'Nobody was coughing': COVID-19 survivor urges social distancing amid risk of asymptomatic carriers

Guests: Christy Karras

MG: I mentioned this on Friday. These are obviously extraordinary times and there is a lot to process. So for the next little while, I'm not entirely sure how long that will be, but for the next little while, The Current is running an extra two hours. We have a lot to talk about. There's some good news as well. So we'll try and get some of that in. Our pal Tom Power from Q will be here as well. So hopefully you'll be able to stay with us. These are difficult times and we're glad to have you along with us. It may have started at a cocktail party. At least that is what Christy Karras believes, because not long after that gathering, Christy, her husband and many of their friends all tested positive for COVID-19. Christy is a freelance journalist based in Seattle, Washington, and she was among the very first people in the United States to be diagnosed with coronavirus and recover. Christy, good morning.

CHRISTY KARRAS: Good morning. Good to be here, Matt.

MG: How are you feeling?

CHRISTY KARRAS: I am finally back to 100 percent. I think this is day 23 for me and it wasn't until yesterday or so that I finally felt fully well.

MG: That's a long journey.

CHRISTY KARRAS: It is. It is. The last week or so, it's mostly just been a nagging cough. The cough everyone hears about.

MG: Before you got sick, when did the corona virus first come on your radar? Were you thinking about it? Were you aware that this was happening elsewhere in the world?

CHRISTY KARRAS: We were aware of it. I think it would have been hard not to be aware of it on some level, but at the time it was mostly something, something happening in China. There had been one person in Washington state who was known to be a carrier of it, but it seemed that that was quite contained. It seemed that they had figured out who that was, who that person had spent time with, and they had tracked all those people. So no one knew that it was spreading in the community at that point.

MG: Did you ever think that you yourself could ever possibly be infected with us?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Well, certainly not. Certainly not this early on. I think at the time we were worried that it would start spreading more widely outside of Asia. But again, at the time in the U.S., no one had heard about any community transmission here. And so no one was really thinking about that at all. We were thinking more along the lines of, oh, this is a good reminder to wash our hands more often and not touch our face when we're out in public and that kind of thing. So it was a very mild kind of knowledge of what was going on elsewhere.

MG: When did that all change for you?

CHRISTY KARRAS: For me, it changed on February 26 when I woke up feeling terrible and it really started changing when I started talking to some friends I had spent some time with a few days before and we all started talking about how we were feeling the same symptoms all at the same time. And that was very strange. It was very strange to think that whatever we had had spread very easily and quickly through a few of us. And now we were feeling this this strange thing, and a couple of people from pretty early on were convinced it was Corona virus. And the rest of us said, there's no way, you're just thinking about that because it's in the news. There's no possible way that's what we could have. We've just got the flu or a bad cold. So let's not think about the possibility of having coronavirus. That's just ridiculous. And now in retrospect, that's a bit of an eerie thing to think back on.

MG: So what happened in those days before February 26? Walk me through that.

CHRISTY KARRAS: Well, there was the gathering of friends on the 22nd. My husband started feeling ill a day or two before I did. So I knew that he had come down with something and I thought again that it was just a flu.

MG: And he, so he had gone to that gathering and you hadn't?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Yeah, he went to that gathering. I did not go to that gathering, but I did kiss him when he got home from that gathering. I was.

MG: As you do, yeah.

CHRISTY KARRAS: I was catching up on work. Yeah, exactly. So I would guess that's the moment that it was transmitted to me anyway. So he had started feeling ill and I banished him to our basement trying not to get it myself. And I was still feeling great. I felt terrific because I was sort of monitoring how I felt to make sure that if I got sick, I immediately started staying home and didn't give it to anybody, which is just polite, no matter what you have. So I remember that I was feeling particularly great when I went to lunch with some colleagues. And, you know, we had lunch. It was fine. We did some work and then the next morning was when I started feeling as though I'd been hit by a Mack truck. And that was when I started staying home.

MG: What did that actually feel like? I mean, I think a lot of us, when we feel sick, it's that, you know, getting hit by the truck kind of syndrome. But what did it feel like to you?

CHRISTY KARRAS: It felt like that, except that normally when I have a cold or something that lasts for a day, maybe two days and in this case, it just kept going for days. So fever, aches and pains, feeling yeah, just really terrible. And really the only place that was comfortable for me was lying flat out on my bed. So I couldn't get any work done. I couldn't really focus mentally and again, that happens quite frequently with any illness. But for this, it just kept going. And I've never in my adult life had a situation where I had a fever that just kept going for days. So that did feel different from anything I had experienced before. And my husband was going through the same thing. We both thought, whatever this is, it is weird.

MG: So he had the same symptoms?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Yeah, he did. He had a fever. He actually was feeling even worse than I was. He has some asthma. So I think that might have made his experience worse than mine was. He was very, very tired too, lost his appetite, so it was a, it was a strange time.

MG: What happened then? How did it progress?

CHRISTY KARRAS: So over a few days, I had a fever for the first three days or so, pretty constantly. Then it became more intermittent. I started feeling a little bit better and then the symptoms that were more like a traditional cold kicked in. So I got sinusitis and a lot of congestion in my sinuses. Still the brain fog going on, not able to focus. And I got a little bit of maybe, maybe a tiny bit of a runny nose, but I didn't get a cough until probably at least a week into it. And that's been true of some of my friends, too. So I think it is something that manifests differently in different people. Almost all of us had the fever at the beginning and then the cough kind of kicked in over the next few days and weeks.

MG: And your friends that you went out for lunch with, were they around this time all feeling the same way?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Yes. So within a few days of our lunch, they started feeling sick. And actually, one of the people I went to lunch with was one of, was the first among my friends to be tested and to test positive for coronavirus. And when she tested positive, I thought, oh, no, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who gave that to her because we had had that lunch the day before I started feeling ill. And then a few days later she started feeling ill in the same way that I had been feeling ill. And I did feel terrible about that, but at the time, we had no idea what was happening. So she's been very nice about that.

MG: That's good. Not blaming you for making her ill?

CHRISTY KARRAS: No, she. Yeah. It's you know, it was a different time. It's strange to think back on it from where we are now and think, oh, how stupid can you be going out and facing each other around a table? That just seems like a silly thing to do in retrospect. But at the time, that was nothing. Nobody was thinking about it at the time. Still, there were no community transmissions. No, not in the US. And so we thought it was the furthest possibility from our minds at that point.

MG: How bad did it get for you and your husband when you're at home?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Oh, there were a couple moments when it was kind of scary and we thought maybe we, we didn't, we really didn't want to go to a doctor because at that time, the crisis had started happening with the nursing home here in Seattle. We knew that the officials had their hands full and we are generally pretty healthy. So we really didn't want to go to a doctor, but we did end up making use of telemedicine, which was actually great for us. At one point, my husband had a terrible headache and I thought he might have meningitis or something. So we were able to do a video conference with a doctor and determined that that's not what he had, which was nice. But but those were tough moments when we both had these terrible headaches and were just feeling completely rotten and not really knowing what to do about it.

MG: And that's, you use the word scary. I mean, feeling lousy is one thing, but being scared when somebody feels terrible is something else. That was the scariest moment for you?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Well, there was one moment when I thought if my husband needs to go to a hospital, we are going to have to call an ambulance, because I don't feel well enough to take him and I wouldn't be well enough to go with him. And that was, that was a scary thought. So we're glad it didn't come to that.

MG: Yeah. In the midst of all of this, when did you start to piece the puzzle together that you may have had COVID-19? How did you go about getting tested, for example?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Well, the interesting thing was that at the time the Seattle flu study was going on already and they had been testing for flu in the community for months at this point. And we knew that was happening and we heard that they had started testing for the coronavirus. So we thought, well, we have no idea what we have, but we would like to eventually know. And they had told people that, who were doing the study that if you sent in a sample, you would hear back eventually, maybe it would take months, but that eventually you would hear back and know what you had. So we thought this may be our only shot at knowing what we all have. And at that point, probably eight of us sent in samples to the Seattle flu study and that's how my colleague I had lunch with heard back that she had tested positive. And then someone from the party tested positive. And over the next few days, word trickled in that all of us who were tested, tested positive at home, including me.

MG: Oh my goodness. And when you get the results back, what goes through your mind?

CHRISTY KARRAS: Well, at that point, two or three of my friends had already tested positive and it was pretty clear to me that I was the link between the folks at the initial gathering and the folks at the lunch who got sick. So I was pretty sure that whatever they had, I had. So I was not at all surprised when my result came back positive, although in a way I was relieved to finally know what it was I had. And very grateful for the opportunity to know what I had, because I know a lot of people out there are at this point wondering if ithey have it and they have no way to find out because we have such limited testing, which is very unfortunate.

MG: Were you worried? I mean, given what's gone on in China, but also now you take a look at Italy and France and Spain and through other parts of the United States, you mentioned what was happening in the senior's residence in Washington state. Were you worried when you find out, when you definitively that you have COVID-19?

CHRISTY KARRAS: I at that point, I was actually starting to feel a little bit better. And in retrospect, in a strange way, I'm a bit glad that I didn't know what I had when we were going through the worst of it, because I think I would have probably just worried more about what might happen. I think, you know, if you feel you have the flu, you think, been there, done that. I've had a bad flu before. I survived. I'll be fine. So I think in a strange way, if I had known I had this, I would have actually been more worried and stressed out at the time. So I think it's great that I eventually did learn what I had, but in a strange way, I'm glad I didn't know at the time.

MG: You wrote about this in The Seattle Times. In the piece there are four things that you want people to know. I just want to walk through them quickly. One is you will most likely be fine if you get this. Why did you want to say that to people at a time when there are a lot of people who are who are really frightened by this?

CHRISTY KARRAS: People should be frightened, but not for the reasons they are afraid. I think one of the reasons I decided to go public, as it were, is that we have been hearing a lot about the people who have had the worst form of this illness. And we should be thinking of those people and being mindful of those people. That said, we hadn't heard a lot from people like me who are younger, who are generally healthy, who go through it and think of it as a bad flu kind of experience. And so I do want people to know that it is possible to get through it to be fine on the other side. So people should not be necessarily afraid that if they get it, they'll die. It's not a deadly disease for most people. It's just a a really annoying, unpleasant disease to go through. And so I want people to know that. On the other hand, I do want people to know that because it spreads so easily and by into magic people, we do need to be vigilant about the social distancing and the other things we're asked to do right now.

MG: That leads to the second part, which is we all need to look out for those who will not be fine. Is your sense that people are taking that social distancing guidance as seriously as they should?

CHRISTY KARRAS: I think a lot of people are not and I think that comes partly from a misunderstanding about how this is transmitted. People have this idea that the way you get it is that a sick person comes in, sneezes or costs on you at the gathering where people got this initially that I know of. And then at the lunch where I unfortunately got people sick, nobody was coughing, nobody was feeling ill. And what happens is, you know, you hear scientists talk about droplets. Well, when we talk those droplets, that is little droplets of saliva go flying through the air and they can land on other people's food or, you know, glassware or faces. And so to me, the thing people should know is you really should not be facing someone talking to them closely right now. You know, as well as the other precautions we've heard about. That's one that I think people haven't really heard enough about. But yeah, some people are going to get very sick from this. And those of us who are younger and healthier need to look out for those people and also for resources in general, which are limited, you know, medical resources. Our hospitals here are running out of supplies and that you see that that's happened in Italy as well. And we don't want that to happen and that's why we have to, you know, flatten the curve, which is something we've all heard about at this point.

MG: The last point that you make is about something we've been talking about a lot, which is the ways that people are banding together, that we're all in this together. And that is you say we are going to save each other. What did you mean by that?

CHRISTY KARRAS: I think there is a great measure of individual responsibility. There are many things we can do as individuals. And I know many people feel hopeless right now that this thing is larger than them. There's nothing they can do to control it or mitigate it. But there are so many things. We can do from practicing social distancing effectively to calling our neighbours and seeing how they're doing to offering to buy groceries for someone who is housebound, to pressure your elected officials to pass legislation that will help those most affected. So those are all things we can all do. And there are so many of us that if we all do a little bit, I think it'll help a lot.

MG: What is it like to be one of the first people to be diagnosed with and then survive this virus?

CHRISTY KARRAS: It's a very strange feeling. It's a strange Forest Gump kind of feeling where you feel that you're in the middle of this really big event that's happening that really has nothing to do with me, but somehow I got caught up in it and somehow I was lucky enough to actually get a diagnosis and lucky enough to recover. And now I have various research groups wanting my blood, my antibodies to do vaccine research and antibody research. And so that's very exciting. The thought that I might be able to actually ultimately help people because of this experience that makes me very happy. So that's what I'm thinking about going forward.

MG: Do you feel lucky?

CHRISTY KARRAS: I feel very lucky. I feel extraordinarily lucky. And to be honest, especially now that I'm feeling 100 percent, I feel, it's strange, but I feel like a little bit of a you know, people say, oh, you must, you must be like a superhero. And I don't know if I feel like a superhero, but my husband and I were talking to each other the other day and talking about how now we do both feel back to 100 percent and we do have this distinct feeling that we beat this thing. Wow. That is we feel kind of great about that. The fact that we were able to beat it and again, not everyone is and we do need to think about those people. But for us, we're very happy to be back in a place where we're feeling healthy and maybe feeling that we can help others going forward.

MG: I'm glad you're feeling better. And I'm glad that you wrote this piece, as you say, coming out and speaking openly about what you've been through. Christy, thank you.

CHRISTY KARRAS: Thank you very much.

