida language speakers, fluent Haida speakers right now and knowledge holders. And we've gone through a great loss in the last year of many elders, including a couple of our chiefs. And to experience that kind of trauma again would be devastating to our community. And, you know, especially in these times where we can't gather in the way we're used to, like when we were so used to having feasts and meals together and gathering together in times of trauma and grieving and to have this kind of thing happen and not be able to be in the hospital, or to be gathered together. The trauma and the pain, it's very real and very serious concern. So we could do everything we can to prevent that. That's what we're trying to do.

MG: And then again, in that open letter that you wrote, you talked about the preservation of culture and language and said, given our culture, remote geography and limited health care resources, we've made this critical decision to protect island citizens, especially our cherished elders, language speakers and knowledge holders. This is this is important at many different levels for the communities there.

JASON ALSOP: Yes, we just can't afford to take any unnecessary risks or have others increase that risk, and so we're working together with our with our our Haida health centers, the hospitals and all levels of government to put together this coordinated effort and really want to make sure we're at this early stage that we're bringing great awareness to everybody about the importance of self isolating and, you know, washing your hands and social distancing and really focusing on trying to get local and relevant information. There's so much information out there on social media and on the news that are really trying to tailor messaging to hear and just really get everybody is prepared to be safe and take the necessary actions to keep our elders safe, our communities safe and all island residents safe.

MG: Gaagwiis, I appreciate speaking with you. Good luck and stay healthy. Thank you.

JASON ALSOP: All right. Take care.

MG: Jason Alsop goes by the name Kog Weise is the president of the Haida nation. It's not just those really remote communities who are wondering how COVID-19 might eventually affect them. Our next guest has been practicing medicine in a small town in eastern Ontario for decades and sounding the alarm about hospital overcrowding for almost as long. Dr. Alan Drummond is a family physician, E.R. physician. Also the national co-chair for public affairs for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians and joins us now from Perth, Ontario. Doctor, good morning to you.

ALAN DRUMMOND: Good morning, everyone.

MG: How are you doing in the midst of all of that?

ALAN DRUMMOND: I'm doing well, thank you. You know, I think our concern, as you know, a lot of rural communities have fairly limited resources in terms of both staff, equipment. And and I think the number one concern for our physicians and nurses is making sure that we do well by our communities. There's a lot of investment for us emotionally. The people we look after in person in Lanark County are friends and neighbours. We feel this kind of intimate connection with our patients. And the number one concern really is, is this kind of anxiety about will we be best prepared to meet the challenge, and will we hold up our best efforts. And I believe we will. So, you know, the anxiety is the issue. But we're channeling that anxiety to action and preparedness. Who knows what's going to happen in the coming weeks or months? Nobody, really. But we want to make sure that that should we not dodged the bullet, and should we end up in a serious situation, that we rise to the challenge and do well by our community.

MG: Just tell me briefly what kind of capacity there is in your community to deal with a pandemic like this?

ALAN DRUMMOND: I mean, probably close to zero.

MG: Zero?

ALAN DRUMMOND: You know, we have a small hospital with about, in Perth, at least with about 45 beds. We have [unintellligible] one negative pressure room. We have one small little ICU with one ventilator. And there's no doubt that we would probably be rapidly, if it became a serious issue, we would rapidly become quite inundated. But, you know, rural physicians are pretty used to to being innovative and to being able to maximize and optimize the resources that we have. You may have heard about one of our anesthetists who read about the Las Vegas shooting and how one critical care physician managed to take a ventilator and was able to ventilate four patients with that one ventilator. And he's already gone to work converting our operating room into a mini ICU. He's taken to anesthetic machines that are brand new. He's taken to old anesthetic machines that were in the basement. And he's kind of MacGyvered them so that we can actually go from the one ventilator in our ICU now to, theoretically, at least nine patients, you know, in a pinch.

MG: Wow.

ALAN DRUMMOND: Should we end up with that many patients with respiratory failure.

