580 CFRA

The effort to restart and regenerate economies across the country is proving to be more art than science. It’s But it’s a choreography that leans towards improv over planning.  We’ve never faced this before.   So governements, public health authorities and business are having to process this as we go. And there’s only one opportunity to do it right.   How do we do that?   Well, the Toronto Region Board of Trade has laid out a series of measures to help local economies re-open safely.   The report is called RE-IMAGINING RECOVERY….and we’ve assembled our Round Table to explore the ideas.   We are joined by Richard Joy Executive Director Urban Land Institute Toronto, Scott Beck President and CEO Tourism Toronto and Jan De Silva President and CEO Toronto Region Board of Trade  

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the areas of neglect and concern that have been hiding in plain view. That includes the matter of FOOD SECURITY. The coronavirus pandemic has only increased the pressure on an already pressured food bank network across Canada. FOOD SECURITY at the dinner table is one thing.   But what about the SECURITY of the FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN? How do we ensure the food we grow gets out of the ground from the farm, onto the truck, to your local grocer and to your front door in this age of COVID?   Keith Currie is the Vice President the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. He spoke to us from his office in Collingwood, Ontario  

In this second of two parts of the NEXT NORMAL, we continue our conversation with Professor Nikolai Petrovksy – the director of endocrinology at flinders medical centre with a conjoint position as professor of medicine at flinders university in Adelaide, Australia. He and his team of international researchers are on the forefront of the effort to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Petrovsky says he is "excited" by the vaccine test results from a colony of monkeys. It's a major step forward in the development in the fight against COVID-19 and he says it could mean human trials will begin before mid-summer. Petrovsky’s team is an international coalition of public and private sector contributors and none of them is pursuing this vaccine for profit. It may prove to be the NEXT NORMAL in vaccine research and development. Petrovsky says “I think (governments and public health authorities) are going to be amazed that this model actually does work….and I hope then that governments and global corporations realize this is the model of the future. It’s not massive pharma companies that take years to deliver and consume billions of dollars in doing so. If you can have a small, highly mobile, very fast team doing this hundreds of thousands or a few million dollars and deliver and even better product faster, why are you investing billions in these big corporations that really are dinosaurs when it comes to dealing with a pandemic.”   He expects there will be more than one successful vaccine in relatively short order. But the challenge will be effectively distributing doses around the world in a short period of time.

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky leads a team of researchers that is bound and determined to develop a vaccine to the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.   While that task is immediate and urgent, and his team isn’t the only one looking for the secret sauce to solving the pandemic, the structure of their consortium may well be the greater benefit if in fact they are successful. Petrovsky’s team is an international coalition of public and private sector contributors and none of them is pursuing this vaccine for profit.   That sets them apart from the research efforts being led by the US, UK and German governments. In this first of two parts of the NEXT NORMAL, you get a glimpse of the competitive proprietary approach to vaccine research and how that could affect some of the most vulnerable countries in the world.   Professor Petrovsky joined me from his office in Adelaide Australia at Flinders University.

Julie Marshal is with the World Food Project. She tells The NEXT NORMAL, as many as 300,000 people could die per day - over the next 3 months if WFP doesn't get the funding urgently need to reach people with humanitarian assistance. 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world, chronically hungry, and as the new Global Report on Food Crisis shows, there are a further 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That means 135 million people on earth are marching towards the brink of starvation. But now the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the Coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.  That’s a total of 265 million people.    

In this episode you will meet Dr. Sharon Burey. She is a Consultant Behavioural Pediatrician and the President of the Pediatricians Alliance of Ontario and she joins us from her office in Windsor, Ontario. Dr. Burey is particularly concerned about the lack of COVID-19 studies that include children in the research. She is also worried about current data that suggests there has been a steep falloff in regular vaccines for young kids.

In this episode you will meet Ujwal Arkalgud – a cultural anthropologist. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Motivbase. He and his team are studying how we are and will live in a world with covid-19.   He says as much as we may think changes are happening quickly, history says we are slow to embrace change even in the face of the most challenging times.   AND I’M ALWAYS INTERESTED IN HEARING FROM YOU. CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA @DAVETRAFFORD ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM AND @THEDAVETRAFFORD ON FACEBOOK.   THE NEXT NORMAL IS PRODUCED FOR iHEART RADIO CANADA BY iCONTACT PRODUCTIONS.

