Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2020

The Current Transcript for May 5, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We have smoke alarms in our house. We have fire extinguishers. This is in a sense a biosensor to say there's a potential threat in our system.

MATT GALLOWAY: How will we know when this is over? Testing, testing, testing. Now, there are many ways to test and it turns out many things to test. This morning a look at why scientists are testing human waste to get a sense of where the virus might be. There are other, more cuddly ways to hunt for the coronavirus.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of a dog barking]

MG: McBaine is a cancer sniffing dog at the University of Pennsylvania Working Dog Center. Could dogs be trained to sniff out COVID-19 in humans? We'll find out. Also this morning, cities have become ghost towns in the midst of this pandemic. How will they survive? The mayor of Montreal, Valerie Plante, is the only Canadian named to a COVID task force aimed at helping cities recover. She'll join us in an hour. Plus, the health writer Andre Picard on why he believes the message in cities and beyond needs to change from stay home to go outside, but do not congregate. And you know what this year didn't need? Giant wasps known as murderous hornets. Honestly. We start though with China in the crosshairs in the world demanding answers on the origins of this coronavirus. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Politicians and scientists are saying international collaboration could be the tool to prevent something like COVID-19 from happening again

Guests: Gary Kobinger, Nicholas Kristof, Lynette Ong

MG: There has been a growing chorus of criticism for China's handling of the coronavirus, even calls for the nation to pay reparations for allowing the contagion to spread. And there is the sense of frustration from experts that while China might be conducting an investigation into the origins of the virus, it's not sharing information with the rest of the world. This is Dr. Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization's representative in China, being interviewed on Sky News.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We know that some national investigation is happening, but at this stage we have not been invited to join. We are expecting to get in the near future, a briefing on where that is and to discuss possible collaboration.

MG: Gary Kobinger is the director of the Centre for Research on Infectious Diseases at Laval University in Quebec City. Also a member of the Advisory Group for the Infectious Hazards with the World Health Organization, is on the line with us now. Good morning.

GARY KOBINGER: Good morning.

MG: How much international collaboration have you seen thus far when it comes to the origins of this COVID-19?

GARY KOBINGER: None for now.

MG: That's pretty blunt.

GARY KOBINGER: Yeah. You know, I think we need to put this in perspective. It's you know, there's a lot of, the question is for any country doing this kind of an investigation is do they have all the scientists, the knowledge and the capacity and the techniques to go and and do an in-depth investigation that will bring on the the answer to the questions that are being asked. And, you know, and if they don't, then, of course, you know, one would expect to for the country to go out and and and gather that capacity by by involving more people from other countries. I think in China, you know, they have one of the strongest surveillance system for respiratory pathogens. And one of the few countries that was doing active surveillance before it, 19 emerging. And they they have a very strong scientific community. So in this in this respect, I don't think it's so surprising that the ammunition shaded the investigation themselves without going outside right off. So so I think a lot of the pressure that they are they are facing is is to see what they are finding basically more than always being involved directly, but not, you know, this is my perception.

MG: If this were happening in Canada, do you think this would be a similar situation where there wouldn't be that sense of collaboration?

GARY KOBINGER: Again, I wouldn't put it as there is no sense of collaboration. I would put it that as I think yes, if it would be an investigation in Canada, it's possible that Canada would decide to go and ask some expert from other countries to to participate. But it could be also that Canada will initiate that investigation themselves and see if there is no need to go outside. Initially, why would you? I think it's a it's you know, it's not a surprise to see a country doing initiate an investigation and see how it goes from the start. But, you know, I mean, on the other hand, we're all aware that a lot of of the things that are happening in China is not fully transparent. And it's not the only country, but it's being done, you know, and with with, again, this political reality that is that is beyond the science and the scientific questions that have to be answered.

MG: If China is not involved in that collaboration or the collaboration isn't happening to the extent that it should, what are the consequences when it comes to global public health? People look at this pandemic, but people also look at perhaps future pandemics.

GARY KOBINGER: No exactly and this is a very important point that is also in the balance is the trust. And, you know, building trust is a very important aspect and convincing people that the next emergence, which could be in China or we could could be anywhere else. It said this is why did the international community is also putting pressure to be part of the investigation, as well as to make sure that whatever the the next emergence comes from, that there is a quick response, a quick detection, and that we are better the next time than this time.

MG: If we don't do that, what could happen?

GARY KOBINGER: Well, I mean, what could happen? It means that if there's no trust, then every time that there will be a detection, it will be. Potentially this next time, potentially at the borders will close and trade will close much faster than they have this time. So that's also an important consequence for a country where you have an emergence. And if they're there, close, their borders are closed by others. If you want that because the trade is being shut down, then it has a very strong impact on the economy of this country and beyond the economy if they cannot anymore access, for example, equipment that they need to respond to that event.

MG: Just in the last minute that we have, what would you like to see when it comes to transparency from China around COVID-19.

GARY KOBINGER: Well, again, I think it's time now to, in my view, to involve more and more people at the international level, including WHO. I think it's it's fine to do this at the level where, you know, it's confidential for the country to to to share their their investigation, but to be open to suggestion from others and to events like this, because, I mean, a country can definitely have a lot of. And China has a lot of great scientists to initiate those those studies. But I don't think it moves that the will think about every aspect and every little technology. So I think I would love to see. Like others, I think more involvement of other scientists from other countries to see if if we can really dig deep, not only in where this virus comes from and what else is out there that could emerge as well and benefit from this. This focus right now and all the tools that are being developed to get to the bottom of of the emergence when. What was it? Is it still circulating? And that, for example, animal species. What else is in that animal species and all these questions?

MG: Gary, good to speak with you. Thank you.

GARY KOBINGER: Thank you.

MG: Gary Kobinger is director of the Centre for Research on Infectious Diseases at Laval University in Quebec City, member of the Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards with the World Health Organization. The West's displeasure with China appears to be aggravating the political battle between the communist state and Western democracies. Nicholas Kristof is a columnist with The New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on China. Nick Kristof, good morning to you.

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: Good morning.

MG: Why would China be reluctant to be as transparent as people want when it comes to an investigation into COVID-19?

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: Well, China isn't intuitively transparent about anything, of course. And, you know, I do think that China's fundamental concern right now or Xi Jinping's fundamental concern right now is the issue of domestic control. And I think the regime was really kind of rattled in January and February when a lot of ordinary Chinese were quite critical of the regime's handling of the situation. And one. And they want to make sure that they tamped that down. And I think they've actually done that pretty well. They've made a great deal of the narrative that they managed the coronavirus very ably and other countries screwed it up.

MG: Is that a boat just the coronavirus or are there larger domestic concerns when it comes to, for example, the Chinese economy and the unrest that could develop if the economy were to slide severely?

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: I think that's right. I mean, the basic bargain for the Chinese government toward its people has been, look, we won't give you a meaningful right to vote, but we will give you a better standard of living, better opportunities for your children. And that bargain has has been sustained, but is in constant jeopardy if the economy slides and now it is sliding. There's also, you know, the Chinese increasingly middle class, increasingly increasingly cosmopolitan, do aspire for more middle class participation. And I think that that's kind of what we saw with the resentments in Suhan about the treatment of people like the doctor who died. And so it's yeah, it's a broader issue of not just the coronavirus, but the economic ramifications and the degree to which the government is holding up its end of that bargain.

MG: There's an international component to this as well. China has been making a very public effort to offer aid, sending personal protective equipment and other things to countries around the world. What's the value for China in doing that?

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: Well, China had a real opportunity here to win goodwill, partly because it's the country that particularly makes personal protective equipment. It makes it both diagnostic tests and serological tests. And it is going to be the country that makes a vaccine or may well be the country that makes vaccines. And so it's an, it produces things that other countries really need. And and it wanted to win goodwill by handing those out, but those distributions of aid were accompanied by a kind of sourness and nationalism that I think have turned a lot of countries off. And we, you know, we see this aid, but it's accompanied by a kind of xenophobia in China that I think undermines that narrative.

MG: Have a listen to this. Last week, the state run news agency posted an animated video in China called Once Upon a Virus and in its sort of Lego like features representing China and the United States, trade insults back and forth. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip of animated video "Once Upon a Virus"]

MG: Nicholas Kristof, what's going on there? And what does that say about the level of discourse in the midst of a global pandemic?

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: You know, I just find it it's so sad that there can be there's kind of a competing xenophobia between U.S. policymakers and Chinese policymakers. You know, the idea that the Chinese foreign ministry has effectively accused the United States of bringing the coronavirus to China to shoehorn in October, which is absurd. And now we have Mike Pompeo alleging that the without any evidence that is obvious to anybody else, alleging that the virus escaped from a laboratory and it will happen. And trying to call this trying to relabel it the that one virus. You know, this is a time when we really need cooperation across countries, when we'd be great to have joint efforts by virologists in China and the U.S. and in other countries to address this shared challenge. And instead, I think President Trump is trying to run against China in the November elections. And I think Xi Jinping is trying to unite his country to some degree with nationalism as well. And I think all countries lose when that happens.

MG: Where does that leave a country like Canada, which has two men, Michael Spavor, Michael Kovrig, still imprisoned with no end in sight and seems for their time in prison?

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: I think that I think it leaves countries like Canada with very little room to manoeuvre. And I find a situation of the two. Michaels just heartbreaking. The fact that that the rest of the world ignores the fact that China has effectively kidnapped these people and turned them into hostages and other countries aren't really willing to speak up about it. And the U.S., I think, is going to look at at places like Canada with suspicion and want them to be on its side. And China is obviously going to want Canada not to take the U.S. side on this. And I think it's going to be very difficult for Canada to find room to manoeuvre and that kind of nationalism that we see in China I think it's going to make it more difficult to get the two Michaels free.

MG: Nicholas Kristof, good to speak with you. Thank you.

NICHOLAS KRISTOFF: Thank you.

MG: Nicholas Kristof, columnist at The New York Times. Lynnette Ong has been listening in, expert on China, professor of political science with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She is in Toronto. Lynnette Ong, good morning to you.

LYNETTE ONG: Yes, hi, Matt.

MG: How would you characterize the response coming out of China to this pandemic in the last few weeks in particular?

LYNETTE ONG: I think it has been very, very defensive, partly because I think two things are going on here. One, is the nationalistic sentiments that the government, I think has quite successfully generated, partly because of I think, you know, a range of countries, of a range of Western countries, just not sort of virus, Bay. They will. So so relatively speaking, it looks like China has done a relatively good job. And I think, secondly, is a defensive action against the rhetoric that is coming out from the United States, from the Trump administration, labelling it as a virus and then, you know, making accusations or allegations that, you know, it's leaked from a lab without any sort of forensic evidence.

MG: Within China itself, as Nick Kristof was talking about, there is real concern around domestic issues. And we're seeing a crackdown in Wuhan where relatives are being threatened, relatives of those who have died or being threatened, survivors are being interrogated. What's at stake for China domestically in this?

LYNETTE ONG: A lot is at stake. I think a couple of months ago, if you would ask people, they would have described coronavirus as China's Chernobyl.

MG: As China's Chernobyl?

LYNETTE ONG: Yes, people were describing it as, you know, the worst crisis, the worst challenged that authorities have ever faced since 1989. People you know, there was a major outbreak in Wuhan. Hospitals were overwhelming. They just couldn't cope with it. And I think there was also a lot of anger, even though it was on the restrictive online when the doctor, one of the doctors, a whistleblower died in January. And I think you know that I'm sure the government has a lot of things in mind because they will cover it at the beginning, which I think we lost a little precious time. People were angry about it. The government was worried, rightly worry about the risk of social unrest. What's happened if he could then get it under control, but I think all the strict lockdown and quarantine in a strong capacity coming out of China has also helped to really flatten the curve very rapidly.

MG: And yet there are many, many questions about whether China was transparent or what was actually going on and whether it was doing enough at the time or whether it covered things up leading to those questions around a possible further investigation. Have a listen to this. This is an exchange between a reporter and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Australia and other countries are calling for an international and an independent investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Are you supportive of this investigation in the future? And you still believe China responded and reported adequately?

