Juno News - March 16, 2020


COVID-19: Canada, the world, and the hidden costs


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

215.40862

Word Count

3,453

Sentence Count

4

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

The coronavirus is the biggest story of 2019, and perhaps the decade. It has infected more than 167,000 people across the world, and there is a growing concern that it could become a global pandemic. What are the global responses to the outbreak, and what is the plan going forward?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 the coronavirus is obviously the biggest story of the year and perhaps it's going to turn out the
00:00:12.000 biggest story of the decade now I'm hoping to look at things from a bit of a different
00:00:16.200 perspective than you've probably seen on most of the mainstream media reports I wanted to look at
00:00:20.700 some of the global responses compare them to what's been going on in Canada and really see
00:00:25.000 what is the plan going forward so the first place that I wanted to start is this really
00:00:29.220 excellent website it's called ncovid2019.live so this website basically is a compilation it sorts
00:00:36.720 all of the reports the confirmed reports the the deceased recovered and the serious so it gives
00:00:42.860 you a bit of a chart and you get all the information sort of at a glance now you can see which country
00:00:47.180 is obviously leading and that's still China because that's where the outbreak started but Italy and Iran
00:00:52.520 obviously up there certain countries you may not have been aware of Spain Germany France you know
00:00:57.540 the US UK these are all getting up they're creeping up and you've heard a lot about flattening this
00:01:02.500 curve and so you know this is a good website to be able to check where you can kind of compare see
00:01:06.620 where countries are going and what's been going on now in Canada we've heard that the government
00:01:13.280 wanted to institute some checking at the airport they were going to review passengers who came
00:01:19.140 we have Minister Bill Blair discussing you know that they're going to be having some enhanced security
00:01:23.900 procedures and here we have Matt Gurney tweeting about the fact that this is not true at all
00:01:28.460 most of the media reports and reports on Twitter have people saying that you know all they're getting
00:01:33.540 is a question have you been to a COVID-19 hotspot and if you have here's a pamphlet so the you know
00:01:39.820 enhanced measure is not quite sure what they're supposed to be if it's going to be taking people's
00:01:43.320 temperature it's going to be something more invasive than that but so far until this point until the
00:01:49.020 recording of this video a lot of people probably the vast majority of them on Twitter and online
00:01:53.140 claiming that nothing like this exists now you're not going to be surprised that a CBSA officer a border
00:02:00.140 patrol officer at Pearson tested positive for the coronavirus again you know he's seeing people
00:02:05.740 coming in from he or she doesn't say actually they're seeing people coming in from all over the
00:02:10.560 world you know undoubtedly a number of them are infected if we go just quickly back to the COVID-19
00:02:17.420 website so you'll see that this is the confirmed cases now that's people who have been tested and
00:02:25.200 are confirmed to have it so we're looking here 167,000 globally that means there are quite a higher
00:02:31.660 number that have the coronavirus but have not been confirmed so this is where where you're going to
00:02:36.900 get the CBSA and this is this is obviously the big concern that people who are not confirmed to
00:02:40.880 have it are going to be spreaders or super spreaders as we'll get to a bit later so then you have
00:02:46.180 here a nice tweet from Natasha Fata daughter of Tarek Fata for those of you who might not know
00:02:50.660 so she's reporting that the government is going to be making a breaking announcement tomorrow
00:02:56.580 which is kind of weird on its own why would they be making an announcement saying that they're going
00:03:01.540 to be making an announcement there were rumors online that they're going to be a lockdown there's
00:03:06.020 rumors online about all kinds of different things now keep in mind these are just rumors and
00:03:09.960 possibly by the time you even watch this video you'll obviously know what has happened but I think
00:03:14.840 overall Canadians want to know what is going on what is the plan is there a plan because the
00:03:19.880 responses have been seeming so so lax a number of my colleagues my true north colleagues have been
00:03:24.840 covering this issue very very well so you know definitely check out some of their content but
00:03:30.120 clearly we're going to be waiting for tomorrow to find out what the announcement is
00:03:33.480 but around the world we have for example Italy so there's a lot of news in Italy and here's a nice
00:03:40.300 report this is in the Boston Globe and it's a cautionary tale from Italy so the the cautionary
00:03:45.620 part is this and that's because the health care system was not prepared because of the way that
00:03:52.320 things were set up and the amount of patients coming into the ERs coming into the hospitals