MG: Take care yourself.

CHRISTY KARRAS: Yeah. Thanks.

MG: Bye.

CHRISTY KARRAS: Bye.

MG: Christy Karras has just recovered from COVID-19. She's in Seattle, Washington. Tomorrow, I'll speak with three Canadians who are recovering from the virus. They've all experienced different symptoms. They have different stories to tell. You'll hear that tomorrow on The Current.

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MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Coming up a bit later on on this show, are you doing a lot more online shopping these days? Many Canadians are, but once you click order, somebody has to make those deliveries and they are feeling a little tense right now as well. Here is someone who got in touch during our call-in program last week.

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VOICE: I'm a Canada Post worker and I go to everyone. I have over a thousand points of call, every day, Monday to Friday where I go. And I'm not, I don't know if I'm infected or not, but I have mail with me and I have boxes with me that I go to every one delivering every day. I wonder if I'm at a point a transmission for the virus. We are probably 60 people in this depot. We are depots in London. We go to everywhere in London and we're distributing things every day. I don't, we don't understand. We get together as a group. We have chats. We go to meetings ourselves as employees. And we try to understand where we, what are we doing in the streets delivering as a regular or usual business. It's not business as usual right now.

MG: Certainly not business as usual. Ordering online for home delivery is happening way more now thanks to social distancing. We'll hear more about the implications of that for mail carriers and delivery workers who are worried about their safety and yours. That's coming up a little bit later on in the program. CBC News is next, and then I'll speak with Francois-Philippe Champagne. As the foreign affairs minister, he has a key role in Canada's response to this pandemic. There's a lot to talk about from the border closure to citizens who find themselves stranded abroad. He's coming up in about six minutes time. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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More than a million Canadian citizens and permanent residents returned home last week

Guests: Francois-Philippe Champagne

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

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MG: Still to come, ventilators are in high demand these days. There is a push to mass produce them like cars, but that may be far more complicated than it seems. We'll hear more on that coming up, but first, one of the busiest ministers on the Hill.

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VOICE 1: I'm just happy to be home, yeah. So just been trying to get back the whole time. It's just constantly on the phone trying to figure it out. I don't, it was just really, really hard.

VOICE 2: I was actually really worried. I just wanted to come home as soon as possible.

MG: Just a couple of tired, but relieved Canadians, shortly after landing in Montreal late Saturday night, they were stranded and getting desperate in Morocco, but got out on a flight organized by the Canadian government. And even though they had to pay, they are among the lucky ones. There are some 3 million Canadians who are abroad, and many may be out of luck for a while. It's a fact that the Prime Minister underlined over the weekend.

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VOICE: We are unlikely to be able to bring everyone home. So we're going to ask people to stay safe, to make smart choices and do the best they can.

MG: Francois-Phillipe Champagne is the minister of Foreign Affairs. Minister, good morning.

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Thank you for having me this morning, Matt.

MG: Thank you for joining us. You were concerned that you yourself may have contracted Corona virus. Your test came back negative in the midst of all of this. How are you feeling?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, thank you very much. It's been a very short nights. You said it right. We have tens of thousands of Canadians who are trying to return home. To put in perspective for folks who are you know, listening to us. This is probably the largest repatriation effort in Canada's history in peacetime. To give you a sense, we've got about 10,000 calls in the last 48 hours, about 14,000 emails. We're operating a emergency centre with about 600 people. So this is the largest effort we've never done because we're facing some very, very exceptionally unusual circumstances. We're facing an airport closure, airspace closure, border closure. Some countries have imposed martial law. So sometime I say getting the plane is step one. And the easiest one then is to make sure we can land there, that we can have safe passage for a crew, safe passage, obviously, for Canadians who want to return to home. But the message that prime minister in mind is that we'll do everything we can to bring back people. And I'm happy to see that people were able to come back from Morocco. We've announced that there'll be other flights from Morocco as well, where there's other Canadians. And we will continue to work around the clock to bring our people back home.

MG: The prime minister, though, did admit this weekend that not everybody will be able to get back. What happens to those people who can't come home?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, we will support them locally. The prime minister was right that I've been very on this to Canadian as well, to say, considering the number of Canadians abroad, considering that we're facing very unusual and exceptional circumstances, this is a world crisis that there will be indeed Canadians who won't be able to return home. And we'll do our best to support them where they are. We've been negotiating aerial bridge to, for example, Canada, the U.K. and France, one in Latin America and one in Asia to make sure that whatever happens, that people could still find a safe passage to come back to Canada. But we have to admit that there will be Canadians who won't be able to come back home and we'll do our utmost to support them wherever they might be.

MG: We heard from an elderly Canadian who is in Tobago who was booked on a flight over the weekend. That flight was cancelled, then rebooked today. But that government isn't allowing planes in or out of that country. And as you say, there are likely thousands of people in similar circumstances. What do you say to those people?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: The best thing that they should do is to register with the government of Canada. We have a registry for Canadians abroad. That's the best way for us to bring them the most the the most updated information. As you said, that it depends from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, sometimes even regions between countries that would be the best advice is that register, make sure you have the emergency number that we have been giving to Canadians to make sure that they can actually contact us in case of emergency.

MG: In those jurisdictions where the planes aren't coming in or coming out, how long should Canadians expect to be there? And is there anything, if they're stuck there for weeks or for months, is there anything that the Canadian government can do beyond having them register?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, in certain cases, I mean, let me give you a good example. Peru is a good example where yesterday I negotiated and until very late in the evening, despite that, the is close. Despite that, the airspace now is managed by the military. We're able to negotiate. And that's news, too, to have three flights going to Peru. We know that there's a number of schoolchildren, elderly tourists, which are stranded there. So we have been able to negotiate. So it's really on a case by case and despite the fact that airspace are closed and airports and sometime even martial law. My job is to negotiate on a case by case basis where we have a cluster of Canadians and where Canadians can gather in one place so that it can facilitate their return. We have work with WestJet, with Air Canada son wing air transmat. To facilitate that, people will pay a commercial fare, but what we're doing is kind of removing all these barriers. But I must admit to you, Matt, it is a real challenge. This is on this scale that no one has ever seen. The call with some G20 colleagues earlier this week. And what we're saying, whether it's the U.K., whether it's France, the Germany, the scale and the complexity that we're facing has never been seen before. This is a book yet to be written because no one has ever seen anything like that where you have all these things at the same time and you're trying to bring back people back to two to Canada.

MG: Just finally on this. People can't get through, as you mentioned, you know, the calls are coming in, emails are being sent, but people aren't hearing back. The demand is overwhelming. What steps are you taking to deal with that part of the equation?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, we've basically transformed the whole global affairs Canada into a consular office. Everyone now is sees of that. Our embassies, some have had to go on the emergency measures, but we're making sure that whatever services we can provide locally, that we're doing it to our emergency response centre. And the other thing, I think there's never been a better time to co-ordinate, consort, co-operate. I spent a good part of my days talking to other nations, build alliances, partnership to make sure that if we cannot go to a particular jurisdiction, a particular location, that we work with colleagues and allies to give safe passage to Canadians so that they can transit to one of the open areall bridge that we will have. So it's really a it's almost like a chess game. Every time that something is closed, we need to find a way to bring our people and that's what we're doing on a 24 hour, 7 days basis.

MG: We have seen borders around the world tighten up and close, including our own. Last week, your government announced that people who attempt to cross from the United States at irregular points such Roxom Road in Quebec would not be allowed to remain in Canada. Why did you do that?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, I think, you know, we have a duty to Canadians to protect the health and safety of everyone. We negotiated something which was unprecedented with with the United States closing the border. But when we do these decisions, they have to be reason. We have to think about all the implications. We have a duty to protect the health and safety of Canadians. But also we need to think about food security, economic security. So we did that in a reasoned way, thinking about all the implications across the nation because it goes from rock some road to what it may mean to people who have to cross the border in words or to two people listening to us in Vancouver, which are concerned about what's going on in Washington state to a northern community. So we have taken this step. This was necessary under the circumstances. And like the prime minister said, we'll be ready to take any steps that is required that we have in our toolbox to protect Canadians.

MG: But what about our international obligations when it comes to those who are seeking status here? Let me just read to you quickly what Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees said. She said, "During a pandemic, we must uphold our commitments to protecting the rights of refugees and vulnerable migrants. We are shocked the government is not prepared to live up to that commitment." What do you say to that?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, totally, we did that, but we are very conscious of our obligations under humanitarian law, under international law. This was done in coordination and cooperation with the United States. We've got assurance that these people, when they can cross the border, they'd be treated appropriately in accordance with all the rules and regulations that apply for migrants who are trying to cross the border.

MG: The president of the United States has said that they will be sent back to their country of origin no matter where that is.

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, what I can say, Matt, is that we are facing some unprecedented time. We're taking to take all the measures that you would deem necessary taking into account, like you said, the most vulnerable. And trust me, everyone is seas of that matter. On the other end, we have to make sure that for the collective good and to protect the health and safety of everyone, that we take measures. Those that came to Roxom Road have been put in quarantine. We put measures there to inform people and we we'll continue to do so because I don't think there's no manual for what's going on now in terms of the global scale of the challenges we're facing. But every time we do that, like you said, we need to think about those are vulnerable and making sure that Canada upholds all the humanitarian standards and international law to which we subscribe.

MG: We've seen countries pull up the drawbridge, ours included. Do you think it will be easy to put that drawbridge back back down once this is over and done with?

FRANCOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE: Well, I feel sometimes that the world is on pause. But this is going to start again. Minister Morna announced a set of measures to protect our economy, to protect family. We know that a lot of people are listening to us this morning, are anxious about themselves, their family, their neighbours and workers, small and medium sized businesses. It's going to get going again, but in order to protect, I would say for those who are listening to predict your home health, the health of your loved ones and your families, your neighbouring community. We all have to do something. This is probably the largest peacetime effort in our generation or perhaps in this century. So in order to protect the collective good, we all have a role to play in that and not trust on Canadians to do that. And people taking that very seriously. We see what's going on in Spain right along and in Italy. I think that we know now science and data tells us that we all have a role to play to protect the common good.

MG: Minister, good to speak with you and take good care. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Francois-Philippe Champagne is Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister.

Canadian inventor says his mobile life support system could save lives in the COVID-19 pandemic

Guests: Joe Fisher, Kat, Paul-Emile Cloutier

MG: This is The Current. My name's Matt Galloway. On Friday, the Canadian government put out a call to manufacturers to produce medical supplies needed to fight COVID-19 and set aside money to speed up that increase. One of the key needs that's been identified is ventilators. In Ontario, a recent study showed that even if the colvard 19 infection rate is cut in half, the province could run out of ventilators in 37 days. In the U.K., the government has asked manufacturers like Vauxhall and Airbus to pitch in and help build more. Could we do the same thing here? My next guest believes that, yes, we can. Dr. Joe Fisher is an anaesthesiologist, a Toronto General Hospital and a founder of Thornhill Medical, one of the companies that Ottawa has signed on to help with his job. He's the inventor of something called Mobile Life Support System, known as MOVES SLC. Doctor, good morning.

JOE FISHER: Good morning.

MG: From your perspective, how intense is the demand for ventilators and life support systems in this country?

JOE FISHER: Well, as you said, it's very intense. It's on everybody's mind because, you know, people extrapolate what they see now and it's not hard to see that we will be swamped and we will desperately need these devices.

MG: And so the government, among many others, are trying to figure out how to increase the supply and have turned to you. Your company was mentioned by the prime minister in his announcement. Explain how this system this MOVES SLC system works. What is it?

JOE FISHER: OK. Basically, it's not just a ventilator. It's whole life support system. When when people get ill with something like that coronavirus, it's not just their lungs that fail. It's multi-organ. It attacks multi organs. And many of these people have already underlying conditions that will affect various organs, which the virus will make worse. So the device that we designed and make is basically we called a life support system. The ventilator is just one component. It has other components that include monitoring of all the other vital signs and functions.

MG: And what does it look like?

JOE FISHER: It's about a metre long high weighs about 37 pounds. It's about maybe two inch, three or four inches wide. And it basically it's just a unit that could sit on a headboard of a bed or at the footboard or go with patients on a stretcher. And all the monitors that you have in intensive care unit, if you walked in intensive care today, you see all the equipment, the monitors. It's all contained in that box.

MG: Wow. This was developed initially for the U.S. military?

JOE FISHER: Yes.

MG: Are you allowed to make them for other customers?

JOE FISHER: Yes.

MG: And how is the military using this?

JOE FISHER: Well, the military uses it for all the for what it was intended to do would be for life support in the field. So they're for injuries, for disaster relief, for transporting very sick patients from the field back to second echelons of care and so on.

MG: What is the potential for it to be used in the crisis that we are in the midst of right now?

JOE FISHER: Well, by some fortunate chance, it's virtually ideal for this type of of epidemic where we don't actually know all the organs that might fail and all the life support that's required. This already is a complete intensive care unit and markedly increases the capability of looking after patients.

MG: The call came from the prime minister to try to figure out how to get more of these sorts of devices into the places where they need to be. Have a listen to Flavio Volpe. He's the president of the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The response has been overwhelming from auto parts makers. We're in. Just get us the specs. A lot of volume suppliers from Windsor said, okay, look, we'll put our equipment, we'll put our our personnel to the task, but very importantly, the mould makers have stepped up. Companies have stepped up and said soon as you have, we need which is engineer expects we'll turn stuff around really quickly.

MG: Dr. Fisher, is that that simple? Would it be really that easy to retool auto parts manufacturers to make equipment like this?

