Each week, journalists turn to Unity Health Toronto’s experts and programs to help make sense of our world. In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the headlines for the week of July 17-23.

Meet Dr. Joan Cheng, the GTA’s first East Asian woman to lead an ER

CBC Metro Morning on July 21, 2021

Feature of Dr. Joan Cheng

Dr. Joan Cheng, chief of St. Joseph’s Health Centre’s emergency department, is the Greater Toronto Area’s first East Asian woman to lead an emergency department. Dr. Cheng speaks to Metro Morning host Ismaila Alfa about her career and standing up against oppression.

St. Michael’s closes COVID-19 testing centre

CTV Toronto on July 16, 2021

Interview with Dana Whitham

Sixteen months and more than 103,000 swabs later, the COVID-19 Assessment Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital officially closed its doors. Dana Whitham, manager of the Assessment Centre, reflects on the past 16 months in an interview with CTV News Toronto.

St. Joseph’s Health Centre building $30M emergency department

Toronto Sun on July 19, 2021

Interview with Dr. Tim Rutledge, Dr. Joan Cheng, Maria Dyck

St. Joseph’s Health Centre is building the first post-COVID emergency department in the country and equipping it with critical equipment at a cost of $30 million. “When building the new emergency, we will look to the lessons learned from the pandemic and from SARS and prepare for the next one. We would be naïve to think there won’t be another and we need to prepare for it,” says Dr. Joan Cheng, chief of the emergency department.

More kids are starting to catch colds again. Here’s why

Toronto Star on July 22, 2021

Interview with Dr. Eddy Lau

Clinics and hospitals are seeing an increase in children catching the common cold and other non-COVID-19 viruses since the pandemic began. The number of children doctors are seeing for symptoms like fevers and headaches is similar to pre-COVID times, says Dr. Eddy Lau, a pediatrician at St. Joseph’s Health Centre. Dr. Lau explains reasons for the uptick and tells the Toronto Star why it’s good for children to be exposed to less significant viruses.

Protect Canadians from another COVID-19 wave by ramping up vaccination in developing countries, experts say

CBC News on July 20, 2021

Interview with Dr. Prabhat Jha

If Canada, along with other high-income countries, doesn’t move quickly to dramatically scale up the amount of vaccine it contributes to those countries, some experts say, it will not only be a global citizenship failure — but it will also put Canadians at risk of another wave of COVID-19.  “It’s not simply a matter of charity. It’s a matter of self-interest,” says Dr. Prabhat Jha, a global health researcher at Unity Health Toronto and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. “This is a global war. You can’t simply say we’re going to vaccinate Canadians and we’ll be safe.”

Also in CBC News New Brunswick

Calls to ease restrictions on hospital visits

CBC The Current on July 19, 2021

Interview with Dr. Fahad Razak

People have been kept away from their loved ones in hospital through the pandemic. But as more Canadians are vaccinated and COVID case counts drop, there are calls to ease restrictions on visits. Dr. Fahad Razak, an internist and epidemiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, discusses why visitor policies at hospitals were implemented and the way forward on CBC Radio’s The Current.

Canada’s path to COVID vaccination

The Associated Press on July 23, 2021

Interview with Dr. Prabhat Jha

With 70 per cent of its adult population receiving at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, Canada has among the world’s highest vaccination rate and is now moving on to immunize children, who are at far lower risk of coronavirus complications and death. Dr. Prabhat Jha, global health researcher at Unity Health Toronto, explains the dangers of Canada’s early response to COVID-19, and how Canada’s purchasing power to procure vaccines got the country to where it is.