Juno News - Ontario braces for the “sixth wave”! (Ft. Sue-Ann Levy)

00:00:00.000 Ontario is now bracing for the dreaded sixth wave of COVID. Yes, you heard that correct. The sixth

00:00:05.240 wave. Will we continue to repeat the exact same mistakes over and over again? Have we learned

00:00:10.140 anything from the past two years? I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:24.540 Everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program. So yes, it's been more than two years.

00:00:29.840 Since we were told two weeks to flatten the curve, here we are in April 2022. And the reaction to

00:00:36.320 another wave of COVID is as if nothing has changed. So many people go back to the same

00:00:41.180 default position that we need masks, we need lockdowns, and we need more vaccines. Nothing

00:00:46.440 has changed despite everything that we've learned over the past two years. So to help me break down

00:00:52.340 the latest in Ontario and to figure out what is going on with the sixth wave of COVID is true

00:00:57.240 North's own Sue Ann Levy. As you know, Sue Ann is an investigative journalist and reporter here at

00:01:01.880 True North. She recently retired after 30 years of investigative reporting with the Toronto Sun and

00:01:06.820 Post Media. She's a two-time investigative award-winning journalist, nine-time winner of

00:01:11.500 Toronto Sun's Reader's Choice Award and for News Writer of the Year. So Sue Ann, thank you so much for

00:01:17.060 joining us today. Oh, you're welcome. Very welcome.

00:01:19.820 So since the pandemic began, you've been reporting on so many issues that we've had with public health

00:01:26.760 restrictions, with the government's default restrictions when it comes to COVID. So many

00:01:32.160 times they are contradictory, they're nonsensical. They'll recommend one thing one week and then

00:01:37.280 something totally different a week later. So what do you make of this latest sort of fear-mongering that

00:01:43.980 we're seeing over, I suppose, I mean, I don't even know what happened. You know, I thought the fourth

00:01:48.040 wave was Omicron. I don't know what the fifth wave was, but all of a sudden now we're into a sixth wave

00:01:52.720 apparently. And a lot of people are beating the same drum that we need to restrict and make some

00:01:58.580 of the same mistakes we've made all along. What do you make of it, Sue Ann?

00:02:01.580 Well, you know, the interesting thing is those who do get COVID, and at this point, if they've had two or

00:02:07.700 three, if they've been boosted like me, then it would be very, very mild, I think, in most cases.

00:02:14.640 Now they're announcing on social media and it just is nauseating. They're announcing on social media

00:02:20.880 that they have COVID as if they've joined some secret club, you know, some secret cult. And the

00:02:27.340 other thing is, you know, the implication is that now that kids are unmasked in schools, that this is

00:02:34.340 causing this sixth wave. You know, the problem is that you've got all these lefty doctors, these

00:02:40.840 politicians, fearful politicians, who listen to the same people over and over and over again.

00:02:46.900 And the lefty doctors don't want to give up their 15 minutes of fame. I hate to sound cynical, but

00:02:51.040 that's what it's all about.

00:02:52.940 It's so interesting because I had a sort of contrarian-minded doctor on the show a couple

00:02:57.960 weeks ago, Dr. Matt Strauss, and he was very opposed to masking. He said that there just isn't

00:03:03.520 the data. When it comes to the research, it shows that anyone under the age of 50, anyone wearing a cloth

00:03:08.740 mask, these things don't actually help prevent COVID. It's kind of like a security blanket on

00:03:13.640 your face. And yet you find so many doctors on the other side saying, yes, we need these

00:03:18.760 precautions. We need these measures, especially for little kids who are at such small, small risk of

00:03:24.120 developing any serious illness from COVID. I mean, you wrote a piece about masks in school saying

00:03:34.740 with masking, it's time to leave the kids alone. What do you have to say when it comes to this idea

00:03:41.460 that little kids have to wear masks?

