The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

A new briefing note from a panel of science experts advising the Ontario government on COVID-19 shows the province is at a tipping point.

Variants that are more deadly are circulating widely, new daily infections have reached the same number at the height of the second wave, and the number of people hospitalized is now more than 20 per cent higher than at the start of the last provincewide lockdown, states an analysis from Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table.

ALSO: Canada getting 5M Pfizer doses ahead of schedule in June & Johnson & Johnson vaccine to begin arriving in Canada by end of April

GUEST: Dr. Prabhat Jha, Epidemiologist and Professor of Global Health with the University of Toronto, Founding Director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital

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Canada has the worst record for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care homes compared with other wealthy countries, according to a new report released on Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

The study found that the proportion of deaths in nursing homes represented 69 per cent of Canada's overall COVID-19 deaths, which is significantly higher than the international average of 41 per cent.

In Canada, between March 2020 and February 2021, more than 80,000 residents and staff members of long-term care homes were infected with the coronavirus. Outbreaks occurred in 2,500 care homes, resulting in the deaths of 14,000 residents, according to the report.

GUEST: Dr. James Tiessen, Director, Master of Health Administration & Community Care and Associate Professor with Ryerson University

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A global shortage of chips that has rattled production lines at car companies and squeezed stockpiles at gadget makers is now leaving home appliance makers unable to meet demand.

The chip shortage, which began in earnest in late December, was caused in part as automakers miscalculated demand and pandemic-fuelled sales of smartphones and laptops surged. It forced carmakers including General Motors to cut production, and increased costs for smartphone makers such as Xiaomi Corp.

And with every company that uses chips in its products panic buying to shore up its stockpile, the shortage has blindsided not just Whirlpool but other appliance makers too.

GUEST: Marvin Ryder. Business Professor with the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University

Homo sapiens is a very moody species. Even though sadness and bad moods have always been part of the human experience, we now live in an age that ignores or devalues these feelings.

It’s time to re-assess the role of bad moods in our lives. We should recognize they are a normal, and even a useful and adaptive part of being human, helping us cope with many everyday situations and challenges.

GUEST: Steve Joordens, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto

Canada’s hidden crisis: 

Opioid toxicity deaths were falling across the country prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But then came lockdown in March 2020.

Experts say the record-breaking 2020 death toll is linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. They say the global crisis has worsened the illicit drug market, pushed individuals to use in isolation and decreased access to life-saving services.

Fentanyl is described as being 100 times more potent than morphine. Carfentanil, the most powerful analogue, is upwards of 10,000 times stronger.

The purity of already impure street drugs deteriorated when COVID-19 fractured supply chains. Experts say higher concentrations of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues made their way to the streets.

These synthetic opioids were linked to about 75 per cent of overdose deaths in Canada between January and June 2020, according to the Government of Canada.

GUEST: Donald MacPherson, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

The former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd went on trial Monday, with a prosecutor telling the jury that the figure to remember is nine minutes, 29 seconds — the amount of time Derek Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck as the Black man pleaded for his life and went limp.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell told jurors that Chauvin “didn’t let up, he didn’t get up” even after Floyd said 27 times that he couldn’t breathe and went motionless.

A jury of 14 people will hear the case — eight who are white and six who are Black or multiracial, according to the court. Two of the 14 will be alternates. The judge has not said which ones will be alternates and which ones will deliberate the case.

Legal experts said they expected prosecutors to play the video to the jury early on.

GUEST: Thane Rosenbaum, CBS Radio Legal Analyst