JOE FISHER: It wouldn't be easy, but it's possible. And if well-motivated and I believe that and supported and I believe that the government is very motivated and supported to do that, the various companies are motivated to do that. We're certainly motivated and I think it's definitely possible.

MG: What is the timeline then? If a government were to place an order for something like this, how quickly could a factory start producing these devices?

JOE FISHER: Well, the number and timing of the scale is still being worked out, but from our perspective, we're set to go as quickly as possible.

MG: We are motivated to get this going and put it into the fight against COVID.

JOE FISHER: You said at the beginning of our conversation when we were just talking about the context that we're in, that hospitals are going to be overwhelmed. Tell me a bit more about this. Are we too late in this game in terms of trying to find this equipment?

MG: Well, certainly if we had done this a little bit earlier, we would still be in a better position. But there is still time.

JOE FISHER: We're not currently overwhelmed here in Toronto at least, even though that is not true. If you look around the world and Italy in and even in the United States, in New York and California, Washington, there is still time. And I think that the timelines will allow us. If we don't hold back, if we just put the pedal to the metal, the timelines will still allow us to meet the needs.

MG: And is your understanding that, I mean, governments with, you know, their foot on the pedal, they were willing to put the hammer down? Are they willing to put the pedal to the metal and make this happen so that hospitals like yours aren't overwhelmed?

JOE FISHER: They seem to be. They are very enthusiastic. They've been very helpful. We've been in discussions and we're very encouraged. I think the government has done a remarkable job for, you know, a large bureaucracy.

MG: Let's see where this goes from here. Doctor, I appreciate your time. Be well. Thank you.

JOE FISHER: Thank you very much.

MG: Dr. Joe Fisher is an anaesthesiologist, a trauma general hospital, one of the founders of Thornhill Medical and the inventor of a mobile life support system called MOVES SLC. The lack of sophisticated equipment like ventilators isn't the only thing concerning frontline health care workers. It's also the little things like masks, gowns and sanitizers that make all the difference in fighting back against this virus. Kat is a nurse in an Ontario hospital. She says that she has seen supplies like masks go missing from her workplace. We have agreed to withhold her last name. Kat, good morning to you.

KAT: Hi, good morning, Matt.

MG: You worked a full weekend at a very busy hospital. How are you holding up?

KAT: Well, it's been really tough and me and my colleagues were all very concerned and especially yesterday we were very scared because there literally were no masks in the whole hospital.

MG: No masks. Sorry no masks in the whole hospital?

KAT: No masks. Like we don't have anything in stock. I was talking to our supplies guy and it's gotten really bad, the emergency department, they're calling the units to basically beg to send them more masks. And let's say in our unit, although not ideal, we needed to reuse because these are one time use disposable masks. Like we have the mask with a face shield built in, which is the correct protective equipment that we need to use for these type of patients and we needed to reuse it because it's either using that or none at all.

MG: You posted to your Facebook group about masks being stolen from your hospital. What's happening there?

KAT: Absolutely. It's been going missing and it even started like a few weeks ago. And it's gotten really bad to the point that we needed to lock the masks in a secure room.

MG: Who's taking them?

KAT: Pardon?

MG: Who's taking them?

KAT: You know, it sadly, it could be, we're not really sure, but it could be some staff, which is really unfortunate because maybe they're scared. They wanted to protect their own families. And themselves, patients and visitors as well, definitely. So it's a really scary time right now for us\.

MG: In your post, you mentioned that whoever is stealing these masks likely won't be able to use them because they're fitted. Can you explain what you mean by that?

KAT: Yeah. For sure. So there are two masks that we use for COVID patients. One would be the surgical mask with a face shield. However, as we know like these, even if it's and that's what we use because the standard is droplet contact for caring for these patients. However, at any time, these droplets could be aerosolized. So if we're doing some procedures that could be aerosolized, we need to wear the N95. So for you to wear the N95, you need to go through a mask fit test that we call it where they spray the substance and basically it takes a few minutes for you to be able to find the right fit for your mask, for your face basically, the right maskk that would fit your face. And there's like numbers in these masks. So it's like basically getting a suit tailored or trying to buy the right type of shoes that would fit your feet.

MG: So if somebody just grabbing the mask, it's not going to fit their face in the way that it needs to.

KAT: Exactly. So, you know, people could just like grab whatever mask that's there and, you know, definitely deprive us of the essential supplies that we need to do our job safely. And at the end of the day, they think that it's going to protect them. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really do anything, so it's it's really tough.

MG: We just have a couple of minutes left. You started out by saying that people in your hospital this weekend, the people that you work with right on those frontlines are anxious and they're nervous and they're scared. We just heard from a doctor saying that, you know, hospitals aren't swamped yet, but people believed that this could be coming. Tell me more about the mood and morale of the nurses that you work with. How is that holding up?

KAT: Yeah, definitely we're very concerned because we're getting conflicting information still from different sources. You know, these are like different experts in their field. We're also very, especially the fact that we didn't have any equipment yesterday, we were not only scared for the patients that we're taking care of, but also like, you know, our families as well at home. So let's say yesterday in our unit at least, like we needed to think of creative ways and how to safely provide care and that's how we just support each other. But overall, like even if the hospitals are not swamped, like we see a lot of COVID patients. So we're very, you know, anxious and fearful. But we just try to support each other as much as we can.

MG: When do you go back to work?

KAT: I go back to work on Wednesday.

MG: And are you nervous about going back about what you'll face?

KAT: Yeah, absolutely. Especially now people are coming back from March break and also another thing that's causing us anxiety is that, as you know, our collective agreements, which has some safety provisions for us that are in place, have been suspended. So there's definitely a lot of anxiety there.

MG: Take care of yourself.

KAT: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

MG: I appreciate you talking to us. Kat is a nurse at an Ontario hospital. We reached her at home today. We're gonna keep this conversation, conversation going after the break. And we'll speak about stocking up on medical equipment. And where if hospitals like the one that Kat works in are short of this equipment, masks in particular, and ventilators, where could Canada turn for more of that? We'll find out. Plus, spring break is not social distancing. Why some parents are finding it difficult to get their teens to stay away from friends. It is a very live conversation in many households across this country, he says, speaking from some experience. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in 90 seconds. Don't go anywhere.

[Music]

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We are going to continue this conversation we've been having about medical equipment and just how well-prepared our health care system is for this crisis and what perhaps is yet to come. Paul-Emile Cloutier is the president and CEO of HealthCareCAN. It represents hospitals and regional health authorities across this country. He's been listening in from Ottawa. Good morning to you.

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You just heard me speak with Kat, a nurse at a hospital, Ontario. She says that yesterday in her hospital, there were no masks. When you hear that, what goes through your mind?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Well, I think it's it's appalling that some hospitals do not have masks when they have to treat patients who have this type of virus. It's almost as if it's not real, but I know that in situations like these, it is real. Some people do take mass for other purposes. So I sympathize with her and I do want to Matt, just before we started this interview, acknowledge and salute these individuals at the frontlines who are really doing an extraordinarily amount of work and try to help patients that go through the system. They are often sometimes the unforgotten people, but they do work extremely hard to address the care that patients need as they go through the system.

MG: They're doing this work in the face of not having perhaps the supplies that they need. How strong is that supply line for hospitals in order to get more of the masks and the gloves and the gowns that they require?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Well, the a number of our institutions and research hospitals do have a system in place. The question that we have at this moment is that system or the the the chain manage the the the requests for these material and supplies were done in a time when the world was normal. The world is no longer normal and then we need to really, really visit these numbers. And I know for a fact that some of our hospitals are questioning how many swabs they have left to to take care of those patients and to test those patients. So it's not an easy task. It's a difficult one. Their hospitals are working together to plan to get more of these gowns and gloves and masks that are really needed for these not just for the patients, but also for the health care providers cause you don't want the health care providers to be sick and not be able to treat patients.

MG: What we hear from those on the frontlines, whether it's Kat or whether it's the people that we heard from in the last couple of weeks on this program is that that those almost frontlines feel as though they've been caught in some ways flatfooted. That the hospitals aren't prepared equipment wise, not just for what's happening now, but for the surge of cases that we're expecting. Is that fair to say?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: I think it's reasonably fair to say that because I think the system was so much underfunded for a number of years and they've had they've had serious cuts through the system. So my sense is that the hospitals have tried to do their best with the conditions that were given to them, at least the financial conditions that were given to them. At this moment, I'm saying that many of our hospitals are are ready, but they do not have enough material to address the surge of capacity that's coming in at this moment.

MG: We've seen people in the face of that do extraordinary things, whether it's posting on Facebook saying there are no masks at our hospitals, stop stealing them or trying to figure out ways to address the situation in their own manner. Have a listen to Dr. Azad Mashari. He's an anaesthesiologist in Toronto. He's using 3D printing to make face shields.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Right now, it's taking us about three hours to print two masks. We're able to print about 100 per day in Toronto with our group, but that's going to go up to probably about close to 300 in a couple of days. The one key difference between the face masks that we're making and the ones that are out there previously, where the previous ones were single use. These ones are reusable. So they can be decontaminated and washed and we're selling the masks for $10, which kind of helps us break even.

MG: What do you make of what the doctor's doing? Is that an option here, using 3-D printers to help create the equipment that perhaps the hospitals don't have?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: I mean, it's not the best option, but I think in in the circumstances that we're faced at this moment, that may be the only option. But I would hope that with the government's announcement on Friday that, yes, ventilators are very important, ICU beds are important, but so are the material and supplies. So I would hope that companies would come forward with some of the intellectual that they have and produce these masks and gloves and gowns that you need so much.

MG: What do you think that announcement by the government could do? We heard earlier from an inventor who says that, you know, he has technology that could be scaled up. We know that people who represent, as we heard, auto manufacturers and parts manufacturers said, that they want to be involved in this. Is there the opportunity to really address this in a meaningful way at scale?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: I think there is. And I mean, this our times today is not the same as it was six months ago. So I think we need to take every measure, pass every possible measure to address this issue in this challenge. What I'm really concerned is when will it reach the frontlines? And unfortunately, you know yourself that the virus is not there to stop and say we'll wait till the mask comes in. They're moving forward and they're moving across borders. They're moving across the regions. So that's number one. My second concern is how are they address the regulations? Will they address the medical standards that are needed and the certification from these various protocols that are needed to make sure that the ventilators, the mask and the gloves that are done have the appropriate standards that are needed?

MG: Do we have time for all of that? I mean, those are important things, but time is, the clock is ticking as well.

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Yeah you're right. Time is of the essence here. I just would hope that the federal government would give it its go, the green light to move forward on this as soon as possible, because if you wait too long and they have to take two weeks to produce the produce these these materials, then you're taking that much more time to getting the material to the patients, not the patients and their front liners who need that. I'm hopeful that we could turn this thing around and do it quickly.

MG: You represent, as I mentioned, hospitals and health care authorities across this country. What do your members tell you about what they're most worried about right now?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Well, they're concerned on two fronts. One is capacity. Two is the health human resources. They're concerned about the people who are serving these patients, about their health and their well-being and also funding. I mean, the government did give some funding to it towards hospital to address this issue. But the amount of money that was actually given is insufficient. And we need much more money than that to address the problem that we're faced at this moment.

MG: What we've heard from people who study, you know, viruses and the spread of viruses around the world is that this is not an outlier, that we have this coronavirus, but we could see further pandemics like this. Not if, but when in years ahead. And so do you think when we finally get out of this, whenever that is and whenever this is, when when we're on the other side of it, is there the opportunity for a larger conversation about how to be better prepared?

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Oh, I think that conversation needs to start now. Even though you might have this particular crisis at this moment, I think it doesn't preclude you by thinking about the future and what needs to be done to sustain our health care system in Canada. As I said earlier, Matt, I think the system has been underfunded. System has not been given enough attention. And it needs it needs that thinking. And we need to start that discussion not in seven months or seven years from now. I mean, we had SARS in 2003. Yes, SARS, we've learned lessons from SARS, but what did we do after that? I mean, we failed. OK. It's passed, let's do something else. I think there's a need for us to have that constructive conversation about what do we do with our health care system and how should it serve Canadians.

MG: And to have that conversation now.

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: And start the conversation now.

MG: Paul-Emile, it's good to speak with you. Thank you.

PAUL-EMILE CLOUTIER: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Paul-Emile Cloutier is the president and CEO. HealthCareCAN. It represents hospitals and health care agencies across this country.

[Music]

Show teens news and statistics to encourage social distancing, Ontario parent urges

Guests: Erica Ehm, Jessie Ehm, Peter Donnelly

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway and these are some young people on spring break in Miami, Florida, speaking with CBS News.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: It's really messing up with my spring break. What is there to do here other than go to the bars or the beach and they're closing all of it.

VOICE 2: If get corona. I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not going to let it stop me from partying. You know I've been waiting, we've been waiting for Miami spring break for a while. About two months we had this shit planned. Two three months and we're not even having a good time.

MG: That kind of attitude is making a lot of people nervous about how seriously a younger generation might be taking this covered pandemic on social media. Many in this country are commenting on seeing teenagers hanging out in groups. Young adults still going out together, huge crowds of people on beaches in Vancouver and Halifax as well. And some parents are trying to figure out how to get the social distancing message through to their kids, who often feel as though the virus isn't that dangerous to them. Erica Ehm is the founder of YMC, Your Mom Community. It is one of the largest online mom communities in this country. Jessie Ehm is her daughter. They're both in Toronto. Good morning to you both.

ERICA EHM: Good morning.

