Life Unmasked: Recent Episodes
CTV News
From lockdowns to renewed freedoms, how much has the COVID-19 pandemic messed everything up permanently? Life Unmasked looks ahead to the good times post-COVID but also dives into the things that will change forever. Most importantly – have we learned our lesson for next time?
The majority of Ontario’s pandemic restrictions have now been lifted and it seems, as politicians and health experts have predicted, the population is starting to “learn to live with COVID-19.”
But what does that really mean? Is Canada, or even Ontario, truly in a position to go about life as normal? What does this mean for those who are immunocompromised? Does this mean the pandemic is over?
On this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Dr. Peter Juni, the scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, about what it really means to “live with COVID-19.”
This is the last regularly scheduled episode of Life Unmasked, but the podcast team will be back to address your questions should there be a significant development in the pandemic.
Old episodes of Life Unmasked can be found on the iHeart radio app and other podcast streaming platforms. If you have a question about COVID-19 or want to reach the team, send an email to lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
For those especially vulnerable to COVID-19, new antiviral and antibody treatments can make a real difference in alleviating the most severe symptoms associated with the disease.
Over the past year, multiple treatments for the novel coronavirus have been developed and approved for use—something experts have said is key to bringing this pandemic to an end.
In this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Josephs, as well as two nurses working to administer monoclonal antibodies to patients. The team explains what monoclonal antibodies are, how effective they can be and why treatments such as this are so beneficial—not just for the patient but for the health-care system as a whole.
CTV News Toronto's podcast Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Canadians have heard it from health officials and politicians alike—it's time to start living with COVID-19.
But what does this mean? Is the pandemic over, and if not, when will it be?
An "endemic" is described—in its most simple definition—as a time in which there is constant presence of a virus, but it's not actively spreading.
While health officials in Canada have started to hint the country is approaching endemic rates of infection, other experts warn we may still be months away from achieving it.
On this week's episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with two such experts—an expert in immunology and a special advisor with the World Health Organization (WHO)—who caution that while Canada may be faring well, COVID-19 can't be considered endemic unless the majority of people on planet earth have been vaccinated.
CTV News Toronto's podcast Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
At the height of the pandemic, doctors were told to shift their approach to virtual care, performing basic appointments over the phone or in a video call. There were glitches and delays—but two years later and many offices have incorporated the tool into their practices.
In this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Dr. Adam Kassam, the president of the Ontario Medical Association, to find out how physicians were able to make the transition to virtual care, what it is best used for and what the challenges could be in the future.
The team also speaks with Daniel Warner, the CEO and co-founder of KixCare, a company that launched last summer and tailored its approach to pediatric healthcare.
Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app every Tuesday morning before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
More about KixCare: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook
In the summer of 2021, Ontario’s top doctor said the province could achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 when about 90 per cent of the eligible population was fully vaccinated.
More than six months later, about 89 per cent of residents over the age of 12 have received both doses of a vaccine—but with a new variant rapidly spreading through the population, does this matter?
On this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team asks a panel of experts about whether herd immunity is still possible and what role natural immunity will play in ending the pandemic.
During the panel, Professor of Immunology with the University of Toronto Tania Watts, Infectious Disease and Infection Control Physician Dr. Alon Vaisman and bio-ethicist Kerry Bowman also discuss whether or not the idea of immunity should be approached from a global perspective rather than a local one.
Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app every Tuesday morning before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Find our guests here:
@Tania_WattsUofT @Alon_Vaisman
At the end of November 2021, the first case of the Omicron variant was identified in Canada. Since then, it has rapidly spread across the country—infecting tens of thousands of people per day in Ontario alone.
And yet, two months later, Canadians still have lots of questions when it comes to this new dominant strain of COVID-19.
On this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team brings in four experts to answer those questions and offer an insight into what this variant means for the pandemic. Is the Omicron variant really milder than the Delta variant? Are the symptoms different? Do vaccines work against it?
This week we're joined by infectious diseases specialists Dr. Susy Hota, Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, Dr. Zain Chagla and Dr. Isaac Bogoch to help answer your questions.
To contact our team, email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Follow the doctors on social media here:
https://twitter.com/HotaSusy
https://twitter.com/TorontoIDDoc
https://twitter.com/BogochIsaac
https://twitter.com/zchagla
It was mid-December when some of Ontario’s top doctors publicly told reporters that COVID-19 is airborne.
For nearly two years public health officials in Canada have shied away from using that term to describe the transmissibility of the novel coronavirus, focusing instead on preventing the disease from spreading via droplets.
In Life Unmasked’s first episode of 2022, the team speaks with two experts to find out what it actually means for a disease to be airborne.