00:03:56.400 so you have here according to this situation where doctors are forced to make decisions over who
00:04:02.860 they're going to admit who's going to get a ventilator who has the best chance of living who you know
00:04:06.940 who should we focus on who are we going to triage first and this is the type of decision making that
00:04:10.740 generally occurs during wartime you don't generally expect this you know to happen during peacetime this
00:04:15.880 pandemic you know I want to say that it came out of nowhere but it really didn't we we had some
00:04:20.840 warning from China obviously they tried to to downplay and the information was sparse and you
00:04:25.100 know few and far between but that's what the experts are there to help us decode the the mixed messages
00:04:29.620 and so you know now they've reached a situation where doctors really just have to decide on a certain
00:04:33.960 level who's going to live and who's just you know going to take their chances other countries
00:04:39.240 France is going to close all restaurants cafes cinemas due to fears about the coronavirus
00:04:44.060 you know that's it's pretty crazy there was some line here that they're closing you know everything
00:04:48.500 non-essential to French life which is kind of funny because you would figure you know stereotypically
00:04:52.460 you think a cafe is pretty essential but you know these are some pretty pretty intense measures
00:04:57.220 you know no public places nothing at all you have here the governors of Ohio and Illinois
00:05:03.380 issuing orders to close restaurants bars you know big public gatherings that kind of stuff
00:05:07.920 so people are definitely concerned that that you know they shouldn't catch this virus you know
00:05:12.700 people are taking it very very seriously and measures you know some people think it's extreme but this is
00:05:17.120 one way to prevent the spread just don't go anywhere and if you are forcing people to not hold these
00:05:21.540 events to not have the places open and then there's nowhere they can go theoretically which is the idea
00:05:25.660 then you have here Russia Russia is quite the interesting case you know this is from March 15 so
00:05:33.080 this is a very recent one as for the time of making this video so Russia had 63 cases of the coronavirus
00:05:39.140 now the two interesting things is that first of all Russia closed its borders with China very very early
00:05:45.640 on so they closed the vast majority now they have a huge border I think it's like 4300 kilometers long
00:05:50.780 border a massive massive border with China and they closed the entire border except for apparently a few
00:05:56.760 very small minor crossings and so they acted early on but at the same time 63 does seem a bit low
00:06:04.400 considering the incubation period so you know you're wondering kind of perhaps there were other people
00:06:09.800 that that did get this virus maybe it didn't affect them so badly you know maybe they simply thought it
00:06:14.520 was a cold or flu you know so you're kind of wondering what happened but clearly you can see that
00:06:19.380 Russia's you know immediate action on closing the border here's a nice map of the cases but their
00:06:24.560 immediate action on closing the border seems to have saved them from from quite a larger outbreak
00:06:29.040 now we turn to the Middle East so Israel actually has some really interesting measures
00:06:33.920 so apparently the government has approved cell phone tracking so if you are in isolation apparently
00:06:40.400 they're going to be tracking your cell phone so you know to make sure that you actually don't leave
00:06:44.500 the house and they've done a lot of things they've put a total ban on public gatherings over 10 people
00:06:50.040 uh so that means basically you can't there's no synagogue no church services no religious services
00:06:54.360 of any kind um for those of you who want to go out anywhere there's nothing there's actually a funny
00:06:59.580 tweet about a couple who got married at the grocery store because the grocery store doesn't have those
00:07:04.060 restrictions because people are allowed to you know go to and from the grocery store and if there's
00:07:07.560 10 or more obviously that that's what's who's in the grocery store so apparently people got getting
00:07:12.200 married at the grocery store which is weird um religious sites and everything obviously closed so
00:07:16.880 nothing more than 10 people that's a that's a pretty high um pretty high number now the other
00:07:22.100 interesting point that not this article but that comes to mind when reading about Israel is the fact
00:07:27.540 that a lot of the countries that are able to institute these responses are countries that have very strong
00:07:32.940 governments and strong institutions so this is a different article from the Atlantic Council
00:07:37.420 and uh basically discusses the fact that weak states that do not have so much control are simply
00:07:43.820 unable to take these type of measures so other countries you know Syria for example which is in
00:07:48.840 shambles or you know countries that their government is not as strong does not have that reach um so
00:07:54.400 they're not going to be able to you know mass mobilize these groups of people to disinfect things
