Pandemics need leadership

Shortages are a serious worry during this coronavirus pandemic. Many places report not having enough medical equipment, hospital capacity, or even masks, gloves and gowns for doctors and nurses as the number of infections soar.

Such shortages allow fast-spreading viruses to overwhelm medical care facilities, allowing more people to die.

The greatest shortage in this crisis is political leadership. The world lacks the truly effective leadership that creates trust and inspires citizens to be strong, hopeful partners in overcoming the virus and its accompanying problems.

Some leaders have said the pandemic was unexpected, coming suddenly out of the blue. That is pure nonsense. Fifteen years ago, the SARS Commission investigating that terrifying outbreak warned the world it must ready itself for another.

Here’s what Spring of Fear, the Commission’s final report, said:

SARS “was a wake-up call and it holds the lessons we must learn, to protect ourselves against future similar outbreaks and against the global influenza pandemic predicted by so many scientists.”

Also, in late 2005 the book Killer Flu: The world on the brink of a pandemic, quoted various experts warning that another pandemic is overdue. (I was the author but this is not a sales pitch because the book is out of print).

So here we are in the midst of a pandemic, predicted by so many experts over the years. And, no government, despite the warnings, was well prepared for it. All, Canada included, took too long to recognize the seriousness of the virus and to take precautions.

The lack of political leadership has been stunning.

Look south where self-proclaimed “wartime president” Donald Trump, a sociopath as shallow and murky as a mud puddle, initially called the virus a hoax and has endangered lives with his falsehoods and unwillingness to listen to anyone smarter than himself.

Now he tweets that physical distancing guidelines might be relaxed to help the economy. Early this week U.S. infections had reached 40,000 people.

Save the economy, let the folks die!

Look east to Britain where Prime Minister Boris Johnson, another egomaniac, initially followed a “herd immunity” policy that would allow hundreds of thousands to get sick and build an acquired immunity that eventually would leave the virus nowhere to grow.

At the start of this week Britain had roughly 6,000 confirmed cases, increasing by 600 to 1,000 a day. The number of deaths was approaching 400.

Canada had roughly 1,400 confirmed cases at the start of the week, and federal leadership has been sort of okay. At least our numbers are not out of control yet, but less talk and more direct action would make us all feel better.

One leadership surprise, at least to me, has been Ontario Premier Doug Ford. He has been calm, but straightforward and firm, taking direct action and calling out businesses and individuals ignoring social distancing warnings.

Good leadership is rooted in integrity, which means being fair, reliable and willing to listen to and accept other opinions. Leaders cannot have integrity, and the qualities that accompany it, unless they understand and admit their own limitations.

Excellent leaders build strong teams of people who have competencies to supplement the leader’s limitations.

Overall, the world lacks the strong, effective leadership needed tackle burgeoning problems in these times of rapid change. The coronavirus will disappear eventually, only to be replaced by another new virus outbreak, and almost certainly an influenza pandemic.

Then there are the difficulties predicted to befall us because of pollution and climate change.

The world has proven time and again that it can overcome huge problems when it has excellent leadership – Churchillian type leadership.

We need to change how we seek out and choose potential excellent leaders. We have to stop selecting them through an outdated political party system. Toss aside political party loyalties and start choosing people who can achieve what the people really need, not what a party believes will win the next election.

In trench warfare it was the people in the trenches who won the battles, not the star-studded geniuses giving orders from afar.

So it will be with the coronavirus pandemic. The folks in the trenches – the doctors, nurses, medical technicians and other healthcare workers – can win this war.

We are fortunate to have them and should never forget to thank them.

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Learning to live with wolves

I am standing on the deck, drinking coffee and surveying the domain.

Down at the lake one of the young folks is on the family-built rink, stick-handling a tennis ball while the three family dogs chase it.

Farther out on the lake, about 200 yards beyond the rink, a four-legged animal comes into view. It isn’t one of our dogs.

I fetch binoculars and focus on the animal, trotting calmly, tail almost straight out, pointed ears erect. It is a charcoal black wolf.

It stops and stares intently at the dogs on the rink. Then it turns its gaze to the two-legged guy with the hockey stick and breaks into a trot towards the woods farther down the shore.

It is exciting to see a wolf in the wild and the sightings seem to becoming more common.

Some years back two grandkids playing in the snow watched two wolves pull down a deer on the ice-covered lake in front of our cottage. It was a savage scene but a valuable lesson about life and nature.

Last year, on a trail behind the cottage, I came face to face with a wolf. Normally it would have been well aware of my presence and stayed hidden but it was preoccupied chasing a snowshoe hare.

It ran right into my path, skidding to a stop in the snow and giving me a look of complete shock before bolting into a dense cedar patch.

It was amazing to be that close to a wolf and brought on a flood of memories about the controversy over whether wolves will kill and eat humans.

The patriarch of the newspaper where I got my first journalism job made a career promoting the theory that wolves will not eat people.

James. W. Curran was publisher of the Sault Ste. Marie Daily Star early in the 20^th century and promoted the surrounding Algoma District through his defence of wolves. The newspaper’s logo was a howling wolf and J.W. wrote two books about them, the most famous titled Wolves Don’t Bite.

J.W. offered a cash award to anyone who could prove he was “et by a wolf.” It was a publicity promotion and of course no one ever claimed the reward.

Sadly, there is evidence that wolves, given a safe opportunity and the right circumstances, will kill and eat a human.

A most recent Canadian case is documented in a newly-released book titled Cry Wolf: Inquest into the True Nature of a Predator by author Harold R. Johnson.

In November 2005, Kenton Carnegie, a geological engineering student from the University of Waterloo went for a walk at a mining camp in northern Saskatchewan.  He never returned because he was attacked and killed by wolves.

Wolf attacks are so rare and the subject so controversial that the Saskatchewan coroner’s office hired a wolf expert to investigate. The expert concluded that Kenton had been attacked and killed by a bear.

Kenton’s parents refused to accept that finding. It was November, with snow on the ground, bears presumably hibernating and wolf tracks near the body. They hired Harold Johnson, a Metis, Harvard Law graduate and retired Crown prosecutor to represent them at the coroner’s inquest.

The coroner’s jury, according to Johnson, “saw through the biased report” by the wolf expert and hearing expert evidence gathered by the parents and presented by Johnson, concluded that Kenton had been attacked and partially eaten by wolves.

Johnson later decided to write a book about the tragic case and it is an intriguing read.

Intriguing because Johnson included a theory raised by some Indigenous elders.

The theory is that wolves were almost eradicated in North America because humans hated them for killing wildlife like elk and caribou, and more importantly, livestock. Many places offered bounties and wolf populations crashed.

The Indigenous elder theory is that the wolves slaughtered through hateful attitudes and government bounties were older wolves, the ones that train the pups.

Now we see more wolves; wolves chasing snowmobiles, wolves coming into yards to attack dogs. Wolves that haven’t been taught fear by their elders.

Johnson writes that to survive in future, humans must save the ecosystem that includes wolves as well as humans. And, we must figure out how our two species can share the planet.

What the maple teaches us about living

I struggled this year with what to give up during Lent.

Lent is the roughly six-week period of penitential preparation leading into the Christian celebration of Easter. During Lent many Christians abstain from something they enjoy, as a way of focussing on the meaning of Easter.

Others, not necessarily following religious practices, find the Lenten period a good time to give up something as an exercise in self-control.

I considered giving up following the news, a daily habit that would take some effort to stop.

Then I read a piece by Margaret Renkl, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, who I enjoy because she is a fine writer with a good sense of the outdoors. Ms. Renkl also thought about giving up the news for Lent, then decided that responsible people in a democracy cannot afford the luxury of tuning out what is happening around them.

She is right, of course, but I had another reason for not giving up the news: I realized that it might be more of a comfort than a sacrifice. Not reading or hearing about the violence, political pandemonium and general mayhem infecting our world would be a relief.

Then came a thought offering a different approach. What if instead of giving up something, I took up something?

I needed to think about this so went to the best thinking place – the woods.

As I walked, a glimmer caught my eye. It came from a stand of maples off to my right and I walked over to investigate.

The glimmer was sunlight hitting drops of sap running down the bark of one maple. A wood pecker had broken the tree’s bark, causing it to bleed sap. Early March is the time that sap flows freely and can be tapped to collect and boil down into maple syrup.

Watching the sap drip, it occurred to me that these maples have lessons to offer about living.

Every year, no matter what convulsions rock the world, maples carry on doing what they have done for many hundreds of years. Wind storms might shake them, their branches might sag painfully under the weight of heavy snow. Temperatures might fluctuate crazily, warming and freezing their juices.

But when temperatures settle to about plus five Celsius during the day and minus five during the night, the sap runs and can be collected to boil down into the excellent food source of maple syrup and maple sugar.

Whatever happens the maple does nothing in haste. It persists, living and working quietly and patiently. When tapped, it releases its sap not in a quick stream but drop by drop.

