Can 'immunity passports' help us get back to normal?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Countries around the world are working on ways for people to safely get back to normal, people like Pam in Scotland, who is navigating the world of app dating during coronavirus and wondering when, and if, to meet up. One answer is the idea of an immunity passport or certificate: something that shows you have had coronavirus and are now immune. Franz Walt, chief executive of Swiss firm Quotient, says antibody testing is so accurate it could be the basis for such a system. But Professor Robert West at University College London, says we don’t know enough about the illness to guarantee a passport system would work. And Stanford University historian Kathryn Olivarius explains how a 19th century yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans can help us think about it.
(Picture: a testing vial. Picture credit: Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:04.7 | Today, the first of two programmes imagining the world where all those of us who've had coronavirus |
| 0:10.2 | might get as close to each other as we like. We could go on a date. |
| 0:15.0 | There are certain sites that do that for HIV, so I do not see any reason why you wouldn't do it for COVID. Yeah, I think that that |
| 0:22.6 | would be the assurances that we would need. Yep, we're examining the controversial idea of |
| 0:27.1 | so-called immunity passports today. Plus, as in the days of old, have we become too ready |
| 0:33.0 | to moralise in our efforts to beat the pandemic? The way that it is your imperative to be brave in |
| 0:39.6 | the face of coronavirus to get back to work, that those who care about the economy and making |
| 0:45.0 | sure that economic depression is as short as possible, that's scary. That's all to come in Business |
| 0:49.8 | Daily from the BBC. So I have been single for quite a few months now. |
| 0:58.1 | I came out of a relationship just after Christmas. |
| 1:01.5 | So it was the start of the online dating sagas. |
| 1:06.2 | Meet Pam Evans from Aberdeen in Scotland. |
| 1:09.4 | She's in her 40s, single, and one of millions around the world |
| 1:12.7 | trying to navigate the world of love and internet dating |
| 1:15.9 | in the difficult age of lockdown. |
| 1:18.6 | I'm on quite a few. I am on Hinge, Tinder, which tends to be my favourite at the moment. |
| 1:24.5 | And also never one called Bumble, where the girls are supposed to talk first, |
| 1:28.0 | but the guys never talk back. Tell me about your dialogue with people now. I mean, how far do you |
| 1:34.6 | take it? How far are they taking it? What's the new etiquette these days? So it seems that everybody |
| 1:41.5 | starts with the, how are you? And it's, of course, the next question |
| 1:45.9 | is, you know, are you working? You know, what's your setup at home? Are you alone or are you with family |
... |
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