MG: You have to do that, I mean the MacGyvering, as you say, needs to be done, given the resources that you have.

ALAN DRUMMOND: Yes. And I think, you know, it may be that we just end up looking in the rearview mirror of this thing, thinking that we've just had dodged a bullet. We lost people the costs and calls and a whole lot of [unintelliglbe] anxiety. But, you know, we also live in a in an area where there's a lot of older people. Rural life is not necessarily a healthier life. And we have a lot of people with COPD, congestive heart failure, diabetes. And so we may get inundated, but if we get inundated, we are already a preparation. We're having meetings with the medical staff all the time now, sort of planning for our best efforts tonight. I'm quite confident that we will meet the challenge.

MG: If somebody suspected that they had a case of COVID-19, in Perth, where would they go?

ALAN DRUMMOND: Well, we're trying to keep them out of their primary care setting because, you know, one of the key factors here is going to be the maintenance of human resources capacity. If one of our physicians ends up being sick or if one of our physicians ends up being quarantined, we are not that well equipped to deal with loss of physicians and nurses. So we are certainly discouraging the use of both the primary care setting and the emergency department for testing. Should somebody end up with COVID, keep in mind that 85 percent of them will have relatively minor illness and will be quarantined at home with, you know, sort of supportive therapy. It may be that we need admissions to hospital for some and ICU care for others. And we are trying to clear the decks right now in terms of freeing up hospital space, using alternate spaces such as the operating room is as a mini ICU, and so it'll depend on the severity of the illness. One thing we cannot be guaranteed of, however, is that should our critical care resources be overwhelmed, we can't really be guaranteed that the university centers like Ottawa or Kingston around us will be able to accept any patients that we can no longer deal with.

MG: Because they might have their own crises.

ALAN DRUMMOND: Oh, I think they will. Yes, I think they will.

MG: We were hearing earlier from Patty Hajdu, the federal health minister, and I asked her specifically about assistance for people like yourself, people who are working in rural areas. And she said this is something that the government is cognizant of and is acting on. What do you want from the federal government right now?

ALAN DRUMMOND: Well, we need a couple of things. One thing that we certainly need is clarity of communication, because there really has been a lot of mixed messaging through the various jurisdictions that oversee health care.

MG: What do you mean specifically?

ALAN DRUMMOND: Well, in terms of, you know, who to test? What kind of personal protective equipment we would need. And there really has been a lot of mixed messaging. We need test kits, I believe. I think our hospita'ls currently down to about 10. And within the family practice community, I think we had a meeting last night as well, 10 test kits available for a population of 25,000 people. We certainly need to make sure and guarantee that our our emergency nurses and our emergency physicians and our hospital physicians are protected. So we need personal protective equipment. And we may well need it - and it's going to depend on what the regional disparities are in terms of human resources and equipment - we may well need to be very nimble with allowing physicians to work in other locations to shore up weakened defenses. And we may well also need a greater regional access to critical care and ventilators.

MG: That's a long wish list. Is your sense that the government is paying attention.

ALAN DRUMMOND: Oh, I thing they are, now. I think they've been a bit sultry and a little incremental in their approach up until now. But I think they're starting to understand, looking at Italy in particular, where a well-developed health care system was dramatically overwhelmed. And we've been hearing very, very sad stories from Italian physicians about what goes on day to day. So I think we really have to understand that this may prove to be nothing. But if it proves to be, you know, the pandemic of our lives and we need to make sure we have maximal efforts on basically a wartime footing to get the job done for Canadians.

MG: Just finally, and I apologize for asking about age, you're 66?

ALAN DRUMMOND: Yes, I am.

MG: You're in that age range that's been told to take extra care. And yet you, and the other health professionals, physicians, doctors, nurses, health practitioners, you're still going to work. How are you feeling about that?

