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The Current Transcript for May 19, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: This is the bathroom. We've had to improvise with washing dishes. There's no sink, no kitchen facility. No hot water. And the baths, which is really quite disgusting.

MATT GALLOWAY: In the before time, many of us wouldn't give a second thought to jumping on a plane and heading abroad. What does the future of international travel look like in these times? Well, if you're headed to Hong Kong, it means two weeks of enforced quarantine. This definitely is not Club Med. In 30 minutes, what crossing borders might include in the immediate future and whether Canada should follow Hong Kong's lead. Also this morning, the health writer Andre Picard on bringing back school, whether summer camps should go ahead and why he says we need to find the pandemic version of safer sex. And later.

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VOICE: The team is devastated by the loss of Jenn. She was the quintessential public affairs officer. She absolutely loved this job.

MG: Captain Jenn Casey was a public affairs officer with the Armed Forces and loved to tell the story of Canada's snowbirds. She was killed this weekend when the jet that she was in crashed shortly after takeoff. A friend remembers a woman who lit up the room in an hour's time. We begin though on the Canada U.S. border currently closed, but for how much longer? Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Testing, contact tracing crucial to reopen U.S.-Canada border, says Obama's former acting labor secretary

Guests: Seth Harris, John Manley

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VOICE: Preventing transmission from outside of Canada into Canada, once we have controlled the spread within Canada, will be an essential part of ensuring that we don't fall back into a second wave that could be as serious as this, this wave we're going through or even more so.

MG: The Canada U.S. border remains closed. That agreement to keep it that way expires this week and Prime Minister Trudeau is making no promises about what's going to happen next. Although he has said that any reopening will be done very carefully and not before it's time. This is not an easy call to make. Keep it open and risk the spread of infection, keep it closed and risk further effects on the economy. Seth Harris is a former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Obama and an expert in labour and employment. Seth Harris, good morning.

SETH HARRIS: Good morning.

MG: Should the Canada U.S. border reopen this week?

SETH HARRIS: Well, I don't know if it should be this week, but it should reopen soon. You know, the principal problem in both of our countries is not the international border. It's how people are behaving inside borders. Are they social distancing? Are they working from home? Are they taking all the measures that are necessary to protect themselves and to protect other people from the virus? So there is. I mean, we're integrated economically. And like it or not, Canada and the United States work very closely together with our partner, Mexico. And we're going to have to figure out a way in order to be able to have trans border commerce that is safe and that is constructive in order for both of our economies to get back in business.

MG: What conditions would need to be in place for this to happen safely? Because there are different stories when it comes to different countries and different states and provinces in the state of this pandemic. So what has to happen for the border to open and not jeopardize the health of Canadians?

SETH HARRIS: Well, I would say the same thing that needs to happen domestically needs to happen internationally. We need to have comprehensive testing and contact tracing systems so that we know who is sick, who is infected, and that those people can be isolated so that they are not exposing others to risk. And then since we're not going to capture 100 percent of the positive cases through testing and contact tracing. We need to have comprehensive both controls in place that distance people from one another and provide for hand-washing and other kinds of protections, but also that provide people with personal protective equipment. We need to have masks and gloves where it's necessary. We need to have all kinds of cleaners available, where we're bringing trucks or other transportation into other countries, into Canada from the United States. So I think we know what's necessary in order to stay safe, but we have to apply those rules when we're crossing the border as well as when we're we're operating at home.

MG: Is any of that happening, do you believe, in the United States to the level at which it would take to open the border soon?

SETH HARRIS: We're far short. In most of our states, we are far short of where we need to be on testing and most states have not stood up a fully functional contact tracing system. Now, individual companies and individual cities and states have been quite aggressive in going after it. But, you know, our national government really needs to step up and put in a place a national contact tracing system. We're going to need to hire tens of thousands of contact tracers ot make sure we know who has been exposed to an infected individual. That's why I'm not ready to say open it up this week. I want us to get a safe system in place here in the United States. I want you to have a safe system in Canada, so that we can open up the border and be comfortable that we're not exposing one another to grave risk.

MG: On the other side of that are the economic concerns. The president has long said that the cure can be worse than the disease. What sort of urgency is there to getting people back to work and getting this border opened up?

SETH HARRIS: President Trump is offering a false choice. The idea that we either open up in an unsafe way or we stay closed, then we expose people to really egregious unemployment and poverty. Those are not the only two choices. The third choice is to open up in a safe way, in a smart way, in a way that keeps workers from getting infected and sick and dying. The way that we're doing it right now, where we are essentially forcing workers back into the workplace is just not a smart way to do it. And if it results in an increase in the rate of infection that causes businesses to have to close down again, states, they have to impose more, stay at home or safer at home orders. Then that's going to be even more damaging to economic confidence in the United States. That's the big problem, is not the stay at home waters by government. The problem is that Americans are unwilling to do business with one other. Because they're scared. They don't want to get sick. They don't want to die. So they're not willing to go into a restaurant. They're not willing to go into a retail store. They're not willing to transact business in an ordinary way. We're seeing that, especially in states that see that they are open for business. But but we're not seeing increased economic activity in those states compared with those that are saying we're still locked down. So really, we have to have a confidence building measure and real protections against sickness and death in order to get our economy going. So it's a false choice.

MG: Do you think that Canada is in a position to stand up to the United States and say, we have to hold off on opening this border? If the president says we're ready and we want to open the border now?

SETH HARRIS: Yes. I think that your prime minister, with whom I for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, has shown that he's got a lot of backbone in dealing with our president, who frankly doesn't show as much backbone as he should in the face of real crisis. And I you know, governors and others in our states, mayors have shown that saying no to a president who's been behaving irresponsibly is the responsible thing to do.

MG: But when you do that, the president can often become enraged and will lash out at those, whether it's governors, whether it's mayors. Is there not the danger that if the prime minister says, hold on,w we don't think you're ready yet that that could set the president off?

SETH HARRIS: Well, you know, I don't think that people should make, countries should make foreign policy based on the temperament of somebody who's behaving badly. You know, I don't think Canada or any other country should be bullied into making decisions that are bad for the Canadian people simply because our president is dyspeptic. That's not the right way to go. That's not how politics or international diplomacy is supposed to work. Canada is our friend and neighbour. We don't want you to get sick any more than we want our own citizens to get sick. It's not good for any of us. So I think the right thing to do is do what's right for the Canadian people. And then the United States, I think most leaders in the United States will make the right choice for the American people and those will end up being the same choices.

MG: Former President Obama made a commencement speech this weekend in which he said more than anything, this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many folks in charge know what they're doing. A lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge. Do you agree with him?

SETH HARRIS: Yeah. Sadly, I do. You know, I had the opportunity during my time in the Obama administration to work with both President Obama and Vice President Biden on the implementation of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, which was our way of trying to get back in business from the Great Recession. And that program and the way in which was implemented was done in an entirely professional way, not trying to advance political goals, not trying to advance personal agendas. It was entirely about trying to get the American people back to work at the economy going again and it was extremely successful and managed in a way that had very little wage waste fraud or abuse. Contrast that with what we're seeing right now. You know, we have a president who announced last night that he's taking a drug to deal with this pandemic that is not only completely unsuccessful in keeping people from getting sick from this illness, but it has very, very serious side effects, especially for people in his demographic group. It's hard to take seriously the leadership of a man who makes decisions of that sort. Because his ego has been bruised, because he's been criticized for making bad decisions. That's not what effective leadership looks like. So I hope because I want my country to be successful, that President Trump will now take a thoughtful, smart, organised, goal oriented, evidence based approach to dealing with this pandemic. I'm not holding my breath, but that's certainly what I'm hoping for.