JESSIE EHM: Good morning.

MG: Erica, when you hear those young people in Miami saying, if I get corona, I get corona. It's not going to stop me from partying. How do you react?

ERICA EHM: I'm furious. It's a challenging situation because any kid who's over 19, their parent has no say in how they behave. So it's frustrating and probably mortifying for parents to watch their kids behave like this. My kids are 16, Jessie, 16, and my son Josh is 19. And I've been talking about this. At first they thought I was an alarmist because I was freaking out really early and my daughter initially and my son where my son got quiet, and my daughter got angry, and they both thought that I was a lunatic. And I think that, you know, when something really bad happens, the first thing you do is you deny it. And I think that that was the situation where my kids were thinking my mother is overreacting. And then they got really mad. And it's interesting because I have a private Facebook group for parents of teens. And it's called, I think the Parents of Teens Survival Group. It's private on Facebook and the common thread many parents were saying is: my kids are so angry at me, they're swearing at me. They're furious at me. And the other parents would respond and say, stay strong, stay strong. It's important for us as parents to tell our kids what is going on and we're the boss.

MG: Jessie, you've been listening in and I know that you laughed when your mum said that initially, maybe you thought that she was a lunatic for the way that she was talking about this. How do you and your friends see COVID-19 and what's going on right now?

JESSIE EHM: Honestly, I'm really scared myself, but I think my friends are more just like pissed off about it.

MG: To put it bluntly.

JESSIE EHM: Well yeah, but I've just been staying inside, trying to kill time, whatever, and my friends are more trying to find ways to get around it and like go out and see their friends and I have to say, what are you doing?

MG: What do you mean that they're trying to get around it? What are they doing?

JESSIE EHM: I mean, like, it's not really working, but I have friends who are together or want to go out. I have one friend who's saying that she wants to like leave and whatever. I'm just here listening to her and I'm just like, no, no.

MG: Erica, this is playing out in households and I say this, as I say with some experience, it's playing out in households across the country. What are the conversations like with Jessie?

ERICA EHM: Well, I'm keep on trying to show, not keep on, I constantly show her the news. I show her memes on social media. I show her newspaper articles. I read her statistics. Basically, I scare the crap out of her. I mean, I don't limit the information that I'm giving her. I know that there's a lot of talk about kids in anxiety, but I prefer kids that are anxious and alive than kids that are dead.

MG: So you don't worry about freaking them out, about showing them too much? Cause there's this idea that you could insulate them in some ways from some of how intense this story is.

ERICA EHM: If we insulate them, then we get the behaviour that you saw in Florida. I don't think that it's wise. I think it's important that kids understand. Now, I'm talking about teenagers now. I'm not talking about little kids. I'm talking about teenagers who are bigger, harder to control, angrier, more entitled, if you will, used to freedom. Listen, I understand how hard this is for my daughter. She lives and breathes being with her friends and she's been cut off from her friends. She can't touch her friends. She can't see them face to face. And she is being a real trooper. I'm so proud of how she's accepting this new reality. And I think it's essential that parents are firm with their kids and give them the real facts and I'm talking about kids who are old enough to understand because the world has changed. And those kids are potential carriers. If those kids go out and they bring home a disease or the virus, their parents could get sick, their family can get sick and so it goes, it passes on. Our teenagers are very important in terms of how they behave in terms of controlling this.

MG: Jessie, how are you staying in touch with your friends? Are you, what are you doing to try and stay in touch?

JESSIE EHM: I've just been on, I've been FaceTiming a lot of my friends. I'm constantly on the phone like these past couple days. And of course, Snapchat and Instagram, but mostly just calling people. I'd rather be more face to face than just like sending photos to people.

MG: What were you gonna do during this March break before all of this happened?

JESSIE EHM: Honestly, I didn't have any plans, but I have a way of finding things to do with my friends. Always just like my first priorities.

MG: And what do you miss the most? What do you miss the most about the situation, you know about what would be normal life in some ways?

JESSIE EHM: Probably like going out with my friends. Like going out to somebody's house or something. Those are my best memories are honestly, just when i'm with my friends. Just doing whatever. And I just can't do that. I'm just kind of sitting at home alone, which is really not as fun.

MG: Erica, you might want to move the phone away from your ear, just for a second. Jessie, how annoying have your parents been through all of this?

JESSIE EHM: Oh, my God. So annoying. Especially my mom. She's just so frustrating.

MG: But do you understand where she's coming from? I mean, I say this as a parent, but also you just heard your mom. Do you understand what she's trying to do?

JESSIE EHM: Yeah, absolutely. I do understand her strategy and her reasoning behind all of this, but at the same time though it is like frustrating. And I guess she has to be the bad guy in this situation, because she's forced to be like put in this like position where she's making me not do what I want to do, but at the same time, I'm still a teenager. I still have to like, you know, it still is annoying.

MG: Erica, I don't know whether you heard that or not, but can you empathize with how hard it is for Jessie and other teens?

JESSIE EHM: I have to tell you, I tell Jessie every day how proud I am of her honestly, because she's she's not complaining. She is buckling down and just making the best of a really terrible, terrifying situation and I'm really proud of her. I mean, just the fact that she can articulate to you on the radio saying that I'm annoying and she understands that I have to be the bad guy, to me, that's very wise. And I just hope that other kids can get that same mindset. I'm happy to be the fall guy and the bad guy. No problem. As long as I keep my family safe and the people around me safe. That's the most important thing right now.

MG: So in the last minute that we have, Erica, what would your advice be to the kids who find this really difficult? The prime minister spoke directly to them yesterday, which was interesting, and said thank you, but also said I'm sorry in some ways that you're having to go through this. What would you say just briefly to those kids?

ERICA EHM: It is a really hard situation and it's OK to be angry and it's OK to be sad and it's OK to be frustrated. All of those things are 100 percent true. You still can't go outside. So try and make the best of it. Try and have some fun. Annoy your parents. No problem. We're happy to take the stress. We're happy to be your fall guy, but be safe and stay home and use your time to do something fun. Create. Do something. Read.

MG: Jessie, what would you say to parents about the situation?

JESSIE EHM: I would say be sensitive to your kids because it's definitely a hard time for both parties. And I say just look for some fun things to do with your kids because like teenagers, like make some suggestions cause they're probably already bored and don't know what to do next. So just try to help them like guide them along to find the next best thing to do. Just to preoccupy us in the meantime.

MG: It's good to talk to you both. Maybe we'll check back in as this story continues. In the meantime, enjoy your day today and stay healthy. Thank you.

JESSIE EHM: You too. Thank you.

ERICA EHM: Thanks so much.

MG: Jesse Ehm is 16. Her mother, Erica Ehm, is the founder of YMC, Your Mom Community. It's an online community of moms. They were both in Toronto. It is becoming increasingly apparent that young adults are vulnerable to COVID-19. In the United States almost 40 percent of those now in hospital with the virus are between 20 and 54 years old. They do have a much better chance of surviving than elderly patients, but specialists say that young people still need to take precautions. Dr. Peter Donnelly is the president and CEO of Public Health Ontario. Doctor, good morning to you.

PETER DONNELLY: Good morning Matt. How are you holding up?

MG: You know, as well as anybody can under the circumstances. Yourself?

PETER DONNELLY: Great. Yeah listen, thanks for asking. We're doing well here at Public Health Ontario. We kind of thrive on tough stuff like this. It's why we were built. Right? So we're doing well.

MG: You just heard that conversation. Why do you think it's a particular challenge for young people to practise what we've been calling social distancing?

PETER DONNELLY: Yeah, listen, I get it. It's tough, but, you know, I tend to think that young people are a major asset in this situation. The first thing is I think they're getting it. They're really getting it now. Some of these things that, you know, people saw people on the beach and all that kind of stuff. Those are a few days out of date now. And I think people are understanding because you're absolutely right, as you've just pointed out Matt, young people do get this and sadly, some of them end up really sick. So it's important for their own health that they get it and they follow the instructions and do this stuff, tough stuff and stay at home.

MG: Do we have a sense as to how many younger people are contracting COVID-19 here in Canada? That stat from the United States, almost 40 percent as I say, of people are getting it or in hospital, are between 20 and 54. What about here in Canada?

PETER DONNELLY: Yeah, it's early days Matt and it's really difficult to say, but it is important to stress, as you've just done, that young people are, you know, not immune to this. Absolutely not immune. They can get it. But here's the other thing, and I know you understand this, but let's see if we can share this with your audience. The people who are older, particularly people who are over the age of 70 and 80, for them, this is really serious. It can be really nasty. And young people are altruistic. I mean, you look at the amazing leadership that they provided to society on things like climate change. They really are altruistic. And I know they care about their grandparents. I know they care about their elderly neighbours and so there's something here about young people being an asset and being able to keep older people in society safe.

MG: If you're trying to make the case to a young person who wants to go to a friend's house, they say, listen, I mean, this is an issue for older people. I'm not really at risk and I'm just going to go and hang out and it's not going to be that big of a deal. What are some of the facts that a parent could use to make their point clear, that social distancing or physical distancing, as people have also been calling it, is really that important?

PETER DONNELLY: Yeah, I like physical distancing, actually because physical distancing gets across. The idea that it's two meters or six feet. And if you think about that, you know, if you have an average sized room and you had people in it and you got to be always two meters apart at all times, yeah, you don't want to be having meetings around at friend's house. So this is why young people are a great assets, right? Because they actually understand social media. They interact with each other all the time on social media. Look, it's importan to, it's important to keep a bit of a sense of humour through tough times. And I was just laughing the other day because I have three lovely young nieces back in Scotland and their mother's always on the case: girls, get off the phone. Get off the phone. You know, sit and talk. Go see your friends. This may be the first time ever that my sister in law is going to be telling them, get on your phone.

MG: Use the phone as much as you'd like.

PETER DONNELLY: Because that's way to interact, right?

MG: You know, it's interesting because we're talking about young people. But again, these images coming out of Vancouver over the weekend where it's not just young folks who are out on the beach. You have people who are of all ages and that's not just in that province. Here in Ontario, how difficult has it been getting the message out of social distancing or physical distancing?

PETER DONNELLY: You know, I think increasingly we are again out, Matt. I think programs like this make a big difference. I think, you know, you're a trusted voice of the community in Toronto and I think when you have discussions like this one today, people do pay attention and people do listen. But look, here's a message not just for the young, but the young of heart and the young of heart are all these snowbirds who are returning from the United States and in the United States. I think it's likely that there's, you know, there's greater spread of this virus than they probably realise. So when these people come back, they're getting very clear instructions that they must go home and they must self-quarantine for two weeks and most that most people are being completely responsible about that. But here's the thing. If you think of the age of the snowbirds, you know, these folks grew up in the 60s a lot of them. They weren't exactly rule followers. OK. They were you know, they were a new generation who kind of wanted to do things their own way and on this occasion, we really, really need them to do what the majority of them are doing, which is to be super responsible, get home, stay home, because we don't want them bringing the virus back with them and spreading it around without knowing, OK.

MG: Is it enough to ask people to do this or are we going to get to the point where more mandatory measures will need to be put in place so that people are just told us that they need to be apart from each other, but that they have to be apart from each other?

PETER DONNELLY: So, look, I think constantly things are underm constantly things are under review. The great thing about having an organisation like Public Health Ontario is we get to push science right into the middle of the decision making process that the decision makers, the politicians are listening to science. They're trying really hard to base their decisions on science. And I think that's a really positive thing. You know, it was one of the things that came out of the inquiries that followed SARS. It was, you got to get science into the heart of decision making and the good thing in Ontario is that that's what's happening.

MG: What's been the hardest part of all of this for you?

PETER DONNELLY: You know, listen, I'm good. I kind of thrive on this sort of stuff, Matt. To be honest, it's what I've trained for all my life. This is the kind of stuff I do. Here's the hardest thing for me though. I really want to make a shout out on your show for frontline laboratory staff. I cannot tell you, Matt, how hard these folks have been working here. They have been fantastic. You know, they flipped to 24 hour working just like that. They are working all the way around the clock, seven days a week. They're ramping up the tests. You know, it wasn't their fault that there was a global shortage of testing kits. It wasn't their fault that there was a global shortage of reagents. There's been some fantastic work over the last few days and week across the province ramping this up further. And so hopefully I think we have good news coming in terms of the total number of tests we can do every day across the province and also intense in terms of the test turnaround time. And but I just don't want any of that to detract from the fact that frontline laboratory staff are the real unsung heroes of the response so far. So, shout out to them.

MG: Peter, great to speak with you and I appreciate the advice on how to talk to people about social distancing. Thank you.

PETER DONNELLY: No problem. Cheers Matt.

MG: Dr. Peter Donnelly, President and CEO of Public Health Ontario. The CBC News is next and then we're going to talk about the people delivering the stuff that you are ordering online. Those delivery workers find themselves caught in the middle. Hear what the pandemic has been like for them coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended version of The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Keeping the people making your deliveries safe during COVID-19

Guests: Nadine Kays, Jim Foster, Sarah Mojtehedzadeh

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, shaking hands, communion cups, praying in large groups. Religious rituals can be tough to pull off in the age of social distancing and so faith communities are getting creative. We'll hear more on that coming up in our next half hour. But first, we'll start with online shopping and the people behind your packages.

