Covid-19: what happens next?

Loading player...
On 23 March 2020, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the first lockdown in response to the growing number of cases of Covid-19. At the same time, countries around the world began to close their schools, restaurants, and offices and ask citizens to physically distance from one another. In the 12 months since, more than 2 million people have died, viral variants have emerged, and we have developed safe and effective vaccines. One year into the pandemic, Science Weekly is asking: what happens next? Ian Sample talks to the professors Martin Landray, Mike Tildesley, and Deborah Dunn-Walters about Covid treatments, vaccines and what the next 12 months may hold. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod
23 Mar 2021 English United Kingdom Science · Nature

Other recent episodes

Transporting the most expensive and volatile substance on Earth

A box the size of a filing cabinet was lifted by crane, slowly moved and placed very carefully in the back of an unassuming lorry earlier this week. What looked like a casual drive around the Cern campus was actually a world-first experiment in transporting antimatter, the most expensive and…
26 Mar 15 min

What sets human consciousness apart in the age of AI?

Why is it like something to be ourselves and how do physical processes create our subjective experience? These questions get to the heart of the knotty problem of consciousness, and they provided the spark for the latest book from award-winning author and journalist Michael Pollan. In A World Appears, Pollan…
24 Mar 21 min

Off Duty: The Crime

On the evening of 29 December 2011, police officer Clifton Lewis was moonlighting as a security guard at a Chicago minimart when two men walked in. They shot Lewis several times, then took off with his gun and police star. A week later, police had their suspects: four men affiliated…
21 Mar 26 min

Meningitis explained: who is most at risk?

Over the weekend, news emerged of an outbreak of meningitis among university and school students in Kent in south-east England. The outbreak has killed two young people and left several others seriously ill. Health officials confirmed that the meningitis B strain has been identified in some of the cases. To…
18 Mar 15 min

What’s behind the injectable peptide craze?

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears…
17 Mar 17 min