VOICE 2: I think it's extremely important that we understand exactly what happened and ask really tough questions of all countries involved, including China. But my priority right now needs to be doing everything we can to keep our people safe and make sure that we have the resources necessary to protect our citizens and get through this.

MG: Lynnette Ong, do you believe that Canada should join Australia, the UK and France in this call for a greater investigation into the Chinese government and COVID-19?

LYNETTE ONG: I believe that there needs to be transparency. Transparency in knowing where the outbreak occurs and, you know, in data coming out from China. But I also agree that, you know, I think the resources right now should be devoted to fighting the virus. But that doesn't rule out an independent investigation, a collective investigation sometime down the road. But I think it is also a question of priorities, because we know that any sort of investigation is likely to be politicized and is going to distract us from the immediate task before us.

MG: The other part and just in the few seconds that we have is that for Canada to get into this investigation, what does it need to be cognizant of, given the fact, as we said, that the two Michaels are still in jail and China.

LYNETTE ONG: Well, if what is happening in Australia is any guide, you are going to see, you know, a range of things, possible things that could happen. You know, threat of economic coercion. You have, you know, rhetoric coming pit from, you know, an embassy in Canberra. You know war of words, very, very likely. Not unlike countries refusal to to partner with Huawei a year ago. That sort of things going to be very likely, I think.

MG: Lynnette Ong, good to speak with you on this. Thank you.

LYNETTE ONG: OK. Thank you.

MG: Lynnette Ong is a China expert, professor of political science with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto. The CBC News is next. And then we're going to talk about using human waste to track COVID-19. There is hope that it will help us predict future outbreaks. How reliable is that data? Find out. Coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Researchers explore whether human poop can help track COVID-19, and curb a second wave

Guests: Newsha Ghaeli, Vincent Marechal

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, she's the only Canadian on a global COVID mayor's task force and she is at the epicentre of Canada's pandemic. I'll speak with Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante, coming up in 30 minutes time. But first, going to the sewers for answers.

[Music: Theme]

MG: There's nothing harder, it seems, than battling an enemy that's invisible, and that's one of the toughest things about this novel coronavirus. Many carriers show no symptoms for days or weeks at a time. Testing on a massive scale could eventually give us a better snapshot. But as we know, the resources simply aren't there yet. Because of that, it will be hard to prove with certainty that COVID-19 is gone. There may be a telltale clue just waiting for us right under our noses or maybe a little bit further south.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of toilet flushing]

MG: Yes. The stuff we flush away into the sewers could be rich with information about the spread of COVID-19. Newsha Ghaeli is co-founder of Biobot. It's testing wastewater in the United States for COVID-19. She's on the line with us now. Good morning.

NEWSHA GHAELI: Good morning.

MG: Let's start with the basics. What is the coronavirus doing in our wastewater?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Yeah, well, infected patients are excreting the novel coronavirus. So, SARS-COVID2 in stool. And every single day when we use the bathroom or flushing urine and stool down the toilet where it's collecting and aggregating in our city sewers. And so that's how we end up being able to see the coronavirus along with a whole bunch of other human health information in our city sewer system.

MG: How do you go about doing that? How do you detect the virus SARS-COV2 which causes COVID-19 in wastewater?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Mm hmm. The samples are collected. We collect raw sewage samples. Right now, we're collecting them at wastewater treatment facilities across the country, across the U.S.. So the wastewater treatment facilities are collecting them and then sending these raw samples back to our labs in a kit that we designed and we send out to that. So if you think about it a little bit like a 23 and me kit, that's four city. Once the samples back at our labs in Bylon in Boston, we are extracting the RNA in order to be able to count the number of RNA copies per litre of sewage that we use a laboratory technique called PCR, qPCR in order to to be able to measure the concentration of the virus and then convert that concentration into an estimated number of cases in a given community.

MG: This sounds similar. I mean, I remember reading about how in the midst of maybe we're still there, the opioid crisis, people were taking similar steps to see where that crisis was unfolding. Is this similar in that regard?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Yes, it's a different lab technique in order for us to to measure the virus from measuring opioid molecules because we excrete opioids as chemicals. So we would actually be looking for the chemical, whereas we're excreting SARS-COV2, which is a virus, but it all ends up in sewers.

MG: And if you do this, I mean, you've hinted at this. But how much can you learn about the spread of the disease through this?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Yeah, we can get a big picture view on approximately how much virus is in a community. And then based on our analytical techniques, we can convert that concentration into an estimated number of individuals with infected stool. That big picture estimation is very helpful in helping us understand, you know, how is the virus trending over time? For example, qualitatively week to week, do we see the amount of virus decreasing or increasing? And in turn, how can we leverage that information and those insights to help us make decisions around, you know, going back to work, relaxing, social distancing measures or not.

MG: How big is the big picture? I mean, are you talking about entire cities? Can you look at communities? Because what we have learned and we keep learning things, it seems like every day is that the virus is not hitting us in an equitable way, that there are certain communities that are hit harder than other communities, for example.

NEWSHA GHAELI: So at this moment, because we are collecting our samples from wastewater treatment facilities, our granularity is limited to their catchment areas. Wastewater treatment facilities tend to represent either part of a city, an entire city, a region or multiple regions in the US to call them county. Now it depends on where we collect the sample in order to understand that granularity so we can start moving upstream and start dividing our cities up into smaller areas. Let's say that represent tens of thousands of people and actually collect these samples directly from the sewer lines in order to get more community by community level information.

MG: Other jurisdictions that have implemented this already, whether it's specifically around COIVD-19 or other infectious diseases?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Around community by community level sampling?

MG: We yeah, I mean, just in in the in using this technique to try to figure out what's really going on?

NEWSHA GHAELI: So we launched a pro bono campaign in late March of this year in order to solicit wastewater samples from treatment facilities across the U.S. to send for analysis at our labs. And also we partnered with a lab at M.I.T. in order to do the QPCR. And today we are receiving samples from 300 wastewater facilities distributed across 40 states that represent approximately 10 percent of the U.S. population. So for about 10 percent of the U.S. population, we're receiving samples every single week to start building out that qualitative trending data and begin to understand that curve that we keep talking about. Where are we on that curve?

MG: How accurate can you be in this? We keep hearing that again, the way out of this is testing and that we need to figure out ways to to test the population for symptomatic cases, subclinical cases, asymptomatic cases. How accurate can this work be?

NEWSHA GHAELI: So are accuracy around our estimates. We'll become more accurate over time. So the more samples we collect for for, you know, the more number of weeks, we will start to refine our models, understand the behaviour of the virus, the more studies that are done on, let's say, excretion of the virus in stool. So with time, our estimates will become more accurate today. What we know is that, you know, the amount of virus that we're seeing far exceeds the the number of confirmed clinical cases. And so what we're confident in saying is that there is a large number of asymptomatic patients that are not represented in these clinical cases.

MG: Are you already seeing that in certain communities where there might be, people believe, a low rate of infection, but when you do this work, you actually turn up more COVID than you would have expected?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Yes, maybe not necessarily a low rate of infection. But even, you know, across all the communities we've been sampling, whether the rate of infection is low or high. We've seen a considerable discrepancy in our data versus the confirmed clinical cases. About almost an order of magnitude more our estimates would suggest.

MG: What do you see as the potential for this sort of work?

NEWSHA GHAELI: Well, as we think about opening up our cities and our communities, again, sending people back to work, sending our kids back to school, testing at scale is going to be really critical and answering questions around timing on on these. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, testing at scale, at least today is is not feasible. And so we need a way to very easily and rapidly get a snapshot of what's happening at that aggregated city view. And so we believe that data from sewage is a great compliment to clinical test data and should be used as a one part of the surveillance framework that all cities and all provinces should be putting together right now.

MG: I mean part of it's about scale, but it's also about speed. Right? And people, like that in part is because people want to get out of this thing, but they also to get out of it need to have tests that are done quickly and that this can be done quickly.

NEWSHA GHAELI: Exactly. And once we are out of it, it's very important that we have a robust surveillance infrastructure in place to be able to detect any new outbreaks and immediately contain them, whether that need re-implemented social distancing recommendations again. And this platform can can really help in doing that because we can start to detect the virus in sewage potentially before any clinical cases are reported.

MG: And so, again, this wouldn't be just now while we're in this moment, but in, you know, the time between now and when we get a vaccine.

NEWSHA GHAELI: Exactly.

MG: Newsha, this is fascinating. Thank you.

NEWSHA GHAELI: Thank you.

MG: Newsha Ghaeli is co-founder of BioPort. It's testing wastewater in the United States, recovered COVID-19. She is based in New York City. Canadian cities are starting to look at testing wastewater for COVID-19 as well. Natalie Prystajecky is an environmental microbiologist with the University of British Columbia and yesterday she began research on the virus and Vancouver's water supply.

[sc].

VOICE: We're hoping in the end to be able to measure the amount of COVID-19 in the wastewater. What the end utility of this tool is, we still don't know. There's some early evidence from Australia and France and the United States to show that this can be done, but nobody's really done it in an active surveillance system yet. I think that I would really want to make sure that this, the data generated would be useful to public health. I do work in a public health lab, but I would caution people from using it as an absolute truth and recognizing that often with models that can be a high degree of uncertainty. So I would just want people to make sure that they understood the limitations of the data as they interpreted it.

MG: That's environmental microbiologist Natalie Prystajecky. Canada is at the beginning of this research, but countries like France have been testing for months. Vincent Marechal is a professor of human virology with the Sorbonne University in Paris. Professor, good morning to you.

VINCENT MARECHAL: Hello. Good morning.

MG: You've been doing this testing since what, February? What have you found so far?

VINCENT MARECHAL: Yeah, we began on March 5th and we're doing the survey up to today. So we have been investigating 23 wastewater treatment plants around Paris. This corresponds to millions of Parisians actually. And what we've seen is a gradual increase of the viral load in waste waters up to the 10th of April. And what is very important and is that we decided to to set up a lockdown procedure on the 17th of March. So what is very interesting is that we can't see a decrease now in the viral load in the waste waters indicating that the lockdown procedure has been efficient in France, at least in Paris. And this is very important for us.

MG: What do you see as that is the correlation between the amount of SARS-COV2 in the wastewater and hospitalizations in Paris?

VINCENT MARECHAL: Exactly. Exactly. We have been detecting the virus very early. At a time we had only a few cases of COVID-19 in Paris. So the technique is quite sensitive. And the thing is that we are able to follow the dynamics of the epidemic in the Paris suburbs. So we are not trying to set up a network of national network to monitor all the waste water treatment plants in France. So we are at that point of the of the study and the work is going to be published soon, I hope.

MG: What based on on what you've learned so far, what does it tell you and you've kind of hinted at this as to how flat the curve is in Paris right now?

VINCENT MARECHAL: It's quite, it's quite difficult because the the decrease has been very strong at the beginning. And now we are on a, I would say, average level, which seems to be stable. So for us, it's quite puzzling. And we think that there are two different hypothesis. The first hypothesis is that Parisians are waiting for the unlock procedure on the 11th of May and many people are going out of home because they think that the story is over, which is not the case. The other thing is that we see that many are not symptomatic and symptomatic person may secrete the virus in their stools for many, many weeks. And this would probably explain why we have a difference between the number of clinical cases and the presence of the virus in waste waters.

MG: So that the virus doesn't exit your body as quickly as perhaps people might think. That it hangs around longer?

VINCENT MARECHAL: Yes, exactly. We think that, for example, the classical say used by many peoples is to look for the virus by OTPCR in the in the nose, for example. And we know that people will become negative in the nose, maybe positive into stools for weeks. So there is a difference between the detection of the virus in some areas like the nose and the fact that you can excrete the virus in your feces.

MG: Given that, you mentioned the 11th of May and that's when some of the the lockdown will begin to be eased in France. People have been under a lockdown for a long time. They're anxious to get out. Does that 11th of May date feel right to you, given what you know?