MG: Do you think Canadians should hold their breath that that decision to reopen the border will be made in a thoughtful and measured way?

SETH HARRIS: I think that there's a large number of people in the federal government and a large number of border state governors who are going to make thoughtful, intelligent decisions about how to advise the president. And eventually the pressure will build in a smart, thoughtful way, both from your side of the border and ours that will allow that decision to be made hopefully intelligently. You know, I frankly worry about the quality of the decisions that are coming out of the White House. But I think there are a lot of people in our political process on your side and our side who really do want to do the right thing. They're going to look at the evidence. They're going to look at infection rates and and death rates. They're going to look at new ways of avoiding the spread. And I think eventually we'll get to a good decision. I'm not going to promise it's going to be a straight line from here to there.

MG: Seth Harris, good to speak with you. Thank you.

SETH HARRIS: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Seth Harris is the former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Obama. John Manley has been watching all of this from north of the border. John Manley held a number of portfolios under Jean Chretien, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance. He was also president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, John Manley. Good morning to you.

JOHN MANLEY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What do you make of what Seth Harris had to say? Don't open the border this week, but open it soon.

JOHN MANLEY: Well, I think it's important to note that the restrictions on cross-border travel have exempted trade and commerce and essential medical workers. So there is some openness to the border. Non-essential travel has been restricted. And from my perch, I'd say that's a wise choice for Canadians to this point in time and probably will continue to be for some time to come.

MG: What should the first thing the federal government does? What should that be to to ensure that the health of Canadians isn't jeopardized when this border is open? It will be opened at some point in time, whether it's this week or whether it's in a month's time. So what does our federal government need to do to make sure that our health isn't put at risk?

JOHN MANLEY: Well, Secretary Harris has a number of the points that I think everybody agrees is looking to effective testing and tracing so that we can keep track of where the virus is and and who is infecting whom. The ability to ensure that the proper social distancing practices are engaged in by everybody, wherever they're from. I think it would be fair to say Canadians have appeared to be more compliant with those rules than some in the United States have been. And I think that it's going to be important for us to continue to press on with the important work of finding a vaccine. None of this really returns to normal until there are effective treatments for the disease and vaccine to prevent it. If you just think in terms of the challenges in our major cities in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary of getting people to work and up those office tower buildings, when we're trying to practise social distancing, you realise how far we are from any kind of business as usual.

MG: And yet, as I said to Seth Harris, the president of the United States has been pushing ahead, telling states to liberate themselves, to to reopen the economies. Does this federal government have much say in how this border opens or when or will that be dictated by the United States?

JOHN MANLEY: Well, this is one area where we are sovereign, and I went through this border issue with the United States post 9/11 when to some extent the border was closed then as well and it closed to commercial traffic also. But we are sovereign on that. We do get to decide now if the U.S. were to say, well, then if we're not going to open up to non-essential travel, we're going to shut the border to everybody. I think that the Canadian government would have to deal with that in a very direct and immediate manner.

MG: What does that mean?

JOHN MANLEY: Well, that means that would include everything, including health care workers who are vital to maintaining the well-being of Americans in a number of border cities. Detroit, in particular comes to mind where many health care workers live on the Canadian side of the border. So what we are mutually dependent both commercially and other ways. And I'm personally not worried about both some kind of of of offensive action being taken by the United States on this.

MG: The premier British Columbia, John Horgan, as well as the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, have said that the border needs to stay closed. John Horgan on this program said that he takes in many ways his his cues from Washington state, not Washington, D.C. How much weight should that carry in the decision that the prime minister makes?

JOHN MANLEY: You know, I'd have to say I mean, there are a few a few bright lights out of the whole misery of COVID-19. One of them is that the Canadian Federation has worked better than we've seen it work I think in generations. And I think the premiers have a lot to say on this and I think the prime minister needs to listen to them. They're the ones that are closest to the action in terms of what's happening in their communities. And they are in many ways the best judges of how to conduct things going forward. I think we've shown the right amount of flexibility and the right amount of support to the provinces from Ottawa. So it's been a good a good partnership. You know, looking south of the border, you're right. The president has been encouraging states open. The problem with that is that his White House guidelines are actually quite good. And what is mystifying is why his administration would put out guidelines that, if followed, would be effective and would be respected while at the same time talking them up, you know, to his his followers about a boat opening up. It just seems to be one of those strange things that we're coming to expect as normal from the current president of the United States.

MG: What do you make of the press conferences that he gives every day?

JOHN MANLEY: Outrageous. Matt, I don't live in a news free zone, so I'm aware of them. I can't tolerate watching them. I don't think it's good for my health quite frankly.

MG: If you take a look at this country and I ask you this, as a former minister of finance, we've seen billions of dollars go out the door to help people who find themselves without work with businesses that have disappeared. You know, an industry that evaporates overnight in some ways. Should we and this is important money and money that needs to go out the door now to help people. Should we be at all concerned about the cumulative cost of that and having to figure out how to pay for that down the road?

JOHN MANLEY: I think so. I'm not sanguine about this. There are opportunity costs that are associated with this. There are going to be recurring interest costs, which at the moment the interest rates are low, but the actual amount of interest is building up. These are gigantic songs and there's no guarantee that interest rates will stay low. So we have undone necessarily and I'm not disputing the spending itself. But we've undone what it took us many years to do, which is together ourselves down to a point where we had a very manageable debt level at the federal level, around 30 percent of GDP. We're now over 50, you know, closing in on 60. When you add the provinces to that, municipalities are in trouble as well, although they don't they don't run deficits. We've got a mountain of debt to deal with and the interest payments are going to come due on a regular basis. So and, you know, a man, one of our one of our newspapers said we don't have to worry, but we don't really ever have to pay it off and compare the situation of war. I'm sorry, the demographics post-World War 2 were quite different. The country was much younger. And secondly, we actually didn't pay it off. We pay it off every time the button the bonds become due. And I was in government one day when when a Canadian bond auction was being held to recycle our debt and we were no bid with 30 minutes to go. That's not what you want to be facing. You won't, you do repay it. You repay it every time you refinance it. And investors make the decision whether or not they're going to continue to back you. So this is going to be tough for us for years to come. We're doing the right thing, but it's not going to be easy.

MG: So in the last minute or so that we have, what's the choice that Canada's going to face down the road? Because we're in this moment now, but at some point in time, we will get out of it. So what will we be facing down the road?

JOHN MANLEY: We're going to have to deal with the debt. That means we'll probably be looking at limited expenditures. We're going to look at austerity measures and we'll look at tax increases. Those are the only things. The big challenge for Canada coming out of this is not actually the expenditure side, it's going to be the revenue side. How do we rebuild the economy? What will the economy look like post-COVID? How are we going to continue to invest in digital infrastructure? How do we reopen for all the people cannot work from home in hospitality and retail sectors where much of our service economy lives. These are the big challenges that are going to face us.

MG: John Manley, good to speak with you about this. I appreciate it. Thank you.

JOHN MANLEY: My pleasure. Thanks, Matt.

