Brazil’s Covid chaos
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2020
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The number of cases of Covid -19 infections in Brazil and deaths related to the pandemic may be much higher than official figures show. Testing of the living is not widespread and there are few resources for analysing the potential role of the virus as a cause of death. Virologist Fernando Spiliki gives us his bleak assessment.
A remarkable study from South Africa shows just how easily the virus can spread around a hospital, with a single infected person infecting many. However the route of infection is not necessarily direct person to person transmission says investigator Richard Lessells from the University of KwaZulu Natal. And from London a study in a hospital with many Covid patients at the height of the pandemic supports the South African findings; Researchers found viral particles on surfaces and in the air says Professor Wendy Barclay from Imperial College.
An early warning system for outbreaks of the virus or second waves may come from analysis of sewage, Jordan Peccia from Yale University analysed waste from his local sewage treatment works and found peaks in concentrations of the virus in the sludge occurred a few days before increases in hospital admissions.
(Image: Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wear face masks as they demonstrate against quarantine and social distancing measures imposed by governors and mayors to combat the new coronavirus outbreak and demand military intervention.
Also this week, The kids take over. Our younger listeners are as curious as their parents, it seems, so presenter Marnie Chesterton seeks out the finest minds and attempts to answer a raft of their science questions, including why can’t you tickle yourself? Why don’t our eyebrows grow as long as the hair on our heads?
Not content with humankind, these whizz kids have been pondering deeply about other animals. Ava, 9, from the UK wants to know if any other animals kill for fun, like some humans do.
Not limited by planet Earth, these little thinkers have been contemplating even weightier questions. Joshua, 13, from Kenya wonders if our Solar System rotates around anything. And Seattle-based Michael, 10, puzzles over what would happen if a black hole collided with a wormhole.
These and other mysteries are uncovered by Marnie and her experts.
Credit: SERGIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might |
| 0:04.7 | like our podcast too. You might. You might. It is called Sightracked with me, Nick Grimshaw. |
| 0:09.2 | And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. All the news, all the cultural |
| 0:14.0 | happenings in the UK and beyond. And great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can |
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| 0:34.0 | This is The Science Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Roland Pease. |
| 0:39.0 | And in half an hour, crowd science will be fielding some ticklish questions from its younger listeners, |
| 0:44.9 | including why can't we tickle ourselves? And it seems to be the case that you dampen down |
| 0:51.1 | the ticklish sensation because you know what's coming. When someone else does that, |
| 0:56.1 | you have no idea. You can't predict where they're going to touch you, how they're going to touch you, |
| 1:00.1 | and what pattern they're going to touch you, and so it's ticklish. And Marnie Chesserton wriggles many |
| 1:05.4 | more answers from our experts on crowd science in half an hour. Before that, it's more coronavirus from science and action. |
| 1:14.0 | Later, there will be evidence of virus widespread around hospitals, adding to infection rates, |
| 1:20.0 | and we'll hear from the scientists looking for virus in the muck that we sent down the sewer. |
| 1:25.0 | We know that the virus that's the causative agent of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, |
| 1:30.9 | is excreted in fecal matter. And so we're essentially automatically producing a community-wide sample |
| 1:39.5 | every day. It's been quite a week in coronavirus. The number of deaths in the USA has passed 100,000. |
| 1:47.9 | The number of new cases per day worldwide is also regularly 100,000. And Brazil became the country |
| 1:55.3 | with the fastest growing epidemic. A month ago, we had Fernando Spilke, president of the National Society for Virology on the |
| 2:03.6 | programme, deeply worried then about Brazil's COVID trajectory, fueled in part by lack of leadership |
... |
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