Ep 119 This Podcast is Not Contagious

Craig and Stephanie beamed in Steven Hoffman, the Director of the Global Strategy Lab, a Professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at York University, and the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Population & Public Health. We do a deep dive into the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Steven discusses the significance of this novel virus and walks us through the global and national legal and policy response — this is very much a response that is supposed to be guided by law, and especially something most people have never heard of: the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (2005). Steven discusses why the evidence-based response to an outbreak is counterintuitive — travel bans are generally a bad idea. He grades the global response, and also the Canadian response to date. There is lot in this podcast, and it now more than a theoretical discussion given the trajectory of this outbreak.