Change accelerator: COVID-19
“Our business is at an inflection point. We can continue down the path we’ve been on … or we can make the significant and difficult changes necessary, ” said Gavin Hattersley, Molson Coors CEO to The Globe and Mail recently, and so it may be with health care after COVID-19. Many crises have been predicted to […]
Care aides are the real heroes
There will be many heroes in the coming days, some already rising to the challenge of COVID-19, including nurses, doctors, paramedics, and hospital cleaners, as well as delivery drivers, grocery store workers, and warehouse staff. But there’s one critical occupation that is routinely forgotten when we champion the heroes: nursing home care aides who stayed […]
Who gets left behind when we are forced to triage scarce health resources?
With rapidly rising infection rates due to COVID19, provincial and territorial health care officials are bracing themselves for situations of extreme shortage of critical care beds, medical equipment and personnel necessary to treat the sickest of the sick in hospital settings. In a pandemic setting, triage is the allocation of treatment and scarce resources to […]
Harnessing genomic data key to fight against COVID-19 pandemic
A virus is a confounding thing. A short stretch of nucleic acid bundled inside a protein capsule. That’s it. And yet, that tiny bundle contains all sorts of information, which ultimately can tell us how a virus operates, how it spreads, and how it might be stopped. Combine that with a deeper understanding of how […]
Will Trump lose the battle but win the war?
OAKVILLE, ONT.—Conventional punditry wisdom seems to be that U.S. President Donald Trump can’t possibly get re-elected in 2020. Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin, for instance, likely spoke for many when he recently noted that, “Trump is running with a collapsed economy. … In addition, with the United States having suffered more losses in the […]
Planning for Canadian foreign and trade policy in post-COVID world
CALGARY—The actors and processes in the international system have undergone significant change over the last five years, including Brexit, the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, the rise of populism in Western democracies, the relative decline of the United States and rise of powers like China and Russia. In fact, there is an overall realignment […]
Why Canada can’t afford to abandon basic research
Canada appears to be the only country to cancel its competitions for funding in health research. Today, basic science may be essential to understanding how viruses evolve and cause the devastating pandemic that is currently crippling Canada and much of the world. Most of what we know about viruses is from basic research. Canada’s top […]
Feds need to step up support for airports as it copes with revenue shortfalls
The travel bans and precautionary measures that governments have in place are designed to help to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and form part of a global effort to flatten the curve and to prevent further outbreaks from overwhelming hospitals. A pressing concern for many airports, along with others in the global and Canadian aviation […]
Reckoning with the WHO’s handling of health crises
On April 16, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would halt funding for the World Health Organization. Many believe that this is a ploy to distract from American struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. But a sober look at the WHO reveals that the organization is rife with alleged corruption, abetted apparent Chinese propaganda […]
House pandemic proceedings should be roadmap for the future
For better or for worse, there is finally an agreement for the House of Commons to have regular playdates for at least the next month of the coronavirus pandemic. On April 20, 37 MPs spaced themselves out in the House of Commons Chamber and voted on a government motion to adjourn the House until May […]