[Music: Theme]

MG: And typically you'd be hearing Q with Tom Power right about now. We've had to change a few things up here at the broadcasting centre and on the network in these unusual times. And so starting today, for the next little while, The Current is running for an extra two hours. That said, you may be hearing Tom sooner than you think. Maybe even today. Wink, wink. Nevermind. Is somebody at the door.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of doorbell]

MG: Yikes. I hope your packages don't hit the porch that hard. That bell is a familiar sound to many Canadians right now. Thanks to social distancing, there has been a spike in online shopping and home deliveries, and that has many letter carriers and delivery workers concerned about their safety. Nadine Kays is a letter carrier in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a grievance officer with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Nadine. Good morning.

NADINE KAYS: Hi. Good morning.

MG: How you doing?

NADINE KAYS: Good, thank you.

MG: What is it like being a letter carrier right now in the age of COVID-19?

NADINE KAYS: Right now, it's pretty stressful, actually. A lot of our workers are, you know, experiencing a lot of levels, high levels of anxiety and stress, you know, due to the nature of our work, obviously.

MG: Tell me more about that. Where's that stress coming from?

NADINE KAYS: You know, our workers are concerned about, you know, coming into contact with the virus. We're moving packages from all over the place where we have the biggest infrastructure in Canada. So where we have equipment coming in and out of our depots, we have parcels of mail coming from different places. So the concern is, you know, what are we coming into contact with? Nobody wants to spread it in the community. Nobody wants to take it home. Nobody wants to get it themselves. So the level is pretty high. It's the unknown.

MG: Have you seen a big increase in the amount of mail and packages since people began to, I guess, spend more time at home and not go out as much?

NADINE KAYS: I guess like it was last week was a bit different because everything and just kind of started, but this week I can say today the mail looked average to above average actually.

MG: Average to above average?

NADINE KAYS: Yeah.

MG: You're out delivering and you're also hearing from other letter carriers, is that sense of anxiety something that's widespread right through the force?

NADINE KAYS: Absolutely.

MG: Yeah. And so what given, I mean everybody's trying to take different precautions and safety measures in the times that we're in. What sort of additional safety measures are you taking?

NADINE KAYS: So right now, the biggest thing that is being said to us and that we're trying to practices social distancing. So we're not getting signatures and passing over our PDT to anybody. Everything is kind of trying to save drop as much as possible. But one of the things that we're asking that we need the public to kind of respect for us is not to approach us on the streets, not to come to the doors when we're dropping parcels at on their doorstep. We're, you know, a lot of times people what because they're at home, they'll see the truck come into the neighbourhood and they'll send their kids down or they'll come down. And we're asking them not to do that right now. Just give people their space so we can so that workers can get the work done.

MG: This package has travelled, you know, through a lot of different hands. Are you wearing gloves? Are you using hand sanitizer? How are you trying to keep yourself safe?

NADINE KAYS: Yeah. So the very first thing that the corporation did was they were ordering gloves and hand sanitizer. There was a shortage. I know right now in Halifax, they have they have that equipment for they said for every letter carrier, which is good. So basically, we're washing our hands. The one thing that we have to remember is that some of our carriers go very far out in rural areas so they don't have access to somewhere to wash their hands, which is the safest method to be able to get soap and water. So what we we are asking is that we have that the you know, that the government makes sure that Canada has those supplies to give us that, you know, what kind of hand sanitizer that we can have our hands on every day.

MG: What more would you like to see from your employer canada Post to ensure that you're as safe as possible?

NADINE KAYS: So right now, I think the biggest ask on the floor is that the depots and the plants and the retail outlets all get a deep cleaning. People are looking for our trucks to be cleaned on a daily and the equipment coming in and out is cleaned.

MG: And how often is it cleaned now?

NADINE KAYS: Well, right now they just they have increased that. I know that the cleaners that are in there are doing stuff daily, but it's the amount. Like these, some of these depots are quite big. So they need to get more people in and we were told today that that was what they were going to do. They're going to bring in more people and start cleaning more of the stuff that we've been asking for.

MG: We asked Canada Post what they're doing to keep employees like you safe and they directed this to frequently asked questions page on the website. This is an excerpt from it and it reads and this is a quotation "we communicate daily to our employees about this issue. They are informed about the measures to protect themselves and others, such as hand-washing, avoiding shaking hands, avoiding contact with others who show symptoms of respiratory illness." What do you make of that response?

NADINE KAYS: Well, I think that is their standard response obviously. I think that is there is talks going on. They are giving that message to people, you know, but they're the workers also on a daily like they are they are coming up with other things that they feel would make them feel more safe. So obviously not every area in Canada Post has all the supplies they need. So we want to make sure that that, you know, that we are being supplied with that. So, you know, as a standard answer, I guess there's truth to it. They are talking to people. They are supplying stuff. But is it enough? I think we can always do better. We can always work on it.

MG: Would you like to see Canada Post, if you don't get the protections that you want, would you like to see Canada Post stop delivering mail right now?

NADINE KAYS: Well, if they're not, if they're obligated to provide us with a safe workplace. So if they're not doing everything to provide us with a safe workplace, I would expect that we wouldn't be asked to work in that those conditions. Yeah, but as far as just shutting everything down, it depends on the circumstances.

MG: It's a stressful situation for everybody. How are you coping with all this?

NADINE KAYS: Well, talking to other people in the same situation. I know lots of talks with my family. They're concerned. You know, you go home every day and you wonder, you know, am I keeping them safe? You know, I have to go to work, so, you know, I have those worries. So it's just trying to talk to people about it, trying to make sure I'm doing everything, washing my hands, making sure social distancing, doing everything I can on on that end. And I field a lot of calls from workers that are concerned and feel the same way. So just being there to support each other.

MG: Take care of yourself and I appreciate you talking to us this morning. Thank you.

NADINE KAYS: Thank you.

MG: Nadine Kays is a letter carrier and a grievance officer with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. As I mentioned, a lot of people are turning to delivery to keep businesses afloat during this difficult time, not just ordering things, but the businesses as well, trying to re imagine what it is that their business actually is. Jim Foster is the owner of Pelican's Seafood Market and Grill in Ottawa, a restaurant and seafood market. Jim, good morning to you.

JIM FOSTER: Good morning. How are you?

MG: Well, I'm OK. What's the last week been like?

JIM FOSTER: Did you wash your hands?

MG: I have about 35 times in the last 10 minutes. What has the last week been like for you?

JIM FOSTER: Oh, buddy. Oh, man. What a change for everybody. I mean, it's like daily. It's minutes. You know, last Monday we had a talk in the morning and there was concern whether the restaurant should be open. And by 5:00 o'clock it was closed. And every day brings a new challenge, a new, you know, a new thing to learn. Yeah, it's been wild.

MG: What was it like when you had to make that decision to close the restaurant and lay off staff?

JIM FOSTER: That was tough. Don't make me cry, Matt. Yeah no and you know what, they've been amazing. Like our staff have reached out and just thanked us for taking good care of us, of them as we could. For us, it's a duty and just to keep this sucker going, man. We've got to be open when they come back. So, you know, we're doing everything we can.

MG: It really does hit you, doesn't it?

JIM FOSTER: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's wild. You know, but like I said, the big focus for us is just to keep things running. Service our community, our community of amazing customers and as well for our big public and community. You know, we got to be here when they're, when this is over and have a place for them to work.

MG: And so part of that is changing what Pelican is. And it's now involved in delivery. What have you had to do and how have you had to adapt it to make sure that you get food to your customers?

JIM FOSTER: Well, let's be real. The first job is we're incredible cleaners now. We're just, it's cleaning all the time. We've had some really, some really amazing community outreach from some people. And one of the things that Love Local Food offers is they've teamed up with local restaurants and Responsible Choice, which is a great service that will come in normal times, will come to your wherever you are with two drivers and one driver will drive you home, while the other driver goes back and services somebody else and gets you home safely, or they'll take your kids to the prom or take you to the airport. And I guess they don't have a lot of business, so they're offering to deliver food for us to our customers, which is just a wild idea. And it's amazing. Like if you tried to do this in normal times, it would have taken weeks and this has come, you know, come to fruition in probably days. So we'll be starting that tomorrow.

MG: And so you're going to be doing delivery and then you have curbside pick up and takeout as well?

JIM FOSTER: Yeah. So we, our restaurant, we've tried to keep as many guys as we have going. So the people order online, they pull up, they give us a ring and we run their food out to them and that's been really great. And then for fresh fish and seafood we'll be using the delivery guys, which is awesome. There's a lot of people who, we have an older clientele for you know, for the fish market and they really don't want to go out. So it's great.

MG: You've been doing some deliveries yourself?

JIM FOSTER: Oh, yeah.

MG: What has that been like where the boss is now out delivering food?

JIM FOSTER: Matt, like flashback to the 90s because I'm the first, well, not the first guy in every morning, but this is day 15 for me. As long as I remember to bring them on my way home, it's great. You know, people are really generous. They pay over the phone and I put it at the door, ring the bell and I get a wave as I drive away. It's pretty lovely. And if Mr. Landry is listening right now, I'll have your cod to you today, I promise.

MG: There is, I mean, that may be humbling, isn't the right word, but there is something grounding in having to do that work again.

JIM FOSTER: It's amazing. You know, a great friend of mine, a really classy lady said to me, it kind of takes me back to what I was doing a long time ago. And I've been so energized by talking to customers. It's lovely. I mean, they're so generous in spirit, it really is humbling.

MG: I have talked to a number of people who run, friends of mine who run restaurants, and they're really worried about what's going to be left when they come out of this.

JIM FOSTER: Yeah. Well and you wonder what it's what it's going to be really like? I mean, are people going to want to go out? So, I mean, we're so lucky because the market's been really steady and takeouts been going well. But even so, you wonder, I mean, you know, you've got, you look around this huge space where people used to sit and that's an expense and there's lots of expenses of a bigger place, but certainly we've got it so much, we're in a better place than a lot of people. And I reach out to all my restaurant friends and say, wow, you know, I really feel for you. It's a challenging time, for sure.

MG: How are you, just finally, before I let you go, how are you and what are you relying on to keep it together in these times?

JIM FOSTER: Oh, man. The people. People are amazing. I mean the staff I have are phenomenal, like they're just, you know, we're trying to keep as few people working and exposed. You know, your last discussion, you know, about being frontlines. That's what we are. You know, yesterday, Jordan, a guy I worked with for a long time, great guy, he said, hey, we've got to help make this a safer spot for our customers and ourselves. We put six green stars on the floor and asked people that are two meters apart and said, one person per green star. I mean, you know, today we're measuring up the plexiglass. You know, another suggestion by a customer. And so it's pretty amazing. Like you said, it's humbling. I can't tell you what an honour it is to work with these people and for these people. Yeah.

MG: You sound like a good boss, Jim. It's great to talk to you. Good luck.

JIM FOSTER: Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

MG: Take care of yourself.

JIM FOSTER: Alright, bye bye.

MG: Jim Foster is the owner of Pelican Seafood Market and Grill in Ottawa offering takeout, curbside pickup and as of tomorrow, delivery to help get food to his customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Small businesses are counting on online orders, but this new normal, as they say that we're in right now, could also be great for the big players, players like Amazon. Some Amazon workers are concerned about their health and safety. Sarah Mojtehedzadeh is reporter who covers work and labour issues for the Toronto Star. Has been reporting on this. Sarah, good morning to you.

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Good morning.

MG: You've been speaking with some Amazon fulfilment centre employees in the Toronto area. These are the folks who, when we push click and order something, take the items and get them into the boxes and get them out the door. What have they been telling you about what life is like right now for them?

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Yeah. So I had been chatting with Amazon workers in this fulfilment centres even before COVID-19 really hit. And even then, there were concerns around access to paid sick days and the pace of work. And you know, when when the pandemic really started to hit home, I started chatting with them and, you know, really hearing concerns around temporary employees not being able to take paid sick days. Permanent employees only having for paid sick days, which they accrue over time. So some of them don't have access to those days yet. And a lot of concerns around these fulfilment centres just being, you know, so busy, sometimes thousands of employees really feeling like it was impossible to do the social distancing. You know, they sent me photos of, you know, the packing line being quite, quite crowded and lunch rooms being crowded, departmental meetings, sometimes hundreds of people continuing to to pop. And despite that kind of public health guidance around social distancing, that really got a lot of anxiety around the working conditions in the warehouses.

MG: How much do people in those warehouses generally make, do you know?

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Yeah. So I believe they start off around $17 an hour. Amazon has said that during this sort of time of crisis, they're going to be paying people an extra $2 an hour. So the rates have gone up for that period. And I saw over the weekend as well that they're now going to start paying job full time for all the overtime that's being worked to keep up with the orders. But, you know, the warehousing sector in general and, you know, physically demanding, it's not you know, it's not high wages. It's often quite precarious and it's a huge, it employs so many people in the GTA. And, you know, the pace of work is is is very difficult to keep up with at the best of times.

MG: You wrote about what you'd been hearing from those employees and mentioned that, you know, the internal conversations through chat groups and what have you. What are those employees hearing back from their employer at Amazon?

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: So I think initially there was concern over the response and and sort of the trends you have seen around what was happening, you know, when it first reported on this. You know, I was shown emails to managers about, you know, questions about quarantining. And should I should I self isolate and I'm not going to get paid. They have to self isolate. You know, Amazon is paying for people who receive a positive diagnosis of a bodies. Obviously, people were concerned that if they should be self isolating based on what health officials are saying, you know, are they going to lose income to do that? And, you know, they were telling me that they hadn't received no responses to those sorts of questions. And later on in the week, what I've been hearing is that things have started to change. So they have now cancelled the departmental meetings that were taking place. They what I'm told is that they are limiting the number of people who can sit at a lunch table, that they're trying to reduce the number of people who are packing items. So I think that it sounds like some of the concerns from employees have been taken on board. But, you know, there's other concerns as well around access to face masks was a big one. Jeff Bezos on the weekend posted something on Instagram saying that Amazon has tried to order millions of face masks for its warehouse employees, but obviously, there's a shortage. So, you know, I think that it's sort of a moveable feast and, you know, steps are being taken. But, you know, if you're an employee who really has to choose between a day's earnings and staying home for your own health and safety, I think it's a very anxious time.

