Wuhan: The beginning of coronavirus Covid-19
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is week one of the coronavirus. In this critical time, decisions were made that set the entire trajectory of the crisis. The program uses exclusive interviews with a cast of characters who were on the ground at the hospital in the very beginning. Their stories, combined with striking audio from the heat of the moment, brings listeners into the critical turning-points that defined the crisis to come. We meet Dr Li, the head of the ICU in Wuhan and one of the first doctors to intubate a patient with Covid-19. As his hospital became overrun with patients, he and his colleagues debated just how contagious the virus was, what should be told to the general populace, and the proper government response.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is |
| 0:05.0 | a woman. This is Chan, an ICANNel, like Wieschis, a fajan we have to go on. |
| 0:08.0 | This is Chan, an ICU doctor in Wu-HAN China. |
| 0:11.0 | His specialty is ECMO, a type of life support for patients with severe respiratory |
| 0:16.4 | failure. |
| 0:17.4 | By the time the patients reach me, they rarely can talk. |
| 0:25.0 | They're past the point where they can communicate. |
| 0:27.0 | But coronavirus patients are unique because they're often still conscious when they reach me. |
| 0:35.0 | I remember one patient, an older woman with a head of white hair. |
| 0:39.0 | Out of nowhere she starts clutching my gown. |
| 0:42.0 | It really startled me. I didn't know what she was doing. |
| 0:45.9 | She was looking straight into my eyes. But I realized she was trying to communicate with me. |
| 0:54.0 | She was begging me to save her. |
| 0:58.0 | Tears were coming out of her eyes and I couldn't keep it together myself. |
| 1:04.0 | I tried to do everything I could to save her. |
| 1:07.0 | But in the end I couldn't do it. |
| 1:10.0 | She was the first COVID patient I lost. |
| 1:13.0 | Dr. Chan's patient was |
| 1:15.0 | she was going to be here. |
| 1:17.0 | Dr. Chan's patient was one of the first people to die of COVID-19. |
| 1:24.4 | I'm David Bournestein with BBC World Service, and this is Wuhan, the beginning. |
| 1:34.3 | In a moment, we'll get to know some of the first people |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.