Coronapod: “Test, test, test!”
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2020
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first of our new podcast series, Benjamin Thompson, Noah Baker, and Amy Maxmen discuss the epidemiology needed to control the Covid-19 outbreak.
In this episode:
03:57 Testing times
Case numbers of Covid-19 have leapt around the world in recent days, but how many undetected cases are out there? We talk about the urgent need to deploy two of the cornerstones of effective epidemiology – testing and contact tracing – and discuss why these measures aren’t being rolled out worldwide.
News article: Scientists exposed to coronavirus wonder: why weren’t we notified?; News article: South Korea is reporting intimate details of COVID-19 cases: has it helped?; News explainer: What China’s coronavirus response can teach the rest of the world
14:23 Global governance in the wake of Covid-19
The International Health Regulations (IHR) were set up to help countries prepare for, and respond to, public-health emergencies. Rebecca Katz, a health security researcher specialising in emerging infectious diseases, tells us how the IHR are holding up during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Worldview: Pandemic policy can learn from arms control
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to CoronaPod. |
| 0:02.0 | In this show, we're going to bring you nature's take on the latest COVID-19 developments. |
| 0:09.0 | And we'll be speaking to experts around the world about research during the pandemic. |
| 0:14.0 | I really don't know how this plays out. We also don't know a ton about this virus. |
| 0:20.0 | So there's so many open questions. I just have a really hard time making predictions We also don't know a ton about this, you know, virus. So there's so many |
| 0:21.0 | open questions. I just have a really hard time making predictions because I don't know how the |
| 0:25.5 | outbreak is going to change. Hi, Benjamin from the Nature podcast here, coming to you direct from |
| 0:33.9 | my basement in South London. And I'm joined by Nature's chief multimedia editor, Noah Baker. |
| 0:39.9 | Noah, how are you doing? And where are you right now? |
| 0:42.5 | I am currently sitting in a crudely constructed pillow fort, which I've made out of an old dog crate and |
| 0:48.3 | some duvays to try to get a good quality recording in rural Kent, where my family live. |
| 0:53.5 | It's not just me and Noah. We're also joined by |
| 0:55.6 | Amy Maxman, senior reporter here at Nature, and you're in San Francisco, right? I'm actually in |
| 1:01.1 | Berkeley, California, right across the bay from San Francisco. So, Amy, our offices in London are closed, |
| 1:06.2 | which is why Ben and I are held up at home. What's life like in the Bay Area right now? |
| 1:10.0 | It's a state of emergency in California, And in this area, we've had orders to, they call it, |
| 1:16.1 | shelter in place, so only go out for essential duties. Does that mean that you aren't able to leave |
| 1:22.9 | the house to report? I don't know. I don't know about that. I'm not going to ask. |
| 1:29.3 | So I assume that means that you've been calling up a lot of sources as you report on this outbreak. Yes, I have, I've been talking to |
| 1:34.6 | lots of people around here. You know, I know a lot of scientists between, you know, the University |
| 1:39.6 | of California, San Francisco, and Berkeley, Stanford. And then I know there, of course, there's this spirit of disruption here. |
| 1:47.2 | So there's all these biotech incubators. So you can imagine that there's kind of a lot sort of ramping up right now. |
... |
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