MG: John Manley, former finance minister, deputy prime minister as well. He was also president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. Well, the CBC News is next. And then we're going to talk further about borders managing that Canada U.S. border is one challenge and one challenge that governments on both sides of the border will have to address in the coming days. What about dealing with travellers from elsewhere? Some people say that we could learn from places like Hong Kong where testing and quarantines are key. We'll take you to Hong Kong and talk about what's happening there and what it's like in this moment to travel halfway around the world and could those lessons be applied here? I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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What international travel looks like during COVID-19

Guests: Laurel Chor, Kelley Lee

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

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MG: Racing for safe harbour. Still to come, we'll hear from a sailor from P.E.I. trying to outrun hurricane season after being stuck for months in the Caribbean. But first, are green thumbs the new COVID symptom?

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MG: All this isolation has some people digging up old pastimes and it's seeding new hobbies with others. Gardening has always been a particularly popular thing to do on this Victory Day long weekend. But as far as pandemic pastimes go, it's fair to say this one is blossoming. Some apartment dwellers in Toronto took a workshop via video conferencing about container gardening with expert green thumb, Lara Mrosovsky.

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VOICE 1: I think, Laura, I have questions on cutting. So basically I have a mint cutting in water since and almost two weeks. It is growing leaves, but not the white roots, which I see on like, you know, Google basically. So I'm wondering, should I plant it or it's been two weeks sitting in the water.

VOICE 2: Well, if it's growing leaves, that's always, you know, encouraging. It sounds like it's still alive and there's no like issue going on with its health. If you want to wait and kind of have more of the guarantee that you've seen those roots coming out and then transplant it, that could be good because, you know, the roots are there when you do put it in the soil.

VOICE 1: OK, I think I have like six to eight. I'll try half of them.

VOICE 2: Perfect. That's totally what I would do. Yeah, that's a great approach.

MG: Gardening expert Lara Mrosovsky holding an online workshop for people who live in a cluster of high rises in a neighbourhood just east of Toronto's downtown. Shreya Adva is one of the participants. Just moved to Canada last December and is taking this workshop to try to learn more about gardening for Canada's seasons.

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VOICE: The pandemic and everything, the summer vacationing sun has gone to toss. So I thought I might as well learnn something. I was always back home in India, we have a lot of sun. We had like abundance of water, sunlight and the seasonal stuff never was the limitation. So here basically Lara is helping a lot in terms of the seasonal stuff and sun and shade and everything. I have a little balcony and after Lara's session, I think I have now 13 plants almost and they are all in the germination stage. What I'm personally learning is because earlier I never used to garden from seeds. We have like nursery which is very cheap to get the grown up plants. So I'm teaching myself patience because every day I get up and see if I have like two leaves anywhere in the pot, so yeah.

MG: The gardening workshop is organised by a community centre known simply as The Corner. Nayanthi Wijesuriyr is with The Corner. Nayanthi, good morning.

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: Good morning.

MG: Where did the idea for this workshop, the container gardening workshop, come from?

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: Actually, this has started like since the St. Jamestown community corner was open to the public because we also as a agency we also values is to support the green initiative. Since like 2011, the St. Jamestown community corner was open to the community. We started like various ways to implement this great initiative in the community. So the balcony garden, because if you see the St. Jamestown community corner, St. Jamestown community is like a densely populated area and with 19 high rise buildings. So you hve to find a reason to like, you know, engage the community in different ways and also to support the green initiative. So we usually run annual spring gathering community consultation. Through those consultation also we hear this kind of like people need vertical gardening. So and also composting. So that way we also reach out to like different partners, other agencies to see whether they can support us to fund this kind of initiative.

MG: Do people understand that they could garden? As you mentioned, I mean, it's a vertical community. There's all the high rise towers that are there and did people perhaps initially think, well I need a backyard. I couldn't have a garden if I live in a tower.

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: That's why I think our support was very important for them, because there's like a diverse community coming from different backgrounds, which they had primarily like, you know, just like, you know, ground to plant things. But they have no idea, like this is possible in your balcony. So that's why actually it's experts like, you know, like Lara comes in and then show them like this is, you can do this like, you know, in your balconies. And also the city of Toronto like environment energy division, have this kind of workshop providing balcony gardening. Grow your own food in your balcony. So this initiative actually bwe had in March that there was a two workshop for the community, grow their own food in your balcony. So we had this March 6 and 7 workshop. So there were like lots of like community members participated at this, our workshop. Like around 50 to 60 participants came into this workshop,

MG: What does it mean that people are able to grow their own food in that community? I mean, it's a community that has had issues with food insecurity before. So if someone is able to grow their own food, what does that mean to them?

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: It means a lot to them, because you see that when we hear from the community, they say like when they see like plants and there's vegetables that they see from their plants. They feel like it's sort of like in are very like, you know, like you know, bring the smiles to their faces. And also like, if you see like it's a densely populated community and then you don't have much like a green space. But you see the greens like, you know, green in your balcony and it's soothing, calming them. Like it's more life for them to see, like, oh, this is great. Like, I can have this at my home. So I think it's in a way, it's also support in there. Like, you know, so it's also kind of a self-care like because these days our people are mostly staying at home. There's like no way of engaging and as an agency, we actually do it bring people together.

MG: What are people, just before I let you go, what are people growing?

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: So they do like beans, potatoes, onion. Lots of like things that you can do in containers. They actually started growing. And if you see that like they kind of share that with us. It's kind of amazing the things that they have tried.

MG: Amazing.

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: Yeah.

MG: Have you done any of this? Are you growing anything this spring?

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: Yes, I have done. I have done actually seeds at this time. And also with my kids, I started doing the compost like we've made a compost bin. And yeah and also want to we learned last time, like how to make your own compost bin at home.

MG: Excellent. Nayanthi, happy gardening and thanks for talking to us.

NAYANTHI WIJESURIY: Thanks for having me. Thank you so much.

MG: Nayanthi Wijesuriy is with The Corner. It's in the neighbourhood of St. Jamestown in Toronto. Newbie gardeners are getting excited about things that they could grow even more experienced gardeners are looking at their plots a little differently this year because this is not a usual spring. Sophia Xue is the president of the Beaconsfield Garden Club in Montreal. This year, she's trying something new. Sophia, good morning to you.

SOPHIA XUE: Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. What are you planting this year for the first time?

SOPHIA XUE: Well, this year, I was actually I mean, in May, I was actually hoping to go to Portugal, so I wasn't actually planning anything at all before. So now, with all the big changes. So I'm kind of catching up, trying to plant some vegetables. I had in my mind initially trying to get some Chinese green because I you know, we love the Chinese stir fries and everything and getting some seeds were very, very difficult this year. And I've tried to reach out to friends to try to get some seedlings. And it's essentially I was too late. I couldn't get anything. So I said, OK, what do I do? So I went to the local nurseries and I was able to find some really exotic plants that I can and I think I'm very happy. I'm very excited to try out. The first thing I got was okra.

MG: Oh, yeah.

SOPHIA XUE: And fIrst of all, I didn't even know that we can grow this here in our climate. I always think these Indian cuisine kind of needs very hot weather. Apparently, it grows very well here. And what I found out was okra is actually belongs to the same family as the hibiscus.

MG: I did not know that.

SOPHIA XUE: I didn't know either. It's got a beautiful, pale yellow big flowers. And when the flower falls off, we're actually eating the pods. That's what the okra is. And it's supposed to be quite prolific as long as you keep on clipping the pod and still coming back. So I'm really excited for that and to see how it works out.

MG: What are you finding in your community? I mean, you talked about trying to get seeds and one of the things we've heard across the country is that because people are spending so much time at home and, you know, they're worried about food insecurity, they're growing their own things. In your community are you finding that a lot of people perhaps who'd never garden before are getting their hands into the dirt?

