by Megan Vaughan

'We’ve all become used to hearing this phrase ‘underlying conditions’ in the context of COVID 19. Our unfortunate newsreaders have to keep repeating it in the daily litany of statistics and particularly the grim daily toll of COVID 19 deaths. We are told that in the vast majority of cases where an individual does badly with this infection that they suffered from one or more underlying condition (by which is usually meant, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, asthma…. What are often and misleadingly called “noncommunicable diseases”) And when we’re told that they didn’t have any of these, there is, I think, an extra palpable sense of shock and horror...'

Music by Best of Feelings and BBC Sound Archive

Produced and edited by Albert Brenchat-Aguilar

Communications by Patricia Mascarell Llombart

Executive Producer is Tamar Garb