Juno News - It's time to learn to live with COVID-19

00:00:00.560 Looks like we could be seeing a major shift in how medical officers of health across Canada

00:00:10.640 respond to the coronavirus pandemic and the responses that they advocate we all take.

00:00:16.160 This coming after a watershed moment as Dr. Vera Etches, whose chief medical officer for Ottawa,

00:00:22.960 our nation's capital, stepped forward to say it's time for a new approach. She gave a presentation

00:00:29.680 to the Board of Health Committee in Ottawa saying, yes, we need to do things differently. We need to

00:00:35.200 learn to live with coronavirus, to get on with our lives in some way with care, she said. Very

00:00:42.000 important that we do everything we can to stop transmission, that we protect vulnerable groups.

00:00:47.280 She wants to see more approaches to combating coronavirus, but advocates for the fact that

00:00:52.640 we've got to start reopening different aspects of our lives, of the economy, like we did with

00:00:58.240 the school system, doing it responsibly, but in a way that allows people to get back to some sense

00:01:04.000 of normalcy. She was referencing mental health challenges, unemployment, a whole host of other

00:01:09.680 issues that society is grappling with, acknowledging we may be dealing with this virus for quite some

00:01:14.960 time, so the current way we're doing it, well, we're going to have to learn to pivot. It was really

00:01:20.480 great to see one medical officer step forward and say that, because rather sadly, perspectives on

00:01:26.240 coronavirus have become something of a culture wars, definitely with political markers. You know,

00:01:31.520 I've made comments about my support for, yes, doing things a better way, a different way, and people

00:01:36.560 just dismissively write to you and say, oh, that's Trumpian. Is it? I don't know, maybe. I guess Donald

00:01:41.600 Trump says some things like that. I'm not taking all my views from him. I'm looking at the Ontario data,

00:01:47.120 the Canada data, and numbers. So the whole idea that we would dismiss an entire conversation, or one

00:01:54.000 half of a conversation because Donald Trump or someone like that happens to advocate for something

00:01:59.360 similar, that is a problem. But clearly, there's great cultural pressure to take one side or the

00:02:05.280 other, depending on what your political views are. And I think it took a remarkable amount of bravery

00:02:10.080 on the part of Dr. Vera Etches to say, you know what, I think we do need to look at doing things

00:02:15.520 differently. You know, folks, every day I wake up and sometimes I'll think to myself, oh, great,

00:02:19.280 I'm going to the gym right now. And they go, oh yeah, I can't because gyms are currently not open

00:02:23.760 in Ontario. Or let's do this or that with the kids. Ah, darn, we can't. Now, I agree. I support

00:02:29.600 some of the conditions that we live under, not the gym thing. I think they should be reopened.

00:02:33.760 Some of them I do support, but I still think no matter what, every day that we wake up, regular folks

00:02:39.360 or chief medical officers, you need to be asking yourself, is this right? You need to challenge your

00:02:44.960 assumptions. You need to be rethinking every single day, are we doing things the right way? Because

00:02:49.920 we are doing such incredible things, changes, differences to the daily lives of many millions

00:02:56.320 of people that you can't just let it become a state of normalcy. You can't just accept the status quo.

00:03:02.000 So hats off to Dr. Vera Etches for saying, I want to start to do things differently. Who knows what

00:03:07.120 details she's going to present and that she's going to work out with the mayor and she'll probably have to

00:03:11.360 speak to the province about it as well. But I think it's really important that we are seeing one medical

00:03:16.480 officer say, yes, let's just pause. Let's talk about doing things differently. And hopefully

00:03:21.600 she will be a trailblazer leading us out of this very troubling chapter of our lives that we are all in

00:03:27.040 right now.

Juno News - November 03, 2020