00:03:43.760 Well, some of them have only known masking for the last two years in schools. And, you know,

00:03:47.940 you've got to think about the other side. You've got to think about the social implications,

00:03:51.540 the fact that people can't see each other's faces. You know, maybe adults want to hide behind

00:03:56.760 masks, but they can't see each other's faces. It's very kind of antisocial. And like you said,

00:04:03.720 first of all, there's two things. The risk of young kids, the statistics have proven it,

00:04:09.420 the risk of young kids actually picking up, first of all, picking up COVID and then actually getting

00:04:15.600 really sick from it is very low. We know that this has been a disease of the elderly. You know, 0.99

00:04:21.300 I've tracked the statistics over the last two years. We've lost enormous number of people in

00:04:26.080 long-term care homes, enormous number of seniors in retirement homes. This is not a disease or a virus

00:04:32.540 of the young. And the other thing is that, you know, masking them is just not good for their mental

00:04:39.640 health and well-being. And nobody wants to think about the other side, you know, about the mental

00:04:46.960 issues that have arisen as a result of COVID and the lockdowns and the masking. And you're right,

00:04:54.520 a cloth diaper on your face does not protect you. I mean, for me, I wore it and went along with it

00:05:02.820 because I knew that I had to. And I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. But if everybody else is 0.95

00:05:09.660 doing it, and it's a mandate, then you have to, as soon as I got down to Florida, off came the mask,

00:05:16.940 because, you know, the other thing is wearing the mask, I think, doesn't protect you. You know,

00:05:24.160 it doesn't make you immune to other things that are flying in the air. I mean, you're, you're,

00:05:29.280 you know, closing up your, your, your nose, your mouth, and you're, you're not breathing in things

00:05:36.000 normally. And, you know, I have to wonder about your immunity to everything else.

00:05:42.060 It's so true. My, my son goes to a little preschool, he's three years old, and he goes

00:05:46.700 to preschool for two hours in the morning. And they make the kids wear masks, which just drives

00:05:52.120 me absolutely crazy. But it's funny, because the kids all still get sick, right? Like, like,

00:05:58.900 my son comes home with a runny nose, you know, like half the kids in his class have a runny nose,

00:06:03.760 like the idea that the mask would stop anyone from from from anything. I mean, it's, it's just it's

00:06:10.740 to me, it's, it's unconscionable that they still make kids wear. And for myself, I, I don't even

00:06:17.700 send my son every day, because I don't like the idea that he is wearing a mask. I argue with the

00:06:22.700 teachers and the administrators, and they say, Well, you know, it's not really up to us. It's

00:06:27.000 frustrating that they still force kids to do that. And to your point, you know, when we first would

00:06:33.400 two years ago, we're first told two weeks to flatten the curve, we didn't really know anything

00:06:36.460 about COVID, right? We just thought, Okay, this is a strange virus from China, let's, let's be as

00:06:42.000 precautious as possible. You know, we started to learn the data fairly quickly, that the majority

00:06:48.080 of the deaths were coming in long term care facilities, that, you know, that that that little

00:06:54.100 kids didn't, that little kids were basically not at risk of dying from COVID, that the numbers

00:07:00.780 were so minuscule, so small, the comorbidities or the underlying conditions that people had

00:07:07.120 with COVID deaths was so stark. And yet, it seems like the public policy hasn't really

00:07:13.580 adjusted to address that, Sue Ann, it's, you know, to your point, you say that these are

00:07:18.540 lefty doctors and lefty teachers and administrators, usually people on the left are the ones that care

00:07:23.980 about mental health and these kind of like, secondary impacts. And yet, when it comes to COVID,

00:07:30.320 they don't really focus on, you know, the, the, the way that little kids aren't able to communicate

00:07:36.640 the potential, you know, speech impediments or communication barriers that can be developed,

00:07:43.360 the long term impact for mental health on young, on young kids and teenagers. Like, I just don't

00:07:49.360 really understand why they're still beating the same drum, why they don't see the broader picture,

00:07:53.600 and you know, why they're so tunnel vision focused on on COVID. Why do you think that is?

