The Briefing Room

Covid-19 and the World

04.01.2021 - By BBC Radio 4Play

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

No crisis has had the global reach and impact of Covid-19. There have been more than 120 million recorded cases of the Coronavirus and 2.7 million people have died and curbs on people’s freedoms have become a familiar part of daily life in many parts of the world. Just over a year since the world started to get to grips with the first global pandemic in more than a century, what can we say about how different countries have dealt it? Which countries have been worst-affected and why? Which public health systems have held up best? Why did test and trace work in some countries but not in others? Around the world governments have propped up their economies accruing eye-watering amounts of debt, but was it money well spent? Where and why has the vaccine roll out been most successful? And what could be the lasting legacy of the pandemic? Contributors: Dr.Thomas Hale, Oxford University Prof. Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Nazmeera Moola, Ninety One, a South African asset management company Dr Monica DeBolle, Peterson Institute for International Economics Jerome Kim, Director General of the International Vaccine Initiative Rasmus Bech Hansen, founder and CEO of Airfinity Dr. Jennifer Cole, Royal Holloway, University of London Kishore Mahbubani, Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore Producers: Tim Mansel, Paul Moss, Kirsteen Knight

Sound Engineer: James Beard

Editor: Jasper Corbett

More episodes from The Briefing Room