The maple expects the same from those who harvest what it produces. It rejects the human world’s fast food thinking that encourages getting it all, and getting it quickly.

The maple never hurries. It takes five and a half days on average to give up the 40 gallons of sap needed to boil down to one gallon of maple syrup. It teaches that there are no high-tech solutions, just hard work and patience.

I decided to follow the example of the maple and take up practising patience for Lent and beyond. It will be a sacrifice; patience is not something that comes easy to most of us.

It has been said that patience has its limits and taken too far it can be considered cowardice. True enough in critical situations such as war and disease epidemics. Wait too long in battle before taking decisive action and the enemy will overrun you. Or in a health epidemic, delay action while waiting for more evidence and the disease runs unchecked and out of control.

But patience should not be seen as procrastination. It doesn’t mean never objecting to something, or simply giving up.

Patience is taking the time to think things through to try to understand others and how they feel. In other words, taking time to prepare yourself before making decisions.

Patience is difficult to practise because it is so much easier just to become frustrated and angry.

Getting anything done thoroughly and successfully takes time. Patience is the ability to recognize that.

The maple has practised patience for centuries. It is an essential reminder of how we should behave during stressful times.

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Lessons from the SARS epidemic

The bad boy virus COVID-19 is on Canada’s doorstep, trying to smash down the door.

The betting is that it will break through and spread into communities across the country. It has infected people in more than 60 countries and is about to become a global pandemic.

The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis of 2003-2004 gave us good lessons about how to handle infectious disease emergencies. I’m not certain how well we have learned from those lessons, but I guess we are about to find out.

One important lesson of SARS is: Keep the politicians out of this. Medical crises need to be handled by medical professionals basing decisions on science, not politicians acting on the whims and wishes of their parties and their supporters.

The SARS Commission, an independent panel established to investigate the introduction and spread of SARS, reported that crisis demonstrated the importance of “medical leadership that is free of bureaucratic and political pressure.”

“SARS showed us that while co-operation and teamwork are important, it is essential that one person be in overall charge of our public health defence against infectious outbreaks,” the commission said. “The Chief Medical Officer of Health should be in charge of public health emergency planning and public health emergency management.”

The United States has ignored this lesson, and that’s bad news for us because it is our closest neighbour.

President Donald Trump has appointed politically toxic Vice-President Mike Pence to lead that country’s efforts against the virus. Pence was governor of Indiana during the 2015 HIV epidemic there and was criticized for his handling of that health emergency. It took him two months to declare an emergency, then critics accused him of saying that prayer, not science, was the way to stop the epidemic.

Another key lesson from SARS was the importance of effective communication that is factual and undistorted: Effective information provided by medically-trained people whose jobs are to make decisions on rigorously tested evidence.

U.S.  medical authorities now are forbidden to make COVID-19 information public without having it vetted by Pence.

We individual citizens need to ignore misinformation campaigns, conspiracy theories and other factless information that floats through the airways as easily as the virus itself.

We all need to listen to our medical professionals, and not overreact. Fear tends to give people louder voices, and emptier heads.

For instance, don’t run out and stock up on medical masks. Masks bought off a drugstore shelf will not prevent you from getting the virus. They don’t stop tiny particles from being inhaled into the lungs.

Masks that do block tiny particles, such as the N95 respirators, often are in short supply during epidemics and should be reserved for medical workers.

The other thing about masks, even those effective in filtering tiny particles, is that you just can’t slap them on your face and be guaranteed safe. They need to be properly fitted by someone who knows what they are doing.

Health professionals say that the best way to prevent infection is to be vigorous in practising basic hygiene.

Wash your hands regularly, and properly. Most of us do that after using a washroom, but don’t after touching handrails or something else used by hundreds of other people.

Wearing rubber gloves is not recommended because they pick up germs just as your skin does. If you are washing your hands regularly, you don’t need gloves.

Health professionals also advise avoiding crowded places, and touching things that a lot of other people touch. Keep a few feet of distance from people who are coughing or sneezing.

The SARS Commission emphasized the precautionary principle: That where there is reasonable evidence of a public health threat we should not wait for absolute proof of the threat before taking action against it.

COVID-19 is a threat requiring individuals to take precautions – based on accurate medical information - in a calm and reasonable manner.

“Public co-operation is essential in the fight against any outbreak of infection,” the SARS Commission said in its final report . . . . “It was voluntary public co-operation, not legal orders or emergency powers, that won the fight against SARS.”

Public cooperation means voluntarily isolating yourself if you feel ill during this COVID-19 epidemic and checking with your healthcare professional sooner than later.

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