00:08:00.240 Oh, I think that the fear mongering has created this, as I said in the column for True North,

00:08:06.560 I think it's created this group, this, I don't want to say nation, but certainly as a select group

00:08:13.520 of people, and I find particularly in Toronto and big city of COVID obsessed hypochondriacs,

00:08:21.280 they think every sniffle, every sneeze, every cough is related to COVID. And it's almost,

00:08:28.480 in some ways narcissistic, but they're, they're just fearful. They parade on social media with their

00:08:36.400 masks on. They, you know, they're outside with masks, it defies all logic. And I think people have just

00:08:46.080 been so indoctrinated by our politicians, so indoctrinated by public health, by lefty doctors,

00:08:53.840 that they're just downright fearful. And it's a bunch of sheep, they're a bunch of sheep, you know,

00:09:00.320 there was an NDP, I guess, rally yesterday in Toronto, and no one could come unless they produce

00:09:10.240 their vaccine cards. It was outside, by the way, at the Evergreen Brickworks, which is a lovely place,

00:09:16.960 and it's all outdoors. And they had to wear masks to attend. It was insane. It just defies logic. But,

00:09:25.920 you know, they're clinging on, I don't know whether it's, you know, a way of controlling people,

00:09:33.600 intimidating the crowd. But I think people are speaking up and saying enough, I, and you know,

00:09:40.160 I have had people attack me on social media for suggesting enough is enough. Don't you care about

00:09:48.080 health? Don't you care about little children, big children, as seniors, I wear a mask around seniors.

00:09:54.320 You know what, I lost my dad to COVID. My mom is 88. You think I don't take precautions? It's crazy

00:10:01.200 that everything that's going on now defies all logic. Well, and it's such a one sided way of

00:10:07.520 looking at it, like, Oh, don't you care about kids? It's like, well, don't you care about kids?

00:10:10.800 Don't you want kids to be able to have a free childhood where they don't have to feel so

00:10:14.800 restricted and kids growing up with paranoia and fear and adults telling them that everything could be at

00:10:21.440 risk? I mean, what I, I, you know, I look at, uh, the, the sort of like, you know, we talk about

00:10:27.200 Gen Z and how they're very protected and how they want college speech codes and they need safe spaces

00:10:31.920 and all this kind of stuff. Um, I, I can't imagine what the generation is growing up now, how, how, how

00:10:37.280 much more like that they're going to be just given that they're growing up in this environment where,

00:10:41.840 you know, we're told that we have to live in bubbles and that, you know, everything could potentially

00:10:45.840 kill them. It's like, what, what, what kind of impact is this going to have on, um, that next

00:10:50.880 generation? There was a survey that came out over the weekend, Sue Ann, uh, from the Canadian press,

00:10:55.040 they reported on it saying that there was a survey. It was, it was actually conducted by the Canadian

00:10:58.880 hub for applied and social research from the university of Saskatchewan. And it found that

00:11:03.040 Canadians are more divided than ever. They're completely divided over COVID-19 politics. Um, 40% of

00:11:10.000 Canadians said that they have lost, uh, contact with a close relative or a friend over disagreement

00:11:16.240 over pandemic politics. Um, that the majority of Canadians, 72% said that the COVID-19 pandemic

00:11:22.880 and the 2021 federal election were the two most divisive issues, um, that, that, that they've lived

00:11:29.040 through. And, you know, I think, I think a lot of people are seeing this, that people are wound up really

00:11:34.160 tight, um, that people are angry, that there's a lot of disagreement. You see it play out on social

00:11:39.440 media. You talk about how you were attacked. I think a lot of people feel that way. People who

00:11:43.760 are outspoken about either being pro-vax or anti-vax, this, this issue is just dividing Canadians.

00:11:50.160 It's really bad for our country. And yet we keep revisiting it over and over again. It's like,

00:11:55.360 maybe we should just let it go. You know, six wave, who cares? Why are we even focusing on it?

00:12:00.160 If, if it's an endemic and so many people have, have either gotten it and had herd immunity or,

00:12:05.360 or developed herd immunity among the population, or they're fully vaccinated.

00:12:09.120 Like what, why, why do we even continue to focus on it, knowing that it's so divisive?

00:12:13.200 Um, I'm, I'm, I'm wondering what your experiences have been and, and why you think that we, uh,

00:12:18.080 can't let this issue go, even though we know it's so bad for us.

00:12:22.240 You know, it's fear and look, I'm triple vaccinated. I'm boosted. And the way I feel is that if you asked

00:12:31.200 me to get a vaccine to protect myself and protect others, then I did it. I, I, I agreed to it. Uh,

00:12:38.800 I've had some lingering side effects, which are, are not fun, but, um, I did what I was asked to do.