Raymond Tellier, a medical microbiologist and associate professor at McGill University, joins the team to run through the science behind droplets versus aerosols while Colleen Derkatch, an associate professor of rhetoric at Ryerson University, discusses why officials may have been hesitant to use the term “airborne” earlier.
Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app every Tuesday morning before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Just a month ago, most people in Ontario were under the impression they would be able to gather with their family and friends for the holidays without being too concerned about the risk of COVID-19 infection.
But the emergence of the new Omicron variant over the last few weeks has changed things, forcing families to choose who will be invited for dinner and who will not be.
But how do you navigate that conversation? Do you ask guests to show proof of vaccination prior to entering your household or do you trust visitors to do what they think is best? Is there a way to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe?
In this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Solarina Ho, a writer with CTVNews.ca, who dived into this topic with etiquette and health experts.
The team will be taking a short break for the holidays and will return in the new year. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
In the first year of the pandemic, tens of thousands of people lost their jobs as some Ontario businesses were shuttered and others were slapped with strict capacity limits.
But in 2021 there was a shift. As businesses reopened again, there were some people who decided not to return to their old positions. Others decided to make a change after a year of working during the pandemic, choosing to enter a new career or field of work.
On this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, two experts join the team to talk about what changed in those six months.
Brendon Bernard, a senior economist with Indeed, discusses what industries are hiring, what kind of jobs people are searching for and what employees are looking in terms of work-life balance. Following that Lynn Imai, a career counsellor with Canada Career Counselling, goes into more detail about what she calls ‘the big quit’ and why so many people started to reconsider their priorities during the pandemic.
The team also speaks with some listeners about why they decided to take a leap and change careers in the middle of a pandemic.
Life Unmasked airs every week first on iHeart Radio before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
It seemed like people flocked to Ontario's parks, beaches and trails in the summer of 2020 and 2021.
Sites at campgrounds filled up months earlier than normal, while photographs of overcrowded beaches flooded social media. After months in lockdown and being told only to leave your home for essential reasons, friends and family appeared to take advantage of the fact that outdoor gatherings were allowed.
In this episode of Life Unmasked, the team explores what made provincial parks and beaches so much more popular this year compared to previous years. Christopher Lemieux, associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, touches on the kind of impact an uptick in visitors can have on the environment, while Sarah McMichael-Chen, marketing specialist with Ontario Parks, discusses what people can expect in the summer of 2022.
Tens of thousands of people in Ontario alone have reported experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 weeks, sometimes months, after being diagnosed with the virus.
The symptoms can vary in severity and can include brain fog, anxiety, excessive fatigue, muscle pain, respiratory difficulties and chronic coughing—and for many, the road to recovery is long and frustrating.
In this week's episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Dr. Angela Cheung, the co-lead investigator of the Canadian COVID-19 Prospective Cohort Study (CANCOV), who talks about what she has seen through all four waves of the pandemic. The study has at least 17,000 participants.
Suzie Goulding, the founder of COVID Long Haulers Canada, also joins the team to talk about her experience with undiagnosed COVID-19 and how the country is not doing enough to support those with chronic symptoms.
Life Unmasked airs first on the iHeart app every Tuesday morning before becoming available on other streaming platforms. If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
In this week's episode of Life Unmasked, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore talks about why the province saw so few severe cases of influenza last year, why that should not deter people from getting the flu shot and whether a 'twindemic' is a serious possibility for 2021-2022.
Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control at the University Health Network, also joins the team to discuss how influenza is unpredictable, whether or not hospitals are prepared for a surge in patients and how the flu shot actually works.
Both guests also touch on why it's important to get both the COVID-19 vaccine and the flu shot—and that one will not protect against the other.
If you have a topic idea or question for the team, you can email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
You asked. We answered.
While more than 85 per cent of eligible Ontarians aged 12 and up have rolled up their sleeves to get the COVID-19 vaccine, many still remain hesitant to get the shot—especially people who are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant amid the pandemic.
About 66 per cent of pregnant people in Ontario are considered fully vaccinated as of Oct. 31, according to data ICES COVID-19 dashboard. This is despite the fact that pregnant people are classified by officials as being "highest-risk" when it comes to severe symptoms and hospitalization related to the novel coronavirus.
In the season 2 premiere of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with a panel of experts who answer some of the most common questions related to pregnancy and COVID-19, as well a questions from our listeners.
The guests—Victoria Male, an immunologist who specializes in pregnancy, science communicator Dr. Samantha Yammine and Chair of Family Medicine Obstetrics at St. Michael's Hospital Dr. Tali Bogler—talk about why pregnant people are at higher risk after contracting COVID-19, whether antibodies can be passed on to newborns and whether there are any safety concerns associated with getting the vaccine.
For more information on COVID-19 and the vaccine during pregnancy, visit these resources:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/prevention-risks/pregnancy-childbirth-newborn.htmlhttps://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization-vaccines/vaccination-pregnancy-covid-19.htmlhttps://www.bornontario.ca/en/pso/about-prenatal-screening/covid-19-and-pregnancy.aspxhttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.htmlhttps://www.ontario.ca/page/covid-19-vaccines-pregnancy
On this week’s episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with two journalists who stood on the sidelines of history, attending an Olympic Games without spectators and stringent COVID-19 protocols. First, CP24s Kayla-Marie Tracy talks about wrestling with whether or not to accept the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity while she was pregnant and what it was like covering her all-time favourite sport.
CTV News’ Joy Malbon then joins the team to talk about how different this year was from previous Olympics she’s attended, what the quarantine process was like and how the athletes “saved the day.”
This is Life Unmasked’s last episode of season 1. The podcast will return in a few weeks, airing first on the iHeart app before becoming available on other streaming platforms.
If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for season 2, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
For the first time, we're getting a really good idea of how much has changed when it comes to food insecurity thanks to the pandemic. People who never had to reach out for help prior to March 2020, suddenly found themselves as new clients at the Daily Bread Food Bank once lockdowns and economic devastation due to COVID-19 made its mark on Canada. There was a huge increase in demand at the Daily Bread during the pandemic, but it actually hasn't stopped. In fact, we might not have even seen the full extent of it yet. In this episode of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Talia Bronstein, VP of Research and Advocacy at the Daily Bread Food Bank, about how COVID-19 affected their operations and how communities rallied together to help those in need. The team also talks with a food bank client about her experience with COVID-19 and how the volunteers came to her rescue.
To donate to Daily Bread, you can visit their website https://www.dailybread.ca/.
To get in touch with our team, email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
It’s been a little more than a week since Canadians voted a Liberal minority government back into Parliament, marking an end to the country’s first—and hopefully only—pandemic-era election. With not much of a change in terms of representation in the House of Commons, what does this mean for the country’s COVID-19 action plan? What comes next in Canada’s fight against the virus?
In episode 13 of Life Unmasked, host Ashley Legassic speaks with political commentator Amanda Galbraith, as well as CTV Political Analyst and Former NDP Leader Tom Mulcair about how the pandemic influenced the election results and what happens next.
You can contact the team at lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination certificate program went into effect this week, prohibiting those who are not fully vaccinated from accessing certain non-essential services such as indoor dining and gyms.
As the program rolls out, many businesses still have questions and concerns about how it will work. Will employees be expected to play the role of bouncer? What is enforcement going to be like? How long will this program be in place for?
In episode 12 of Life Unmasked, the team speaks with Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, and Dan Kelly, President and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, about what this program means for Ontarians.
This week, we're sitting down with two experts who have become valued communicators during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Neuroscientist Samantha Yammine and Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch are here to answer all of your questions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines.
From long-term health impacts to questions around fertility, we tackle the concerns you may have.
Next week, on Sept. 22, vaccines will be mandatory for Ontario residents to enter some non-essential businesses, including indoor restaurants, gyms, movie theatres and large sport or concert venues.
If you have questions for the team, you can email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
You can follow Yammine on Twitter @heysciencesam and find Bogoch @BogochIsaac.
In this week's episode, host Ashley Legassic sits down for a one-on-one with Toronto Mayor John Tory.
They dissect the pandemic-specific programs Toronto rolled out, like CafeTO and ActiveTO. What will be here to stay, and what will go? How does Toronto plan on getting back on its feet financially?
We dive into all of this and more.
To reach out to the Life Unmasked team you can email us at lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Children haven’t physically been inside a classroom since mid-April when Ontario shuttered schools to in-person instruction as a result of rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
While many may be looking forward to a return to normalcy this year—there is a lot that parents and students need to be aware of before heading to school on that first day. What safety protocols are in place currently? What happens if there is a COVID-19 case at a school? Will kids need to play catchup when it comes to their studies?
In this week's episode of Life Unmasked, the team hopes to answer some of these questions with help from Dr. Lana Parker, Professor of Education at the University of Windsor and Ryan Bird, spokesperson for the Toronto District School Board.
To get in touch with the team you can email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Sometimes, it can feel like the COVID-19 pandemic will never end. Just when we're getting to a good point, the rug gets pulled out from under us: whether it's a new variant, a spike in cases, or lockdowns.