MG: We asked Amazon what they were doing to keep employees safe, and they sent us a statement that reads in part, "We are going to great lengths to keep them buildings extremely clean, help employees practise important precautions such as social distancing and other measures. Those who don't want to come to work are welcome to use paid and unpaid time off options, and we support them in doing so." All of this comes at a time when people are at home and they're not going out and they are ordering more things, whether it's things that they need immediately or other things, because they have time to spend they're ordering them online. How is Amazon responding in terms of staffing to meet up with that increased demand?

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Yeah so when I first contacted Amazon early last week about this story, raising health and safety concerns, they responded by sending me a press release saying that they are hiring 100,000 new hourly employees to deal with the surge in demand, which, you know, as a consumer, you know, is reassuring that you're going to be able to order stuff online and have it at your door and sort of at relatively timely fashion. But for workers in the warehouse, there is real concern about how you can social distance when your employer is ramping up hiring. And, you know, if you go on to the Amazon.ca Hiring site, you can see postings for seasonal jobs and it's GTA warehouses. So I think, you know, from the workers perspective, there is concern around the number of people who work in these facilities and hiring new temporary staff who do not have access to paid sick days.

MG: Do they have a union or any way to raise their concerns without fears of reprisal? I mean, in your reporting, you're looking at internal chat groups and people are often reluctant to put their name out there because they might be worried about their job.

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: No. Yeah, the warehouses are not unionized. There was a lot of fear when I spoke to workers about reprisal. I think, you know, in these types of workplaces, there is such an imbalance of power between employer that is, you know, a huge force in the industry and workers who are, you know, making 17, 19 bucks an hour, don't have a union. It is, it can be hard to advocate for safe working conditions. There is a new organization called the Warehouse Workers Centre in Brampton that's been set up to sort of provide support and resources to warehouse employees. But yeah, I did sort of hear a lot about fear of reprisal from the workers that I spoke to.

MG: And obviously, there's no work from home option as well. So just in the last minute or so, what are you hearing about how all of what you've been talking about can impact the lives of the workers? They need to find childcare, for example. They need to perhaps help out with loved ones at home.

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Yeah I mean, looking into this, we sort of crunch the numbers a little bit, and I think only 30 percent of us in the GTA have the luxury to work from home. So we're looking at a huge part of our workforce who has to go into work. You know, they don't have the option to at home. And that's obviously very true for Amazon workers. Several of them did raise concerns that they are caring for elderly parents and don't know what they're bringing home with them at the end of the day. Again, not having access or full access to paid sick leave if you're a temporary employee and even if you're a full time permanent employee, not having those four days accrued, that was that was a huge concern for people who are taking care of kids or elderly family members.

MG: Sarah, important to hear from you on this. Thank you.

SARAH MOJTEHEDZADEH: Thank you.

MG: Sarah Mojtehedzadeh covers work and labour issues for the Toronto Star. Well, coming up in about 90 seconds time, next month is an important time for many world religions. You have Easter, you have Passover, you have Ramadan, all falling in the month of April. These are strange times though and they're prompting faith leaders to rethink how they gather. We will look at some of the solutions that they have found. That's coming up next. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended version of The Current. Stay with us.

[Music]

The doors are closed, but God’s still home. We talk to faith leaders about congregating in the age of COVID-19

Guests: Erica Debra Landsberg, Susan Spicer, Ibrahim Hindy

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to an extended version of The Current. At a time when we're all doing our best to stay home and stay separated from each other, these days can be particularly difficult for people of faith. Faith communities are used to gathering, often in large groups, sometimes multiple times every week. A lot of churches, mosques, temples and other places of worship though, right across this country have now shut their doors indefinitely and in many cases for the first time in their history. And so leaders in those communities have had to make the decision to protect public health at a time when people in their communities may actually need their spiritual services the most. Our guests today have all suspended their in person services. Reverend Susan Spicer is the priest at St. George's Anglican Church in Ajax, Ontario. Ibrahim Hindy is the imam at Dar al-Tawheed mosque in Mississauga, Ontario. And Rabbi Debra Landsberg leads Temple Emanu-el in North York, Ontario. And they all join us. Good morning to you all.

DEBRA LANDSBERG: Good morning.

SUSAN SPICER: Good morning.

IBRAHIM HINDY: Good morning.

MG: Ibrahim, we'll start with you. What went into the decision to close your doors?

IBRAHIM HINDY: You know, we spoke to a lot of health experts within our community and of course, listened to what experts around the world were saying and, you know, we felt it was responsible to take heed of the government recommendations and obviously seeing the death toll across the world, it felt like it was antithetical to our religious principles for us to keep the doors open as contradictory as that sounds and felt.

MG: What do you remember of that moment when you made that decision?

IBRAHIM HINDY: You know, I went in person to tell the people were the regular goers who come basically every day to tell them first before we sent out the e-mail and posted on the website. I told them this is one of the worst feelings I've ever felt in my life because I've spent so much of my life helping build mosques and open mosques and have programs in the mosque and encourage people to come to the mosque and here ironically, I'm the person telling everyone we're going to shut down the doors until further notice.

MG: Reverend Susan Spicer, tell me what that moment was like for you. Did you feel a similar way when that decision was made at your church?

SUSAN SPICER: It was. Yes. It was heartbreaking because it's in our DNA as church to gather. It's what we do. We gather in all kinds of ways, especially for worship and and to praise God and to pray together and to be with one another and to share communion, bread and wine. So I was devastated, but then I also knew we had to figure out how to stay connected. So we kind of flew into action. And like Ibrahim, we got in touch with everyone directly and personally as we could and we assured them that we would be trying to do everything we could to provide some form of worship for them and to stay in touch with each other as in as meaningful a way as we could.

MG: I want to talk about that in a moment, how you're still doing that. Rabbi Landsberg, what is most important about gathering people together?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: I think the beautiful question, so much of religious life, we talk about trying to seek a connection with God, with the source of life, but it most comes through connection with other people. That's where we feel I think the spark of what's most alive and what's most important. And so gathering together allows us to be open to that opportunity for that soulful wholeness and without that immediate connection and the connectivity, it can be very frightening for people to feel so isolated.

MG: And so when you lose that, how do you go about practicing faith? I mean faith is a personal matter. It is something, to your point though, that's also shared. And it can be elevated in some ways through fellowship and through gathering with other people. How do you practise your faith without congregating, Debra?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: Well, actually, it's interesting. Within the Jewish tradition, the building block of a spiritual life is the community. There are key prayers that one can only say and community, including the prayer one says when someone one loves has passed on a moment where one feels perhaps most isolated, when has to come into a community for that. And so we've been working to find ways to create that community, though it's not physically closed, but it's still spiritually connected. We've moved all of our services. We have daily services to online. We Zoom. We Facebook live. We're working with congregants to learn how to use the technology, how to call in and I think people are grateful for the opportunity connect, even though it's in this new way for many.

MG: Had you ever done anything like that before?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: No, we actually hadn't. We'd been a very, I don't want to say hard core in our thinking. We want people to come together in person and the only times that we had done this before had been for accessibility. If we had a bar mitzvah and a dear family member was was ill and not able to join us, then we would allow face time. But it hadn't been part of our communal practise. And I know we're now changed forever in how we do that.

MG: That's interesting. I'll come back to that. Ibrahim, had you ever had to close the doors before of the mosque?

IBRAHIM HINDY: Never. Never. It was such a difficult thing to have done, but, you know, we're using the opportunity, like the rest of my colleagues habe said, to go online and to try to keep that connection going through online platforms, even though it was never that's never been a focus of ours, because having people to come in is so important. Having them to see each other, to meet each other, to create those connections are so important. And especially, you know, in our community, there are a number of new immigrants and a lot of them don't have any family other than the family that they make at the mosque. And that's what really made this really heartbreaking, is not only was this not a safe space for people in the place that people come and congregate, for a lot of people, that's their family. We just closed the doors to where they meet their family and that's what made it so difficult.

MG: How do you go about ensuring, I mean, you talked about being online, but particularly, as you mentioned, for people who might not have other family? They may not have other points of connection. How do you go about ensuring that they don't feel completely cut off?

IBRAHIM HINDY: So like I said,we've gone to a number of online programs that we're doing and online, you know, virtual sermons and things along those lines. It can never be a full replacement, I don't think to seeing in person, but it's helping people keep that connection alive. You know, I had an email from a woman telling me that she felt so distraught because all her family's overseas and the only family she was really had is coming to the mosque, but just having got all my connection of being able to see a familiar face giving the sermon and familiar programs that she's been to before, but now we're taking them online, it's given her a sense of, you know, there's still the community there. They're still out there. And hopefully eventually in the future, things will get back to normal.

MG: Susan, we keep hearing people talk about social distancing and we're kind of changing the phraseology a little bit now that it's physical distancing and social connection. How are you playing that out at St. George's?

SUSAN SPICER: Well, we are blessed to have in our community a young person who is has lot of technical abilities and knowledge. And so she's been amazing about helping us get on to Zoom and get on to Facebook live and use those kinds of technologies. But, you know, I think the main emphasis of everything that we're doing is to is to encourage people to pray and to feel that deep connection to God and to one another, because there is there is a sense of community that comes when we pray together. We you know, it's part of our liturgy, when we're when we're praying in gathered worship, that we pray with the whole company of heaven and those on earth, the communion of saints. So we're we're praying in that very kind of broad sense. And that I think that is an important way that we're that we're acknowledging that deep connectedness that we have, where we've tried to do many of our programs online. We've been using Zoom to have Bible study, and that worked really well. We've had online worship with a with a sermon and and prayers, intercessory prayers. So having people send in their prayer requests, that's been going on as well. And people are coordinating that. We've had some funny moments, including trying to have choir practise online, which wasn't so successful.

MG: Easier to have everybody in the same room when the choir's trying to practice.

SUSAN SPICER: Really you do because of the Internet, everybody's got a different speed on their connection. So it sounded like a bunch of strangled cats, but we persevere. And so there's been, but I agree. You know, someone said just seeing each other's faces. You know, I actually wept the first time people started popping up on Zoom because it was such a relief to see them. I really miss them and so yeah.

MG: Debra, we've reached you, Debra, in social isolation, right?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: Yeah.

MG: You just came back from Israel?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: I did. I did. I went with two of my children to Israel, bring them to Torah. And it was so strange to be away from my community as this was really expanding. The decisions about closing the building were done while I was physically away and I'm here in isolation, but I agree. I had the same experience as Susan did. Seeing people's faces has been profoundly changing what isolation means. And as someone who I'm sure, like many, many religious leaders, have spoken against the downside of social media, that which that the push to curate your life meant to only present the positive, it's so powerful to experience just the upside of it, to tell people for a memorial service, doesn't matter what you look like, come in your pyjamas. We want to see you. We're not we're not putting on our best face, we're presenting our honest faces with each other.

MG: You said that it had changed in some ways, will have changed your services forever. How so?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: I think so. I think everyone still knows the power of coming together and taking the time to be able to come and physically be with each other, but I think what we've grown aware of is how that may not be possible for so many people and how ensuring that community is accessible just normally not. As I said twice in my experience here, we we face time someone in, but instead allowing people to access it, even if they can't be here physically to find ways of including them within the community. I think there are a lot of people who are isolated and we probably weren't aware of it in the same way.

MG: Susan, I can hear you in the background. This is something that you see as a potential positive. Not that there's any positive coming out of this, but something that could change the way you reach the community.

SUSAN SPICER: Absolutely. There is for me, a huge learning curve around intentionality and and the things that we have always taken for granted or let me say, I have always taken for granted. You know, I was speaking to a parishioner the other day who is recovering from some some major surgery and has been housebound for several months. And and she said to me, social isolation, that's nothing new to me. I've been living this for months. And I was brought up short and I thought, right. You know, did I really take that in that that was her experience. And so there is this profound learning that's coming from this, too. To be more intentional. To find. To think about those people who may be isolated. And, you know, in this context, certainly thinking about the people who aren't online. And how are they feeling and experiencing this and how do we, you know, use our creativity and our imagination and our hearts to reach out to that. So that's a big piece of this for me as well.

MG: Ibrahim, we are being asked to listen to science, to follow the advice of scientists and of experts. What do you say to people in your community about the role of science and how we understand the world?

IBRAHIM HINDY: Well, you know, it's an interesting thing because I think a lot of people, when they come to religion, they come to religion, it's a learned practise for them. Like their parents went to the mosque, their parents prayed and they brought them up to do the same and it's not necessarily an intellectual tradition. And I think all religions have this kind of a tension between the idea of throwing yourself spiritually into something and the idea of intellectually engaging yourself with it. And ideally, as a Muslim, like you need to be both. You need to be very spiritually connected, but also very intellectually connected. And so when this conversation comes up in our community, you know, how much difference do we do to science? I think you know we're trying to explain to them that the religion has higher intellectual principles. And of those principles, for instance, is that we avoid harm and no harm should be done to others and no harm should be created and therefore, from that perspective, we should be deferring to those who understand the harm of this particular situation, the experts of it. And so preaching that, you know, intellectual engagement with our intellectual tradition is incredibly important. I think in this conversation that's happening, we need to be spiritually connected and so, you know, I get a lot of people telling me, well, you know, we should just trust God. And I say, it's great that you have that spiritual connection. We should trust God. God also wants us to have an intellectual engagement with his religion, with the scripture and that includes at times deferring to experts such as scientists and doctors. So that's been the conversation there.

