Ted Audio Collective

Hello there, I'm Chris Anderson, welcome to the Ted interview and another episode will be trying to make sense of this pivotal moment.

This virus is a common enemy striking the whole world and in this episode we deliberately take a global lens.

My guest is the journalist and author for Ian Zakaria who you might know from his show on CNN.

I've always been struck by how broad his knowledge is of the global story, putting together all the pieces from what's happening around the world.

And so our conversation includes a comparison of different countries' responses to this virus.

And especially the dilemma that so many countries face about to what extent you shut down hard and then risk economic catastrophe.

It was recorded live on Facebook as part of a daily series we've been doing.

And so you're here, our current affairs editor, Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Chippin from Time to Time with questions from our online audience.

As always, in order to publish it quickly, this conversation has not been edited.

After this episode, we're taking a two-week break with our daily series to begin releasing the episodes we're working on before the world changed.

But as we think about the future of this show, we've got a key decision to make.

Namely, should we keep posting these daily conversations that are primarily about the coronavirus and all of the implications associated with it?

Or did you prefer the old version of slightly more polished, better-added podcasts about a broader way of other topics, or you sick of the coronavirus?

Could you give us feedback please? You can write to us on podcast at te.com.

We'll read every piece of input and really appreciate your engagement on that.

Okay then, let's dive in. Here's Farid Sakarya.

Pleasure to be here, Chris.

Let's start by getting a sense from you of how you think of this thing that's happening now.

You've covered so many disasters over the years. How do you rate and think of this one?

I think this is more dramatic, more global, and more unusual than anything we have seen in a long, long time.

Because first you have the healthcare crisis, a pandemic that is spread across the world and with unknown lethality and unknown consequences.

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