logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2022
42m 55s

What have we learnt from Covid?

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

Brian Cox and Robin Ince return for a new series with an illustrious panel of experts to discuss what scientists have learnt from Covid and what we have all learnt about the nature of science by watching it happen so spectacularly over the course of the pandemic. They are joined by Dame Sarah Gilbert, creator of one of the very first Covid vaccines, Immunologist Prof Dan Davis and Dr Chris Van Tulleken, infectious disease clinician and broadcaster. They discuss the incredible speed of vaccine delivery and whether we have learnt lessons for future pandemics, the gaps that Covid has revealed in our knowledge of our immune system, and what the public have witnessed in terms of science happening in real time as we all lived through the pandemic.

Producer: Alexandra Feachem

Up next
Today
Ghosts - Isy Suttie, Laurence Rickard, Ciarán O'Keeffe and Chris French
Things that go bump in the night meet the cold light of science as Jessica Fostekew and Prof Adam Rutherford investigate why ghosts continue to haunt our imaginations. Joining them for some spooky science are psychologists Chris French and Ciaran O'Keeffe, comedian Isy Suttie and ... Show More
42m 58s
Oct 22
Nothing Really Matters - Hugh Dennis, Ria Lina, Harry Cliff and Yvette Fuentes
Jessica Fostekew and Adam Rutherford tackle one of the biggest and strangest questions in science: what is nothing? Starting with the earliest philosophers and journeying through to today's cutting-edge experiments, they ask whether true nothingness can ever exist.Joining them to ... Show More
42m 14s
Oct 15
The First Britons - Tim Minchin, Prof Chris Stringer and Dr Selina Brace
The Infinite Monkey Cage returns for a brand-new series, with Professor Adam Rutherford and comedian Jessica Fostekew swinging into the cage as guest presenters. In this first episode, they find out who were the very first people to land on the British Isles… if they even were Is ... Show More
42m 51s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2025
How did the Covid-19 pandemic change medicine?
Five years on from the first Covid lockdown in the UK, we consider how the pandemic changed medicine. We're joined by Dr Emma Wall, academic consultant in Infectious Diseases at University College London Hospital who also runs a long covid clinic, Professor Katrina Pollock, Assoc ... Show More
27m 54s
Aug 2022
How Covid changed science, part 2
In the second of our series How Covid Changed Science, Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University looks at the scientific messaging. Just how do you explain to both politicians and the public that a growing global pandemic is likely to kill many people, and ... Show More
27m 50s
Aug 2021
The Evidence: How will the pandemic end?
When all restrictions are lifted in a highly vaccinated country, how manageable is the coronavirus? Both Israel and UK’s experiments to do just that, have raised new worries about raising the risk of new vaccine resistant variants. Claudia Hammond and her panel of global experts ... Show More
48m 22s
Dec 2020
Coronavirus: Shots! Shots! Shots!
There’s a ton of hoopla over these new coronavirus vaccines. But given that they’ve been produced at warp speed — can we trust them? We also find out what’s going on with “long haulers.” How common is it to be sick for months from Covid-19? Plus, fresh new science about why some ... Show More
32m 35s
Feb 2022
COVID-19: Beginnings... and endings?
With the prime minister proposing an end to self-isolation requirements as early as the end of the month, we thought we would check in with all things pandemic-related this week. We hear from mathematical biologist Dr Kit Yates from the University of Bath and UCL’s Professor Chri ... Show More
32m 41s
Aug 2020
430. Will a Covid-19 Vaccine Change the Future of Medical Research?
<p>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 f ... Show More
58m 24s
Dec 2021
2021: The year of variants
In our first programme of the year, we gathered a group of scientific experts directly involved in analysing the structure and impact of the SARS- Cov-2 coronavirus. There were concerns over the emergence of two new variants, Alpha and Beta, especially whether these variants migh ... Show More
27m 23s
Dec 2020
COVID-19 Chapter 13: Vaccines, Take 2
<p>We’re back with another episode in our Anatomy of a Pandemic series on COVID-19. This time, our subject matter is the one everyone has been waiting for: vaccines. In this episode, with the help of two amazing guests, we attempt to answer all of your burning questions about the ... Show More
1h 19m
Nov 2021
COVID Quickly, Episode 18: Vaccines for Kids and the Limits of Natural Immunity
Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. ... Show More
7m 48s
May 2022
'Where Are Vaccines for Little Kids?' and the Latest on Long COVID
Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. ... Show More
9m 19s