SOPHIA XUE: Yes, absolutely. We are seeing a lot more people trying that for the first time. You know, gardening, I think I mean, you don't have to spend a lot of time in it, but it's really important that you spend a little bit time every day or every other day to maintain the garden. So for most people, you feel have a regular job. It's really challenging. You know, you leave early, you come back home late. So now, you know, a lot of people have the luxury of working from home, even though you still have the work. You know, if you take like 20 minutes every day from your work, you jump into your garden, does a little bit, I think it's very feasible. So I think a lot of people is looking at that. Now it becomes much more feasible thing for people to do.

MG: Nayanthi compared it to self-care. Do you find that when when you're gardening, I mean, especially in stressful times like this, it calms you down?

SOPHIA XUE: Absolutely. It absolutely calms down. What I find is very nice is I always compare gardening as yoga. I think it's very comparable because it's physical, first of all. And second of all, it's also, you know, when you garden all by yourself it's very zen and you kind of you know, you can choose not to do anything else. Just focus on yourself. Just let your mind go wild or you can you know, sometime I do is listen to podcast and listen to The Current podcast.

MG: Does that help with the gardening? I'm not sure. I'd like to believe it does, but I'm not sure.

SOPHIA XUE: Absolutely. Because, you know, I mean, normally, if you're you know, you're not really stressed, you want just to keep yourself occupied, so you do the gardening. You listen to music. You listen to podcast. But if you decide you wanted to get your brain a little bit, you know, relaxed, you do not have to do anything other than gardening and weeding, right. So it's really therapeutic for me in that sense. But I also find it's a good way of discipline yourself as well, in a way, because for gardening, you kind of have to, certain thing you have to do it a certain time. And you've got to be, you know, like regular visiting your garden. So I found it's a good way of really pushing myself, really, to take care of something that I actually plant.

MG: We just have a few seconds left. If somebody wants to get started on gardening and they've never done this before, but to your point, they have a lot of time and maybe they're looking for that zen moment, what's the one piece of advice that you'd give them as they go out this weekend?

SOPHIA XUE: I would say start with something like a new patch of land not going over an existing garden because that's really from my own experience, because I had, I bought the house, had a big garden. It became very overwhelming because you have no idea what's being planted before. So start with something small, brand new, so you know exactly what you're putting in and what to expect. So that way you kind of because the other way you're always catching up, right. Things coming out, you have no idea it's weed or it's a plant. But start with something small or something, you know, new piece of land and put in the flower or vegetable that you would like to grow.

MG: Excellent. Good luck with the okra.

SOPHIA XUE: Thank you. Thank you very much.

MG: Sophia Xue is the president of the Beaconsfield Garden Club in Montreal. There is something that has a long tradition in tough times. People plant vegetables in wartime with so-called victory gardens. In this pandemic, it's tempting for a whole bunch of reasons to get involved in something like that. It can offer you, as you heard, a little bit of rest and relaxation and you get some fruits and vegetables perhaps out of it as well. Natalie Gougen gardens virus or no virus. This year, though, she's planting a vegetable garden on the grounds of the Pioneer Estates Winery where she works. And Natalie is also the community coordination partner with the Garden Cities Project in Moncton. Natalie, good morning to you.

NATALIE GOUGEN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Tell me what you're planning to plant in the vegetable garden this year.

NATALIE GOUGEN: Okay. Well, so as you mentioned, I wear many hats. So I work for the Garden Cities Project. As the committee coordinator. But I also work at the Pioneer Estates as an agricultural worker. And yeah just kind of got started where a few of us were talking about how we wishes we had more land to garden. Some people who work there do not own land, but they're, you know, they're great gardeners and they like to prepare some food for themselves and for the future. And so our boss, Sean Frazier, offered us a piece of the vinyard to garden on to grow vegetables.

MG: Nice. So what vegetables are you going to put into the ground?

NATALIE GOUGEN: Well, I can't speak for everybody. For me, it's going to be all about the root vegetables with that plot because they're pretty low maintenance. I have my own garden. I'm pretty privileged. I have my own garden at home and that's where the more high maintenance crops are going to go, because I'll be there, you know, morning and night, so I can keep an eye on them. But, yeah, I'll stay with the root vegetables over there.

MG: For people who you mentioned, you're lucky enough to have your own garden and now you have this extra space as well. There are people who don't have their own spaces, live in vertical communities, what have you and the community garden is such a big part of that. Tell me a bit about your involvement in the community gardens in Moncton.

NATALIE GOUGEN: Sure. Yeah, so we started in 2012 and we started a few, many gardens around Moncton and we now we kind of upgraded as our role, we're more here to assist the community gardens around Moncton and even over New Brunswick. So we kind of anybody who wants to start a community garden, we're always there to offer advice to help them find sometimes funding, help them find soil amendments, help them find seeds because we often get a lot of donations. One of the things you mentioned, vertical gardening where you've also this year, because of all these things that are going on, we have a new program, which is a wicking bed program. And a wicking bed is a special kind of container garden that kind of self waters itself. So we've got a program going on here in Moncton's. So if anybody is interested in that, please check out our page on Facebook, the Garden Cities Project. And so there's that. There's a new community garden starting up this spring near Victoria Park. And we're hoping also create permaculture demonstration garden this year. That all depends if we can find the right land for it, but it will basically be like a food forest to demonstrate to people that you can grow so many things, other vegetables if you own your land and if you want to.

MG: Like what?

NATALIE GOUGEN: Oh, like a fruit, you've got, not just apples. You get everything from plums and peaches, pears. There's some berries people kind of forget about, which are really easy to grow on your land.It can look pretty nice like a nice shrub. Cherries and then, of course, you get all the herbs that can kind of help with those. Some people kind of plant certain herbs at the feet of their fruit trees,to deter pests. And then you've got that thyme or that oregano to use in your food as well.

MG: Is your sense, we were talking about this earlier, that because of, as you say, the situation that we're in, in this pandemic and people go to the store and going to the grocery store now is, you know, filled with anxiety and a fraught experience, that we're thinking differently about food security. And the people want to have a greater role in their own food security?

NATALIE GOUGEN: Yeah, we are definitely thinking differently about food security, I think a big thing that happened was the whole toilet paper incident that happened in March, where if everybody flocks to the store thinking that we're running out of something, then that will definitely create a lack. Right? So if word got out that there's going to be a potato shortage, we could increase that shortage through panic. So people are trying to get a step ahead of that in planting their own potatoes, for example.

MG: If people have never done something like this before, they think they have a black thumb and that whatever they put in the ground is going to die, what advice would you give them? Perhaps an easy vegetable to start with that is difficult to kill.

NATALIE GOUGEN: Oh. Easy vegetables. That's a good question. There's so many, I find potatoes pretty easy myself. People really love kale. It kind of gives all year round. It's a green. Some people eat raw. It's better for you if it's cooked. Let's see, carrots if you get the right soil is pretty easy. But for me, it's fine, especially if you're a family with children, go for peas. Peas are easy. They'll add to your soil and the nitrogen. They're fun to plant and almost impossible to kill, as long as you make sure they don't dry out too much.

MG: Almost impossible to kill?

NATALIE GOUGEN: Well they're just, I find them so easy, they just. Yeah. You as long as you kind of keep an eye on them, that they don't get too dry. It's basically that they can handle the cold and they can handle the heat. So that's why I like peas.

MG: And you don't need to do anything. I mean you just really stick the seed in the ground and it doesn't even need to go too deep and away you go with the peas.