00:12:46.720 And, you know, now I want to roam freely. I want to live freely, you know, uh, and I think that, uh,

00:12:54.800 people keep, uh, moving the bar, particularly politicians. And now they're talking about a

00:13:00.400 fourth booster. And I've talked to other people and they said, there's no way they're going to get

00:13:04.800 another booster. I mean, how long are we going to have this push on, be pushed on us? And Candace,

00:13:10.400 I think that was a large part of what the freedom convoy was all about, that people have been pushed,

00:13:16.560 they've been isolated, they've been locked down, they've been told how to live their lives for the

00:13:21.440 last two years. And enough is enough, enough. Look, I think that in our population, those who

00:13:28.400 haven't had, we probably all will have a mild form of COVID at one point. Two weeks ago, I had a terrible,

00:13:33.920 terrible cold. I thought it was COVID. I got tested. No, it was just a cold. It was a really bad cold.

00:13:40.160 Um, which I think I picked up at the Trump rally with 12,000 unmasked people, but I was there and

00:13:46.400 roaming free and enjoying my day. Um, but you know, immediately everybody thinks it's COVID.

00:13:52.800 We had a friend down here from Toronto who didn't want to have dinner with even my wife, 1.00

00:13:58.880 because she was exposed to me with my cold. I did not have COVID. So it's just, it's been so

00:14:05.520 ingrained in people that they've lost all sense of all common sense, all sense of logic.

00:14:11.680 It's funny because during the trucker convoy, I was waiting for the headlines to say,

00:14:15.280 Oh, this is going to be a super spreader event because that's what the media has been obsessed

00:14:18.400 with. Anytime there's a conservative minded protest, they focus on super spreaders. Anytime it's a

00:14:23.920 social justice, left-wing black lives matter protests, then it's, it's just righteous.

00:14:27.600 But the media always focus on that. So I was waiting for those stories and they never came.

00:14:31.120 And there was never any COVID wave that resulted from all of those truckers gathering. I think

00:14:36.480 because everyone kind of knew, okay, first of all, Omicron made everyone a little bit more immune to

00:14:40.960 COVID. And second, they were all outside and the chances of you getting COVID outside are very,

00:14:45.920 very low. But Sue, I wanted to ask you, cause I know you're, you're down in Florida and you,

00:14:49.920 you mentioned you went to the Donald Trump rally there. Tell me a little bit about the rally and

00:14:54.720 tell me just more broadly about the difference between, cause you, you spent most of the pandemic,

00:14:58.640 I believe in Toronto and Ontario around sort of the COVID hypochondriacs, as you call them.

00:15:03.760 And, and, and then, and then the second part in, in Florida where it's super relaxed and they've

00:15:08.240 kind of moved on and no one even talks about COVID, no one wears masks anymore. So maybe you

00:15:12.480 can comment on the, on the differences. Well, the only paranoid people down in

00:15:16.480 Florida are New Yorkers, frankly, because they've been so indoctrinated, but you know,

00:15:21.360 it's interesting when I first came down here, I saw a lot of people wearing masks in the grocery

00:15:25.840 stores and Costco. And in the last two weeks, it's been totally relaxed. You don't see hardly anybody

00:15:32.480 wearing masks. We went to a couple of theater performances in November and December into

00:15:38.560 January. There were strict rules about wearing masks. We had to show our vaccine cards,

00:15:43.360 none of that anymore. We just went to a play the other day, no masks. No, I mean,

00:15:48.240 there were people wearing masks in the audience, but no, no requirement. Nobody talks about it.

00:15:56.080 I don't see the same kind of signs anywhere. Walk into a grocery store, walk into a regular

00:16:03.040 store. One of my favorite dress stores, no issues. It's free. It's totally free. And the only time

00:16:10.320 I had to wear a mask was when I was at the Palm Beach airport yesterday. That was a federal

00:16:15.600 requirement. At the Trump rally, there were 12,000 people, 12,000. I could not believe in Fort Lauderdale

00:16:22.720 packing this arena. Almost every stand was full. They waited the entire day to hear Donald Trump

00:16:30.160 after a succession of speakers. We were there from 1130 on and he didn't speak till about six o'clock.

