COVID-19 and The Vaccine: A Shot of Hope and A Return to Normal?

Intelligence Squared

News, Society & Culture, Arts, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The world had been waiting for the news and on November 9 it finally came: a vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech had proved to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in clinical trials. And then just a week later another pharmaceutical company, Moderna, announced the results of its own clinical trials. Moderna’s vaccine showed a remarkable 95% efficacy in preventing Covid-19. With further promising results from the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine showing between 70 – 90% protection, many policymakers now believe we are on track for a mass rollout of multiple vaccines in 2021 and a chance of normality resuming within months. But how realistic is this? And what questions still need to be answered? Many experts are warning that, while the news about vaccines is an encouraging episode in the pandemic story, it is by no means the end of it. We have many ethical and logistical challenges ahead of us in the coming months. The chief scientist behind the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Uğur Şahin, has said we are unlikely to see any signs of the pandemic receding before the summer of 2021. In the meantime, a lot of questions remain unanswered: Should we continue with lockdowns until the summer or beyond? Who should be vaccinated first? The elderly so we can save lives and reduce the burden on healthcare providers? Or – as some are suggesting – the young, so we can kickstart the economy? And more broadly, is it fair that pharmaceutical companies should make vast profits from a vaccine? To answer these questions, Sarah Gilbert, Project Leader for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, and Tim Spector, epidemiologist and founder of the ZOE Covid symptom tracking app, joined us in December 2020. The event was hosted by Anjana Ahuja, leading science contributor for the Financial Times. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Rory Stewart, and I'd like to tell you about an Intelligence Square event I'm doing with the classicist, author and broadcaster Mary Beard.
0:08.0	Together we'll be discussing politics and power from the Caesars to Sunak who gets to win power who is excluded does
0:16.2	power always corrupt or are there examples of leaders who've maintained their integrity
0:20.8	while an authority and how does the nature of power vary across different times and cultures?
0:26.0	These are just some of the questions that Mary and I will be trying to answer.
0:30.0	In-person tickets are now sold out, but you can still watch online on the 13th
0:33.9	November at 7 PM BST. Put your questions to us live as we discuss power and
0:39.2	politics down the ages. Hello podcast listeners I'm Connor and welcome to this week's episode of Intelligence. the Pfizer and
0:43.0	welcome to this week's episode of Intelligence Squared.
0:45.9	Today on the first day that the COVID-19 vaccine, the Pfizer and Biotech vaccine
0:51.1	is being administered to patients outside clinical trials for the first time in the UK.
0:56.0	What better day to discuss whether we've got a shot at Hope and a return to normal?
1:01.0	Now there's question mark at the end of that return to normal and I'll leave it to
1:04.8	our speakers on today's podcast to decide that for us. The podcast was taken from our new
1:09.2	subscription service Intelligence Square Plus which gives you the listeners the opportunity to ask your questions
1:15.1	to the leading thinkers around the world.
1:17.3	We had Sarah Gilbert, project leader of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, Richard Horton,
1:22.1	editor of the Lancet, Dr Tim Specter, founder of the Zoe COVID
1:26.0	app and the award-winning science journalist Anjena Ahuja who's been writing and reporting on the
1:30.4	pandemic since the beginning of the year. It's a fascinating conversation that illuminates a lot of on the Good evening everyone and a very warm welcome to this Intelligence Squared Plus event with me
1:46.8	Angina Ahuja and what a week it has been. So yesterday the UK Medicine's regulator approved the first COVID vaccine for use in the UK.
1:56.9	It might be rolled out as early as next week and we also have the new tier restrictions coming into force after the lockdown was lifted.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Intelligence Squared, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Intelligence Squared and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.