This is DAY 59   of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Here’s what you need to know on    Friday, May 8, 2020   <<<<>>>    We are winding down the COVID-19 Daily Podcast as of tomorrow, Friday, May 8th. But, we are going away. We’re going to shift direction.   These past seven weeks have been spent focused on the Outbreak of the coronavirus that brought us the COVID-19 pandemic and brought the world to its knees.   Now, as we begin to stand back up again, the over arching question has been “what’s next”?   What’s next for business, for jobs, for education, for families and our health and well being?   How will be live in this age of the COVID pandemic?   So, beginning Monday, May 11 we begin THE NEXT NORMAL. It will be 2 full months since the pandemic was declared and nearly four months since we saw our first case of the coronavirus in Canada on January 27th.   We will run three episodes a week – We’ll post them first thing in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.   And we’ll take a 100 thousand foot view of what’s on the horizon, what we should expect and how we will prepare for the next wave of this pandemic.   You need go nowhere. If you subscribe to the OUTBREAK Daily podcast, you’ll find THE NEXT NORMAL in the same podcast feed.   We’ve had nearly 170 thousand downloads since this show started 7 weeks ago, so we know there’s an appetite and demand for this on demand audio.   Thanks for listening, and thanks for the support… <<>>  In this final episode of the COVID-19 Daily Podcast we will talk to Bob Pickard at Signal Communications about the evolving narrative around leadership in this age and stage of COVID.   And we’ll also be joined by Jon Erlichman, host of The Open on BNN Bloomberg about today’s job loss announcement. Nearly 2 million Canadians lost their jobs in April.   <<<>>>    IF YOU HAVE A STORY ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE YOU WANT TO SHARE…send me an email. DAVE@DAVETRAFFORD.COM or connect with me on TWITTER @DaveTrafford.     DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWPOINTS EXPRESSED IN THIS PODCAST REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF THE HOST AND PARTICIPANTS AS OF THE DATE OF PUBLICATION AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE AND BEST PRACTICES BY LEADING MEDICAL AUTHORITIES AS THE INFORMATION SURROUNDING THE CURRENT CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING.    

This is DAY 58   of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Here’s what you need to know on  Thursday, May 7, 2020   <<<<>>>  We are winding down the COVID-19 Daily Podcast as of tomorrow, Friday, May 8th. But, we are going away. We’re going to shift direction.   These past seven weeks have been spent focused on the Outbreak of the coronavirus that brought us the COVID-19 pandemic and brought the world to its knees.   Now, as we begin to stand back up again, the over arching question has been “what’s next”?   What’s next for business, for jobs, for education, for families and our health and well being?   How will be live in this age of the COVID pandemic?   So, beginning Monday, May 11 we begin THE NEXT NORMAL. It will be 2 full months since the pandemic was declared and nearly four months since we saw our first case of the coronavirus in Canada on January 27th.   We will run three episodes a week – We’ll post them first thing in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.   And we’ll take a 100 thousand foot view of what’s on the horizon, what we should expect and how we will prepare for the next wave of this pandemic.   You need go nowhere. If you subscribe to the OUTBREAK Daily podcast, you’ll find THE NEXT NORMAL in the same podcast feed.   We’ve had nearly 170 thousand downloads since this show started 7 weeks ago, so we know there’s an appetite and demand for this on demand audio.   Thanks for listening, and thanks for the support…   Now…onto other news of the day..   <<>>  As economies begin to reopen at various paces around the world and leading economist expects to see a sharp recovery bounce in the last quarter of 2020. But will that be enough to lift us out of the crisis we’re in right now? Nouriel Roubini is an NYU professor and a former White House economist in the Clinton administration. He predicted the 2009 financial crisis three years before it happened. His outlook isn’t all that promising. He told BNN Bloomberg’s Amanda Lang he expects a Greater Global Depression before the end of this decade.   <<>>    But if we’ve got this kind of warning and timeline, is there anything governments and world banks should be doing now to prevent or mitigate a Depression?   <<>>  On the Canadian economy, Roubini notes the country's position as fundamentally resilient and diversified, but not immune to the drop in oil prices.    <<>>  In Washington, Associate Press is reporting the White House has shelved CDC guidelines for re-opening the US economy. It was a 17 page report intended to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen.   A member of the U.S. Navy who serves as one of President Donald Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus. The White House says the president has been tested for the virus.   In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that an agreement has been reached with all provinces and territories to top up the wages of some essential front-line workers   <<>>    Throughout this pandemic, we have heard inspired and inspiring stories about individuals and organizations pivoting to help those in need during the lockdown. We’ll hear from a man in Toronto who stepped up to help front line health care workers. Matthew Lombardi started a not for profit organization called Grocery Hero. He’s coming up later in the podcast.   Privacy Commissioners across the country are warning government that choose to use smartphone data to trace the movements of Canadians during the COVID-19 crisis should handle personal information with care.   It wasn’t quite the high tech phone tracing, but the location of one person involved in the tele-conference hearing before the US Supreme Court became clear during the call. Everything was proceeding just fine, until there was the unexpected sound of a toilet flushing.   <<>>    IF YOU HAVE A STORY ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE YOU WANT TO SHARE…send me an email. DAVE@DAVETRAFFORD.COM or connect with me on TWITTER @DaveTrafford.   DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWPOINTS EXPRESSED IN THIS PODCAST REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF THE HOST AND PARTICIPANTS AS OF THE DATE OF PUBLICATION AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE AND BEST PRACTICES BY LEADING MEDICAL AUTHORITIES AS THE INFORMATION SURROUNDING THE CURRENT CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING.