If you go into hospital, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting more sick. Many people get COVID, flu, and other airborne infections from being in hospital, even though it’s preventable. This is a policy failure. And it's fixable.

Dr. Dick Zoutman, Board Chair at the Canadian COVID Society, and professor emeritus at Queen’s University, shows us 5 ways to stop COVID from running rampant at hospitals. Infection control, hospital and public health leaders, here are some suggestions to get a handle on transmission now and in the future!

This interview was recorded in early 2025.

RESOURCES
(See more on the episode webpage.)
Dr. Zoutman's Town Hall with the World Health Network: The Fight for Canadian Respirator Mask Standards
Swedish study on COVID infection in hospitals
Do No Harm BC's petition for masks in healthcare
@ratnegative's post about BCCDC wastewater cuts

Transcript available here.

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, produced, written & hosted by Daniella Barreto
Music, mixing, and sound design by Alexandria Maillot
Fact checking on this episode by Roanne G.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

Most people get a lot of what they know about public health from what’s in the news. But what’s in the news—and the way it’s talked about—is not always clear or accurate.

This episode tracks how the media has contributed to the alarming decline of public health and played a role in blocking meaningful understanding and action on COVID. What is reported and how it's framed can have a huge impact on what people think and how they behave. And if public health leaders are the ones sending foggy messages through unquestioning journalists, it becomes difficult to address collective health threats—now and in the future.

The interplay between public health institutions, politicians, and the media is so powerful it affects who suffers, who survives, and who doesn’t. And with the certainty of future pandemics coming along, honest and clear news media that serves the public can be a lifeline. It’s long past time to change the COVID narrative.

We talk to journalist, Julia Doubleday of The Gauntlet and researcher/science communicator, Kayli Jamieson about media narratives, propaganda, and why it's become so hard to get good COVID coverage as the pandemic smoulders on. This episode also features Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, former Technical Lead for COVID-19 at the World Health Organization.

Note: When this episode discusses communications about COVID vaccines and effectiveness, it refers to mRNA vaccines against COVID generally. Presently, other vaccines like Novavax, which may perform better in some measures, are unavailable in Canada.

Find Julia at thegauntlet.news and Kayli on Instagram @wandering

We had some audio recording and technical issues with this episode but pulled through thanks to the painstaking work of our amazing mixer/sound designer/musician, Alexandria Maillot. The transcript is available on the ​episode webpage​.

CREDITS
Huge thanks to the Skeleton Crew for all their work on this episode:
Hosted, produced, written, edited by Daniella Barreto
Music, Mixing, and Sound Design by Alexandria Maillot
Script editing by Lauren M. and Kevin Ball
Fact checking by Anika Sharma and Roanne G.

Additional music by Alex Productions, sound byte "Freaky Halloween"

RESOURCES
Some articles by Julia Doubleday:

• "How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections"
• "Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress."
• "Liberals joined conservatives to mainstream anti-vax beliefs about viruses and public health"

This episode is in memory of Leslie Lee III and Alice Wong — fierce public health and disability justice advocates. Leslie was living with Long COVID. They both encouraged me to keep making this podcast. May we all keep working towards the world they were fighting for. - DB

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

Canada could lose its measles elimination status, which says a lot about the state of public health overall. Media coverage leaves much to be desired when it comes to informing the public about measles vaccines, airborne transmission, and social determinants of health, especially with a new school year beginning. Daniella & MJ chew over the hits, swings, and misses in a recent measles episode of CBC Frontburner ("Canada has a measles problem", May 16, 2025).

Resources
How Mennonite women are building bridges between public health and community amid measles outbreak
(As referenced in the episode, here [from 22:22] is Dr. Bonnie Henry's November 2024 presser on H5N1 saying she finds the word "pandemic" triggering in her role as a public health leader.)

CREDITS
Public Health Media Club is a crossover public health show hosted by Daniella (of Public Health is Dead) and MJ (of Everything is Public Health). All audio editing by MJ.

To PHID listeners: ~Thanks for listening to this late summer crossover! Public Health is Dead post-summer production will be ramping up again. The horrors persist but so do we~

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

This is Public Health Media Club—a chatty and critical exchange about public health in the media!
Daniella (of "Public Health is Dead") & MJ (of "Everything is Public Health") do a crossover episode about COVID, people still masking, and "The Science"! First up, from the Atlantic: The Evermaskers (archived link).

*This episode pairs nicely with the previous special episode on Public Health is Dead, "But My Therapist Said"*

IMPORTANT: Let us know if you like this format! And if you want us to continue making crossover episodes like this.
Of course, there's a lot to talk about since Everything is Public Health and Public Health is Dead.

Follow MJ's show "Everything is Public Health" here.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

Ever heard anyone say they can't care about COVID anymore because it's bad for their mental health? Or their therapist said people still masking have "COVID anxiety"?

Well, here are three mental health professionals who have a thing or two to say about that! Meet Pierre, Briana, and Ji-Youn, who share their perspectives on what the Western therapy world is often missing when it comes to COVID and collective care.

Like we often say on the show, all systems of oppression are connected.

NOTE: We recorded this conversation in early November 2024. This chat special is a bit of a departure from the regular narrative style episodes you’re used to on Public Health is Dead but you are in for some gems. It reaffirms choosing to care about each other by resisting COVID, ableism, and white supremacy. "We keep us safe" has to mean something!

(00:00) Introduction
(02:50) Meet Briana, Pierre, and Ji-Youn
(06:00) Is "COVID anxiety" a real thing?
(10:49) What does years of public health abandonment do to us collectively?
(14:00) Collective care and what we owe each other
(23:33) Relationship breakdowns
(39:31) How to have COVID conversations/set your own boundaries
(53:10) Messages to other therapists
(59:58) SPEAK ON IT, PIERRE!! (if you listen to nothing else, listen to this!)

Find Pierre at Queering Psychology, Briana at her website, and Ji-Youn at their website.

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, written and produced by Daniella Barreto
Outro music for this episode by Alexandria Maillot

N.B. It’s a bad idea for you to take medical advice from podcasts. Good thing this show does not offer medical advice! The point of Public Health is Dead is to share experiences and information that might help public health as a field and increase our collective knowledge. As always, if you have particular personal medical concerns of your own you should talk to your own medical providers.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

In March 2003, one SARS patient showed up in a Vancouver emergency room and another went to a Toronto emergency room. But two very different sequences of events unfolded.

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault was working in the Vancouver ER that day. Her team leapt into action and—with a little luck and a lot of preparation—prevented SARS from spreading at the hospital. A government agency immediately put in protections and built a firewall against SARS in BC, protecting staff, patients, and the public. Nobody died.

In Toronto, however, SARS exploited a system unprepared for the unknown. It was the largest outbreak outside Asia. It shook the city and left healthcare workers and patients under-informed and under-protected. 44 people died. Many more contracted it as it was left to smoulder beneath shoddy protections.

In the aftermath, the SARS Commission report detailed the far-reaching failures in Toronto and how great work from healthcare workers and science advisors staved off a far worse outcome. The report laid out instructions for how to avoid such a preventable public health tragedy in the future.

Hear how Dr. Filiatrault and her team put the precautionary principle into practice against SARS in 2003, what public health can still learn from this story for the events of today, and what we need from good public health leaders heading into a future where more pandemics threaten us all.

TRANSCRIPT HERE

(04:26) Chapter 1: Vancouver - Dr. Filiatrault's story
(18:34) Chapter 2: Toronto - A city unprepared
(35:58) Chapter 3: What makes a good public health response?
(50:01) Chapter 4: Safety at work
(53:05) Chapter 5: What's in a good public health leader?

*Correction: throughout this episode I refer to Scarborough Grace Hospital as Scarborough General Hospital, which is incorrect. Scarborough Grace Hospital is now called Birchmount Hospital and exists under the umbrella of the Scarborough Health Network, which also includes a Scarborough General Hospital.

LINKS/RESOURCES

What makes a good public health leader​
SARS Commission Final Report

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, produced, written and edited by Daniella Barreto.
Music, sound design and mixing by Alexandria Maillot.
Fact checking and production support from Anika S.
Editing support from Kevin Ball, Anika S. and Lauren M.

*As this episode mentions, a disproportionate number of healthcare workers who keep the system running in Canada are Filipino. The Filipino community in Vancouver is reeling from a violent attack at this year's Lapu Lapu festival. Much of the healthcare we have access to in Canada works because of the frontline labour of Filipino people, many who are women and immigrants. If you can, instead of chipping in to support this episode, please consider sending funds to the ​community-led Kapwa fund ​*to support people affected by this awful event.**\

---
N.B. It’s a bad idea for you to take medical advice from podcasts. Good thing this show does not offer medical advice! The point of Public Health is Dead is to share experiences and information that might help public health as a field and increase our collective knowledge. As always, if you have particular personal medical concerns of your own you should talk to your own medical providers about it because I am just a voice in your headphones. (Service providers might also benefit from the contents of this show.)

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

How a mixup about airborne transmission led to one of the biggest public health errors in history. 5 years since the COVID pandemic began, public health has yet to clearly address it. A lot of disease spread happens through the air we share. And most people don’t know.

Over the last century, our growing understanding of pathogens and the ways they spread allowed public health to mitigate, eliminate, and even eradicate diseases in many parts of the world. We thought we knew it all. But pride comes before a fall. Public health has been missing a big part of how diseases like COVID spread and it's cost us a lot.

Join your host, Daniella, to learn how a group of aerosol scientists teamed up with Dr. Katie Randall, a medical rhetorician and historian, and toppled the house of cards holding up the idea that sprayed droplets are the main route of respiratory disease transmission. Small aerosols that we constantly breathe out can be suspended in the air and carry pathogens that cause disease. This is airborne transmission.

How did public health leaders dismiss airborne transmission for so long even though we've known about it for TB, measles, and SARS for decades? And, now that scientists understand much more about how diseases spread, how can public health adapt to protect us? Dr. Al Haddrell, an aerosol scientist, walks us through how aerosol works and how we can interrupt disease transmission with new knowledge. Something’s in the air... and it might be a paradigm shift.

RESOURCES

• WIRED article by Megan Molteni: "How a 60-year-old screwup helped COVID kill" (archived version)
• Learn more about aerosol on Dr. Al Haddrell's YouTube channel (some ft. Transformers. IYKYK). I like this 5-minute video he made about why we can see cigarette smoke but not exhaled aerosol.
• Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk. A. Haddrell et al (2024)
• How did we get here: what are droplets and aerosols and how far do they go? A historical perspective on the transmission of respiratory infectious diseases. K. Randall et. al (2021)
• Dr. Katie Randall's TEDx talk The tiny COVID mistake with deadly implications
• Get your free respirators from the global directory of MaskBlocs

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, produced, written, and edited by Daniella Barreto.
Music, mixing, and sound design by Alexandria Maillot.
Fact checking, guest booking, and production support from Anika S.
Content editing support from Kevin Ball, Sophie Kohn, Anika S and Lauren M.
Thank you to Tom J. for the archive of COVID press conference footage.
Episode art created by Daniella from Hendrik Goltzius, after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem: Icarus, from "The Four Disgracers" (1588) and CDC image of H5N1.

Thank you to all Public Health is Dead supporters!

N.B. It’s a bad idea for you to take medical advice from podcasts. Good thing this show does not offer medical advice! The point of Public Health is Dead is to share experiences and information that might help public health as a field and increase our collective knowledge.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!

A field trip to the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver to learn more about their ventilation system, built after the 1918 flu pandemic.

Ladies and Gentlethems, the show you’ve all been waiting for, the show that will keep you glued to your seat! A show all about preventing diseases and pathogens and, sometimes, things that go bump in the night.

Join Daniella on a journey through the belly of an old vaudeville venue, the Orpheum Theatre, in Vancouver, Canada, to learn a bit about how it keeps pathogens in the air at bay. We've known that fresh air is good for us for a very long time but it doesn't always translate to the air we breathe indoors. We also meet a savvy Twitter/X user who measured the carbon dioxide levels in the theatre and, to the surprise of many, revealed that the Orpheum had excellent ventilation. How does a building so old get such good numbers? And what could it mean for disease control in other places?

Transcript HERE

RESOURCES
Photos from the Orpheum tour HERE
Much more information and detail about ventilation, viral viability, and why it's important to reduce C02 from the Clean Air Crew and Dr. Al Haddrell.
ASHRAE

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, produced, written and edited by Daniella Barreto.
Fact checking support from Anika S.
Additional content editing by Lauren M.

MUSIC
Follies.wav by daveincamas -- https://freesound.org/s/44074 -- License: Attribution 4.0
Epidemic Sound | Sound Effect | Cow Moo https://www.epidemicsound.com/sound-effects/tracks/6ea040bf-546d-463b-9980-8bee0026117d/\
Epidemic Sound | Music | You Set My Soul on Fire (Instrumental Version) Sture Zetterberg
https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/HTd1XBrnkk/
Epidemic Sound | Sound Effect | Concert Cheering
https://www.epidemicsound.com/sound-effects/tracks/040d94db-b30b-4dc2-aab5-11723b7fbe02/
Epidemic Sound | Sound Effect | Interior, Medium, Cough
https://www.epidemicsound.com/sound-effects/tracks/8f30418c-e238-46be-8b72-a5f91fe7fb7d/
Epidemic Sound | Sound Effect | Male, with Bad Flu or Cold, Chesty
https://www.epidemicsound.com/sound-effects/tracks/329de734-e1a0-4136-b398-58c3c682f627/

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!