00:16:36.560 So it was. Wow. Who else was there? What other speakers did you hear from?

00:16:40.000 Anders Owens spoke. And Donald Trump Jr. spoke. And Dan Bongino spoke.

00:16:46.400 Very, very interesting group of speakers. And like I said, people waited and waited to hear him.

00:16:56.320 And he didn't disappoint. And might I add, no one was wearing masks at all. All 12,000 people that I

00:17:04.080 estimated were there. Nobody was wearing masks. And so what was the purpose of the rally? Is he running

00:17:10.000 for president or what, what, what was the, what was the kind of, you know, rationale behind having

00:17:14.960 this big rally here in Florida? He's been doing a series of them. He's done one in South Carolina.

00:17:21.040 He did one in Michigan the other night. He's doing one in, I believe, Georgia. I've been,

00:17:25.760 I'm on his list now. So I, you know, I get requests to buy doormats and hats and all kinds of stuff and

00:17:32.640 notices about his rallies. But he's, he's doing a series and I think he's testing the waters to run.

00:17:38.800 He's raising money. Frankly, I think a better choice would be if you asked me, Ron DeSantis,

00:17:48.000 there's some talk about him running and the next election. I think he's a kinder, gentler Trump,

00:17:54.720 but he's tough and he puts his foot down and I really respect the guy. This is the governor of

00:18:00.800 Florida, of course. Yeah. I'm surprised to hear you say that because I, I do know that some people

00:18:06.080 in Florida don't want to see him go. They say, you know, stop, stop talking about Ron DeSantis

00:18:10.160 for president because he's doing such a good job here in Florida that we don't want to lose him.

00:18:13.680 Because if without him, you know, we'll have some other, either a Republican that doesn't have the

00:18:18.960 spine that DeSantis has or some awful Democrat that's going to bring in all the same kind of 0.96

00:18:22.880 rules that we've had in Ontario and, and, and other sort of blue states in the US. Well, that's,

00:18:29.120 that's really interesting. And I know you reported from that rally. So I encourage viewers to go,

00:18:33.760 go check that out because it's really definitely interesting. And Sue Ann, you're keeping your

00:18:38.000 finger on the pulse. I did have a final question for you. You mentioned that you were down at the

00:18:41.440 airport yesterday. I know they're federally regulated and I know that, that there's some

00:18:44.800 push from airlines to get the Biden administration to drop the mask mandate, but more interesting than

00:18:50.080 the mask mandate was who you bumped into at the local airport there in Palm Beach, Florida. So why don't

00:18:56.000 you tell us about that? Well, I didn't exactly bump into him. I saw him. He was trying to hide from me,

00:19:02.160 was Mayor John Tory. He has a home down here. And, you know, I'm just going to say that he has every

00:19:09.600 right to travel, but I'm going to give the proviso that that very morning, yesterday morning, he posted

00:19:16.480 something on Twitter that made it seem like he was in his office in Toronto. It was about the Raptors.

00:19:22.640 So it's the whole thing again, like sneaking down to Florida, pretending you're not there, you know,

00:19:28.960 just be open about it, be honest. And I'm sure this isn't the first time he's come down. And it was

00:19:36.800 just, you know, it was so hypocritical, you know, you know about politicians and they pretend they're 0.95

00:19:42.720 not traveling, but they are. And I don't think he was very happy to see that I saw him. And the reason 0.86

00:19:49.440 I was at the gate is that Air Canada didn't have anybody to wheel my mom to the gate. So I got a

00:19:55.600 special pass. So he probably ruined the day that I actually got the special pass to come to the gate.

00:20:02.000 Well, maybe, maybe he called the security on you. And maybe that was the reason they

00:20:05.440 thought you were a security threat because he was probably like, get this reporter out of here before

00:20:09.600 she blows my cover. Well, no, it is interesting because I know there's no, there's no travel ban right

00:20:17.760 now and there's no lockdowns happening right now. But the same type of people who encourage you to be,

00:20:24.000 you know, encourage the public and lecture us and tell us to be hyper careful and to avoid contact

00:20:31.040 and to not kind of go out there and live our lives. You know, they turn around in their personal life.