NATALIE GOUGEN: That's it. And also, it can go too deep. A lot of people make that mistake with sees when they're starting out, they plant them too deep. With peas because it's such a large seed, it's got that power to grow through a few inches of soil.

MG: I hope you've inspired people to take this on. It's not as difficult, perhaps as people might believe. And the benefits, when you're eating your own food, it's a remarkable thing. Natalie, thank you.

NATALIE GOUGEN: Thank you.

MG: Natalie Gougen teaches and works with the Garden Cities Project in Moncton, New Brunswick. Are you growing things? Are you finding that you have a pandemic victory garden underway? Maybe it's nothing special that you garden every year or maybe you're somebody who has taken Natalie's advice and thought, you know what, I'm going to try this because I have time on my hands and I'm worried about food security. How is your garden growing? What are you planting this year? You can let us know through the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. And if you're taking photos, as we gardeners often do of the things you're growing, you can share them with us on Facebook and on Twitter. Just look for @TheCurrentCBC.

It's time for a harm-reduction approach says Andre Picard

Guests: Andre Picard

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Zoom meetings, Microsoft teams, Google classroom. Terms that many of us were not familiar with a couple of months ago. That has all changed as families juggle work, online, school and just trying to survive at all. Parents in British Columbia and Quebec could get a bit of relief as schools start to reopen. New Brunswick is beginning to open daycares today. P.E.I. later this week. Ontario's plan when it comes to school and daycares will be announced later on today. Andre Picard has been watching all of this. He is The Globe and Mail's health columnist. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MG: Just quickly on the travel thing, do you think there's any reality in which Canadians would go for ankle bracelets if that meant that the borders could be reopened and international travel could resume?

ANDRE PICARD: Well I think maybe at airports it might work. And there's no question we don't make enough use of technology. So I think there's something to be done there. The bigger difficulty for Canada, of course, is we have this massive open border with the U.S., which is a much more significant challenge than any international travel has been. So maybe, but I think very limited ability to do that.

MG: The other issue is just around testing where there's a story this morning in our news that tests in Ontario are being redone. People are being retested because the initial tests expired before they were ever processed. Why can't we get this testing piece right?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, that's going to be the big question when we do our predictable inquiry is we've really botched testing in a large part of the country. It's not not clear why. But I think a lot of it just has to do with organisation. We constantly come back to this, comparing Ontario and B.C. and the differences. B.C. is organized and Ontario is disorganized structurally. So I think there's some really fundamental issues that have all these consequences and we see it time and time again with testing.

MG: Let's talk about B.C.. What do you make of British Columbia's plan to reopen schools? Last week, you were saying that it was a mistake for Quebec to move in that direction. What do you make of what B.C. is doing?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, very different circumstances. So BC's curve has flattened. It's maybe even falling a bit. Very small, I think there's only nine cases yesterday in B.C. So a very different environment than Quebec, where there is still quite a raging outbreak on the island of Montreal. Different circumstances. Sorry? Go ahead.

MG: What do you think is going to happen in Ontario? I mean, again, if you take a look at different circumstances, Ontario continues not to meet the level that the premier here had set, but there will be some sort of announcement today around schools.

ANDRE PICARD: Yes. So I think what we're going to see is maybe something more B.C. wise. I think what B.C. did that was smart is they made clear, you know, it's not mandatory. And they essentially said this is an experiment. If parents want to send back if they really need to help, we're going to help them out by opening schools. So they can do like Quebec. Quebec kind of pretended it's gonna be back to school as normal. We're going to be doing teaching. B.C. is essentially saying, listen, this is going to be a relief style for parents and we're going to use it to figure out is there spread among children. So it's very different when you say it's a study and it's a relief valve. It's very different than saying we're having the school year and we're trying to catch up. Those are not the same thing. And I think it'd be interesting to see what Ontario does. I think they're going to want to do some reopening because there are parents that really need help, but I think we have to accept this school year is toast. Any version of, you know, not mandatory school means that we're not finishing the school year. So let's figure out how to make schools useful to parents and safe for children. Now, that's the challenge.

MG: What about summer camps? Again, if you want to reopen an economy, kids are going to need to go somewhere, so parents can go back to work. Should we be looking at summer camps reopening across this country?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think that we want kids to be outside. It's one of the safest places to be. The difficulty is going to be the sleeping arrangements. But I do see some form of summer camps opening up. I think they're going to have to have testing. You could probably have a summer camp now in B.C. where it's organised. I'm not sure if you could do it in Ontario. If you're going to have to be able to test every kid, monitor them closely. Maybe not have four in the bunkhouse, maybe two you know six feet apart. So there's going to be different rules if we have camp, but I think it would be a good step forward to have some version of summer camp.

MG: Not just for parents, but also for kids. Kids have been through a lot over the last several months. What would it mean for kids, do you think, to have a camp to go to?

ANDRE PICARD: Oh it's mostly for kids. I think this need to get back to a so-called normal life. It'll never be the same as before, but I think kids really need this for their mental health, for their physical health, developmental issues. Just seeing their friends, you know, we're social beasts. People are no more so than children. I think getting this stuff back one step at a time is really important.

MG: You wrote that these are your words, "the coronavirus is here to stay. We need to find the pandemic version of safer sex" what do you mean by that?

ANDRE PICARD: Well it's this harm reduction philosophy. So we're familiar with that terminology, with drug use, with sex and AIDS. And that's how we have to look at it. Back, this concept was developed back in the early days of AIDS where people said AIDS came along. People were much more terrified of AIDS than they are of coronavirus today. We forget that. But it was like do we all have to have stop having sex? What will happen? And this notion developed that, well, that's not realistic. People aren't going to stop having sex. They're not going to stay home forever. So what's the in-between? Well, it's safer sex. It's finding a way to protect yourself with AIDS and with the use of condoms, promoting condoms. With coronaviruses, it's well, if you go out, keep your group small, keep socially distance, get tested regularly. Another mantra from the AIDS era. So there's all these lessons that we can learn from other pandemics that we can apply to. And it's about, you know, there's no risk free existence. We take risks every day. I live in Montreal every time I cross the street. It's a great risk. The way people drive here. So we we all have these risks that we have to minimise. Look, both ways when you cross the street to use a condom for sex. And this is how we have to approach life with the coronavirus. How can we minimixe the harms, but not make them disappear completely?

MG: Can that be applied to long term care facilities as well? The idea of harm reduction, you've talked about ending the lockdown on long term care facilities so that people can visit loved ones. Should we apply the harm reduction philosophy there as well?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, absolutely. And I think what's important is not so much visitors, but caregivers. A lot of people care for their loved ones in homes. You know, 8, 10, 12 hours a day. There's not very much staff there. We've know we've learned this in a brutal way, but this having the caregivers who really know how to care for their loved ones, they shouldn't have been locked out for very long in the first place. It's become I wrote this the other day. I think this is verging on criminal denying people access to their loved ones with dementia, etc. who had no human contact aside from a guy bringing them their tray of meals three times a day. It had no contact for months now. And that's it's inhumane. So this notion that caregivers are visitors is simply not true. They're essential workers, they're essential family members to keep people healthy and alive.

MG: Last question in the remaining seconds that we have. As the health columnist, you no doubt watch the media conferences that the U.S. president delivers. Yesterday says that he is taking hydroxy chloroquine, which is an unproven drug, has all sorts of consequences and side effects. When you watch this, what goes through your mind?

ANDRE PICARD: I find it quite disturbing. I don't care what he does to his own body. People are free to do what they want. What concerns me is all the people with rheumatoid arthritis, with lupus who really need this drug to to live. The shortages are are severe already snd they're going to get worse if people start doing this quackery of taking an unproven drug. So I worry about the consequences on people who really need this drug.