VINCENT MARECHAL: I would say that since we don't know why we are still signalling in waste waters, we should be prudent. My feeling is that anywhere in France and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, just say the people that unlock will be progressive and we'll only be efficient if people respect the procedures. I mean hand washing, the mask and so on and so forth. So it's something conditional. If it does not work, the lockdown will not be probably a fully or partly done.

MG: How far would you go in this research in being able to, I guess, put a number out in terms of how many people are infected in Paris right now?

VINCENT MARECHAL: I would not be so confident about our ability to convert the viral load in waste waters and the number of infected patients. Just because we don't have enough informations about how much virus is excreted in the feces. It may depends on the step of the disease. It may also depend on the kind of the infection. We may assume, for example, that asymptomatic people would see secre less virus is than highly symptomatic patients. So we are missing some informations, and for us it's very difficult to infer from what we get in the water the number of infected people in the population i.

MG: Newsha Ghaeli from BioBot who was speaking just before you was talking about the potential of what she's doing and what her company is doing. What do you see as the potential in this work in terms of us better understanding the spread of COVID-19?

VINCENT MARECHAL: I think in all countries this is very interesting to monitor, to have a monitoring, an indirect monitoring. In different regions, for example, in France, we have high prevalence regions and low prevalent regions for the virus. So it's very important to follow the circulation of the virus, but this is also very important for populations in France and elsewhere. We said that the virus is not circulating because they don't have clinical cases, but I just remind you that clinical cases are maybe only a few persons of infected people. And I think that notably in people, for example, in Africa or Asia, which doesn't have, don't have the money to to make massive testing, this kind of investigation should be very, very helpful. If you don't have any money to test the people, you can at least test the sewages and you may tell, OK, if the virus is here, you should take some some procedure to prevent the circulation in the population.

MG: And is this testing cheaper than other forms of testing?

VINCENT MARECHAL: The test by itself is the same price basically that is done in humans. But if you, but it's a natural sampling. OK, Waste water's helps you to investigate what happens in thousands of guests. So instead of testing each person, you can't just stay in a specific area, ok, the virus is probably here because the waste waters are positive for the virus. So it's monitoring, indirect monitoring of what happens in human populations.

MG: How do you go about making something like this more attractive than other forms of testing? Because again, the World Health Organization and Public Health experts will say you need to test, if you want to figure out how to ease your lockdowns, how to start to get back to normal, you need to test. But people will focus on, to your point, the other forms of testing. How do you bring attention to this kind of testing?

VINCENT MARECHAL: I would saym I would say that if you don't have the money to make massive testing or if you don't have the tools to do that, in a massive way, this specific investigation of waste waters, is a very convenient and cheap tool just to countries that cannot make massive testing. If you don't. I was not in connection with Dakar in Africa yesterday, and it's quite difficult to make massive testing. But these guys in Dakar can make a monitoring of waste waters in Dakar. And if the virus is circulating in the massive proportion of the population, they will tell us and they can make investigation in humans in that case. In some parts of the country, if the waste waters is negative, there is no interest to make massive testing into human populations. So it's a complement to human investigation. It's not instead of human investigations.

MG: In the meantime, just finally, we're in the midst of wave one. Would this help us prevent or at least get a sense as to, you know, when the second or third wave could come?

VINCENT MARECHAL: I hope so. What do we expect actually is to follow the monitoring in Paris, for example. And what we are looking for is not the second wave of not, actually. So the monitoring will go on in Paris just to prevent the second wave and to say, OK, take care. The virus is circulating at a very high level. We should go back maybe to locking for a city or just we can go back to people and say take care, guys, because it's not working. The virus is back.

MG: SVincent Marechal, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

VINCENT MARECHAL: Thank you so much. Bye. Have a good day. Bybye.

MG: And you. Vincent Marechal is a human virologist with the Sorbonne University in Paris, one of three teams that's testing wastewater in that city. Testing the sewage isn't the only coronavirus detective work going on. Later on in the program, we'll hear how dogs are being trained to sniff out the presence of the COVID-19 virus that's on its way on The Current.

Back To Top »

Listener response to loneliness

Guests: Karin Marley

MG: out the presence of the COVID-19 virus that's on its way on The Current.

MG: This is indeed The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Yesterday we talked about loneliness and the loneliness that lockdown conditions are creating, particularly for the elderly. We asked for your thoughts and we heard from many listeners about that conversation. Karin Marley, senior producer The Current is here to read some of your mail. Good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning, Matt. Yeah, we did get lots of letters about this. We'll start with Barbara Lewis in Quebec and she wrote, I really appreciate your show on loneliness. I retired four years ago, was divorced 11 years ago, and both my kids have moved out of the house to add to the mix. Last year, I decided to move to my country home, which is quite isolated. So in a few short years, I've gone from being surrounded by people both at home and work to being totally alone. I dealt with the loneliness by being very active in inviting friends and family to visit me. But now those options are closed. And now here we are. All of us so very isolated. Somehow it helps to know that others are feeling the same way. But don't get me wrong, I certainly don't wish this on others. And I'm very happy that things are returning to normal for some people. And I want to tell you that listening to CBC helps a great deal. Thank you for helping all of us feel less lonely.

MG: Thank you for listening. Bob Gordon has a very different take on the situation. I identify with your guest except for the returning to the office part. I was diagnosed with PTSD fifteen years ago. I'm not agoraphobic, but I find social interaction both trying and exhausting. I feel for the first time in my life that my inclinations are normal, as in widely practiced and approved of. I'm loving the situation. I listen to guest after guest talk about declining mental health, but have to confess mine has never been better. I'm a freelance writer. I recently signed a book deal looking at past pandemics for guidance as to life after COVID-19, throw in a plague diary for the hell of it and I am a terrible, intermittent diarist. I'm engaged and busy.

KARIN MARLEY: Beverly Burlock from Nova Scotia has some ideas for how to prevent loneliness and isolation among the elderly. She wrote, a major thing would be to keep them within their community, or at least the nearest one in a smaller, more homey residence. They could desist desist from placing one partner in a home. So far removed from their lifelong partner. From whom in many cases they have scarcely ever spent a night apart, as well as unreasonable commuting distance for the rest of their family and friends. They could desist from keeping partners not only in separate rooms, but separate facilities as their differing needs change and increase. The worst thing offspring can do thinking, of course, that is for the best is to move their elderly parent across the country to be nearer to them. This not only remove their elder parents from everything familiar, which is especially important with someone with dementia, but from everyone with whom they can talk about their common past. Their children don't know what it is like to grow up as their parents did. They have no common stories, no familiar early memories. What's crucial is not bingo games and constant mindless activities, but familiarity and things of interest. There is much which governments and offspring can do. But the first criteria needs to be listening to the elderly to find out what exactly is important to them, what they would really like. Why do you think the underlying fear of most of us now growing old is I don't ever want to end up in a place like that.

MG: Good point. Yesterday on the program, we also heard how Italy is starting to open up after being ravaged by COVID-19. Linda Erato of Vancouver heard that conversation and wrote to say the song, Rinascero, Rinascerai, you played on the program, brought me to tears. Thanks for playing it and making it my song of the pandemic. As I walk outside today, I'm going to be singing it. The Italian movie The Bicycle Thief was being played the other evening on TV and reminded me of all the desperation that the destruction and all the complete eradication of the infrastructure of a country can bring, the despair of its people with the lack of food, job security and all that a country usually supplies to its people was a reminder of where Italy was 75 years ago and how it recovered. Now it has to do so again. Keep singing the song. It is inspiring.

KARIN MARLEY: Finally, a little one from Tom Hickey of Fredericton, who wrote to say simply that The Current should always be done with an Italian accent. It sounds so lovely.

MG: Grazie Tom. And thank you for all your letters. You can reach us through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. Karin thank you.

KARIN MARLEY: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Coming up on The Current. The mayor of Montreal, Valerie Plante. She has an exclusive seat on a global task force. Hear what she's doing to help cities bounce back from the virus. And we'll hear from health reporter Andre Picard making the case to go outside in the midst of the pandemic. That's in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Rebuilding and re-imagining big cities post COVID-19: can we build them greener, safer and more affordable?

Guests: Valerie Plante, Andre Picard

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Big cities across this planet have been hammered by the coronavirus densely populated, they have crowded public transit systems, packed shops and busy streets. Traits that have greatly contributed to mortality rates and the crippling of businesses. And already leaders are weighing how these metropolises can recover. To do that, 11 mayors from around the world have been appointed to a working group called C-40 Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force. Valerie Plante is the only Canadian named to that task force. She is the mayor of Montreal. That's the epicentre of this pandemic in Canada. Mayor Plante, good morning.

VALERIE PLANTE: Good morning.

MG: Why is it that Montreal is having such a hard time bringing down the number of infections?

VALERIE PLANTE: Well, of course, I'm not the specialist here, but what we're seeing is that while whether one of the reason that was brought up to us is the fact that we had our spring break at the beginning, where, for example, if I compare with my my colleagues in Ontario, they were able to shut down the province and all the activities before the spring break. But and also we have a lot of economic and cultural activities between the city of New York in Montreal. It's very. We're really closely connected. And so there were also a lot of case brought in. That being said, like I said, I'm not an expert, but we're definitely dealing with a difficult situation with our elders as well. So we're we're working really hard to go through to go through this and to minimise the curve, because it's it's still a big issue in Canada, especially Montreal.

MG: In the meantime, people are trying to figure out what happens and when things can start to resume some sense of normality. Yesterday, the premier of your province, Francois Legault announced the reopening of businesses in Montreal would be delayed by a week to the 18th of May. Have a listen to why he thought that's the right decision.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We want to reopen stores in Montreal, but we know that if we reopen and when we'll reopen stores, we'll probably have more cases in our hospitals. So right now, the situation is under control with the way it's managed with the number of people that we have right now continuing to stay at home. But if we open a bit, we need to have a margin and we don't see this margin today.

MG: Valerie Plante is delaying reopening the right decision?

VALERIE PLANTE: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh reopening or delaying?

MG: Well delaying the reopening.

VALERIE PLANTE: Right. So for me, the fact that there's an extra week absolutely makes sense. Here in Montreal, though, like the premier said, the situation is under control, but it's fragile. And for me, even though I'm, you know, like everybody else, we're looking for opening some economic sectors. But it cannot be done over the population's health. And so whatever time is needed, I'm totally willing to wait.

MG: How much pressure are you under to reopen society? I mean I just wonder whether your population is willing to stay patient.

VALERIE PLANTE: Well, that is a very good question. I think that we can see there is a lot of people — I would say, especially parents and elders, that are really preoccupied by opening schools and opening some economic sectors where for businesses and and people that are having a trouble and struggling right now, of course, they're they're they're they're interested into opening their businesses. So it is a balance to find. And for me, what is important is to definitely follow that public health authorities and that's been my number one priority since the beginning, and I will continue to do so.So if there's any chances that, you know, it's not a good idea to reopen some sectors in Montreal, I will be the first to say "Let's wait."

MG: You mentioned schools. The elementary schools in Montreal are set to open on the 19th of May, according to this provincial directive. If your children were elementary school age, would you send them back to school now?

VALERIE PLANTE: I think that I would. I'm not sure I would do it right at the beginning because there's huge challenges right now around finding the right number of people, because we need to double and triple the number of school teachers. And guardians as well because the classes will be smaller. So I would probably wait a while, but I think I can definitely see the impact, the psychological impact on kids — and I could talk about my kids — of not having the possibility to socialize. But again, many of those question, I think the premier would be in such a better position than me to explain, because those decisions were made by the national public health authorities and the government of Quebec. But again, we will follow the recommendation being put in place by public health authorities.

MG: I guess we've spoken with parents and we've spoken with educators as well. And there's a real sense of anxiety around the idea of of the timing of this. And people, again, I understand that they are desperate to get back to normal, but they wonder whether this is too soon, if there are hundreds of new cases in the province every day, a thousand cases this past weekend, whether this sort of stuff is just premature and we just need to wait.

