logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2021
50m 14s

Coronavirus: Resilience during a year of...

Bbc World Service
About this episode

One year ago, the World Health Organisation announced that Covid-19 was spreading across different countries at such an alarming rate that it needed to be classed as a pandemic. It has been a challenging year for everyone and host Nuala McGovern shares conversations with people who perhaps don’t always receive public recognition for their work or actions. This includes one of the researchers who helped make the first vaccine to be approved for use around the world and two of the volunteers who took part in successful vaccine trials. We also hear from supermarket workers in South Africa, the US and the UK about the stress keeping shelves full while working with hundreds of customers - some of whom don’t always respect their jobs or safety during a pandemic.

Up next
Today
Adeju Thompson: Taking fashion label Lagos Space Programme to the world
Adeju Thompson, the founder and creative director behind the Nigerian fashion label Lagos Space Programme, attempts to establish the label on the global fashion scene. Lagos Space Programme blends Yoruba heritage (notably Adire dyeing) with queer and futurist aesthetics, taking i ... Show More
26m 29s
Yesterday
Bonus: Lives Less Ordinary presents, Hold Fast!
The incredible true story of how The Avontuur was locked down at sea for 188 days during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 15 people on board. The journey begins for ship’s cook Giulia Baccosi when she accepts a last-minute job aboard the sailing cargo ship The Avontuur. She tells the ... Show More
24m 55s
Aug 23
Mud wrestling and tent pegging: Africa’s unusual sports
We take a look at some of the more unusual sports practiced on the African continent. Kelvin Kimathi recently travelled to Uganda where a muddy version of entertainment wrestling is becoming increasingly popular. Marcia Veiga discovered Capoeira Angola whilst finding a way to con ... Show More
26m 21s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2022
A new phase in the Covid pandemic
After two-and-a-half years of Covid rampaging across the planet, causing millions of deaths and transforming billions of lives, everyone is keen to move on. But this week the head of the World Health Organization warned the public that the pandemic is “nowhere near over” and that ... Show More
49m 11s
Apr 2021
BONUS: The 1957 Pandemic That Wasn’t
In 1918, a flu pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide. Forty years later, it nearly happened again. This week on Sidedoor we go back to a time when the viruses were winning, and we remember one man, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, whose vaccine virtuosity helped turn the tid ... Show More
27m 35s
Dec 2021
The Evidence: When will the pandemic end?
Everybody hopes that the new super-charged Omicron variant of coronavirus will be less severe, but even if it is, it’s spreading so fast and infecting so many people, health services around the world could still buckle under the strain.Two years into the pandemic, Claudia Hammond ... Show More
50m 9s
Aug 2020
430. Will a Covid-19 Vaccine Change the Future of Medical Research?
We explore the science, scalability, and (of course) economics surrounding the global vaccine race. Guests include the chief medical officer of the first U.S. firm to go to Phase 3 trials with a vaccine candidate; a former F.D.A. commissioner who’s been warning of a pandemic for ... Show More
58m 24s
Jan 2022
The Evidence: Africa, the pandemic and healthcare independence
In a special edition of The Evidence, Claudia Hammond and her panel of experts focus on Africa, on how the more than fifty countries on the continent, home to 1.3 billion people and the most youthful population in the world, have fared, two years into the pandemic.African scienti ... Show More
50m 17s
Jan 2021
How Does the World Feel About Covid-19?
Leading health experts Sarah Jones and Noel Brewer discuss how successfully controlling the pandemic is a question of culture as well as science at BoF VOICES 2020.   The development of working Covid-19 vaccines in a matter of months is a remarkable feat of the pandemic. The bigg ... Show More
19m 9s
Oct 2021
The State of the Pandemic
The coronavirus seems to be in retreat in the United States, with the number of cases across the country down about 25 percent compared with a couple of weeks ago. Hospitalizations and deaths are also falling.So, what stage are we in with the pandemic? And how will developments s ... Show More
19m 20s
Apr 2020
The Race for a Vaccine
Scientists are racing to make a vaccine for the coronavirus, collaborating across borders in what is usually a secretive and competitive field. But their cooperation has been complicated by national leaders trying to buy first claim on any breakthrough. Today, we explore how the ... Show More
24m 32s
Oct 2022
The Evidence: How pandemics end
Six and a half million dead. More than a hundred times that infected. The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the globe. But in the final months of the third year of this health crisis, some now claim it’s all over.Scientists with key roles in the global response join Clau ... Show More
50m 49s