MG: Andre, great to talk to you as always. And we will speak again. Thank you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

MG: Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail's health columnist, regular part of our ongoing COVID-19 coverage here at The Current. Well, coming up in our next half hour.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Her loss is a serious blow not only to our team, but to the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole.

MG: The loss, of course, is Captain Jenn Casey. She died in a crash of a snowbird plane on the weekend. A loss felt keenly by the military and those who knew her. We'll speak with a friend of Jenn Casey's coming up after the break. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current CBC Radio One.

[Music]

Remembering Captain Jenn Casey

Guests: Colleen Cosgrove

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. It was supposed to be a show to raise the spirits of Canadians in the midst of a pandemic, but on Sunday, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Operation Inspiration ended in disaster. One of the Snowbirds jets taking part in the demonstration flight crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot suffered what are being called non-life threatening injuries and Captain Jenn Casey, a public affairs officer with the Canadian Armed Forces, was killed. Colleen Cosgrove met Jenn Casey when they were university students in Halifax and is on the line with us now. Colleen, good morning.

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Good morning.

MG: I'm sorry for your loss.

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Thank you, I appreciate that.

MG: Tell me about the Jenn Casey you knew. What kind of person was she?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Yeah. She was a bright light, I know lots of people have used that phrase and it's just so, it's so true. She set the bar high. She inspired those around her to strive. She was always smiling. She had a huge, vivacious laugh that people were drawn to. I saw another J-school colleague say the same thing about her and it was, it's just so true. She did set the bar high for people and just she just naturally encouraged others to to rise up and then meet her there. And she she made everyone around her feel comfortable and loved and welcome.

MG: How did you meet her?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: We met, we were at Dalhousie together, and then we attended journalism school. Not at the same year, but we had that shared experience. We became close after getting to work together at the AUS basketball championships.We were young courtside reporters and we worked together. We realized we lived in the same downtown neighbourhood. So we and we had a lot of the same interests. So we just became close after that.

MG: Those are formative years when you're in university and just trying to figure out a career, what sticks out to you about your time together university?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: She was confident and she knew who she was. I always appreciated the fact that, you know, she was a girly girl and that she you know, she loved lipstick. I always remember her wearing red lipstick and and, you know, leaning into kind of the feminine side of things. But then she knew about UFC and she knew about, you know, the technical side of hockey and she knew sports. And she just kind of had both sides, which I always thought was really cool. And then she was confident in it as well. I just, yeah I thought she was cool drinking beer, watching hockey and sporting a red lip.

MG: You talked about her laugh and people have said in the last day or two, I mean, she's somebody who just lit up a room when she was there.

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Yeah, it's really true. She you know, when I think back to those early days covering those basketball tournament, they were long days. They were repetitive. It was kind of, you know, morning till night. And she always was she was focused. She was always, you know, excited to be there and wanting to do a good job. And I think and and cracking jokes and it could be early in the morning or late at night and she was just the same consistent, smiling, gracious, warm person. And people were really drawn to her. I think, you know, I know my experience and my memories are not unique at all. And so a lot of people are thankful to, you know, come in contact and and get to know Jenn, no matter how little or how much.

MG: How did your relationship and friendship develop over the years?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: It developed just over, you know, shared shared interests and things. We were both into music. We, you know, we ran together. We were into fitness together and then journalism as well. So just kind of kindred spirits in that way. And then distance, of course, as happens after we all move on from university happens, but we stayed in touch. And she was one of the first people who, she was the first person who I reached out to when I was able to move back to Halifax. And weeks later, when I did finally land in the city, she followed up and she made sure that, you know, did they have a realtor? Did I you know, what do I need? And we could get together? And when could we kind of, you know, relive some of those days from a few years prior?

MG: She eventually left journalism to join the military and become a public affairs officer. And people have said that she loved to tell the story, in particular of the snowbirds. And journalism at its heart is about telling stories. What do you think made her suited to that role that she took on?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: I think the show is fantastic on the role of a translator now that I think about it. You know, she was, this is what journalism is, right? To take kind of complicated things and and tell the story or tell a difficult story. I think she just really liked being part of you know the action. And yeah, I don't know for sure, but I know it looked like she was having the time of her life. And I've seen lots of her colleagues post that she was best in her class. So I think she just found her passion.

MG: How did you learn about what happened on Sunday?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: I got a text message from a colleague of mine who introduced us actually, and who brought us together for that basketball tournament. And so that's just kind of the moment that we sat side by side. And it was just that it was from that colleague who brought us together. And it was early. It was before things had been fully confirmed. And yeah so you're just kind of trying to breathe and be positive and wait for the official news. That was really difficult, of course.

MG: And would have even taking about over the last couple of days?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Trying to, you know, trying to hold onto those memories for sure. I have a couple of regrets in terms of, you know, I've been following her on Facebook and everything, you know, all social platforms and everything she'd been doing with the Snowbirds. And it was so cool. And I you know, I just wish I'd told her, you know, you're doing an awesome job. You know, we hadn't had close contact in the last couple months, but I just yeah, I really wish I would have said, you're kicking butt. You're doing a great thing for, you know, your country, the community right now with the operation that they were on. Yeah, I wish I told her that. And then I'm just as I said I was I'm trying to remember those memories of, you know, us dancing downtown when we were younger. Going to hockey games or just, you know, me trying to kind of, you know, live up and shine as bright as she could while as bright as she did as I sat beside her. She justm she made you happy when she was near you and you realize that, what am I sad about right now? I should be, look at Jenn, she's living life and loving life.

MG: You're in Halifax. And Nova Scotia has gone through a lot in the last couple of months. I mean, there's the shooting, there's the helicopter crash, there's COVID in what it's doing in long term care there. How are people in your province holding up through all of this?

COLLEEN COSGROVE: I think just okay. Like it's been a surreal few weeks here for sure. I think, you know, everyone's hearts are broken. It's two degrees, two to three degrees of separation here. So it really doesn't take long to find someone who's directly connected to any of these recent tragedies. I think people, myself, I feel a sense of that broader community support, knowing that there's, you know, an entire community grieving together. But it's hard and painful. I think a lot of us are hurting. And I know today with like you know, the loss of three young servicewomen with so much life ahead of them is really tough to accept. Jenn, Heidi and Abigail. Yeah, they were all role models for so many young girls. And it's just, it's so much loss for one place. It's difficult.

MG: I'm sorry for what you're going through. You've done a really great job in remembering your friend and that's all that a friend could ask for. So thank you.

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Yeah. Thank you for letting me share.

MG: Take care.

COLLEEN COSGROVE: Alright, bye bye.

MG: Colleen Cosgrove is a university friend of Captain Jenn Casey. Jenn Casey died in Sunday's crash of a Snowbirds jet in Kamloops, British Columbia.

[Music]

What this doctor hopes his own experience with a rare disease can teach us about COVID-19

Guests: David Fajgenbaum

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. The more you read, the more frightening it can get. Mounting evidence is showing that COVID-19 is more than a respiratory illness. It can also attack the major organs, causing strokes and kidney damage. Those kind of symptoms sound all too familiar to David Fajgenbaum. he's an immunologist and five-time survivor of Castleman Disease which causes similar symptoms known as cytokine storms. He wrote about discovering a treatment for his own condition in his best-selling memoir called Chasing My Cure. He has now repurposed the lab that he founded at the University of Pennsylvania to search for effective treatments for COVID-19 and he joins us now. Dr. David Fajgenbaum, good morning.

