How dangerous is the coronavirus?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What lessons do previous pandemics provide about how we should treat the new coronavirus? David Aaronovitch tracks the disease's origins in China, explores its spread. He considers how dangerous this virus is and asks how prepared we are for an outbreak in the UK.
Contributors:
Howard Zhang, editor of the BBC’s China service
Dr Nathalie McDermott, Imperial College, London
John Oxford, Professor of Virology, Queen Mary’s College, London
Dr Josie Golding, Epidemic Preparedness and Response Programme at The Wellcome Trust.
Producers: Rosamund Jones, Kirsteen Knight and Jordan Dunbar Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.8 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:11.2 | The briefing room is the mind chamber, where in 28 minutes, |
| 0:14.6 | you and I get to understand a big issue with the help of the top experts on the subject. |
| 0:20.1 | Now, its official designation is 2019-N-C-O-V. |
| 0:26.4 | It emerged just after Christmas in China. |
| 0:29.2 | It's a virus and it's spreading. |
| 0:31.5 | But what do we really know about this new coronavirus |
| 0:34.1 | and how should the world respond? |
| 0:45.6 | Music coronavirus and how should the world respond? The first horseman of the apocalypse is pestilence. |
| 0:49.9 | So when news broke of a new coronavirus outbreak in China, |
| 0:54.1 | the first question was always going |
| 0:55.7 | to be, could this be the big one? |
| 0:58.8 | So far, more than 600 people have been confirmed as having been infected, and the death toll |
| 1:04.6 | is nearly 20. |
| 1:06.1 | As we recorded this programme, the World Health Organisation was pondering whether to declare an international |
| 1:12.6 | health emergency. So what do you and I need to know about this new coronavirus? What is it? How dangerous |
| 1:20.6 | is it? And what should we do about it? Step inside the carefully disinfected briefing room, |
| 1:26.5 | and together we'll find out. |
| 1:32.0 | First, I need to know more about where this virus came from. |
| 1:36.5 | This is Howard Zhang, editor of the BBC's China Service. |
| 1:42.1 | The first confirmed case was actually after the new year. |
... |
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