The Decibel

African nations have a problem. They can’t get enough COVID-19 vaccine doses. Vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations and an underserved COVAX program – the one designed to make sure the developing world wasn’t left behind in the pandemic – have resulted in a slow vaccination rate for most of the continent. These global factors have also led to a menacing opportunity for the Delta variant to spread am...

The summer is half over, vaccination rates are rising, but we aren’t out of the pandemic woods yet. And since we last explored vaccine passports , the question of whether businesses can legitimately ask for proof of vaccination to enter – whether it’s a restaurant or a sports arena – has only become more fraught. Restaurateur Jacob Wharton-Shukster tells us what happened when he announced that an...

To keep their edge after a fantastic showing at the 2016 Rio Olympics , Swimming Canada got serious about their data-mining mission. They tracked all kinds of metrics to really understand their swimmers’ performance. Data analysis can show you how to shave a fraction of a second off a race time and, in some cases, that can mean the difference between a gold and silver medal. Grant Robertson , a se...

After the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent swell of Black Lives Matter protests, companies rushed to declare their alliance to the cause of fighting anti-Black racism in the workplace. In Canada, corporate leader Wes Hall designed the BlackNorth Initiative , wherein CEOs pledged to not only promote diversity, but actually hire, retain and promote Black talent. Initially, 209 companies si...

A growing number of nurses are leaving hospitals . The relentless workload, the crushing experience of watching so many people get very sick from the novel coronavirus and die, and the increasingly short-staffed nature of many intensive care units has created an untenable situation for many nurses across the country. And this is having an impact on hospitals, with some emergency rooms having to cl...

As the U.S. continues to pull its troops out of Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of fighting, the Taliban is taking back more and more territory. This has left Afghan nationals who worked for foreign governments feeling more and more unsafe and now they want to leave. A lot of countries have specific programs for current and former employees who want to relocate, but Canada hasn’t unveiled the de...

Ontario movie theatres will reopen on July 16th. For some – like in the Greater Toronto Area – it’ll be for the first time in about nine months. And while many theatres across the country reopened earlier, Ontario represents a big chunk of the Canadian box office, which has been hurt badly not only by lockdowns and public health restrictions, but also the rise of streaming services like Netflix, A...

Phone technology has evolved at an incredible pace, from the first cellphone in the 1980s, to the sophisticated computers we call smartphones in our pockets now. But some of the most important calls we make are to 9-1-1 in an emergency. And the system that 9-1-1 centres run hasn’t kept up. The Globe’s telecom reporter Alexandra Posadzki tells us that there’s a move to introduce “next-generation 9-...

Events in Haiti have been unfolding quickly following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in his Port-au-Prince home on July 7. In the past week there has been news of arrests of mercenaries, a siege in the country’s Taiwanese embassy and the alleged involvement of a doctor in the murder. But if you look back at Haiti’s history , a lot of the political turmoil is tied into all the...

Can racism cause schizophrenia? It’s an area of mental health research that has been ongoing for decades and over time, researchers are increasingly finding that having a darker skin colour than your neighbours does seem to have an effect. But just how much and how that alters your brain chemistry is difficult to tease apart due to the complexities of schizophrenia as a disease. Erin Anderssen, wh...

Lebanon’s financial crisis was only made worse last year when an explosion ripped through the port of its capital city, Beirut, killing more than 200 people. Now, people are left scrambling for basic medicine, gas and other necessities. The Globe’s senior international correspondent Mark MacKinnon is in Lebanon, and talks about what he has seen in Beirut’s largest hospital, how Lebanon has gotten...

Domestic vaccine passports offer one way of letting vaccinated people get back to normal life by giving them access to privileges non-vaccinated people wouldn’t have. But civil liberties advocates have been pushing back against the concept since the start of the pandemic, pointing to a number of equality and privacy concerns. Cara Zwibel is the director of the fundamental freedoms program at the C...