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

MG: Thanks for joining us. What do you see as the similarities between your own condition, Castleman Disease and COVID-19?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: So both diseases involve the immune system becoming hyper activated and then, rather than calming down like it's supposed to once the virus is cleared, in COVID-19, patients get this cytokine storm like you mentioned, where actually it's the immune system that is attacking the vital organs and causing problems. It's an overactive response and that's what we have to control.

MG: What are cytokine storms? I've read about this is in some ways your immune system kind of overreacts almost. Is that what it is?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: That's exactly right. So cytokines are produced by the cells of the immune system and they're ways that immune cells can communicate with one another. And they're also ways that immune system can can kill things like bad viruses and bacteria. But unfortunately, when the immune system turns on in an attempt to fight off viruses or in Castleman Disease turns on other reason, sometimes it will spiral out of control and more cytokines with more cytokines. And unfortunately, as the levels of these cytokines go up, you feel more and more sick and then your vital organs begin to shut down. And so what initially started out as a good thing to control the virus actually quickly turns into a really bad thing. And there's a lot of collatera damage.

MG: And we have no idea as to why this happens?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: We don't. So some people, as you know, will get COVID-19 and be asymptomatic, whereas others will get COVID-19 and get really, really sick and even die from the cytokine storm. And so we haven't yet figured out why some people have an appropriate response to the virus and other people get really sick. But this is something that my lab has been studying for several years based on my own personal journey.

MG: You've lived through this. What does it feel like when you are in the midst of one of these cytokine storms?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: It's really, really difficult. So when you get a cold or the flu and you feel unwell, we often think it's the cold or the flu that makes us feel unwell. But we actually feel unwell because of all of the cytokines that our immune system is producing to fight off that virus. And so if you can imagine how you felt in the past with previous illnesses, imagine multiplying at times one hundred or a thousand. You feel so fatigued. And then the real problem is that when your organs start to shut down, your liver, your kidneys, your bone marrow, your heart, your lungs begin to shut down, and you end up having this unfortunately overwhelming sensation of pain because fluid goes in places that it shouldn't go into. And in my case, my kidneys shut down and that caused me to be very, very confused. So I actually didn't even know what was going on at the time.

MG: When did this first happened to you?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: I became ill when I was a third year medical student. I was training to become an oncologist in memory of my mum, who had passed away just a few years before from cancer. And out of nowhere, I became deathly ill. I was admitted to the hospital then the ICU, a retinal haemorrhage, made me blind in my left eye, and it took eleven weeks to make the diagnosis. They finally made the diagnosis within about one day of having my last rites read to me because the doctors didn't think that I would survive. And thankfully, with that diagnosis came chemotherapy and they started treating my disease, Castleman Disease. And I survived, but unfortunately, I went on to have four life-threatening relapses.

MG: And at this, I mean, you're like a young, healthy guy. They called you "the beast," right?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: That's right. I played American football in college and I was totally healthy and out of nowhere, just as you said, kind of the same way that COVID-19 hits people kind of out of nowhere. And you don't know why some people get so sick and others don't. And so, yeah, I nearly died back in November 2010. I've considered that moment that I had my last rites read to me to be the start of my overtime. Time that I didn't think I would have the time where every second really counts and I try to make the most of every second.

MG: You become your own test subject for a drug to try to treat this. Tell me about that process and what was the drug?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: That's right. So after I nearly died the first time I had multiple relapses and by the third time I was started on an experimental drug that we all hoped would keep me in remission. Unfortunately, about a year later, I relapsed on the only drug in development for a disease. I was back in ICU. All of my organs were shutting down again, just like we're seeing in these really sick COVID-19 patients. And I had a conversation with my doctor where I asked him, I said, well, what other drugs are there out there? What other leads are there any explained to me that there were no leads and there were no more options and that I was truly out of options. And so I promised my dad, my sisters and my girlfriend that I would dedicate the rest of my life, however long that may be, to trying to identify something that could save my life. And I started a foundation called the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, and then I started conducting laboratory research. I tried to dive into research into my disease. And unfortunately, I relapsed a year later and I didn't make enough progress in time. And I nearly died for the fifth time. But with that fifth episode, I was able to perform a series of experiments on my samples and find a drug that I thought maybe could save my life.

MG: And that drug was?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: Sirolimus. A drug that was developed 30 years ago for kidney transplantation and it had never been used before for Castleman disease. No one had ever thought to try it, but based on the experiments I ran, I thought that it might work. And I was certainly not confident. I didn't know that it would work, but I thought there was a chance and I basically had had no chance if I didn't get started on this drug. My fiancee and I at the time, we were set to get married in a few months and I think that that kind of gave me the courage. This goal of trying to make it to our wedding day gave me the courage to try this drug for the first time ever with anyone with my disease. And I started taking it and I made it to our wedding day and now it's been over six years that I've been in remission.

MG: And how's your health now? You say you're living in overtime. What is your health like now?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: It's very good. So I'm in overtime, I know that it's now I said over six years because I never say it's almost six and a half years. It's actually been 76 point about 4 months that I've been in remission. And I say that because I really know that I cannot round up. This is by far the longest remission I've been. And this drug has truly saved my life, but I don't know how long it'll work for. And so I can't round up, but I also don't round down because my team and I have worked really hard. I mentioned that this drug is helping me. But around that time, I decided to dedicate my life to conducting research into cytokine storm disorders like Castleman disease, like COVID-19, to understand why the immune system does this and to figure out better ways to treat it. So even though this is really about chasing my cure now, it's really been about chasing many more people's cures.

MG: When did you start to connect the dots between what you had gone through and COVID-19? At what point in this pandemic did that light bulb go off?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: It went off pretty early. Back in maybe about three months ago, reports started coming out that these cytokines were really important in COVID-19, in particular, one cytokine called Interleukin- 6. And there was even a Castleman Disease drug that was tried in a number of patients in China with COVID-19, and it seemed to work pretty well in that first trial. And so I found myself I was, it was before things went on, locked down here and I found this. I was driving down to see my family. And I was hoping and praying that some researcher somewhere would follow our blueprint of how we basically did research into Castleman disease, found an existing drug, repurposed it, and now we're giving it to other patients. And I thought to myself, I really hope someone follows that blueprint doing the work, identify a drug to repurpose and then start testing it in trials. And then about a minute later, I realised that I needed to stop hoping and start acting. This is a central principle in my book, Chasing My Cure is that we need to go from hoping to acting. And so I stopped myself pretty quickly and I said, you know, you need to stop hoping for a lab to do this. You need to do it. And so so I decided that I would I would take this on. And we launched a project called the Corona Project that we've been working on for the last three months.

MG: What's happening in that project? What are you doing in your lab? I mean, maybe remotely or virtually, but there's work that's happening there now.

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: That's right. So it's all about drug repurposing. It's about the concept of taking drugs that already exist and testing them on COVID-19 and systematically tracking when they are given to COVID-19 patients. I'm literally alive today talking to you because of a drug that no one ever thought to try against Castleman Disease and no one ever thought would have worked. So our lab and what we're working on is figuring out what drugs are likely to work and when they are given, let's track all the data we can on how well that drug works. And so we're managing a data repository that is free and open access to anyone who wants to access it over tracking every drug that's been given to every COVID patient we can get our hands on their data. We now have over 15000 patients in this repository, and, amazingly, 150 different drugs have already been tried on COVID-19 patients. Of course, in the news we've heard about a handful of those drugs that have really made the headlines and that are really promising and many of us are very excited about. But there are many more that have been tried as well.