MG: How does this play out Debra, in your community?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: I'd say that amongst Jews generally, there hasn't been for centuries and centuries, there really isn't seem to be a conflict between science and medicine and the spiritual life. Torah gives us 34 versus about creating the world. That is not a science textbook. That's a spiritual introduction to the created life and the spiritual life. And so there is a long, deep tradition and law, Jewish law about the obligations to physically care for one's body and the honour given to doctors and healers and the like. It says in Torah, you should live by the commandments, by the way of living and that means taking care of oneself. One's physical well-being is part of one's spiritual life actually. So there isn't this conflict that I think people sometimes who aren't bounded in a communal, spiritual, communal practise think, oh, there must be a conflict between science and religion and I don't see that.

MG: People are looking for reassurance. They're looking for, whether they're religious or not, that they're looking for something to believe in in the midst of these times, because everything that they thought they believed in, everything that they they had in some ways has been temporarily suspended, disappeared almost in the blink of an eye. What do you think, Debra and I'll start with you just as we kind of run through this, what do you think people in your community are looking for right now?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: I think they're looking for purpose and stillness and connection with others, actually, to know that they're not forgotten. The power of our reaching out, even just by simple phone calls is profound, actually. And I think it is human to human more than anything.

MG: And are you seeing perhaps people who might have stepped away from that community now, perhaps reaching back out because they're in this moment and they want to be in this moment together?

DEBRA LANDSBERG: Yeah, completely actually. There are many amongst the affiliated Jews who and although the quote religious practise isn't the core part of their identity, they're part of the community. They're part of the people. And it's amazing how are numbers for our prayer practise in the morning has doubled or tripled that people now don't take for granted that they could, if they wanted to. Be connected, be engaged in community. They know that they have to and they're seeking it desperately. So it's been fascinating to see how broadly people have been choosing to opt in now.

MG: Susan, what is your community looking for in this moment, do you think?

SUSAN SPICER: I think my community is looking for encouragement. Certainly that's a big part of the work that we're doing. We like theprime resonating with a lot of what Debra is saying, that that connection and that that draw that prayer has for people. But I think people people are also very, very committed, deeply committed to the understanding that loving God and loving our neighbour and ourselves means social distancing. It means washing your hands. It means doing all these things that we're being told to do with great intentionality, because we're doing that for the sake of others. And so there's a very kind of missional aspect to what we're doing in all of this.

MG: Ibrahim, just briefly, what do you think people in your community, just before I let you all go, what are people in your community looking for right now?

IBRAHIM HINDY: I think the most important thing right now is optimism and a sense of hope. And, you know, they're hearing a lot of doom and gloom and all the statistics and numbers and then all the information we're getting from around the world and they want to know that there's a hopeful, something hopeful to look forward to. And I think, you know, engaging them and engaging their spirituality at this time and trying to connect them to God as much as possible is helping them see that there is a purpose for themselves and a meaning for themselves, even in these most difficult times, but especially because we're in these difficult times.

MG: It's great to speak with you all. You offered great comfort, I think, to a lot of people in this. Thank you all.

SUSAN SPICER: Thank you.

DEBRA LANDSBERG: Thank you.

SUSAN SPICER: Goodbye.

MG: Reverend Susan Spicer, the priest at St George's Anglican Church in Ajax, Ontario. Ibrahim Hindy, the imam at Dar al-Tawaheed mosque in Mississauga. Rabbi Debra Landsberg leads Temple Emanu-el in North York, Ontario. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. Oh, look who's here.

TOM POWER: Hey man, how are you?

MG: Socially distanced, it's Tom Power, the host of Q. How's it going?

TOM POWER: You know what, Matt? I've been sitting on the couch playing video games, eating chips, and the government's been telling me I'm doing a good job. If that's not the millennial dream, I don't, I'm getting constant praise for doing very little. So I've never felt better about it.

MG: We know that there's a lot of bad news, but in the midst of that, artists have been doing extraordinary things to try and bring us together. We were just talking about what people in faith communities are doing. We know that artists are doing this as well.

TOM POWER: Everyone's home, Matt. Everyone got nothing else to do. Everyone's doing stand up comedy. Everyone's doing songs. Everyone's putting on Broadway plays. Everyone's home. There's an unbridled creativity in Canada right now.

MG: Speaking of stand up comedy, you've been speaking with Nathan Dales.

TOM POWER: Nathan Dales from Letterkenny, a bingeable show on Crave. I got to talk to him about how he's been taking the time off and how suspending their tour changed everything they're doing.

MG: Let's have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM POWER: Hey, how are you?

NATHAN DALES: I'm doing great. How are you doing?

TOM POWER: Not too bad. Thanks for asking, but really, how are you, how are you holding up?

NATHAN DALES: Not too bad. You know, there's a little bit of a little bit of boredom going on, I suppose, with the self-imposed isolation. It's a good thing though, right? Like you do want to be around and flaunting the suggestions and going to bars and going to restaurants, if they're even open or anything like that. But it's kind of nice. You get to hang out and there's not really any place to go. So all those times you felt guilty about staying home and maybe watching an entire season of a show and maybe you shouldn't have. Well, don't feel guilty now. Stay at home. Watch that season of the show. Watch two seasons of that show, whatever. You know, watch a bunch of movies that you haven't caught up on something like that or read a book or hang out, talk to loved ones on the phone. Whatever, but yeah.

TOM POWER: Did you end up doing any of the Letterkenny live shows before you got cancelled?

NATHAN DALES: We did. Yeah, we ended up because the tour actually started, it started before everything kind of got a little bit crazy. So I believe we started on the 2yth of February. So if I'm not mistaken and I could be wrong, but I think we got nine, nine days. And then after that we're last season in Detroit and then we had gone to Buffalo to possibly to see if we were going to do the show. And then it was things started ramping up and it was changing sort of hour to hour about, you know, restrictions on gatherings and this matter or whatever. And then the good people at New Metric and the good people at Live Nation and the AG and stuff like that made the call and just figured, you know, we better stop this. There's no point in getting people exposed and potentially, you know, putting a hurt on the health care system and all this kind of stuff. So we stopped it after Detroit and didn't actually make it to the Bfufalo show.

TOM POWER: I want to give people a an idea of what we're talking about here, just in case they're new to the show. Here's a clip of Nathan and the rest of the Letterkenny gang in a typical conversation.

[Clip from Letterkenny]

TOM POWER: That is a little bit of of Letterkenny there. Nathan, millions of Canadians, I'm thinking now stuck at home, as you mentioned right now, looking for something to watch. Your show's just sitting there waiting to be binged on Crave. Obviously, it's a success all around the world. I mean, okay K Trevor Wilson, who's been a part of your show since the beginning, came in and told me he was an Australia and was getting recognized walking down the street. However, I do want to give Canadians an opportunity right now to hear the pitch for why they might want to watch Letterkenny during their time at home.

NATHAN DALES: Well, I think people want to watch Letterkenny because we have these groups in the town of Letterkenny. We've got the hicks', you've got the hockey players, we've got this kid really matter. If you as a viewer are from a small town or from a big city or wherever, there's something in those groups that you can identify with either in yourself or in people you grew up with. You're going to see some familiarity of your life as a person and growing up and being a child and going to school and this and that. And then after that. So it's got something, something you're going to recognising yourself or somebody else that you know. And so you're going to you're going to automatically fall in love with hopefully all of the groups of people. But definitely one or two of them, because you get to it wasn't I didn't identify with and I think that's why people want to watch it, because they want to. They want to see that. They also want to have a big fat laugh, which is fantastic because it's packed full of laughts. Just jam packed. But I think you know, again, it's the identifying with one of the groups, one or more the groups is where people really get hooked because the laughs are great and they're there and they'll always be there, but I think it tugs on people's heartstrings a little bit because they see something in their selves in them, in the characters that they're watching on TV. So that's why I think people will definitely have a, they're going to have a recent two season binge problem when they really start on the show. But other than that, yeah, you're going to identify with the characters and you're going to have a huge laugh because it is funny. And whether or not you do feel like you identify with any of the characters, which you will, if you're lying to yourself, you won't. But the laughter there and they're coming very fast. So that's going to be fun too.

TOM POWER: I think about how Letterkenny started as Letterkenny Problems, this series just uploaded onto the internet of just little sketches. And I think of all the young kind of creators who are home right now with phones and with maybe some good ideas and maybe should be doing some sketches from home. Any advice for them?

NATHAN DALES: I think, you know, as bad as this sort of like self-imposed isolation and these quarantine things are, this is really a chance for people to get on some good content for sure, because, you know, you're locking your apartment, you're locking your house, whatever. You've got a phone. Everybody has a phone. Let's be honest here. You can make any type of contact you want. It's videos. You can put it out on YouTube and you're stuck in one place. So there's not a ton of distractions outside of obviously, you know, be streaming services. They can distract you. But this is a great type of content to bloom because, you know, there's not the outside distractions. And you're at home and you've got all you've got all your tools necessary. You could set up a little camera, you can write and sketches. You can do what everyone put it out there. So so 100 percent there's going to be a great time for content. I think musicians as well. And but especially with what people have said, it's never said in themselves, hey, new. It would be funny. I think it be funny if we put that on tape. But then because of whatever reason, they just go, oh, well, you know, we didn't do it today, we'll do it tomorrow or something came up or blow or have to go to work. Well now little of those things are coming up so you can get in there doing something that you think it's funny or whatever and put it out there. And the thing with musicians or aspiring musicians and stuff like that, it's a great time for content in times of crazy uncertainty and stuff like that. You know, there's a chance to put up good content. For sure.

TOM POWER: It certainly is. Nathan, thank you so much for your time.

NATHAN DALES: Thanks.

TOM POWER: Stay safe.

NATHAN DALES: You all too.

MG: That's Tom Power's conversation with Nathan Dales, the host of, or one of the folks behind Letterkenny. The cast had to postpone their Canada and U.S. tour due to coronavirus. All eight seasons of the show are available on Crave. Tom Power, host of Q. Thank you very much.

TOM POWER: Matt, thanks for having me. I'll come in whenever you want.

MG: I like that. Thank you very much. Just stay socially distanced.

TOM POWER: A 100 percent.

MG: Proper.

TOM POWER: You got it.

MG: Space away. Coming up in about six minutes time, counting your steps between the couch and the fridge. Yelling at the kids before the conference call. Social distancing is painful. It does not have to be that way. I'll speak with three people who are trying to make the best of it. I'm Matt Galloway. This is an extended version of The Current. Stick around.

[Music]

Panel of Canadians returned and living abroad

Guests: Kyle Stevenson, Mickey Rigby, Nicholas Herman

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, a certain CBC radio host who we usually hear from at this time will make another appearance in this studio. But first, dispatches from self-isolation.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Clip from Instagram comedy show by Kyle Stevenson]

MG: That is a Toronto resident turning his experience and self-isolation into an Instagram comedy show. Just one of many examples of people around the world finding creative ways to navigate the strange and sometimes lonely world of isolation and social distancing. We have assembled a panel of people in self-isolation to share their experiences and hopefully some advice for the rest of us. Mickey Rigby is in isolation in Truro, Nova Scotia after she and her husband returned from Spain. Nicholas Herman is a Canadian holed up in Florence, Italy. And Kyle Stevenson, the guy you just heard, is in Toronto. Good morning to you all.

KYLE STEVENSON: Good morning.

MICKEY RIGBY: Good morning.

MG: Nicholas, you're in Florence, Italy. This is one of the countries that has the strictest lockdowns. We have seen awful scenes coming out of Italy of what this pandemic is doing to that country. What is it like where you are being in self-isolation in the midst of all of that?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Well, it's actually remarkably calm. I'm in a village just outside of Florence. And, you know, we've gone outside a few times. I'm here with my wife, Sarah. And, you know, we've occasionally gone to the grocery store and some errands like that. But, you know, everyone and everyone is sort of keeping to themselves. Streets are pretty quiet. So it's strange for this country, which is usually pretty vibrant and outgoing.

MG: How does that work when you go outdoors? Because it's under a very strict lockdown. So when you go outdoors, what do you need? Do you to carry I.D. or something with you or some sort of letter saying, I'm going to the grocery store so that the authorities know that you're supposed to be out on the streets?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Exactly. So you're meant to carry this declaration. It's kind of like a self affidavit where you write your name, where you live, what you're doing and ask to do one of sort of four or five permitted things. So you have to be out for groceries or out for medical reasons. Up until a couple of days ago, you were allowed to be out and about for individual sporting activities, but now that's sort of been curtailed. So you're really supposed to be very close to your home if you're out for any reason, like walking the dog.

MG: And so if you were to look out the window right now, what would you see?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Well, it's actually, I mean, I am in Tuscany, so I mean, it's very beautiful here. It's very strange to be in such a beautiful place. It's a sunny day. It's a bit windy. Looking over the kind of countryside in the outskirts of Florence. So, you know, it's hard to believe what's happening in Lombardy. So in a region that's worst hit, you know, we really are a little bit away from that in Tuscany. But people are very aware of it. And you can tell by their, you know, that people are very quiet and kind of keeping to themselves. Taking it very seriously?

