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Discovery
The Evidence: Are national lockdowns evidence of policy failure?
Discovery
Oct 31, 2020

As a surge of cases risks overwhelming health services in parts of Europe, Claudia Hammond and experts from around the world examine the evidence behind using lockdowns to supress the virus.

Lockdowns describe a huge range of actions that many governments took in the first wave of the pandemic when so little was known about where the virus was circulating. But full lockdowns are seen as very blunt tools, a last resort because they can have enormous social and economic consequences.

Instead a more targeted, localised, smarter response to slow down transmission is recommended, where data about virus circulation informs focussed interventions.

Also in the programme, The Great Barrington Declaration earlier this month called for an end to current lockdown policies and appealed for the vulnerable to receive “focussed protection” while everybody else “should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal”. The goal, the group of scientists said, should be to minimise deaths and social harm, until herd immunity, or population immunity, is reached.

The World Health Organisation has described such a strategy as dangerous and counterproductive. Claudia’s guests discuss the scientific and ethical issues raised and consider the scale of global exposure to this novel virus. So far only around 10% of the world’s population have been infected so what would a policy of herd immunity in the absence of a vaccine mean for the remaining 90%?

Listeners put their questions about coronavirus and the pandemic directly to Claudia and her panel of specialists, which this month includes Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead for the World Health Organisation’s Covid-19 Response; Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist and Chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee for Covid-19; Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the signatories to the John Snow Memorandum; epidemiologist Tove Fall, Professor at Uppsala University in Sweden running the Covid-19 symptom app and virologist Professor Steven Van Gucht, from Sciensano, the Belgian national institute for public and animal health.

The Evidence is produced in association with Wellcome Collection. Production team: Fiona Hill and Maria Simons Studio engineer: Jackie Margerum Editor: Deborah Cohen

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Mar 21, 2024
The Evidence: The science of the menopause

Millions of women around the world experience the menopause each year; it’s an important milestone, which marks the end of their reproductive years.

But every individual's experience of it is personal and unique. In some cultures, there's a stigma about this life stage – it's viewed with trepidation and as something to be dreaded. In other cultures, it's considered to be a fresh start - a time of greater freedom when women no longer have to worry about their menstrual cycles.

In this edition, recorded at Northern Ireland Science Festival in Belfast, Claudia Hammond and her expert panel take a global look at the science of the menopause and debunk some myths along the way.

As Claudia and her guests navigate their way through the menopause maze, they look at the most recent academic research in this area. They also discuss the physical and psychological symptoms, the lifestyle changes women can make and the different treatments available, including Hormone Replacement Therapy.

Claudia also speaks to the American biological anthropologist who has dedicated an impressive 35 years of her life to studying the average age of the menopause in different countries - and finds out how hot flushes vary in different cultures. She also speaks to a doctor who is working hard to make women’s health less of a taboo subject in the community where she works. And she hears from a Professor of Reproductive Science who is setting up the UK's first menopause school.

Producer: Sarah Parfitt Co-ordinator: Siobhan Maguire Editor: Holly Squire Sound engineers: Andrew Saunderson and Bill Maul Mix engineer: Bob Nettles

Image used with permission of the Northern Ireland Science Festival


49min 26sec


The Evidence: Are national lockdowns evidence of policy failure?

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