VALERIE PLANTE: Well, I'm at the same place as you. Being the mayor of the biggest city in in Quebec, I do receive a lot of messages. Actually we're the only level of government that still answers through emails and and social media, all the questions. So I'm getting tons and tons of questions and we're trying to be reassuring to everybody having the knowledge and, you know, following the orders that are coming from above us. But at the same time, the fact that everything is being decided to the public health authorities to me is reassuring. And this is where we are trying to put everything together as a city, because the moment we reopen some sectors and schools, it also means that we need to work on the the social and then the social space. But the public spaces, the streets, sidewalks, intersections to make sure that we can keep the social distancing that is so important right now.

MG: You've talked about keeping parks open and you've said that it's important for people in Montreal to keep an open mind, that there are many people in this city who don't have a backyard. They don't have a balcony. And so you have kept parks open. Tell me more about that and why you've done that, why you've created more space on the streets and the plateau, for example, so that people can be out and not have to worry about being close to each other.

VALERIE PLANTE: So since the beginning, almost at the beginning, we did decided to keep the parks open, though. I have to say, we closed the dogs, parks or playgrounds for kids like all the places that the dissension between the social dispensing is difficult to keep. And so because we're a big city, we realise that even though people making lots of efforts to keep the two meters while they're going for the grocery store, the pharmacy, or just taking a bit of fresh air, they're having trouble, too, to keep the distance. So while the parks are still open, we also started to create sanitary corridors in some of the business streets, so if you go to the grocery store and you're waiting in line, then there's more space. So we've been taking a lot of parking space out of those streets to really support the social distancing. And now we're moving a bit more and we're moving forward with creating what we call family and active streets, which are shared streets where those are local ones, local streets where your equal, let's put it this way, whatever, you're driving your car for local reasons or you're a pedestrian or a cyclist, everybody's equal on those streets. And so we're going to be carrying a lot of those in the coming days and weeks to really support the social dispensing that is very important.

MG: Do you see this as an opportunity? You use the phrase your equal, which is interesting in terms of whether you're walking or riding a bike or driving a car. Do you see this as an opportunity to rethink what our streets and our cities could look like after this is done?

VALERIE PLANTE: Yeah. And I think that a lot of people have realized how much space cars are taking. And I'm not judging the usage of cars, and that's not the point. But people are realising that when you're walking in the city, you have very limited space comparing to cars. And so I find it's a great time to show what will be possible. So even downtown and in many areas, that many boroughs will be closing streets to do full pedestrians area, especially on the commercial streets. And we will be creating big corridors. We will be taking some space out of the for the cars to give more space for cyclists. So I think it's an opportunity and we'll see how it goes. There's less cars running right now. And I think it's time to rethink of how we share, how we share the public space outside.

MG: This is a health crisis. It's also a financial crisis. And it's a financial crisis for cities across this country and around the world. How badly hit will the economy of Montreal be out of this?

VALERIE PLANTE: It's huge. It's huge. And we're trying to be just a positive and we're trying to put all the efforts to keep the the budget balanced, because we have a responsibility at the municipal level. You need to have a balanced budget. It's the only order of government where you cannot have a deficit. And so we're right. Right now, we're challenging with how are we going to keep our employees as much as possible in my child is 28000 people working for the city through all the broughs. And it's also how do we keep on giving the services that people needs? So and decide that in cities we depend on the tax we impose every year on, you know, on the Houses, it's quite limited. We don't have lots of sources of revenue. So it is a very tricky problem and especially in big cities where there's a transportation system to support. We have lost a lot of people like they're not taking it. So a lot of revenues as well. So we've been asking the big cities of Canada have been asking the government of the federal government to support. Its up to about 10 millions, and it would be based on the population, but also on the number of how could I say that the ridership that would definitely support big cities like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and all the big cities.

MG: This is a global crisis. And as I mentioned, you're the only Canadian on this international taskforce of mayors looking at how we in cities get out of this. How do you think cities like yours will be changed after this pandemic?

VALERIE PLANTE: I think that we were talking about the opportunity just before talking about how we see we share the streets and sidewalks and all that. I see it as an opportunity also to connect the economic recovery to connected to the social recovery, as well as put it in in the in the context of fighting climate change. So I I'm really hoping that as we're you know, we will be going through this crisis and afterwards we need to take the opportunity to think differently. And for me, this is why I'm so happy to be with other mayors that are have the same ideas. And we're pushing an agenda of keeping climate change in our minds so we don't fall back in the same kind of a habit. So at least we requestion some of the things we've been doing for for forever, thinking that's the only way to do it or to develop or to do business. So this is why I find it very interesting and to share best practices and ways to go through the the crisis, but especially the after the crisis.

MG: I think of Montreal in the summer as one of the great places in this country. And I mean, it's partially because people take over your city and they're out there enjoying themselves. Do you worry that people won't do that in future, that they won't gather, you know, in the hundreds of thousands for the Jazz Fest, or for Pride, or just to be in the park with each other. Do you worry that that won't happen again?

VALERIE PLANTE: Well, I'm especially worried about the big festivals. Right now, we don't see how this could happen this summer for obvious reasons. And we're not going to push it to a place where it would be dangerous for public health, you know, to to have the festival and different events. So I think that once we once it will be safe, the city will be by you know, we'll we'll continue vibrate with all those big events and festivals. But right now, we need to concentrate on what's good for the population and for the gatherings and everything. This is where I find it interesting to already look at how can I give more space, public space to depopulate population? How can I make more pedestrian spaces? So people are taking over. You know, they're they're using their city, even though they they will not be outside watching a show under the stars like we used to do in the previous years.

MG: Just before I let you go, what do you miss about your city right now? It's a very different place. And when you're inside the kids, what do you miss about your city?

VALERIE PLANTE: Right. What do I miss? Well, of course I miss like I mean, on a very personal level, it's hard for me. I'm a very down to earth kind of a mayor, and I go outside and I meet people. And this is what I love. I'm really connected to the citizens. Right now, everybody's in their house and we're not taught well, we're not meeting. So, of course, I will say it like all everyone in Canada, I believe, are waiting to have this just this moment where we can walk in the street freely and not being afraid of our neighbour or the people that we're meeting and keeping our two meters distance, but at the same time, I do appreciate how Montrealers are being disciplined at this point and doing a lot of efforts, staying in their home, like we said, without honestly having a lot of space dealing with the kids, which is not always easy, dealing with all the financial struggle. I'm very proud of our of Montrealers. But to be honest of Quebeckers and Canadians, I think we're quite disciplind. and it is great.

MG: Mayor Plante, it's good to speak with you. I look forward to being back in your city when it is at full throttle, which is one of those great places in this country.

VALERIE PLANTE: You're always welcome.

MG: Thank you. Nice to talk to you.

VALERIE PLANTE: Have a great day.

MG: Valerie Plante is the mayor of Montreal. Andre Picard is a Montreal based health columnist with The Globe and Mail. He has been listening in. Andre, good morning to you.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what we just heard from the mayor of your town, Valerie Plante, about how your city is coping and what she's up against? This is a city that is finding that flattening the curve is more difficult than perhaps initially imagined.

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah. This is the city, this is the epicentre of this outbreak in Canada by far. It's a big, big issue in Montreal. But I think as the mayor said, Montrealers are adapting. We're still out and about in large numbers, but respecting social distancing, trying to get our minds around this new normal like everyone else in the world and going on with life.

MG: The premier of Quebec, Francois Legault, as I mentioned to the mayor, said that's the planned reopening of retail stores and other non-essential businesses in the greater Montreal area would be delayed by a week. Is that the right call?

ANDRE PICARD: Oh, definitely. I think, again, the mayor said it quite well that this city is just not ready yet. Still, it's one of the only places in the country that's not flattening the curve. The numbers are still going up daily. Hospitals are starting to get quite stressed. You know, there's more than a thousand people in hospital just in the city of Montreal. That's probably as much as almost the rest of the country combined.

MG: And yet, on the other side of the country, in British Columbia, Bonnie Henry, the medical officer of health there, says that this is the end of the beginning of their pandemic. What do you make of what's happening there?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, not very good news. You know, we have different we don't have one pandemic in Canada or one outbreak. We have a number of them in different parts of the country. You know, we're a big country, very different world in British Columbia than in Quebec at Montreal today. So they're adapting. And I think she's right. And I think her wording is perfect. It's you know, it's this first wave that they've gotten control of, but they're starting to prepare for what's going to happen in the fall. I think that's where public health officials have the most trepidation as we let down our guard for the summer. Things will go a little better and then the fall of risks being much, much worse.

MG: Part of this is about and this is what I raised with with the mayor of Montreal, the impatience, but the push from citizens to get back to normal people want things to start to reopen. And even the premier of Ontario, who we talked about this last week, said that he put out a roadmap, not a calendar, is now talking about a calendar and talking about opening some things up perhaps by the May long weekend. What do you see as the big challenge to reopening safely, not just in individual jurisdictions, but across the country?

ANDRE PICARD: I think the big challenges are so much unknown about this virus. We still don't know how many carriers are out there without symptoms or asymptomatic people. Will this explode if we open up our stores? People start to interacting more. We just don't know. So we're watching other jurisdictions. And I think to me, the biggest issue is we do have to go slowly. Everyone agrees on that. But the problem is what happens if we do have another big resurgence? I think it becomes more and more difficulty to shut down again. And I think that's why everyone's hesitating. They want to, they don't want to have to make that call and back-pedal.

MG: Part of that hesitating is trying to figure out whether people should stay inside or go outside. We're talking about Dr. Bonnie Henry. Have a listen to what she said about getting outside.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The risk that somebody who is sick is spreading this virus from coughing or sneezing outside. And you walk by them very quickly, even if it is within six feet, that risk is negligible. You know that's not the way this virus is mostly transmitted. So please go outside. Go outside with your family, but do it in a way that maintains that distance right now and don't go out if you're feeling sick yourself.

MG: Andre Picard, to what extent do you think Canadians are hearing that message, go outside consistently across this country?

ANDRE PICARD: Well I don't think they're hearing it consistently. You know, the messages go outside but don't congregate. And I think that's been the message all along, but we spent two months scaring the dickens out of people saying you know, there's this pandemic. The biggest thing that's happened in a century and now it's hard to it's a lot harder to unskilled people than to scare them. So a lot of people have heard this message. This is dangerous. So they assume we can't do anything. But it's been safe all along to go outside of the safest place to be outside. It's hard to transport, harder to transmit, so long as you keep your distance. You know, this is an illness you're going to get if you're in close confines with someone who is sick. If you're touching surfaces, going outside is the best place to be, honestly.

MG: You wrote a column about this, talking about how we need to change that message. What do you make of the decision in the city of Toronto to close High Park? This is so that people won't go and look at at the cherry blossoms, which are in one part of this 400 acre park, but the entire park has been closed down.

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah so it's one of the things that you don't want people to congregate, but you do want them to get out. So I think you have to aire on the side of trusting people. So as you know, I live in Montreal. Montreal has kept its parks open. On the weekend the parks were full of people, but 99 percent of people were respecting the recommendations. People were staying apart, enjoying the sun, etc. I don't see why Toronto can't do that. To me it's a shame that such a beautiful park that we really need these days is closed.

MG: The other part of it is what Mayor Plante was talking about, the idea that you create a more equal space on streets by closing some lanes. And this has been tried in some cities, other cities like the city of Toronto, perhaps more reluctant to do this. Why is that the right thing to toot open up some of the streets so that if people are going to go out, they have more space?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I've been hammering away at this one for a while that, you know, there's not too many people out. There's too little space for the people who are. So we have to create spaces. You know, most of our urban setting is cars. It's designed for cars. It's a time where people are coming into cities to work, etc.. We have to open up the streets. Some cities, Vancouver, Calgary have been Montreal have been much better. But this just closed streets. Let people walk on them six feet apart or two meters apart. And that's much better for everyone's mental and physical health and it's a much better use of space.