00:20:35.360 They go down to their mansion in Florida and have time with their family and do, frankly, whatever they

00:20:40.480 want. And there's sort of this opinion, because I saw your tweet and I saw a lot of the reaction that

00:20:45.600 people were angry that he was doing that, which, you know, politicians have every right to travel

00:20:49.920 and they have every right to go on vacation, just like the rest of us. But the issue is sort of the

00:20:55.600 double standard and the idea that they're allowed to lecture us and tell us what to do. And then in

00:20:59.360 their personal life, they just kind of go and do whatever you want. What did you think about the

00:21:03.120 reaction to your story there? I thought it was, you know, very predictable and very, you know,

00:21:09.040 in sync with, I mean, politicians are not very connected with the average person these days. And

00:21:14.400 John Tory is no exception or how the average person feels. But here's a man who's pushing his

00:21:19.920 vaccine ride clinics, things on the TTC, vaccine read. He's got clinics in libraries. I'm beginning

00:21:26.880 to wonder if he's going to have them on the golf courses, but the golf courses just opened in Toronto.

00:21:31.200 I mean, he's ramming vaccinations down people's throats, five to 11 year olds, which I think is totally

00:21:37.280 wrong. He's talking about taking precautions. I see him at photo ops with masks on inside,

00:21:44.080 you know, it's just bizarre. So it's like left brain, right brain, you know, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde,

00:21:50.560 whatever you want to call it. But, you know, you preach this, and he was one of the most Econian

00:21:56.880 lockdown mayors in all of Canada. Poor Toronto has suffered tremendously. And, you know,

00:22:04.560 then you see him standing at the airport, you know, with his little mask on, because it's Palm Beach

00:22:10.160 airport. What did he think people were how they were going to react? I was actually shocked to

00:22:15.280 see him in line. How did he think people were going to react?

00:22:18.800 Well, he probably just assumed that no one would, no one would see him. But it's interesting to see

00:22:25.040 the sort of populist reaction to a lot of these politicians. Like I, I mean, I think that the

00:22:29.760 the, the, the worst, the politician who was the first to get ousted was Aaron O'Toole for the

00:22:34.880 conservatives. And I just remember when the truckers came to Ottawa, and he originally didn't

00:22:40.320 want to meet with them. And he was sort of didn't want to be associated with the populism. He came

00:22:45.760 out with his own trucker policy, what he would do alternatively to what Trudeau is doing with the,

00:22:52.240 with the border ban. And his, his proposition was to have vaccine clinics at truck stops. And that was

00:22:58.960 supposedly going to going to fix this whole issue, which totally misunderstands the whole purpose of why

00:23:04.080 the truck, the truckers weren't protesting, because they didn't have access to vaccines.

00:23:08.160 They were protesting because they didn't want to have the mandate, right? And the idea that some

00:23:11.760 politician would say, Oh, it's okay, we'll just bring them, we'll bring the vaccines to you. It

00:23:15.440 just totally shows how little some of these politicians really grasp the issues of the people

00:23:20.560 in front of them. They don't. And listen, I, I, I would dearly love to find out how many people

00:23:26.000 have actually shown up to those clinics. They are a huge drain on resources. And I would bet you

00:23:31.600 that the, the, probably a handful of people have come and gotten vaxxed. People are just,

00:23:36.160 it's over. People have had enough. And like, Toronto is no exception, whatever place you're

00:23:42.000 talking about, they've had enough, enough with the clinics, enough with the masking indoors to

00:23:47.920 virtue signal. You know, it's crazy.

00:23:51.120 I think that's a perfect, uh, way to end it. Sue Ann is perfect note to end it. Look, just let it,

00:23:56.080 let it end, let it be over. We're, we're done with it. Let us move on with our lives.

00:23:59.440 Oh, well, thank you so much for joining us, Sue Ann. Always great to have you on the show.

00:24:02.480 That's Sue Ann Levy with True North. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - April 04, 2022

Ontario braces for the “sixth wave”! (Ft. Sue-Ann Levy)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript