Babbage: Going viral, going global

Economist Podcasts

The Economist

News & Politics, News

4.4 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2020

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Covid-19, the new coronavirus, is spreading around the world. Abdi Mahamad, the World Health Organisation’s incident manager for Asia, reveals that for the first time since the start of the outbreak, more cases are being reported outside China than within it. What can countries do to limit the spread of the virus, and will it become a pandemic? The Economist’s deputy editor Tom Standage hosts a debate with Therese Hesketh, professor of global health at the Institute for Global Health at University College London; Christl Donnelly, professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London a WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling; and Slavea Chankova, our health-care correspondent.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The infrastructure we plan today, we're going to have to live with for the next half century, or even longer.
0:06.0	There's an urgency about the choices we make.
0:09.0	It's never been more important to consider infrastructure for good.
0:13.0	Discover how infrastructure can provide transformative benefits to society, and improve quality of life for all.
0:20.0	Listen to the podcast series Infrastructure for Good by Economist Impact.
0:24.0	Visit infrastructure-4-good.economist.com
0:31.0	The COVID-19 virus, a new form of coronavirus, is threatening to become a pandemic.
0:42.0	It struck China at the end of November last year.
0:45.0	The pneumonia-like illness that it causes is now spreading around the world.
0:49.0	Governments have been doing their best to contain the disease, but now they need to start preparing for the possibility that it will become far more widespread.
0:58.0	I'm Tom Standage, Deputy Editor of the Economist, and you're listening to Bavage on Economist Radio, a weekly podcast on Technology and Science.
1:06.0	We'll be asking what countries can do to cope with the spread of this deadly virus.
1:13.0	On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities first alerted the World Health Organization, or WHO, to several cases of unusual pneumonia in the city of Wuhan.
1:31.0	We now know that they were caused by the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
1:37.0	I'm declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of novel coronavirus.
1:46.0	That's Tedros at Hanom Gaboresis, the head of the WHO.
1:50.0	It's been more than a month since he called for concerted international efforts to control the coronavirus.
1:56.0	Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems.
2:07.0	And which are ill-prepared to deal with it.
2:12.0	But despite this, there are now cases in nearly 40 countries.
2:16.0	The WHO says countries should be in a phase of preparedness for a pandemic.
2:21.0	For the first time since the start of the outbreak today, we have more cases represented outside China than China.
	...

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