MG: What's the resistance to that? You talked about the idea of trusting people. Is that what's at the heart of this, that some cities perhaps just don't trust the citizens to do the right thing?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, I think, again, there's a fear of congregating, which I don't think has played out in any of these places. I think the real fear is from cities, if people weren't, won't want to go back. You know, I think they're plants at that very well. People are liking this, getting out and about and having some streets closed. This is very popular. And I think there's a movement around the world to take advantage of this crisis, to say, hey, maybe we should do our cities a little differently. Maybe some of these streets we've closed temporarily, we should close permanently this whole court car based culture. Maybe that's one of the things that will change out of this new normal.

MG: Well, you're a health columnist. You're not an urban design columnist. But do you see a connection between the two?

ANDRE PICARD: Oh, it's absolutely you know, it's a health issue, our physical environment. It's one of the most important determinants of health. If you lived in a place where there's green, where you can walk, you know who has the lowest rate of obesity in the country? It's Montreal because people walk more here. There's a direct connection between our health and our physical environment that we've neglected for far too long.

MG: What are we learning about the way we've been talking about this on the program? The impact that this is all having on our mental health? There was the survey done by Angus Reid saying that 50 percent of those surveyed said that they had felt that their mental health to had declined. A smaller percentage said that it declined severely. What are we learning about, you know, being told to stay home and the effect that that's having on our mental health?

ANDRE PICARD: I think there's no question it's stressful. It's demanding. I think we have to be careful about saying this is going to result in mental illness. You know, we I think we have this problem in modern society that we pathologize all these normal emotions. So it's normal to be stressed, to be worried, to have economic worries, but it doesn't mean we're all going to end up depressed and institutionalized. People are very, very resilient in incredibly difficult circumstances. And I think this is going to be another challenge is to change the way we talk and behave to to adjust to this. Or is it going to be more okay to talk about our stress, to not go into work? Because I'm having a bad coronavirus day. I can't take it today. These mental health days. Maybe it'll be an opportunity to talk more openly about our feeling.

MG: Can I ask you about work? I'm in the office and there's a handful of us who are here. Many, many, many more people are working from home. What do you think the transition back to the office will look like in the weeks ahead?

ANDRE PICARD: I think that's gonna be a big, big challenge. You know, especially in Toronto and Montreal, where we have these 50 storey skyscrapers, people crammed together in the elevator, crammed together in their cubicles. I don't think that's going to happen. And I don't think it's going to be public health that orders this not to happen. I think businesses are going to recognise their liability and maybe that hey a lot of this working at home stuff has been OK. A lot of businesses are doing as well as normal. Maybe they don't need the rent. Maybe we don't need millions of commuters every day who ran cramming into trains. So I think, again, there's going to be some opportunity there to do things differently.

MG: The other part of that, though, is that if you're at home and you're working, the separation between work and the rest of your life is kind of been erased. I mean, if you're at the office and at whatever time you leave, you leave and you might bring the laptop home or the smartphone home, but you can put it away because you're not at work. If your work is at your kitchen table and that's where you eat and that's where you also happen to be at the office, do we worry about that separation beginning to blur or disappear?

ANDRE PICARD: I think we have to worry about that. But I think the reality is for many people in our modern society that that blurring has already occurred. So we already have our phones 24/7 and we work too much, etc. And maybe some of that will be a trade off. It will be considered that to our. Commute. I'm going to spend an extra hour at the kitchen table, but I still have a net benefit of one hour or more with my kids. So I think it's again that all this is going to be read finding a new normal, finding new ways of doing what we used to do and recognising that wasn't necessarily smart or efficient.

MG: The other side of this, just in terms of work, finally is, is what's happening in Alberta at this beef packing plant, the cargo plant in southern Alberta, had a huge outbreak, the largest in this country. The workers were ordered back onto the job yesterday despite the fact that the union said it wasn't safe. How should a dispute like that be resolved?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, we're going to have to again find ways to do manufacturing things that's done elbow to elbow, like meat packing. Maybe that's not the way to do it. A lot of people have used that for a discussion. Well, maybe we shouldn't be eating so much beef. You know, if the plant shut down, we're going to have less access to it. Maybe just another opportunity. But I think it's, again, rethinking. You know, there's no question that was not a healthy workplace to begin with before the pandemic. And now it's been exposed. It's much like nursing homes. Things that were bad before have just been exposed by this virus. So I think it's about rethinking our workplaces and maybe manufacturing meat packing is one place to start along with nursing homes in general society.

MG: We will talk again. In the meantime, Andre, thank you so much for this morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you. Always a pleasure.

MG: Andre Picard, The Globe and Mail's health columnist, regular part of our ongoing COVID-19 coverage here at The Current. That idea of the re-think is so interesting. What else could we rethink coming out of something like this? You could let us know through the website, if you have suggestions. cbc.ca/theurrent and click on the contact link. The CBC News is next and then murder hornets. Just what we needed in the midst of a pandemic. The race is on to stop them from spreading in North America. I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stick around.

[Music]

Back To Top »

'Murder hornets' could spell trouble for Canada's bee populations, but offer little threat to humans: experts

Guests: Conrad Berube

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, diagnostic dogs, why they are being trained to sniff out COVID-19. But first, the arrival of the murder hornet.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of Asian giant hornet]

MG: Yikes. They're the world's largest hornets, five times the size of bees. They can grow to be 2 inches or 6 centimetres in length. And that buzzing you heard is generated by just one of them. They are known as the Asian giant Hornet, but many call them murder hornets. And the murder hornets have made their way to North America. Conrad Berube is an entomologist, a scientist that studies insects. He's also a beekeeper. He's in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Conrad, good morning.

CONRAD BERUBE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Murder hornets? That certainly catches your attention, that name.

CONRAD BERUBE: I think that was the intention because I had never heard that term before. It should certainly be prefaced with the adjective honeybee or the noun honeybee, because they are honeybee murder hornets and are much more interested in going after their prey rather than being a threat to general public health.

MG: Do you think the name is appropriate?

CONRAD BERUBE: I don't. I certainly have been using myself asian giant Hornet. I think it's a much more, much more descriptive and accurate.

MG: Two inches or six centimetres in length. This is a big bee or big hornet.

CONRAD BERUBE: It is a big, big hornet. Yes. So they're in the same order of insects as as bees. They're in the order, Hymenoptera. So bees, bees, ants and wasps. So it is, as you mentioned, is the largest wasp.

MG: And they sting.

CONRAD BERUBE: And they sting. I have been stung in the course of taking out the first nest of the Asian giant Hornet discovered in North America and it does hurt.

MG: OK. How did that happen that you got stung by a giant Asian hornet?

CONRAD BERUBE: So some specimens had been discovered in late August by a local beekeeper and had been identified by the provincial agriculturalist Paul Van Westondorp as the Asian giant Hornet. So he alerted the local Bee Club and the officers of the Bee Club had gone out to do a reconnaissance in preparation for a kind of a large scale search to to discover where the specimens had originated from. And in their reconnaissance, they found the nest. So they had known that I had experience extracting honey bee nests for the preparation of a pharmaceutical serum and had all the equipment for doing so. So they called me up.

MG: Lucky you.

CONRAD BERUBE: Yes. And so we girded ourselves up with our standard bee suits and some extra protection because we weren't quite sure what to expect. And so they had discovered they nest at dusk. And doing these kinds of operations at night is ideal because the wasps aren't flying at night. So we, when I approach the nests we had, we wanted to collect specimens for genetic analysis. So I had a hand vacuum with me that I was trying to vacuum some some of the hornets up with and didn't realize, never having seen them before, that they were too large to fit into the nozzle of the hand vacuum. So having disturbed them, and having squatted down, the fabric of the two pair of pants that I was wearing was stretched tight across my legs and I got four stings immediately.

MG: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did it hurt to be stung by a murder hornet?

CONRAD BERUBE: The best way I can describe it, it's like having red hot thumbtacks driven into the flesh. So whatever, whatever scale one would be for that.

MG: That's like 11 or 12 maybe.

CONRAD BERUBE: A description of what it feels like.

MG: And they went through two pairs of pants?

CONRAD BERUBE: That's right. They have a, their sting apparatus is about a quarter inch long. In fact, the following day after the extraction of the nest, I removed a quarter inch long lancet — that's part of the sting mechanism — from my finger that had gone through my glove and down the side of my finger. So because it was in kind of the callous part of the finger, it didn't cause any pain, but it was interesting to draw out a quarter inch of the insect anatomy out of my finger.

MG: Did you learn what you mean, you suffer for your work, But did you manage to figure out what you wanted to find out about this?

CONRAD BERUBE: Well, our primary goal at that point was to destroy the nest, because this was in September, September 18th of last year. And the Hornets, like all yellowjackets, produce annual nests which are established by a single female queen, then grow during the summer and then after that. And then the workers bring in enough, if the workers are successful at bringing in enough food for the nest to produce reproductive, then the nest will throw off reproductive males and females in the fall. And we were at the cusp of when they were, when that nest would have been about to throw off reproductive and we wanted to ensure that didn't happen. So we so took the nest. We we removed the nest entirely. And we wanted to be able to preserve both specimens, to provide to research institutions, to identify and to do some genetic analysis, which we did.

MG: Do we have a sense as to how many of these wasps there are in North America right now?

CONRAD BERUBE: That's a big unknown. Right now there have been, so since since our activities there haven't been any hornets detected on Vancouver Island, at least not in the Nanaimo area. And that would be the prime area. And we have the Bee Club has ensured that all of their members have trap bottles in their aviaries. And so far, nothing has turned up in. There was a discovery in November in near White Rock in Blaine, Washington. So the provincial agriculturalist is setting up has set up a program of monitoring near Mile Zero between Surrey and White Rock. And likewise, the Washington State Department of Agriculture has set up a similar monitoring program on the other side of the border near Blaine.

MG: This is important in part because, as you said, the murder title is perhaps best applicable to what they would do to bees. What sort of danger do they pose to bees?

CONRAD BERUBE: To bees?

MG: Yeah.

CONRAD BERUBE: The hornets are social predators, so it's akin to wolves and sheep. So in general, the hornets represent kind of a constant threat to the bees that are foraging in the air and their apiary. So they'll be regularly taking taking out bees that they collect in the apiary to bring back to their to their larvae. They can't, what they'll do is they'll catch a bee, cut off its head, chew up the meat from the thorax and then return that hornet hamburger back to the nest to feed their larvae because they themselves can't digest the meat because it won't pass through that wasp waist that they have into theirstomach, into their gaster. So they bring that hamburger to their larvae, feed it to the larvae, the larvae in turn, digest it, and then squirt back to the adults an amino acid rich slurry. That's essentially kind of a smoothie that that nourishes the the adults. But what can happen later on in the summer is that hunting behaviour changes. So about the point where they're stocking the nest to rear out the reproductive males and females and their protein needs have increased, they they will sometimes target a single colony in an apiary. And then a couple of dozen a couple of dozen hornet workers will begin attacking the honeybee workers who are returning back to their hive in mass in these dramatic aerial dogfights such that a few dozen of the hornets can kill 20 to 30000 bees in the course of a couple of hours,.

MG: Which could be devastating. I mean, these things were to spread across the country.

CONRAD BERUBE: That's correct. That's correct. So they'll kill they'll kill off all the workers and then the hornets will go into the into the hive, take it over, and then we'll begin transferring the larvae and the and the honey back to their nest to feed their larvae.

MG: Just a couple of minutes left. There's a couple of things I wanted to ask you. One is, what is it that the government should be doing to prevent that from happening? Part of this is, is, as you say, you know, trying to figure out how many there are. But beyond that, what is it that we should be doing?

CONRAD BERUBE: Yeah. So. So the government has set up monitoring programs and would certainly appreciate the assistance of the general public in in locating net nests, if any do exist. So. So basically what we're recommending to people is slap, snap, zap and wrap.

