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Beating coronavirus: What will you sacrifice?

Understanding how culture and psychology underpin our ability to tackle Covid-19

Across the globe, authorities are taking unprecedented steps to curb the spread of coronavirus - as well as the increased levels of public fear and anxiety that accompany it. But do our views on the place of individual freedom and the role of the government in society help dictate how effective those measures will be? As rationing, quarantines and travel restrictions become more common place, there’s growing concern that some countries will struggle to control the actions of their citizens. With many shoppers ignoring pleas not to panic buy provisions, does this bode ill for more stringent curbs on behaviour still to come? When it comes to tackling a global pandemic, how many of your freedoms are you willing to sacrifice for the greater good?

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Sat 14 Mar 2020 04:06GMT

Contributors

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Dr Steven Taylor - author of ‘The Psychology of Pandemics’

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Dr Monica Schoch Spana - medical anthropologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Laura Spinney - science journalist and author of the book ‘Pale Rider’, a history of the Spanish Flu

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Dr Jonathan Quick – a former director at the World Health Organization (WHO) and author of ‘The End of Epidemics’

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Also featuring ...

John HorganÌý-Ìýdirector of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology

Broadcasts

  • Fri 13 Mar 2020 09:06GMT
  • Sat 14 Mar 2020 00:06GMT
  • Sat 14 Mar 2020 03:06GMT
  • Sat 14 Mar 2020 04:06GMT

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