Confronting Coronavirus

In this episode, we hear from Mary Leahy, the National Coordinator for Nurse/Midwife Safety, Health and Wellbeing. Mary has been instrumental in raising funds for much needed personal protection equipment for health care workers in Ireland. She recently set up the 'Heroes Aid' Go Fund Me Campaign which has raised over €55,000 for PPE and other resources to keep healthcare workers safe. The money will also be used to provide psychological and practical supports for those workers negatively impacted by Covid-19. Mary also explains the innovative ways Irish companies are working together to design and produce protective equipment to fight the outbreak.

Dr Jack Lambert is a consultant in infectious disease at the Mater Hospital. In this in-depth conversation about Ireland's approach to the coronavirus outbreak, Dr Lambert tells Irish Times deputy editor Deirdre Veldon that testing in Ireland at its current rate won't be sufficient to "flatten the curve", and identifies other problems, too.

As India begins a second week under complete lockdown, we hear from Rahul Bedi, an Irish Times contributor based in New Delhi. Last week, In his address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that if action was not taken over these 21 days of lockdown, “it would set India back 21 years”. However, these restrictive measures remain a significant challenge as hundreds of millions of citizens live in extreme poverty or in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and little access to public health care.

Dr Zoe Lynch is a young Irish medic who has recently returned home to Ireland to join in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. As Australia prepared to go into lockdown and airlines began cancelling flights, Zoe set about organising a rescue flight which brought nearly one hundred Irish doctors back to our shores. She spoke to Róisín Ingle for The Irish Times Women's Podcast about her decision to return home.

What steps do we need to take to protect the economy and give ourselves a chance to bounce back quickly when it ends? We ask David McWilliams and Chris Johns for some ideas. Plus, Cliff Taylor has the latest economic figures, including a sliver of positive news.

It was another eventful weekend. To help make sense of the reasons for the new restrictions, and to understand how prepared our system is for a surge in cases of a virus that is proving difficult to thwart, we talk to health editor Paul Cullen. Featuring discussion of the availability of ICU beds, the shortage of protective equipment and the promise of antibody testing.

In today’s episode we speak with Dr. Oisin O’Connell, a respiratory consultant at the Bons Secours hospital in Cork. Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues have been in regular conversation with medical professionals in Italy and China, in a bid to stem the outbreak here in Ireland. So what have they learned from their counterparts in Wuhan and Lombardy? And how have these interactions prepared our healthcare system for what is to come? Despite the government's relatively quick action on social distancing and school closures, Dr O’Connell explains “We’re still going to get a surge and that surge is going to hurt”.

In this episode, Science and Environment Editor Kevin O’Sullivan brings us up to speed on the latest developments of the coronavirus vaccine. As Covid-19 spreads rapidly across the world, research is taking place at breakneck speed. It is a global effort involving many different countries, institutions and individual researchers, all facing huge challenges along the way. So who is making the most progress and when will we see a vaccine made available to the public?

Yesterday the government announced new restrictions on personal movement and businesses, and also gave details of new measures to help those left out of pocket by the outbreak. What does it all mean for you? We ask Conor Pope.

Today we talk to Washington correspondent Suzanne Lynch about the growing Coronavirus outbreak in the United States and trace the Trump administration's shifting response.