MG: What does that mean?

CONRAD BERUBE: So if you can do so safely, and you see what you suspect is one of these hornets, slap it with a stick to kill it, snap a photo of it, zap an email off to info@bcinvasives.ca, and wrap it in a Ziploc bag and freeze in case a sample is needed. And then we could also and and trap. You can go online and find a few if you Google Asian giant hornet trap, there are designs online that can be baited with sugary syrup with some yeast added to it, which will act as an attractant to to catch at this time of year, which would be ideal to catch any queens that are caught with a sugary syrup at this time of year would be a nest that doesn't need to be dealt with further down the line.

MG: WIth respect, the way that you described being stung by one, the chances are I'm not going to, you know, smack it with a stick. I'm just gonna hear screaming from probably.

CONRAD BERUBE: Sure we're encouraging people only to do what they feel they can do safely. So beekeepers who are who have their bee suits on, who might be encounter one of these in their aviaries, might feel secure to slap at it with a stick. But if folks are able to do so safely, we encourage people to snap a photo of what they what they think tmight be an Asian giant hornet, which are quite as you mentioned, very large hornets and can be identified by their very large orange heads, which accommodate the mandibles that all the better for chopping off the heads of honeybees.

MG: I'll keep an eye out, I think if I see them. Yeah, I probably will run in the opposite direction. Conrad, I appreciate you explaining what you know about them. Thank you.

CONRAD BERUBE: Thank you so much Matt. Keep calm and keep bees.

MG: Keep calm and keep bees? Conrad Berube is an entomologist and a beekeeper in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Back To Top »

Veterinary scientists say dogs can be trained to sniff out COVID-19 in patients before they have symptoms

Guests: Cynthia Otto

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. From Giant Hornets to dogs. They've been trained to sniff out illegal drugs, explosives, missing people as well. Dogs have even learned to detect diseases. And then at the end of March, as the coronavirus was spreading around the globe, some of these kinds of canines took centre stage at the Crufts Dog Show in the UK. Here is Claire Guest, co-founder of the UK based charity Medical Detection Dogs introducing some very helpful animals.

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip from Crufts Dog Show]

MG: It's perhaps no surprise that scientists are now working to see if dogs can be used to detect COVID-19, in humans. Dr. Cynthia Otto is leading one such effort. She's director of the Working Dog Centre at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine. Doctor, good morning.

CYNTHIA OTTO: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What makes you think that dogs might be able to detect COVID-19?

CYNTHIA OTTO: I think we have a lot of evidence that diseases have specialised odours or unique odours, including viruses themselves, have unique odours, which we call VOCs or volatile organic compounds. And if there is an odour out there that we can identify, we can train a dog to detect it, or at least the dog can detect it. Sometimes we're not as clever about training the dogs, but the dogs are amazing. It really picking up and identifying specific odours.

MG: How do you train dogs to identify a particular odour?

CYNTHIA OTTO: So it's a pretty simple process, whether we're talking about explosives or we're talking about cancer or in this situation where we're talking about COVID-19. And the approach that we've taken in our work with ovarian cancer detection is that we've taught the dogs that there is a smell associated with a blood sample in the case of ovarian cancer and that smell, they realize, is just in the sample from patients with ovarian cancer and not in the samples from patients that are normal or have benign ovarian disease. So what we're teaching the dogs is to discriminate that there is a unique odour among all of the odours in these samples that is only associated with this disease. And the dogs are amazingly quick at determining that there is something different.

MG: So how would that work with COVID-19? Do we know that there is some sort of odour, some scent that is associated with this?

CYNTHIA OTTO: No, we actually don't know that yet. And that's the first part of our project is proof of concept. Is there an odour? Is there something that is in a sample from a patient with COVID-19 that's not in samples of people that don't have COVID-19.

MG: How do we go about figuring that out? I mean, you could train the dog, but you need to figure out whether the dog needs to be trained in the first place for this.

CYNTHIA OTTO: So our first step is we're collecting samples from patients with COVID-19 and we're collecting samples from patients without COVID-19. And included in those patients without COVID-19 would be patients that might have illnesses that would be confused with COVID-19. So we're taking those samples and we're training the dogs on the sample from the patient with COVID-19. So lots and lots of samples. And basically we introduced the dogs. We have them smell the sample. We give them a treat when they smell that sample, and then we introduce them to a sample that is from a patient without COVID-19. And they they smell it, but they don't get a treat. And they're really quick to figure out how to get treats. So they will. Right. Recognise that there is something unique about these samples from the COVID-19 that kits that gets them a treat. And it's not present in the other samples. So they go through this whole process of kind of narrowing it down. Now, at the same time, we're working with some collaborators, scientists who are looking at the chemical signature of these samples so that the volatile organic compounds, signature using machines like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry in order to identify what those chemicals might be. We don't have to know the chemicals though to train the dogs because the dogs figure out the difference in the samples.

MG: You mentioned the work that you're doing with ovarian cancer. We heard a little clip there as well about malaria. How reliable have these dogs been with other diseases?

CYNTHIA OTTO: So the dogs can be up to 95 percent sensitive and specific, depending a lot of it is really how we train them. So the better we are at training, the more reliable that they will be. But that said, we also know that sometimes dogs have their days and don't work as well on some days than others. We found that with our dogs. So we definitely know that we have to pay attention to how the dog is working and really pay attention to how we're training to make sure we're doing the best job possible to ensure that we are getting a high sensitivity and specificity.

MG: Are there specific breeds of dogs that are better suited to this sort of work?

CYNTHIA OTTO: So we've worked predominantly with shepherds and Labradors, dogs that have been selected for using their noses for jobs. And that's because of the environment that we work in at the Working Dog Centre, it's all about detection work. But there are definitely different breeds of dogs that can do this. What we find is that rather than the breed, it's more the personality of the dog. Some of these medical detection jobs are really challenging and the dogs have to be very discriminating and very focused. And so we find that dogs that are much more focussed are going to be better at that compared to our search and rescue dogs, which really are kind of the big picture dogs. They're really looking in a big environment for a big odour among, you know, a collapsed building as opposed to these dogs. You're looking for basically a needle in a haystack.

MG: If this works, I mean, we keep talking about people who are asymptomatic, people who are spreading COVID-19, and they don't even know that they have it because they have no symptoms. This might help be able to, you know, find out more information about how many of those people there are.

CYNTHIA OTTO: Absolutely, I mean that's really our holy grail. If we can come up with a quick way to screen patients, whether that's through samples or through actually screening the humans, that is definitely going to help us identify who is asymptomatic and really the people that we need to sort of pull out of the mix to just slow down the spread of this disease.

MG: Practically though, how would this work? I mean, we have been talking about testing and there's the typical testing where you stick the long Q-Tip type thing up your nose. We've been talking in the program about testing wastewater to get a better sense as to where the virus might be. Is this you know, I go to the doctor's office and there's a dog there that sniffs me?

CYNTHIA OTTO: So that's a really great question and we've got a couple of strategies that we anticipate sort of translating this to an operational setting. The first strategy, if we can document that there is indeed a unique odour, our chemists can work on developing new screening techniques, using the volatiles. And also we've been working with a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Charlie Johnson, who's developing an electronic sensor that is very sensitive to the different volatile signatures. And so that might help just speed up the routine sensing or the more traditional types of screening methods where we provide a sample on whether that's a urine sample or a saliva sample or breath sample. And that gets screened either at a point of care or at a a remote lab. The other method that we anticipate could happen is similar to what happens for explosive detection screening in airports where we have dogs that are screening people as they're sort of lining up to go through security. It may be that we would have that opportunity to screen people as they're lining up to enter a work facility or at transportation locations or depending on really what that application is and what our need is. We could anticipate they could even be at hospitals sort of waiting to be screened and we could identify the patients that actually need to be confirmed with other types of screening.

MG: This is so interesting. Cynthia, I appreciate you telling us about it. Thank you.

CYNTHIA OTTO: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Matt.

MG: Cynthia Otto is director of the Working Dog Centre at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. For the past few weeks, as we have made our way through this thing that we are all in, we have been asking for your song suggestions, specifically songs that help melt away some of the anxiety that we're all feeling. Catherine Disberry of beautiful Kelowna, BC, wrote that her song selection has a sad and wistful quality. The lyrics are full of hope based on the cycle of nature. This is the great Montreal jazz singer Ranee Lee, and "You Must Believe in Spring."

[Song: "You Must Believe in Spring" by Ranee Lee]

MG: The calendar never lies. Ranee Lee, "You Must Believe in Spring." This is The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Canadian humanitarian on the front lines of both Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks in DRC

Guests: Anne-Marie Connor

MG: This is The Current on CBC One. I'm Matt Galloway. For months, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been eager for good news. There were hopes that their years long Ebola outbreak was over and then two things happened. New cases popped up and another virus COVID-19 hit that country. Anne-Marie Connor is national director of World Vision's Humanitarian Mission in the DRC. She is in the capital city of Kinshasa. Anne-Marie, good morning.

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: Good morning.

MG: What is life in Kinshasa like this morning?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: Busy. I was out about two days ago to get groceries. And you wouldn't know that there is an outbreak. There are people on the streets. Life goes on for the majority of the population.

MG: So there's no lockdown as such?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: There is a lockdown. However, it's incredibly difficult to enforce. About 80 percent of the population. This is a city of about 15 million people. We estimate that about 80 percent of those people rely on the informal work sector. So if an average Congolese woman doesn't leave her house in the morning to go out and sell fruit, if her husband doesn't go out and drive a taxi, they won't eat that night. So it's almost impossible for them to to isolate and for the government then to enforce a lockdown.

MG: We are being told here and this is a message that's being spread around the world that physical distancing is important. You need to stay a certain distance apart from each other in that city. Is something like that in the context that you're describing, is physical distancing possible?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: Incredibly difficult for the reason that people have to eat for people. A lot of people, they don't understand what this disease, this virus is. So for them, it's either do I do I not eat today or do I stay home because of this this invisible virus? So people are choosing to go out as well. People might not have access to the basics. You know, you mentioned social distancing. The other really important thing that we talk about all the time, of course, is washing your hands. That's a basic but not a given in a place like DRC. If someone needs to eat, they're going to prioritise that over buying soap. They might not have running water. So we have to think about the basics to keep people safe and to keep people healthy.

MG: What do we know about how many cases of COVID-19 there are in the DRC right now?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: So not a huge number right now. We're only at about 600. And most of those are in the capital, Kinshasa. But of course, there are so many unknown unknowns. We don't know if that's because of limited testing capacity of the testing capacity is limited mostly to the major urban centres in the country. We suspect that the numbers are really quite a lot higher.

MG: The concern and again, this is a shared concern around the world based on what we've seen in places like Italy and Spain and in the U.K., is that a spike in cases can overwhelm the health care system. And people wonder whether health care systems around the world will be able to cope with that spike. What would happen in the DRC if the numbers were to shoot up?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: The health system is already battling, as you mentioned in your introduction, ebola. We're also fighting a measles outbreak as well as really high rates of child malnutrition. To bring this outbreak on top is really going to bring the health care system to its to its needs. The other challenge and the other major concern that we have as World Vision is we know that kids aren't you know, they're not the hardest hit by the outbreak. But what they are at heightened risk of is dying from preventable diseases like malaria and measles, because the weak health system can't cope with, you know, a COVID-19 outbreak and because resources are diverted from regular vaccination campaigns, regular health check-ups to fighting the outbreak. So we have significant concerns about the health of children.

MG: What are you doing in your role and what is that like to in terms of trying to stop or slow the spread of the virus?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: So we know the health system won't be able to cope. So the key absolutely is prevention. We need to keep people healthy. So in order to do that, people have to have the right information. D.R.C. is a Francophone country, but the phrase fake news is very, very well-known. So what we are doing and what we need to do is combat rumours and misinformation. People need to know how to protect themselves. We need to help them protect themselves in order to be able to prevent a massive outbreak here.