But the thing we have to remember is one day it will end. However, it brings up an important, and scary question — when will the next one hit?
In this episode of Life Unmasked, the team holds a panel with infectious diseases specialists Dr. Zain Chagla and Dr. Isaac Bogoch to predict how and when the next pandemic will start, and if COVID-19 was "the big one".
You can follow Dr. Chagla on Twitter @zchagla and Dr. Bogoch @BogochIsaac.
To get in touch with the team you can email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
As Canada enters the fourth wave of the pandemic, it’s hard not to focus on what was lost. For many, the last year and a half can only be described as a tragedy.
But for others, a little bit of comedy helped them get through those hard times.
Cue Stewart Reynolds—a.k.a. Brittlestar or “social media darling” as he describes himself—who is known for his comedic and family-friendly social media videos.
His video entitled “reasons to not wear a face mask,” posted on July 10 has been viewed more than 1.5 million times, and plenty of others made the rounds on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
You can follow Stewart on all social media platforms @Brittlestar, and visit his website below:
https://www.brittlestar.com/
If you have any questions or requests for the team, email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
In Episode 6 of Life Unmasked, the team looks into why so many people haven’t rolled up their sleeves yet to get the shot. With such extensive advertising and nudging by elected officials, is it a matter of hesitancy—or a matter of access? How many are self-proclaimed anti-vaxxers and how much of this vaccination gap has to do with a simple lack of communication?
Clinical Pharmacologist and founder of Unambiguous Science Sabina Vohra-Miller and chair of the Toronto Board of Health Joe Cressy join Life Unmasked to talk about what may be holding people back from getting the vaccine and what is being done locally to get shots into arms.
You can follow Sabina on Twitter at @SabiVM, and Joe at @joe_cressy.
If you have questions for the podcast team, or an idea for an episode, please email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
Weeks and months of speculation are starting to come to a head in Canada, with so many wondering — will a snap election be called this summer? Will we have to go to the polls during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Not only that — but we're less than a year out from the next provincial election in Ontario. How will the world of campaigning be impacted, and will voters consider this election as a pandemic response report card?
To break everything down, we have two of the best in the business. CTV Parliamentary reporter Annie Bergeron-Oliver fields questions around the speculation of a federal election, while CTV's Queen's Park Bureau Chief Colin D'Mello tells us what's in store provincially.
You can follow both of them at these handles: @AnnieClaireBO @ColinDMello
If you have an episode idea or a question for the team, email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
It was pretty common during the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to walk into a grocery store and see empty shelves—particularly in the toilet paper aisle.
Customers spent hours in lengthy lines just to get in to big box stores to stock up on necessary and not-so-necessary items alike, despite the fact that experts kept insisting there were no supply shortages. So why wouldn’t our brains listen?
In episode 4 of Life Unmasked, the team explores why we all felt the need to panic buy during the pandemic. Why was toilet paper the hot-ticket item when COVID-19 was not a gastrointestinal disease? Have our buying habits changed forever as a result?
We speak with @JonErlichman and @SteveJoordens.
Have questions you want the team to answer, or an idea for an episode? Email lifeunmasked@bellmedia.ca.
With so much up in the air at the start of the pandemic, a lot of us were left trying to digest every new restriction, rule, or shut down on our own. Enter - the TV doctor. We check in with medical experts who helped guide the ship during the pandemic, and make everything more digestible for the public.
This episode features Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md), Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti (@TorontoIDDoc), and Dr. Susy Hota (@HotaSusy).
Ontario moves to Step 3 of its economic reopening plan on Friday, a transition that will allow most of the province to once again “open for business,” as the premier is fond of saying.
Indoor dining, movie theatres and gyms will be allowed to operate for the first time in months while spectators will fill large venues such as sport stadiums and concerts yet again.
Although mask wearing and some capacity restrictions remain in place—for the most part, the move to Step 3 is the closest Ontario has been to pre-pandemic life since before the first wave of the deadly disease.
While some may be eager to schedule a large gathering with friends, meet up with family at a restaurant and even attend a concert in-person, others may be less inclined to do so.
Two experts in the field—Dr. Roger McIntyre, a Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam, Vice President of Education at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health—join the team to offer their perspective and guidance.
Early in the pandemic, the world was told that COVID-19 could spread by surface contact in addition to through water droplets, leading to a surge in sales for hand sanitizer. Breweries and distilleries completely overhauled their operations to make it and the product couldn’t stay on the shelves—leading to a at least a few instances of price gauging at larger retailers.
James Scott, a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, joins the team to talk about if hand sanitizer was overused, any health or environmental impacts, and if its use is a trend we see continue after the pandemic is long gone.