I was wondering if you could take us through the different kinds of masks
that are available to everyday Canadians. Yeah so practically people should be
wearing cloth masks because they're easy to make they're easy to buy so that's
the most common one and then people can use medical masks or more of those paper
ones. Those were in short supply for a long time they seemed the supply
seems to be okay now so you can also use those. A lot of stores are handing those
out increasingly stores won't let you in without a mask if you don't have one
they give you one of these paper ones. But they have a short shelf life if they
get wet they're not of use and then there's becoming much more popular is
shields so plastic shields are you wear over your face.
Big advantage of those is people who have hearing problems you can see their
lips they're a little more comfortable but in both cases really important that
you wear them properly whether you wear a mask or a shield you have to wear it
properly and discover your your mouth your nose anything where the virus can
enter. That one to be avoided actually as you'll see something's with little
plastic tube in them those are good if you're doing
woodworking and you don't want to breathe in sawdust but they're actually
not good for COVID because they have places where you can breathe out so you
breathe out unfiltered air so it kind of defeats the purpose of the mask. A mask
is essentially to protect others not to protect the wearer give some benefit to
the wearer but mostly to others. So how reusable are they, homemade masks?
Well that's the benefit you just wash them you should have a few you should
wash them any time they get damp you should change them people forget that. If
you're out for the day you should have several masks. Once they get damp they
one get uncomfortable and two less useful. So have a bunch wash them when with your
regular wash you don't have to do anything special but trying to avoid
handling them so the the technical term is donning and doffing so putting it on
and be careful that you don't the germs that you've collected that you just
don't bring them home and put them on your hands and then put your hands in
your mouth so again that would defeat the purpose of the masks. A reader was
asking whether people should be wearing masks if they are planning to attend one
of the Black Lives Matter protests? Probably just to be safe. Now the good
thing is the protests are outdoors there's less risk of spread outdoors
there's fresh air there's wind etc people
moving. You know the the greatest risk is when you're in stationery in a place
with other people in a closed space so the more open the space the more
movement the greater the environmental you know perturbances around wind etc
all that stuff is good for not getting sick. So but it depends how big a march
is how close you are together if you're gonna stand there for a while but I
think most protesters from what I can see on TV are being quite responsible
and and erring on the side of wearing a mask. The really important one is if
you're sick in any way just don't go out that's not worth going to the protest.
You know there's all kinds of debates about you know is there going to be a
big upsurge after the protests what's the trade-off between you know civil
liberties and making a statement and and putting people at risk and I think these
are complex societal issues but I wrote a column on this saying you know I
think we have to respect the right of people to protest and hope that they'll
be as responsible as possible but it you can't. I don't think you can reasonably
say don't protest because of coronavirus for something so important. And as I
noted in my column you know racism is also a public health issue as
much as this virus.
Senior residents and long-term care homes across the country have been in
full lockdown mode since March. Residents are holed up in their rooms with no
visits from friends or family and no end in sight.
When will it be safe to open up these facilities to visitors? I'd answer in two ways.
I don't think we're ready for visitors but I think we're long overdue
to have caregivers. Family caregivers are really essential caregivers so we have
to stop calling them visitors and they should have been in there a long time
ago. Yes there's a risk to them there's a risk that they carried the illness out
but it's outweighed by the needs of the people especially. You know I've heard so
many sad sad stories about patients with dementia they haven't seen a loved one
you know 80 days. There's someone who follows me on Twitter who each day gives
me the daily update 80 days 81 days without even having seen my father
and it's it's really unconscionable at this. So some provinces are allowing it
finally. Quebec allows it ironically Quebec has the the worst number of cases
in long-term care but they've recognized that this is really essential these are
they're as important as the PSW's as the nurses the family caregivers so you
have to give them that right tick to come back. We're going to pivot now we're
going to talk about testing next. Obviously there's different types of tests out
there you can be tested to see if you have COVID. You can also be tested to
see if you have the antibodies for this novel coronavirus but I thought we could
start off by getting a sense from you about where Canada is at in its testing
for COVID-19 levels? Yeah so we are still telling people if you have symptoms you know
if you think you're sick if you think you've been in contact with someone that's
sick. We're testing high-risk groups people in
nursing homes medical workers if you're increasingly in factories.
It's you know farm workers so we're testing those high-risk areas. Canada is
doing a lot of testing per capita compared to the world but we
have our our difficulties. Ontario most you know we keep writing about Ontario's
struggling with testing but it's not struggling with the test itself.
It's starting with the follow-up. So every time you test someone you have to
do contract racing you have to figure out people they've been in touch with
getting in contact with them and need to get them tested. But these are this these
processes are long and there's jurisdictions that are doing them much better
than others if I can say that in a polite way. Let's take a minute to talk
about how accurate these antibody tests are. We're about you know two months into
when they started to be rolled out are they any better? Well that's and Canada's
being cautious on this we're trying to figure out that's what's going on now
trying to figure out which one's work best how accurate they are. The U.S. you
know a month ago six weeks ago reeally just approved everything just said yeah let's go
it's important and that's not worked out well. There's been some disasters or
some large-scale there's a case written about quite often in Colorado where they
get thousands of antibody tests decided you know you're you've been infected
you're safe here and it turned out the test was not accurate at all so it was
actually counterproductive because their infection rate went up because they all
these people thought they were immune to further infection and they weren't and
they went out and got infected. So I think it's important that we take time
to figure out the right tests I know that's frustrating. And the other thing
the other really important thing is identifying an antibody right so this isn't a simple
thing. You have to be around which antibodies which ones give you immunity
how long will the immunity last. You know we're pretty sure they'll be immunity
but how long will it last? Will it be a hundred percent? You know if
you get a measles vaccine as a child you're protected for life but those
those are the low-hanging fruit those are great. Many viruses are not that
you just get immunity for a short time. You know we get colds over and over again so
we don't have immunity. Many of the colds we get are actually
just other coronaviruses not as lethal as this one but it kind of gives us an
indication that we may be able to get reinfected. The WHO has said this virus
may never go away there may not even be a vaccine it's not guaranteed that
there's a vaccine and this viewer is wondering what your advice is on how to
cope with what is essentially a new chapter in everybody's lives? I think we
have to remember that yeah it is possible it'll be here forever but
eventually we'll all get exposed in some way and have some sort of immunity.
You know there's many diseases out there there are hundreds of infectious, viruses,
bacteria, protozoa, there all kinds of risks and we've learned to live with
them we don't freak out about them all the time. So this is new it's scary but
we are going to adapt to it and it's going to be part of our new normal. So I
think that the next year, 18-months are going to be hard and have to figure
out how to do this and whether there's a vaccine or not I think we're gonna we're
going to figure this out. Humans are very resilient,
we're very you know we innovate and we're gonna live with this.