00:07:58.780 um you know they may not be able to enforce any quarantines that they put in place so there's another
00:08:03.040 another very interesting point um that i haven't heard too many people discuss is the actual ability of
00:08:07.420 government to deal with this now uh one of the countries that apparently did really really well
00:08:11.480 with south korea and one of the reasons um according to a number of stories here one of the
00:08:17.420 reasons that they have such a larger outbreak is because they had apparently a patient patient 31
00:08:21.520 which they're calling now this person uh apparently was warned that they may have it and decided you
00:08:26.780 know what screw it i'm going to go to church and apparently this person was responsible for 80 percent
00:08:31.180 of south korea's infections so that's kind of crazy um i think it shows how infectious this
00:08:37.160 uh coronavirus is um but again you know there's a lot of things that as an individual you can do
00:08:43.260 that you don't have to rely on the government and that's the um you know social distancing staying
00:08:47.120 away from public places um all that kind of stuff now um so far we've really just been talking about
00:08:53.780 the spread but two couple other things i wanted to bring up this one is a funny tweet um funny ironic
00:09:00.940 crazy i don't even know actually um so you guys have probably heard about the person who was
00:09:06.560 arrested for hoarding hand sanitizer um they wanted to sell it at a you know markup price and hopefully
00:09:12.180 cash in on this uh this real global tragedy um so apparently twitter gave the authorities his uh
00:09:18.600 satellite location um from when he logged in to twitter and they found his storage unit and
00:09:23.300 apparently cleaned it out and are now pressing charges against this person so kind of crazy um you
00:09:28.420 know i mean i don't know why you need 17 000 bottles of hand sanitizer um you know i totally
00:09:33.800 understand that there may be reasons to increase a price uh you know there's danger bringing medicine
00:09:37.540 supplies into an area so it may warrant a higher price slightly uh but this i think is a bit
00:09:41.340 different you know i think most people um feel that that was the wrong thing to do now the largest
00:09:46.520 largest issue here is uh the economy and what do we do after so that's that's really what i want
00:09:51.840 to focus on aside from you know just that that brief review um so we have here this story that
00:09:57.300 the economy would be greatly impacted if truckers were to self-quarantine so it's not just truckers
00:10:03.620 it's pretty much groups of workers in specific industries that are critical to the functioning
00:10:10.440 of society the way that we have it built are just essential they cannot go into quarantine so we're
00:10:15.740 talking about you know first responders um you know fire police paramedics those kind of people
00:10:20.740 that would be obviously you know critical if those people stopped showing up to work
00:10:24.260 then we have truckers these are the people that keep the supply lines open these are the ones
00:10:28.940 that are working those supply chains to restock the supermarkets after people have cleaned it out
00:10:34.480 now people have been cleaning this up because of the sort of spreading panic it's kind of like
00:10:40.080 dominoes you can think of it um it's the same way that countries are responding and it's the same
00:10:44.060 way that people are responding if you hear that the grocery store is going to be empty and you're not
00:10:49.720 quite sure when they're going to get food in even if you yourself are not so concerned about
00:10:53.660 getting the coronavirus you yourself you know you're not worried that you are going to die
00:10:57.360 you think i'm perfectly healthy i'm not in the risk category so i you know i don't have any problem
00:11:01.220 suddenly you're kind of forced into heading to the grocery store and just buying like five
00:11:05.840 kilograms of rice and a thousand pasta and chickpeas and beans and god only knows what else because
00:11:10.040 you're worried that by the time you need your regular groceries again that it's simply going to be
00:11:15.400 gone that everything's going to be gone it's the same sort of thing that has been going on with
00:11:19.920 different countries where people have been closing borders and regardless of what the actual medical
00:11:24.180 advice is whether or not that's you know that's the right thing to do people have been panicking
00:11:27.620 closing borders so on a certain level it's it's a chain of dominoes and it's really hard to tell
00:11:36.300 where this thing is going to stop so the economic question is i think a bigger question than the
00:11:41.980 health question because even if this thing you know which is right now rated about a three point
00:11:45.880 something percent i think three point eight three point something um a three point seven percent
00:11:50.360 mortality rate but or fatality rate but there's a hundred percent economic impact rate a hundred
00:11:56.720 percent of people in each country is going to get impacted i mean just imagine a certain sector so
00:12:03.140 you have you know restaurants cafes cinemas all those businesses all those employees all of those
00:12:08.940 people who work in the supply chain to keep those things functioning those people are all going to be
00:12:13.260 affected and that has domino effect so you know take the entire uh the entire restaurant nightclub
00:12:18.020 bar industry those uh you know waiters waitresses servers those people you know you might keep the
00:12:24.840 restaurant open for example just have takeout suddenly you don't need servers so those people
00:12:28.660 are not going to be getting their normal salary they're not going to have the money to spend they're
00:12:32.240 not going to be able to contribute to the economy either through work or through spending
00:12:35.380 so that's going to be a domino effect where certain sectors that are connected to each other in ways we
00:12:41.340 don't necessarily think about on a day-to-day basis they're just affected and i don't know if really
00:12:46.240 anyone is thinking about this too much i mean i would like to think i would hope that our government
00:12:50.680 is um i don't have too much confidence based on the fact that the trudeau government's response has
00:12:55.600 been sort of wishy-washy um people have been saying you know we're going to close borders we're not going
00:12:59.200 to close borders we're going to do something we're going to act on the best advice of medical
00:13:02.240 professionals and yet other countries are doing way more than we're doing and so you kind of wonder
00:13:06.180 well what are their professionals saying that we're not saying is this just panic you know it's
00:13:11.020 it's a big it's a big mess here um but the economic hit is going to be something that's with us even
00:13:16.600 after we deal with the fatalities even after we deal with the healthcare system you know how are we
00:13:21.980 going to recover from this uh numerous countries and people and companies could go bankrupt so you
00:13:27.640 know that's i think the biggest question for everybody now um i think the last thing to keep in mind
00:13:32.880 here is that when you're you know if you're going to be quarantined if you're stuck home
00:13:37.080 i think there's sort of a natural limit to that as well for you know parents people with kids
00:13:42.120 they're now going to be home until well past the end of march break until you know mid april
00:13:46.740 so they're not going to be able to contribute the things and certainly you know the people the
00:13:52.660 services the things that they rely on they're not going to be purchasing them or if they are to a
00:13:56.600 much smaller degree um they're going to get sick of it to be honest i mean you know people are
00:14:00.940 can only be home for so long until they're going to start clamoring for some sort of escape something
00:14:05.280 something to do um you know some sort of out over here literally and figuratively so uh you know the
00:14:11.380 economic hit and i i really would like to see people discuss that a bit better um you know feel
00:14:16.140 free to throw down your your thoughts in the comments but you know what are we going to do what
00:14:19.820 is this going to look like what are we going to expect to see when we come out of our bunkers what
00:14:24.260 is going to be waiting for us on the economic front and the societal front so that's i think the most
00:14:29.040 critical thing now um lastly just as a public service this is a nice suite from chris hadfield
00:14:35.640 everybody loves chris hadfield he's great guy um this is about why soap is so effective um i'm
00:14:41.540 assuming this is all correct because it's uh tweeted out by chris hadfield now it's from the new york
00:14:45.080 times so take it with a grain of salt but uh um you know here you can see why soap is so effective
00:14:50.800 in uh destroying the virus so here you have the form of the virus and apparently the soap um molecules
00:14:56.520 uh the soap particles that are hydrophobic they apparently um go into the uh virus cell and
00:15:02.300 explode it so you know that's apparently why soap is doing the thing and uh you know critical to uh
00:15:08.140 just keep yourself safe because if uh you know the government is not going to be able to do that for
00:15:12.000 you make sure that you are keeping uh you know proper hygiene and that you are not letting anything
00:15:16.200 uh you know anything get in the way that you could possibly do um to keep yourself from getting sick
00:15:20.240 and those you love from getting sick now i do want to wrap up but before i do i just wanted to
00:15:25.860 remind everybody that true north here we are committed to telling the other side of the story
00:15:30.100 and exploring ideas thoughts and conversations that the mainstream media refuses to talk about
00:15:34.320 now as you know independent media in canada is more important now than ever especially when
00:15:39.420 there seems to be just a lot of you know one-sided stories or information not getting out and that's why
00:15:44.240 i would ask you to please consider making a donation in support of true north and if you do like
00:15:48.660 content like this or would like to see more of it please visit www.tnc.news forward slash donate today
00:15:55.220 and uh thank you so much i hope you guys stay safe and uh you know enjoy the rest of your uh
00:16:00.220 week and your quarantines thanks