ALAN DRUMMOND: I'm feeling good about it. I have a wife who's quite concerned about my health care, reminds me every day to be careful with myself. But listen, you know, this community has been good to me over over 36 years or 37 years. And I am joined at the hip to my people. And this is not the time that I'm going to step away. This is a time that we rise to a challenge.

MG: Thanks for the work that you're doing.

ALAN DRUMMOND: No worries.

MG: Doctor, thank you. Dr. Alan Drummond is a family physician, E.R. doctor as well. And we reached him this morning in Perth, Ontario.

[Music]

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. You know, there's one grocery item that is a pretty hot commodity right now. No, I'm not talking about toilet paper. But if anyone has seen some, let me know. No, I'm talking about hand sanitizer. With everyone stocking up, hand sanitizer has been very difficult to come by of late. There may be some help on the way from unlikely places, from breweries and distilleries. Euan Thomson spent years working in a brewery lab. He was about to start one of his own. Also has a PhD in microbiology and biotechnology from the University of Alberta, with a specialty in infectious diseases. Euan good morning.

EUAN THOMSON: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Now I know a little bit about beer. I know very little about infectious diseases. What is the crossover, the overlap between infectious diseases and craft brewing?

EUAN THOMSON: Somewhere in the range of microbiology and biochemistry, you can find a lot of overlap where breweries need some information on how their microbes are behaving. That's their reliance on yeast to make their product, distilleries as well. And in the microbiology lab, obviously you're handling microbes like yeast and and other and other sorts of microbes like bacteria. So there's not a lot of crossover in the technique that you use in both facilities.

MG: You learn something new every day. Now, you were about to start your own brewery lab in Calgary and then you ended up switching to hand sanitizer. How does one do that?

EUAN THOMSON: I was actually approached by a brewery here called N.F.L. Project to try and get this product off the ground because I mean, they'd obviously recognized that there was a huge shortage. They were hearing from all kinds of places about this shortage and they didn't know exactly how to get through the regulatory process. So I offered to help and get that quality assurance in place. Since then, since they announced that they wanted to tackle this project, we've been hearing from everybody, from physicians to police, nonprofits and even one of Calgary's biggest companies that are all just absolutely desperate for hand sanitizer to keep their staff, their customers, everybody else around, safe.

MG: I have a bottle of hand sanitizer in front of me, but I know nothing about how you make such a thing. How do you go about making hand sanitizer?

EUAN THOMSON: It is actually really great the W.H.O. put out a recommended formula on their website that we just copied directly. So there's no change between what they're suggesting to the world for these products at very scale of production and what we're aiming to do here.

MG: What's in it?

EUAN THOMSON: It's just ethanol, glycerol and hydrogen peroxide. This is the three ingredients.

MG: You take those three things that mix them together.

EUAN THOMSON: That's it. Yes.

MG: Is this a recipe that you've made up or where did you find it?

EUAN THOMSON: Yes, my hands are completely raw from the trial batches I've done so far.

MG: [Laughs] How long does it take to come up with something like this, that actually is going to work and as you say, perhaps not leave your hands completely raw?

EUAN THOMSON: Really putting it together is not the challenge. At this point, what we really need is clear guidance from Health Canada on how local producers can quickly pivot their operations to get these products to public. Your local brewery around the corner and the distilleries that are often nearby them are more than ready to make out all the alcohol that we all need right now.

MG: So what are you waiting for from Health Canada?

EUAN THOMSON: We submitted a state license, should be on their on their desk now. And we're basically just kind of sitting on that. From what we've seen, it's expected to be a process of many days, maybe weeks before we can actually get approval. So we're hoping to find some channels through there to get that approvals done quickly. And if we can, then we can probably integrate a lot of different brewing and distilling operations into this production and really get everybody moving the same direction quickly.

MG: How much have you made so far?

EUAN THOMSON: Just a couple of [unintelligible] worth.

MG: And what, you just have it kind of stash around in the lab somewhere?

EUAN THOMSON: Yes. Yes. But we are ready to go with with massive scale production if we needed to, into the thousands and thousands of [unintelligilbe].

