Episode 8: Lost Voice – COVID's impact on eliminating malaria

The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to derail global efforts against killer infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV, leading to more deaths. As limited health resources in parts of Africa, Asia and Papua New Guinea are channelled into controlling the coronavirus, this could set back yea…

Episode 7: Modelling COVID-19 – Can we predict the future?

Episode 7: Modelling COVID-19: Can we predict the future?     In an island-continent like Australia, with a population of almost 26 million, how is the coronavirus likely to spread? And how can transmission be halted? In this episode, you’ll meet Burnet Institute’s Deputy Director, Professor Marga…

Episode 6: Motherhood in a time of pandemic

For some pregnant women in Australia, the arrival of COVID-19 ushered in an unusually strange and lonely time. Reassuring face-to-face antenatal care was replaced by remote telehealth. Many gave birth supported by midwives dressed in PPE gear. In developing countries, women were considered lucky if…

Episode 5: Is COVID-normal really possible?

Asking people to behave differently to how they would normally, is complicated. In a country like Australia, with over 270 different ancestries and a quarter of the population born in non-English speaking countries, it’s even more complex. Why then do we blame people for not following the public he…

Episode 4 – Everyone's an epidemiologist

Epidemiologists have become the new rock stars in an era of coronavirus. It’s these ‘disease detectives’ who have kept the world informed about how the virus has been spreading and how it might spread in the future. In this episode, you’ll meet Professor Mike Toole, a 40-year veteran of disease con…

Episode 3 – No one is safe until everyone is safe

Why can’t a wealthy country like Australia, with its world-class medical resources simply shut out COVID-19? In this episode, Burnet Institute’s Professor Leanne Robinson, Program Director for Health Security unpicks the reason we can’t just barrier ourselves off from the rest of the world. She poi…

Episode 2 – Are vaccines the silver bullet?

The speed of vaccine development for COVID-19 has amazed the most seasoned of scientists. So, how did we get here so fast? And will the vaccines continue to stop death and disease, days off work and ongoing economic disruption in its tracks as the virus keeps mutating? In this episode, you’ll meet …

Episode 1 – A year like no other, the pandemic continues

Why was COVID-19 the virus that become a pandemic? In early 2020 as bushfires ravaged the east coast of Australia, there was an even bigger threat about to engulf the country – the coronavirus. When a virus that’s not normally found in humans took hold, it exposed all our vulnerabilities and inequa…

Series Trailer

Helping us to make sense of the many impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic through science. Why is it so hard to keep a lid on a pandemic? Sifting through the science of the coronavirus and other infectious diseases, we look at how we got here, and what comes next. In these uncertain times, this 8-par…