The village of Lytton, BC burned to the ground a day after hitting the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada, forcing residents to evacuate in as little as a few minutes. Investigators now believe the fire was caused by human activity . On today’s show, Globe environment reporter Kathryn Blaze Baum joins Tamara to share a conversation she’s had with one Lytton resident about the human toll o...

Soaring house prices have made it harder to afford a house in Canada than it’s been in three decades, with experts blaming everything from low interest rates to blind bidding to intergenerational wealth transfers. So how do you cool the housing market? Rachelle Younglai covers real estate for The Globe and Mail, and she’ll explain how we got here , why the measures taken by governments so far have...

Calls to reconsider the fireworks and celebrations of Canada Day have intensified as we approach the national holiday, in light of the announcements from B.C. and Saskatchewan First Nations that they’d located hundreds of unmarked graves where residential schools once stood. Crystal Fraser is assistant professor of history at the University of Alberta, and is Gwichyà Gwich’in, originally from Inuv...

New guidelines for people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 were published by the Public Health Agency of Canada last week, which now applies to over a quarter of people in Canada. So we asked Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard back on the show to lead us through what those guidelines mean, why they’re different from the provincial guidelines, and how to navigate them as the coun...

A lot of Canadians have pandemic-savings money to burn – and not many places to spend it. With travel, entertainment and even dining still severely limited, many have turned to recreational toys and home improvement projects, and then found out that in-demand items like bicycles and kayaks are sold out. Economics reporter Matt Lundy breaks down the demand side of the equation, talks about just-in-...

China is encouraging people to have up to three children in a bid to reverse the effects of its one-child policy, which has left the country with an aging population in need of workers to support them and the economy. But as Globe Asia correspondent Nathan Vanderklippe reports following his recent trip to the region , some Muslim Uyghurs of the western Xinjiang province are subject to different fa...

For Dr. Vett Lloyd, there really is nothing good about a tick. That’s why she studies them. After getting bit herself and developing Lyme disease, Dr. Lloyd made it her life’s work to understand these parasitic vectors to help others avoid these creatures and the potentially life-altering disease they can pass on. As we head off into nature this summer, the need for tick prevention is more urgent...

The head of the Public Health Agency of Canada defied an order of the House of Commons on Monday, refusing to provide unredacted documents about the dismissal of two scientists from Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory. Opposition members are hoping the documents will explain why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were fired from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Win...

Nearly 20 per cent of people in Canada have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 , making almost all of them immune to the virus. But how long will that immunity last? The answer to that question will dictate what the years ahead will look like for us as we fight to put the pandemic behind us. Globe and Mail science reporter Ivan Semeniuk on what scientists have learned about the way our bodies...

The genocide in Rwanda shocked the world in 1994, and since then the country has been praised for its recovery. But the trial of Paul Rusesabagina – the central character in the Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda – is just the latest example of the Rwandan government cracking down on its dissidents, according to prominent human rights groups. The Globe’s Africa correspondent, Geoffrey York, has investig...

When Ethan Lou unexpectedly found himself quarantining with his uncle in Beijing, he learned that his uncle was trying to bridge the distance between him and his children living in the United States by sending them near-daily emails of advice. Lou adapted that writing into an essay, which he reads for us on the show. Correction : An earlier version of these show notes incorrectly said Ethan Lou an...

A defection. Calls for a leader’s resignation. Internal fighting. The Green Party of Canada is in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. On Friday, former Green MP Jenica Atwin crossed the floor to join the Liberals after a clash with her party over her position on the Israel-Palestine fighting. By Monday, some factions of the Greens were calling on their new leader, Annamie Paul, to step down...

Six months after former astronaut Julie Payette resigned from the role of Governor General of Canada, Trudeau has yet to find her permanent replacement. Globe political reporter Kristy Kirkup tells us what the job entails, why Julie Payette resigned, and who the government might choose next. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use...