Coronavirus: are we all going to catch it?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With cases of coronavirus spreading across the world, one word we’re hearing more and more is “pandemic”. If the disease is declared a pandemic it would mean that cases of coronavirus are no longer able to be traced back to the country of origin and fall outside of the control of health authorities. The World Health Organisation doesn’t consider coronavirus to be a pandemic yet, and has stated there is hope that it is controllable despite major outbreaks in Italy and Iran. But that hasn’t stopped people panicking. In this episode BBC reporter Mark Lowen recounts going to an Italian town that has been blockaded to stop the virus. Virologist Jonathan Ball describes how the virus is caught and how it does and doesn’t affect the body, and the BBC’s health correspondent James Gallagher explains what the word pandemic really means and whether we’re all likely to get the disease. Presenter: Tina Daheley Producers: Rory Galloway and Duncan Barber Mixed by Emma Crowe Editor: Philly Beaumont

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:06.0	Hello, I'm Tina Dehealey.
0:07.9	This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.6	A space to ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today are we all going to catch coronavirus.
0:25.0	So here we are talking about coronavirus on beyond today again. Why? Well one big
0:38.3	outbreak is pretty much on our doorstep. COVID-19 spreading and now we're being warned it could
0:44.8	become a pandemic. We'll come back to that and what it means, but first a reminder
0:49.7	of how we got here. The authorities in China have imposed further strict
0:54.9	controls on travel in parts of the country in an effort to stop the spread of a
0:59.3	new virus which causes sometimes fatal respiratory problems.
1:03.0	Hundreds of millions of...
1:04.0	It's thought that the coronavirus first infected people in the city of Wuhan, China,
1:09.0	as early as October last year after passing from animals to humans.
1:14.0	A few months later in December, the Chinese government alerted the World Health
1:18.7	Organization to this strange pneumonia-like disease.
1:22.4	And after several people died in January... this strange pneumonia-like disease.
1:23.2	And after several people died in January, Wuhan was placed under lockdown.
1:28.6	In Wuhan's hospitals, medical staff in full protective body suits are treated. The speed of the spread now reducing in China, but new outbreaks have broken out elsewhere.
1:41.0	South Korea has 977 confirmed cases and 11 deaths.
1:49.0	Japan,
1:50.0	Kagan.
	...

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