MG: What's the misinformation that's spreading that would prevent that from happening, that would create a roadblock for you?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: So any number of things. A few, you know, we're collecting rumours. We're trying to analyse them so we can address each one of them, but things that are coming up are only foreigners can get sick. This is a fake disease that people have made up to profit from it. This is one that came up a lot in the Ebola outbreak. And we're seeing it come up again here. So we need to fight these rumours. We need people to understand that anyone can get sick and we need them to understand how how they can keep themselves and their families safe.

MG: All of this is happening at the same time as the Ebola outbreak continues. What's the status of Ebola in the DRC right now?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: So we were two days from declaring the outbreak over about two weeks ago and unfortunately, a number of cases have cropped up in the Ebola epicentre of Benin, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Thankfully, with the World Health Organization, World Vision and other organizations, we're still on the ground. We we were ready to respond. We were not packing up. So we continue to fight that outbreak along with Cosied 19. We have frontline workers in in Beni in the eastern Democratic Republic who are scaling up to fight both outbreaks at the same time.

MG: How deflating was it? Two days away, 48 hours away from declaring this over and then it pops back up. How deflating was that for you?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: Incredibly discouraging and incredibly worrying, particularly for the team that we have in the east of the country, who's got about 100 Congolese staff. As I said, most of them frontline workers working to sensitise the community against Ebola. They there are facing an ongoing conflict. They're facing Ebola and now they're facing covered 19. So I'm really worried about them. Their ability to remain resilient and to keep up the fight. So that's a chief among my concerns at the moment.

MG: I spoke with Stephen Lewis a couple of weeks ago when what seemed like the beginning of all of this a long time ago. Now, it seems like one of the things that he talked about, knowing the continent as he does and knowing it is you do where many of the concerns that you've raised from health care system that could be overwhelmed, too. Again, the absence of the materials needed for basic things like hand-washing. He was really, really concerned about what this would mean on the continent and was concerned the people around the world weren't paying enough attention. Do you share those concerns that the eyes of the world aren't on countries like the DRC in ways that they should be?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: Absolutely. We know that this outbreak is is going to have significant impact on all the development gains we've made. You know, people here in the DRC have no social safety net. Schools are closed at the moment, so children here don't have the opportunity for things like online learning. If they're not in school, they're at work. I had a colleague, Simon, last week who is in again in the east of the country who saw children who should be in school hauling sugar cane for five hundred Congolese francs a day. That's about 40 cents Canadian. We know that kids who aren't in school are more at risk of abuse. They're losing their their year and they may be losing much more. So I'm incredibly concerned about children in the DRC.

MG: How are you coping through all of this? We're all in this together in different ways. And obviously, some are being affected in much more dramatic ways than others, but this is all our story and this is something that we all share. How are you coping with all of this?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: You know, Matt, I have a lot of privilege. I'm a Canadian from Sarnia, Ontario. If push came to shove, you know, I could always get up and leave. I won't and I'm not going to, but my concern remains with my teams who are facing layer upon layer of crisis. And they're maintaining the resilience, their their ability to keep working and and to keep their families safe and well is a big concern for me.

MG: You were offered a ticket out. I mean, you could have been on a plane and come home.

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: The Canadian embassy here in in the DRC did organize flights out. I chose to remain. A lot of people, you know, for pre-existing conditions had to had to leave. For me, the main reason, as I said, was because of my team. I wanted to stay with them, to be with them. The context in DRC also, it changes moment to moment. This is a fragile place, conflict, outbreak. So to be able to be here, to be able to understand and see the shifting need. Moment to moment was really important to me to give me the perspective to be able to support.

MG: We're all grasping for something to get us some sense of optimism and to guide us through this out of the tunnel at some point in time in future. Where are you finding that optimism?

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: In the team. I've got people on the ground today who are distributing food to people who need it, who are providing those essential prevention messages, and they give me a lot of hope. Four hundred and seventy five of my five hundred staff are Congolese. They are out there every day fighting to make their country better and to and to help stem the tide of this outbreak. So I'm incredibly, incredibly hopeful for them. I also, from a personal perspective, have to have to have things to look forward to. You know, every every summer we come to Canada on holiday, my husband and I. I'm not so sure we're going to make that August trip. So we'll have to plan for Thanksgiving or for Christmas. But that, you know, as soon as the flight the international flight restrictions are left, we'll certainly try and be home for a break.

MG: I hope you're home soon and take care of yourself. You're doing important work, but you're really up against it. So I really appreciate you telling us about some of the things that you're facing.

ANNE-MARIE CONNOR: It was a pleasure to speak with you Matt.

MG: Anne-Marie Connor is national director of World Vision's Humanitarian Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Tom Power in conversation with Joel Plaskett

Guests: Tom Power, Joel Plaskett

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Tom Power is back. He, of course, is the host of Q. Tom, what do you have for us this morning?

TOM POWER: Alright, Matt. So if you have a bit more time on your hands these days, you might be thinking about doing something very old school, listening to an album front to back. And listen, I can hear a curmudgeonly listener saying I listen to albums all the time. I put on a George Harrison album the other day. Well, how about this, bucko? Did you listen to a 4 album boxset? Didn't think so. Joel Plaskett has a new quadruple album out. It's not called Bucko. It's called 44. It's made up of four albums each with 11 songs. Matt, I got to tell you, it's a beautiful record. It's really confident, it's really strong. And I got to talk to Joel a little bit about the strange coincidences surrounding why he made it.

SOUNDCLIP

[Tom Power's conversation with Joel Plaskett]

MG: That's Joe Plaskett in conversation with Tom Power. From that great new album, 44, here's Joel Plaskett and "Melt the Universe with Brotherly Love."

["Melt the Universe with Brotherly Love" by Joel Plaskett]

MG: Coming up, putting down roots or establishing a disease. BC has given the go ahead for tree planters to involved in that work. It's hard work. Critics fear that workers could be spreading COVID-19 into remote areas. We'll talk about that on the program coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended edition of The Current on CBC Radio.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Tree planters in BC could pose health risks to smaller communities

Guests: Jake Gillette, Rea Fenger, Doug Donaldson

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended edition of The Current.

[Music: Ttheme]

MG: Still to come, painting portraits during a pandemic. Tom Power speaks with Mandy Stobo. But first, seeding divisions.

[Music: theme]

MG: It is the start of tree planting season in British Columbia. Thousands of workers are headed into the interior after being delayed by this pandemic, and soon their shovels will hit the soil for what is supposed to be BC's biggest ever planting season. Bob Simpson is the mayor of Quesnel, British Columbia.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: As a forest dependent community that's lived through the Mount Pine Beetle, the fire seasons that we've had, the vast majority of our community know how important it is for us to try and figure out how to do the civil culture operation this year and that's effort clearly from our community we need to have the protections for the individuals coming in through town, but at the same time, get out and get that work done. Then we get a bit of an economic shot in the arm at a time that we desperately need it.

MG: Bob Simpson, the mayor of Quesnel, British Columbia. Not everyone is happy to see the tree planters deployed. Gina Mowatt is a member of the Gitxsan First Nation in British Columbia.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I have a lot of fear about the season starting up again because what I see is 5000 transient workers coming from across the country into rural areas and B.C. into indigenous communities where our people are already underserved, underfunded, where we have inadequate health care systems and so those people will be put at really great risk with the onslaught of transient planters.

MG: Jake Gillette is one of the tree planters who will be going into some of these community. He's been tree planting for several years this year. He'll be working as a foreman, leading groups of planters. And Jake joins us this morning from Squamish, B.C. Jake, good morning.

JAKE GILLETTE: Good morning. How's it going?

MG: I'm OK. What's it like to be referred to as a transient tree planter?

JAKE GILLETTE: I mean, it's not completely abnormal. There's a long history of three-pointers coming from across the country and. Late mixed responses from communities, but I think that over the last decade or so treat blunders have done a lot to try and improve their reputations in smaller communities.

MG: Given what we're in the middle of right now, how difficult of a decision was it for you to decide to go tree planting this year?

JAKE GILLETTE: I mean, there was definitely a lot of back and forth, especially we didn't have all of the news all at once about. How this virus was even progressing. Right? Like nobody knew what was gonna happen from one week to the next. For me, there's essentially two big questions here that we're going to decide whether or not I was going to plant trees. The first one was. Am I a risk of exposing people in the local community? And the second one was are the local communities I'm working out of going to have the medical resources to deal with us, not even just in terms of COVID, but also in terms of injuries along with the local communities. The fact that I'm going out means that I believe that we have currently got a system in place that adequately answers those who questions.

MG: Tell me a bit about, for people who've never been to planting before, describe what the camps are like, where you live in and around where you work.

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah, absolutely. So we have camps of about 60 people, usually about 30 kilometres up a bush road, kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's like a small little community that we make ourselves. You'll have everybody living in tents. You'll have a mesh tent. You'll have a shower trailer. You'll have a cook shack. Two full time cooks. Like I'm talking about like a little tiny city just pops up in a day, maybe torn down in a day.

MG: Is it possible in that space to do physical distancing?

JAKE GILLETTE: Absolutely. And honestly, the measures that are being put in place to ensure that that happens are extensive, like at the start of the season, even for people driving and they're gonna be separated into pods of six people. So like I'm running a crew, I'm going to have 16 people working for me, but I have three trucks and the people from the separate trucks are not gonna be able to get in contact with each other. No physical distancing is hard within the pod because they have to be in the same car. But we are still gonna be trying to use face masks. We're trying to have hand-washing stations as much as we can and even limit spread within those pods.

MG: This is hard work. I mean, a typical day starts what time in the morning?

JAKE GILLETTE: 5, 5,:30, something like that.

MG: And you had it in those trucks or in the cars out to the site where you're planting?

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, you're right, it is just backbreaking work. I've heard it equated to something like five or six thousand calories a day of calorie burn, like running a half marathon every single time you go out there.

MG: Rain or shine. Often in the rain.

JAKE GILLETTE: Rain or shine. Yeah, in thorns. I've had one year where we had crazy wasp nests. I had 14 nests in a single day.

MG: Yikes.

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah, the news of the murder hornets coming around has got me a little bit spooked.

MG: You may have seen that movie before. So you're the foreman. How are you going to go about making sure that the safety measures in this moment are are followed?

JAKE GILLETTE: Absolutely so. I mean, just to start, we have temperature logs that all three-pointers have to keep up with before they're allowed to be admitted into camp. Everybody's been in isolation for two weeks leading up to this season. If I see anybody falling behind on those logs, I immediately shoot them the call and say, hey, man, what's up? If they don't get back on the log, then they can't come out for the season. I just want to emphasize how serious we're taking. This like global crisis. Right? We understand it's a privilege to be out there. We're doing our best to not put these communities at risk.

MG: What about the fact that people are arriving from across the country? I mean, how, you can do the logs, but you heard earlier that there I mean, part of it is that transient tree planter phrase. That people are worried people from coming across the country are going to end up in these communities that perhaps don't have as great a resources as some of the big cities and that they could really get stretched if things go sideways.

MG: Absolutely. And I have two things I want to put to this first. Before I get into it though, absolutely understandable that people in these local communities are having concerns. I feel for them. They're worried. They don't know what's necessarily the plan. And they really don't want to get screwed over by this. So to that point. First off, no one who who's coming across the country is going to be allowed to go into the local communities. They're heading straight to the camps. They're actually told to stock up on groceries wherever they started. So that they can make it all the way into the actual camps. And then one person from each camp is gonna be allowed to go into town and that one person doesn't actually have contact with anyone in the camp.

MG: How do you think people are gonna feel about that? That they can't go into town?

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah, it's a little bit stressful for sure, but I think we all have to make sacrifices right now. I mean, pretty much every Canadian across the country is feeling a little bit stressed out right now. Right?

MG: And the other part of this is, is that there's a real sense of camaraderie and community in these camps. You're doing, as you said, backbreaking work. The conditions can be terrible, but you pulled together and you do it. Can you have that sense of camaraderie in an era of physical and social distancing?