MG: What are you most excited about? Because that people are obviously, you know, gunning for a vaccine, but in the time between now and then or if there is a vaccine that's ever developed, there is this repurposing that's going on. So what are you most excited about?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: I think that well, maybe before I say what I'm most excited and I'll say that I think that what's become very clear from our data is that this disease is a very heterogeneous meaning patients present it in a variety of ways. And it looks like unfortunately there isn't likely to be one drug that's going to fix every one. It's more likely that depending on your subtype or depending on your presentation, that one drug might be better than another drug. And so with that in mind, we're focusing the most on those patients that are had the most deadly version of COVID-19, the people with this so-called cytokine storm. And so among people with the cytokine storm, this one drug called Drug, and another drug called Cetuximab, that target Interleukin-6, this important cytokine, they seem to be have some really promising data. Now, these drugs are not likely to help people who have mild symptoms, are not likely to help people who have a weak immune system. They really help the people that are most at risk of dying in the ICU. And in my opinion, those are the most important patients for us to identify drugs for.

MG: Thoughts on the U.S. president and hydroxychloroquine? He has been talking about this, it seems like, for months and then last night announces that he's actually been taking this unproven treatment with all sorts of potential side effects for the last week and a bit.

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: Yeah, I was very optimistic when I first saw the early reports, about hydroxychloroquine. I think all of us want treatments and cures for this disease, no matter who we are. But as more and more data have come out about hydroxychloroquine. It's become more clear that it does not seem to be nearly as effective as initially hoped for and it seems to be much more dangerous, especially when combined with the azithromycin than we initially hoped for. So I think that the emerging data really calls into question, you know, why it would make sense, especially in a prophylactic setting in prevention. But it's the data even isn't as supportive for it any longer, but we're obviously keeping a really close eye on it.

MG: What is it like to be part of the science that seems to be moving at a blinding pace? I mean, there's this sense of we've been talking about this for months, the sense of collaboration out of silos, people working together. But also there is a propulsion and a velocity to the science that I think is surprising to a lot of people. What's it like to be in the middle of that?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: You're absolutely right. It's it's dizzying how fast things are moving, what we think. One day, two days later, we find out something different. So it's dizzying. I will say that studying rare diseases like Castleman disease and being in this rare disease world for the last decade, I've gotten very used to uncertainty and I've gotten very used to making decisions and doing things based on limited data, which is what unfortunately the rare disease community, we are always dealing with. It's not as many doctors and researchers aren't used to this sort of sense of of of uncertainty as we are in the rare disease space. But the difference is, is that there's uncertainty in rare disease, but it moves really slowly. Here you've got uncertainty and fear moving really quickly, which I think is a really tough and potentially dangerous combination. when you're making decisions based off limited data and you're not just making them every few months, but you're making them every every few hours.

MG: People have said that that uncertainty is going to change. They practically will change timelines and change how decisions are made. When we're talking about a vaccine and developing a vaccine that as a world, we don't have the time to play out the normal steps that we might take in terms of testing, in terms of development, that if there are, you know, encouraging signs, people are going to have to accelerate things. How concerned are you about that?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: I certainly am concerned. I think that you're absolutely right. There is a real risk that we're going to move too quickly. What I'm hopeful about when it comes to a vaccine is that the typical timeline for vaccine development is based on the assumption that a handful of players begin early on working on vaccines, that there's a limited or maybe almost a fixed investment of money over a period of time. What I'm hopeful about is that that typical investment that usually gets placed over, let's say, five or ten years is all getting put upfront into the first year, and there are dozens of players. And so what I've hopeful that is that though the overall timeline, we're hoping to be shorter. I'm hopeful that because we're putting in the investment so heavy upfront and because there's so many shots on goal that we will have a record time of getting towards a safe and also effective vaccine.

MG: This is a really anxious time for all of us. And I just wondered in the last couple of minutes that we have, if I could ask you just about living with uncertainty. You've talked about, you know, nearly dying a number of times, being read your last rites. What has living through uncertainty taught you about the anxiety that we are all experiencing right now?

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: I think that the analogy I mentioned earlier of overtime, I think is fitting here in a sporting event overtime as extra time that you didn't think you'd have, but every second is very precious. You can make a mistake in the first quarter of the game and you can make up for it in overtime. You make a mistake. The game's over. And so that can be really scary. I think that all of us are feeling this, oh my gosh, COVID could affect us or someone we love. And that can be very scary. But what I've learned and I talked about, I'm in remission and I keep track fractions of months of my remission. And I think that for me, what I've learned is that it can be very scary. And it is it's certainly scary. But it also it can be very clarifying and you can get clarity around what's important in life, because when the clock is ticking it over time, you're not focussed on anything except for the task at hand. And for us with facing COVID-19, I think that for many of us, we've been able to focus on the people that we love, the things we love to do on a day-To-Day basis, whether it's work or outside of work. But it's about having clay. I think he can create clarity around the most important things. I think it also calls on all of us to both look for silver linings to say, you know what, positive companies, but also to try to create silver linings. This is something that I learned from my mum when she was sick, is that we shouldn't just say, OK, this really bad thing happened. Let me find something that was good during a really bad thing. We should actually ask ourselves, what can we do today to make things better for someone else or for ourselves to create a silver lining in the midst of a really tough time?

MG: It's hard to see sometimes, but as you say, it can be a clarifying moment.

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: That's exactly right, and I think that these are the kinds of things that unfortunately I wish I hadn't gone through. Having my last rites read to me and nearly die four more times, but these sort of lessons that came out from that are lessons that I feel are so relevant right now and so important, maybe not even right now, but just to the world. And why I'm trying to raise awareness about chasing my cure and just this effort that I've gone through to try to find a drug for myself and also to just learn these basic lessons.

MG: I've really enjoyed our conversation. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

DAVID FAJGENBAUM: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

MG: Dr. David Fajgenbaum is an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the best-selling memoir Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action.

Closing with Tom Power

Guests: Tom Power

MG: That's it for The Current for today. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's Q, Tom Power is the host. Hello, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, how are you?

MG: Well, you know, sometimes you ever find that you get obsessed with a song?

TOM POWER: Please do tell.

MG: I have listened to Under Pressure by Queen probably like 15 times in the last 12 hours. And I keep going through different versions of it. I don't know why. That's the moment that I'm in right now.

TOM POWER: Shall we do like a Rorschach test here and try to find out why?

MG: No, I just you know, the David Bowie, Annie Lennox version to me is the one that I've landed on, but that might change.

TOM POWER: And maybe we're all a little bit under pressure right now.

MG: You all right? Everything's okay with you?

TOM POWER: Yeah. Things are pretty good. I got a pretty exciting. Are you Tori Amos fan?

MG: Yes. She's Fascinating.

TOM POWER: Tori Amos is on the show today. She has a new book. She told me the story. I couldn't believe it. She was a kid. Her dad used to take her to these Washington, D.C. piano bars where she was this little kid. She played piano songs, requests for congressmen and senators who were doing backroom deals. So that completely informed her entire life. She talks about all the political moments, the letter to the songwriter that she became. I'm pretty excited about it.

MG: We will listen for her coming up. Thank you, Tom.

TOM POWER: Matt, what a joy. Take care. Stay safe. Stay alert.

MG: And you, Tom Power is the host of Q. That's coming up right after the CBC News here on your CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. That's The Current. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: theme]

May 19, 2020 episode transcript

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