Mitigating circumstances: coronavirus spreads
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.4 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Global markets tanked yesterday as governments reported startling rises in covid-19 cases. Our correspondents around the world assess countries' differing policies, and the prospects for overcoming the outbreak. There’s chaos and intrigue in Malaysia, where persistent ethnic divides continue to dominate the country’s politics. And why Saturday bus services in Israel are a potent election issue.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm your host, Jason Palmer. |
| 0:09.0 | Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:17.0 | After a dramatic day out of and back into office, Malaysia's Prime Minister is now in a caretaker role. |
| 0:25.0 | The coalition he led has fallen out of favour with the public, but he may be the only politician who can patch the country's ethnic divides. |
| 0:33.0 | And from sundown on Friday until nightfall on Saturday in Israel, good luck getting a bus. |
| 0:40.0 | Public transport has been banned on the Sabbath since Israel's founding, but it may not stay that way and it's become a curiously political question. |
| 0:55.0 | First up though. |
| 1:00.0 | The World Health Organization has said that governments need to start planning for a coronavirus pandemic. |
| 1:06.0 | It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you would do in preparing for a pandemic. |
| 1:12.0 | But in declaring something a pandemic, it is too early. |
| 1:17.0 | Nearly 80,000 people in 37 countries have been infected. At least 2,600 have died. |
| 1:24.0 | On financial markets yesterday, there were heavy losses as governments reported significant new cases of COVID-19 beyond China. |
| 1:32.0 | The number of diagnoses there has slowed, but elsewhere there's been a surge in particular in Italy, South Korea and Iran. |
| 1:40.0 | As the epidemic spreads, it's clear that different governments are taking very different approaches to reporting and managing it. |
| 1:47.0 | Iran prompted considerable alarm after it reported a sudden increase in deaths caused by COVID-19. |
| 1:53.0 | I think there are two issues in Iran. |
| 1:56.0 | Red Karlstrom is our Middle East correspondent. |
| 1:58.0 | The first to do with confirming cases is that this is a country that has been under very heavy economic sanctions. |
| 2:05.0 | Those have made it increasingly difficult to obtain medicines, medical supplies, including, according to businessman in Iran, the diagnostic kits that they would need to diagnose coronavirus. |
| 2:16.0 | They've said it's difficult to import those. |
| 2:19.0 | The WHO has said it will provide Iran with some kits. You have domestic firms that are also rapidly trying to make their own. |
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