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah. It's gonna be hard for sure. You definitely have your pod to start. We're talking about later in the season, once we've had camps be cleared as definitely 100 percent queen potentially using some of the restrictions within the camp, but that's really going to depend on what medical professionals tell us is a good idea. Something else that I wanted to bring up too, is that in order to kind of lay off the medical supplies of local towns we're doing call in. It's called a Aridia online. It's a service where we can call doctors with video calls and get their opinions before we have to travel out to local towns.

MG: So if there are injuries, you don't go in just automatically?

JAKE GILLETTE: Absolutely. Unless it's something super serious. If it's super serious, then we'll send somebody to the hospital. And then if they want to come back into camp, they're going to have to isolate for another two weeks.

MG: When do you head out? Do you know?

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah. I head out today.

MG: Today?

JAKE GILLETTE: Yeah. Right after this call.

MG: Well, good luck. And I hope it goes well and be safe.

JAKE GILLETTE: Absolutely. Have a great one.

MG: Cheers. Jake Gillette is working as a foreman at a tree planting camp this season. As you heard, he's heading out today and he joined us from Squamish, BC. Rea Fenger was a tree planter for seven years. She's in Victoria this morning. Good morning to you.

REA FENGER: Hi.

MG: What were you thinking as you listen to Jake?

REA FENGER: There was a lot of information in there, but I think there's a lot of like policy going forward about how they're actually going to be interpreted and enforced in camps is a different matter.

MG: Tell me a little bit about your concerns based on what you know. You know, what those camps are like. As I mentioned, you worked there for seven years. Do you think they can operate safely?

REA FENGER: I don't personally. From my experience, smaller companies from mum and pop companies might be truly more invested in their like health and safety protocols because they have more of a social responsibility to the communities that they're working in. They've been there forever, versus some of the larger companies that kind of like move around more from year to year with contracts might not have the same like social contract to the communities they're in. And I think. You know, a hand-washing station often is not even hot water consistently in tree planting camps and hand-washing might just be. Here's an old cooler with a bottle of hand fanny beside it. Or when the generator is not working, which is often. Suddenly, like health and safety protocols can't be adhered to. So I think those are just like the realities like you create in isolated or semi isolated communities 30 kilometres down a bush road. And then, of course, there's kinks in there. And it's hard to actually have hygiene protocol followed by everyone.

MG: What about the physical distancing piece? I mean, in those camps, living there and sleeping and eating. Is that culture conducive to the idea of physical distancing, of staying apart from each other?

REA FENGER: I say this with so much love, cause I was a tree planter and tree planting is kind of veer towards an alternative lifestyle. Like many planters embrace this like no rules. Independents, I do what I want mentality. One of the reasons they love that job. One, the reasons I love that job. And I cannot foresee social distancing being upheld through an entire camp, nor for an entire season. It might start out great for the first two or three ships. Everyone's really onboard. But at some point when you're in a semi remote area working as hard as you do, you get to go. We call it like bush crazy. And you just want to party, let loose, be with your friends and that two metre rule, I think, will just evaporate.

MG: What about those communities that we're hearing from that they have concerns around people coming in from across the country. And Jake talked about how they're going to make sure that people are, you know, putting the log in to check temperatures and what have you to make sure people are healthy before they arrive in the bush. But do you think that the communities have a legitimate concern that this is something that they should be worried about, people coming from from across the country?

REA FENGER: Oh, 100 percent. Many of these communities are like semi remote and they're predominantly indigenous communities. And it seems like rather wreckless to have two or three thousand three planters, predominantly from out east, Ontario and Quebec, travel across the country for a non-essential job.

MG: Well, we heard from the mayor of Quesnel, who said that I mean in many ways this is essential, that there's a real economic benefit to having this work go on. There's also a benefit to the environment as well in terms of repopulating the forest. How do you strike that balance?

REA FENGER: I think the forest will be fine without a year of tree planters going into them. Natural regen can happen. I think it's the real crux of the issue is the millions upon millions upon millions of dollars that's been invested in this tree planting season because it is one of the largest work seasons ahead because of the wildfires the past two years. So I think there has been an economic push to make this season go forward, rather than maybe some of the social consequences that are going to come from it.

MG: You still have friends that are working in the industry?

REA FENGER: Oh yeah, many, many of my friends are heading out or already up there preparing to work.

MG: What do they tell you? I mean, are they concerned?

REA FENGER: Oh, totally. The company I worked for was a mum and pop company, and they felt much conflict if they should even cancel their season. It's only like a 40 person camp total, not those 60 person camps that Jake's talking about it that you have multiple ones. So I think people are very conflicted about if this is the right idea and just the potential transmission in these communities of a virus cause it's high.

MG: I'm going to speak with the Minister of Forests next. What's one message that you would have for him?

REA FENGER: I think just really listening to the indigenous communities and what they're saying and what's their response to transient tree planters coming in to work. And then the second fold is trying to get tree planters do something and adhere to protocol is very challenging. Like you can't even get a planter to wear a hybrid vest, so I don't really know how they're going to enforce increased hygiene for COVID measures.

MG: Rea, It's good to speak with you. Thank you.

REA FENGER: Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Rea Fenger is a former tree planter. She was in Victoria. Doug Donaldson is British Columbia's Minister of Forests, lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, also represents the riding of Stikine. And he's on the line now from Hazleton, British Columbia. Minister, good morning to you.

DOUG DONALDSON: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for the invite to be on the show.

MG: Thanks for joining us. Why did your government go ahead with the tree planting season this year, despite the fact that we're in the midst of a global pandemic?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, I certainly appreciate the concerns of rural communities and First Nations, communities and workers. And it's a decision we didn't take lightly. We had extensive consultation with the Ministry of Health, with our provincial health officer, Dr Bonnie Henry, and putting guidelines and orders in order to reduce risk and make the camps and the activities safe. And we also had to balance that, as you previously talked about, against the impacts of not planting trees and reducing the impacts of climate change and wildfire mitigation and as well as creating sustainability in the forest.

MG: How much of this is about an economic decision that you have invested a lot of money in this season? There's going to be the largest season, may still be the largest season, and that's money that you can't afford to see go to waste.

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, first and foremost, our priority is to protect communities and workers and First Nations. So these guidelines and orders that are in place are very strict, very robust. And as well, we know that we had record wildfires in 2017 and 2018. Much of the tree planning activity is focussed on those areas. The province and in the short term, troop planting will help mitigate flooding situations that we're seen already crop up when forest fires burn to the intensity as they did in those years. It is just scorches the landscape and there's nothing left to hold back the rains in the spring. So those that are really important considerations for communities as well.

MG: How much of it though was an economic consideration?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, we have invested $75 million into this season to treat the trees so far. So there would be a loss there. But it's a matter we're scheduled to plant 310 million trees. And not only is it important for the environment, but it's important for local communities. As the mayor of Cornell said, it's an economic shot in the arm for many small businesses that are suffering at this point in those communities.

MG: Rea talked about how difficult it is to enforce any rules at all. She said, you know, you can't get people to wear a vest, let alone physical distancing. How are you going to ensure that protocols are actually followed in these camps in the bush?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, the approach we've taken in B.C. generally is that there has to be a high degree of personal responsibility. And and as well, the guidelines from our medical health expert, Dr. Bonnie Henry, that have been put in place mean that there'll be a plan for each camp and infection prevention and control protocols of the a coordinator assigned. And we'll have officers inspecting those camps before they're actually populated with planters and during the season. So these are pretty severe and strict protocols, but it's also requires personal responsibility and part of workers and also employers. And we've seen the success of that approach in B.C. to date.

MG: But the concern is that if those protocols aren't followed, it's in particular indigenous communities, remote communities, smaller communities that would be particularly vulnerable if they're exposed to COVID-19 from transient workers. What's being done to protect those communities?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, definitely I understand that anxiety. I live in a small community, I live just outside a community of only 350. So those are real concerns and that's why I said that the guidelines and the orders are there. As you heard from the planting foreman, they're monitoring workers before they come into B.C. if they're coming from afar. Some of those workers actually are students from BC or attended university in other provinces. And then we have the inspection in the camps and the camps are set up such that transmission is severely reduced if there is a case or an outbreak.

MG: But again, and I'm not questioning, you know, the trust that you have in people. But if, as she says, hot water is not really readily available in those camps, that after a certain point people just want to hang out with their friends. They've worked really hard all day. They've been out at backbreaking conditions in the pouring rain, planting trees and getting scratched by thorns. Is that distancing actually enforceable?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, we believe it is if the guidelines are followed. And these are sophisticated operations and tree funding has evolved over the years and of course it's in the best interests of employers. We're going to have another big season next year planting the after that. So we'll have inspectors visiting these camps. The culture definitely has to change in the camps. And that's our expectations and we'll be monitoring that very closely.

MG: Bonnie Henry, you've mentioned to a couple of times she's the provincial health officer, has expressed some concern over infected workers from an oil sands camp in Alberta returning to B.C. Obviously a different industry, but it's another work camp setting and I just wonder whether her concerns around that issue give you pause at all in moving forward with this?

DOUG DONALDSON: Well, again, of course, there's concerns and every situation is a situation to be analysed and gives me pause. But when I looked at it, the kind of measures put in place by the employer, says Jake, the plants inform and describe before their employees actually come to B.C. and then these workers are screened once they arrive before they go into camp. And if there's any signs of illness, they're isolated and not allowed to go into camp. So we're doing what we can and of course, it is a balance with the environmental concerns that I've outlined already.

MG: Gina Mowatt raised concerns around the transient tree planters, people coming from across the country. Did you consider limiting the jobs to locals?

DOUG DONALDSON: About half the planters in B.C. come from B.C.. We've always encouraged employers to hire locally. That trend has evolved over time. That used to be all tree planters, pretty well came from B.C.. As I said, many of the those are university students and some of them actually are frumpy. See, but go to school in other provinces. We're limiting the nature of the concerns that were expressed by most by the measure and putting in place ensuring there's isolation in the camps. And if they are in a situation where they're staying in a motel or a hotel, we'll have measures in place there, as well as monitor security and make sure that the isolation measures are being adhered to strictly.

MG: Just the last point, we just have a few seconds left. But if there were to be an outbreak at one of these camps or an outbreak in one of the communities brought on by tree planting, would you stop the planting?

DOUG DONALDSON: If the camps are inspected and they're not following the orders then health officers will be brought in and if mitigative measures can't be put in place then we'll shut down the camp.

MG: Doug Donaldson, good to speak with you about this. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

DOUG DONALDSON: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Doug Donaldson, B.C.'s Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. It's time to say goodbye to our listeners in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cross-talk is up next for you. For everyone else, lucky you. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Tom Power in conversation with Mandy Stobo

Guests: Tom Power, Mandy Stobo

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. It's an extended edition of the program, which means we welcome once again, Tom Power, the host of Q. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, I bought the world's worst thesaurus yesterday.

MG: Oh, yeah?

TOM POWER: Yeah. Not only is it terrible, it's terrible.

MG: You know, I'll miss, not much about the pandemic, but I will miss our opportunity for you to tell me bad dad jokes.

TOM POWER: That's what I'm here to do. That's the purpose of the national broadcaster, Matt. If it's not that then what is it really?

MG: That's true.

TOM POWER: I'm here to talk actually about Calgary based visual artist Mandy Stobo. During the pandemic, she's been creating colourful portraits of superheroes like Canadian health and community heroes. Like Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw. She even did one of me, which is a little off putting.

MG: Speaking of superheroes.

TOM POWER: Well, no, I think that was the test version, you know. We're gonna draw the normies and then we're gonna get to the real heroes. Either way, we had a nice little talk. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Tom Power's conversation with Mandy Stobo]

MG: That's Tom Power in conversation with the Calgary visual artist Mandy Stobo. And that will do it for this extended edition of The Current for today. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take good care and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: theme]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

May 5, 2020 episode transcript

More Stories Like This