MG: What are you doing there now? And are you going to try and get out or you're staying there?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: No, we're staying. I an art historian. I'm actually a rare book and manuscript curator, Canadian, but I work at the University of Pennsylvania and I'm here on a research fellowship for six months at a research centre, which belongs to Harvard University. It shut down about two weeks ago and [connection issues].

MG: The phone line's breaking up a little bit, Ncholas. So we'll try and get you back connected in the meantime, Mickey's on the line. Mickey, you were just in Spain?

MICKEY RIGBY: Yes, we were.

MG: Last until when, like last week or something?

MICKEY RIGBY: Oh, we came back on Saturday. No, Friday, Saturday. It came, it was very fast. Like two weeks ago we were gonna be there for a long time and things started escalating very quickly.

MG: Tell me a little bit about that escalation. When did you realise that you needed to get home?

MICKEY RIGBY: Well, you know, I was listening to your podcast every day and then every morning I would go out and it was beautiful and there was nobody sick and everybody was wandering around and we felt very, very safe. And then our children started calling us. And then they started calling. And that was nice. And then they started calling us more frequently and with urgency. And they were becoming very alarmed. Inslee asked us to connect with the consulate and then the council start sending us emails and saying, you have to come home. And then a travel agent starts sending iciness and say, we have to come home. But when it really hit us, this when we heard the news from Italy and where people weren't allowed to be on ventilators if they were older and we were realising that we would not meet that criteria to be on ventilators. And then we went out for breakfast for my husband's birthday. And then within hours it was a beautiful breakfast. We were on the beach. And within hours, they closed down the beach. The police were out. You're only out. You're gonna be fine. You're only allowed out to go to the pharmacy or to get groceries and the streets were absolutely deserted.

MG: What was it like to try and get home? We've heard these stories of people scrambling to get flights. And again, this is ahead of your scheduled return. So what was the process like trying to get back?

MICKEY RIGBY: Sleepless nights. Thank God for our travel agent. She got us back. But it was just, like my son was, we thought our agent was going to work on the weekend and she did come in. But our son was looking at flights and he would phone us and said, do you want this flight and by the time you would go back, it was gone. So it was crazy. So we finally got on the flight and then we got home and then, you know, and it was just, it was nuts. It was absolutely nuts.

MG: And now you find yourself in isolation.

MICKEY RIGBY: Yeah. Well, yeah. We went from the airport into the house and we haven't been out since. And it's just well, it's kind of nice actually. We don't mind it. You know, we're retired. I'm going, you know the pile of books that you're going to read one day? Well, I'm going to read then.

MG: Now you have time.

MICKEY RIGBY: I know. And if I don't read them, they're getting out of the house. I'm going to reduce my bookshelf to one shelf.

MG: Kyle Stevenson, you were in the United States and then went into self-isolation. Tell me a little bit about your return home and how things changed from the beginning of your trip to the end.

KYLE STEVENSON: Yeah. So we left on the 9th. I think that was a Monday and the world was sensibly still a normal world. And by the time we got on our flights, the Friday, we were just there for five days. And the NBA was shut down. The PGA was shut down. Everything was shut down. And we were just sort of. Friday was, I think, like maybe just the day after they changed the rules from you need to self isolate if you're coming home from Italy, China or Iran. And suddenly it was you just need to self isolate, period. So that was yeah, just took a little bit to acclimatize to just the idea of oh were sort of like what Mickey said, I'm home from the airport and I can't leave.

MG: What is that like? I mean how long have you been in isolation now?

KYLE STEVENSON: Ten. This is day ten. We're on day ten.

MG: Day ten? And so does it get easier? Is it more, does it start off where you think, well, this won't be too bad and suddenly it's actually more complicated the longer it goes on? What is it like as the days unfold?

KYLE STEVENSON: I mean, in my experience, it's you know, it's a bit of a wave. It's a bit of an ebb and flow. You do get used to it, but at the same time, you know, the first couple of days there's I mean, there's a lot of things. Based on the time that I got home, it was just a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of now I feel like everyone's self isolating. But I was just a little early. So it was still, we were still finding out stuff. So the first day or two, you're like, oh, I'll read all my books. But actually, what I want to do is I'm gonna be glued to the news and social media and just sort of like be unable to look away from from all the announcements. But now I do feel like in terms of like what's being talked about. It's it's less less stuff that affects me directly. I can't stimulate the economy, but I can't stay inside. And we've already decided to do that. So it's getting easier to yeah just live your life a little bit.

MG: Have you been outside at all or are you just in the house the whole time?

KYLE STEVENSON: I have. I've gone for more runs in the past ten days. Like sort of my run per day ratio through the roof. There's Toronto is like I'd say it's like one one hundredth of the usual traffic. But there are a lot of runners and I think there's a lot of runner solidarity. There's a lot of eyes, a lot of nods being made amongst the runner population out there. So that's quite nice. But yeah, just like a walk or run is really all I leave the house for.

MG: Nicholas Herman, we have seen these images and the videos in Italy in the midst of a very dark time. There are people trying to find some sense of positivity, some sense of solidarity, and you see videos of people singing from their balconies, what have you. What are you seeing in your neighbourhood? Are those signs there in your community?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: They are, as I said, you know, we're a little bit outside of the centre of Florence, but you do see people have put these banners up, hung these banners in their balconies that they've painted themselves with rainbows. Know that, say [Italian phrase], which means everything everything will be all right, basically. And this has become a kind of motto for the kind of resilience and solidarity of Italians. So it's really heartwarming to see that.

MG: What about that sense of social connection that people crave, not all obviously around the world, but in Italy might be special just in terms of the the social nature of that community and the social nature of that culture. What are you doing in the absence of that?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Well, you know, it's true, I mean, this is a society that is, you know, that that that takes the passage out every day, right. It's kind of walk through the centre of town that most people do just just to get out and sort of see friends and neighbours and and, you know, that's no longer possible. And simple things like ordering at a coffee at a bar. You know, that's that's just not possible. So, I mean, I think it's made everyone value these things more and not take them for granted. And there have been interesting things online. The first day of sort of national quarantine, the the Ministry of Culture set up this YouTube channel where they kind of had the kind of livestream from various artists, musicians, houses and deaths. And, you know, they're sort of impromptu concerts and stuff. And we'd like to see sort of some Italian celebrity homes and things like that. So that was kind of spur of the moment. That was really nice to see.

MG: What about the fear that a lot of Italians feel? The death rate in Italy has been heartbreaking. And so what about that sense of fear that so many people are experiencing?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Well, I think it's you know, it's very palpable. You know, just in the in people's behaviour, I mean, even, you know, I haven't had that many interactions with Italians since this has happened because we're really we're really keeping to ourselves. But, you know, at the at the grocery store yesterday at the supermarket, you know, a long line, very orderly, very quiet, everybody keeping distance. And, you know, a lot of people wearing masks, but I don't think they're making worse or smiling behind the masks. Right? I mean, it's very people are very kind of sober and and and clearly upset at what's happening, not necessarily in this region, in Tuscany out, although there are cases here. But, you know, further north where it's really, really bad.

MG: Mickey, what do you miss while being in isolation? Yes, you have your giant pile of books. But aside from that, what do you miss?

MICKEY RIGBY: I miss going outside because as far as we understand, we're supposed to stay inside. And I miss seeing my grandson and my kids. I really do.

MG: How are you connecting with them?

MICKEY RIGBY: Well, social media and lots of phone calls, but it still doesn't replace a hug. You know, he's just. And our grandson is just an infant. We haven't seen him for a number of months and we may not given the situation and I don't know if you know this, but Nova Scotia is now under Emergency Act.

MG: Yeah.

MICKEY RIGBY: And so everything is closing down. So it looks like it's going to be even longe til get to see him. So it's hard, but, you know, I try to stay positive and I do my yoga and, you know, grateful for what we have. And just so you know, in Truro right now, the deer are taking over the roads because there's so few people on them.

MG: Nature has its revenge.

MICKEY RIGBY: It does indeed.

MG: Kyle, we heard a little bit of your Instagram comedy show off the top of this conversation. How does social media help? It's hard to imagine being in isolation without the Internet for a lot of people. How has social media helped you?

KYLE STEVENSON: Yeah, it's so interesting because I you know, I try to write and that is quite isolating. And so you think this won't be that different. But there's a huge difference between talking to no one but working by yourself amongst people in a library to really going, you know, without just just the noise and energy of people for a few days. And it's remarkable. It's remarkable how how few people have to reach out. You know, I made a dumb video and put it online and maybe four people were like, hey, I really enjoyed this. And it is it meant so much to me to hear that like something that I did in a couple of minutes made someone feel better in some capacity. So, yeah, you can't really. I don't know if you can overstate how important it is just all the different ways we can stay connected right now.

MG: What about these online workout classes?

KYLE STEVENSON: This was man, so I am a huge, me and a few friends are big fans of this YMCA boot camp. And you know, we went into lockdown when we were looking for sort of like workouts similar to it, like a YouTube video control we could along with. And nothing was really catching our fancy. So I just wrote down all of the workouts that like all the exercises that I remember from the class. And so at first it was just three of us and then, you know, word got out and a few friends wanted to join and now we're doing them three days a week. I lead these workouts with no real qualification.

MG: I was going to say, do you have any experience leading an online workout class?

KYLE STEVENSON: No, no. I have never done that before. But it's you know, we are not lifting heavy things over our heads. We're just jumping around.

MG: Perhaps for the best, yeah.

KYLE STEVENSON: And yeah.

MG: Nicholas, what are you doing to keep your spirits up?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: What am I doing to keep my spirits up? Well, since, you know, since I'm an art historian and an academic, I turn to a lot of online resources. So a lot of great museums that have great Web sites. You can browse their collections. A lot of great libraries where they digitise rare books and manuscripts of thousands and thousands of them. And during my normal kind of work work day, I don't usually have times and browse these amazing treasurers that have been digitised and put online. So taking some time to to look at things that I can't go look at in person, this is what I've been doing.

MG: What advice would you give? There are a lot of people who are returning to this country. They've been abroad. Perhaps, March break trips are just coming back or maybe there's some of the Canadians who are being repatriated by the Canadian government. What advice would you give to somebody who is just starting self-isolation now, Nicholas?

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Well, I would say after a couple of weeks and I know I'm saying that I'm mindful I'm saying this on CBC, but stay away from too much news. Try to try get out of the constant, you know, update and breaking news cycle and maybe set a couple of times a day when you're going to you know, when you're going to check in and see what's happening in the world. And, you know, you've been able to do that. I've been trying to do that. I've been trying to do that. But it's not easy. I mean, we're just saturated with with with news from all angles. So, you know, do as I say, not as I do necessarily, but yeah.

MG: Mickey, you're just starting out in this. What advice would you give to somebody who themselves is now finding themselves inside for a couple of weeks?

MICKEY RIGBY: Well, I would echo that, I would say stay away from social media. I mean, it's like is the anxiety can become so contagious, the stress is contagious. So, I mean, I just stay on it for I try to limit myself to a few hours a day.

MG: What's on the top of that pile of books that you were reading?

MICKEY RIGBY: Louise Penny. So any, it's that lovely murder mystery in this time, but I love murder mystery.

MG: She's fantastic too.

MICKEY RIGBY: It's like bubble gum for the mind. It's just fabulous and there's a wonderful author from BC.

MG: Maybe we could start a virtual book club through The Current or something like that.

MICKEY RIGBY: Oh my God, that would fantastic.

MG: Just be careful what you wish for. Kyle in your isolation, day 10, what advice would you give to people who are now just stepping into this new world?

KYLE STEVENSON: Yeah, I would say. What's interesting about right now, one of the infinite things that she right now is that like literally everybody is going through the same thing. And I don't know, it's never happened in my lifetime where literally everyone, which means it's a great time to reach out to people. Pals you haven't talked to in a while. Acquaintances you've always wished you were better friends with because it just feels like, you know, in times like these, the walls come down a little bit. So, yeah, just try to make a pal.

MG: And you have the luxury of time and the opportunity to do that. Good luck to you all and stay safe and stay healthy. Thank you.

KYLE STEVENSON: Thank you so much.

MICKEY RIGBY: Thank you.

NICHOLAS HERMAN: Thank you.

MG: Mickey Rigby is in self-isolation with her husband in Truro, Nova Scotia, with a pile of books and time on her hands. Nicholas Herman is holed up just outside of Florence, Italy, with his wife. Kyle Stevenson is in self-isolation in Toronto. I like that idea of the virtual reading group. Any suggestions? What should we be reading in these times? Maybe you are in self-isolation and you have a suggestion you could let us know through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. As we heard, people are turning to comedy to get through these tough times. Also turning to music. Sometimes they're combining the two. Martin Kerr and Ann Vriend are musicians from Edmonton. They've written a pandemic love song. It's called "Isolation Groove.".

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Iceland Groove" by Martin Kerr and Ann Vriend]

MG: Martin Kerr and Ann Vriend in Edmonton. "That is Isolation Groove."

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for March 23, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

'Nobody was coughing': COVID-19 survivor urges social distancing amid risk of asymptomatic carriers

More than a million Canadian citizens and permanent residents returned home last week

Canadian inventor says his mobile life support system could save lives in the COVID-19 pandemic

Show teens news and statistics to encourage social distancing, Ontario parent urges

Keeping the people making your deliveries safe during COVID-19

The doors are closed, but God’s still home. We talk to faith leaders about congregating in the age of COVID-19

Panel of Canadians returned and living abroad

Mar. 23, 2020 episode transcript

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