MG: And you just need that green light from the government, which should perhaps come sooner rather than later, given the crisis that we're facing.

EUAN THOMSON: Yes. Yeah. So we're hoping for.

MG: How much would you charge for something like this?

EUAN THOMSON: Well, we're going to stach an awful lot of waives for those essential services. So, you know, if they're nonprofit shelters, those are places that need it, they'll be getting it for free. And beyond that, we're looking at a price point of something like five dollars, six dollars for a can. Exactly, you know, a can of beer.

MG: And that would be easy to produce and perhaps much more readily available than the other hand sanitizers that aren't appearing on store shelves right now.

EUAN THOMSON: Exactly. Yes. And locally produced. So we would be able to sustain production pretty easily.

MG: This isn't the only way that you are helping breweries deal with this pandemic right now. What else are you doing when it comes to your breweries and COVID-19?

EUAN THOMSON: Well, in addition to that document that we've been putting together to help guide breweries and distillireis through this regulatory process to get the state licensing done, we also built another document that is also free access. You can find it on Twitter. If you look at an Excel project it's easier for you to find it, or look me up Raft Beer Lab. These documents are available. The second one is all about how to make clean delivery. So with all of the supply chain going over to home deliveries right now, you're seeing grocery deliveries. You're seeing beer deliveries direct from the brewery. We want to make sure that those products are landing on people's doorsteps in a really aseptic manner. So we've designed a method that is borrowing pretty heavily from microbiological labs and cell tissue culturing and that sort of thing - exactly the sort of thing that the scientists in the lab every day - to help delivery drivers get these products on people's doors. That's without any danger of transmitting any disease.

MG: Just briefly, what is that? What's that method?

EUAN THOMSON: So breweries are really used to handling isopropyl alcohol. So they usually use it at about 70 percent and that's also characteristic of microbiology labs. So what you do is you take it in a spray bottle and you you just, you know, dowse, what's in front of you in this isopropyl alcohol, cover your hands and make sure your hands are clean before you use it. You got any soil off there and then just, you know, clean right up your elbows with this stuff and make sure it has at least 30 seconds of contact time. Exactly what you would do with the hand sanitizer, normally except for in this case, you go right to your elbows. Anything that goes into a bag needs to be treated as it needs to be treated aseptically first. So, you know, you spray that beer down with the isopropyl alcohol before [unintelligible] it into a clean bag. And then you, once that all the products are in that bag, you steal that right up, zip tie it or close it, however you can and then hopefully deliver that to the front door of your customer.

MG: You ever imagine you'd end up in this situation, given where you started at?

EUAN THOMSON: No, I did not imagine this whatsoever. But I'm more than happy to be helping everybody stay safe out there.

MG: You're doing great work and we will look for your hand sanitizer. You actually got to sell it like in a beer can.

EUAN THOMSON: That's the idea. Yes. Annex has the label all done up that is available freely for use by other breweries and distilleries and they can swap their logo in if they want. So the whole thing's ready to go.

MG: What a great idea. Euan, thanks. Good luck.

EUAN THOMSON: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Euan Thomson, the founder of the Raft Beer Labs beer science lab that was supposed to start this spring, but now he's helping breweries and distilleries in Alberta make hand sanitizer. That is it for The Current today and for this week. It has been a long week. It feels like perhaps one of the longest weeks in recent memory. You, if you missed anything, can get caught up on anything that we've been talking about this week on the CBC Listen app. You can find that wherever you find your apps. Chris Hadfield knows a thing or two about being cooped up. Maybe you're listening to more things podcasts, for example, while you are self isolating. Chris Hadfield, of course, was Canada's astronaut up in the space station, spent months there floating above the earth in very tight conditions, took his guitar up with him and sang his album. Space Sessions was recorded on the International Space Station. Here's Chris Hadfield now with Window of My Mind. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care yourself and have a good weekend.

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