[Music]
when night falls
when we can finally forget about the
virus and close the bedroom door to
spend
time with our partner nothing
happens in fact births are declining
around the world
is this what the future holds in store
there will still be babies but perhaps
less
many countries are reporting
historically low birth rates during the
pandemic
as much as 10 percent less in some
places
family planning during the coronavirus
pandemic has become difficult
after all it's hard to get into the mood
or be optimistic about the future
during a pandemic
[Music]
hello and welcome to our kobit 19
special i'm monica jones in berlin a
city that
doesn't feel like it's going to be
deserted anytime soon
there's still enough hustle and bustle
despite the pandemic
but who knows what the future holds and
it's that
question that seems to keep many couples
from having kids now
a children's playground eerily quiet
the numbers are out italians are having
far fewer babies during the pandemic
they too have had to put their family
planning on hold
morena and vincenzo just bought a new
home in a suburb of bergamo
a big step for the young couple and
everything is ready for the next
quest this will be the children's room
it has yet to be set up we want to put
in one or two beds depending on the size
we also have some space downstairs which
could become another room
for the children
vincenzo and morena were planning on
getting married last summer
before their move but they had to
postpone
because of the pandemic and having kids
before marriage
for the two devout catholics was not an
option
for us marriage means union and creating
a family of our own
marriage home family and children moving
was supposed to be after the wedding but
we had a switch
while the individual reasons differ the
situation is emblematic for hundreds of
thousands of couples across the nation
wanting to have children
exactly nine months after the start of
the lockdown
in december here in italy the birth rate
dropped by more than 20 percent compared
to the previous year
with many couples calling off their
plans to have kids
the birth rate in italy has reached a
historic low
but even before the pandemic italy was
left trailing behind most of its
neighbors
on average women in the eu had 1.55
children in 2018.
in sweden this number was 1.76 in
germany 1.57
and italy second to last in the eu with
just
1.29 births per woman
it is too early to determine with
certainty what exactly is causing
italian numbers to drop even further
says sociologist julia rivolini the
pandemic is likely affecting couples sex
life
but more importantly financial security
seems to be the driving factor in the
decision not to have kids
i think that italian young couples are
becoming much more economic
rational than emotionally
convinced that it's important to have
another child so
they're maybe more worried about
the future of children buying a house
postponing marriage while working full
time for the moment vincenzo and morena
have a lot on their plate
but that hasn't changed their wish to
start a family of their own
as soon as the time is right
natalie nietzsche is deputy head of the
laboratory for fertility and well-being
at the max planck institute in ross
stock and she's joining us now good to
have you with us
uh let's start uh with the obvious how
has the pandemic
impacted demographics so far
quite a bit we have seen a lot of access
mortality in many countries in the world
i think that is
currently the biggest factor but
births are also going to be much
affected as we are just starting to see
and then of course migration has been
halted across europe and the united
states that's another factor that is
affecting the demographics right now
of course so so there are various
factors but let's stick to
having babies what are the driving
factors for couples to decide
whether or not to have children
yeah before i get to that let me
summarize a little bit of what we know
you know births happen nine months after
conception
so we just got data in from a variety of
high-income countries for births that
occurred between november
2020 and january 21 and what we do see
is a huge baby bust across
the high income world for example spain
in january has seen a decline of about
20
compared to birth in 2019. um
not all countries are affected
specifically southern europe eastern
europe also taiwan
south korea nordic countries and germany
interestingly haven't seen that decline
yet but of course the story is still
unfolding so people are handling
handling the worries differently or is
there something
a common thread that you see
that's a really good question and
honestly we don't know yet as the story
is still unfolding
couples fertility behavior is affected
by many factors
first there needs to be a couple so
partnering uh is a is a big piece in
that story and partnering is certainly
right now
uh kind of disrupted by the by the
distancing measures
um i expect that partnering
effects will only be seen later on in
declining birth right now it's probably
economic insecurity that couples said
during the first
wave anxiety about health about what
does it mean if i get sick if i have a
baby now
so i think couples during the first
lockdowns have postponed
not yet knowing if they will catch up
later
would you say that this is all in the
mind uh are we talking about existential
worries getting in the way
or are those worries actually affecting
uh a man's or women's fertility in a
biological way
you know that's a really good question i
don't think mind and body can be
uh disentangled that much because
literature and epidemiology actually
shows that
stress and worries and emotions really
affect health
the immune system also probably the
reproductive system interestingly enough
the the literature is all in the medical
and epidemiological realm and we don't
know yet much
in fertility and demographic literature
how health shifts or worry shifts
may affect fertility rates later on
but i do think worrying is not only
affecting behavior and being more
careful with contraception perhaps
lowering sex drive but also could have
effects
on the reproductive system i've seen an
article on
irregular menstrual cycles of women that
have increased during the lockdowns
that could have effects on ovulation so
that would be stress effects but then
there could also be of course
covert effects on pregnancies and
reproduction which we still know very
little about that is still unfolding in
the studies
all right of course i mean we we learn
pretty much
every day something new about this
pandemic and you just mentioned you know
social distancing obviously doesn't help
when it comes
to get babies do you think that couples
will
well catch up once the virus is under
control what do we know from previous
pandemics
yeah that's a good question from
previous pandemics
for example the flu 1918 pandemic we do
know of 14 to 18
that there was a big baby bust so birth
decline that was followed by a ketchup
quite a hump that is usually what we see
after these disastrous events
disasters recessions that affect
fertility to decline
but here you know it's a very different
situation it's an economic crisis it's a
health crisis and we really don't know
when it's going to be over yet
so i assume there could be small
declines and small humps for example
the first wave depression and fertility
could be followed by a little bit of a
hump
maybe in the burst that then happened
during the summer but now people are
seeing oh no this is lasting
so another postponement could be going
on it's very difficult to predict
but the distancing certainly has effects
first of all not finding partners
second families who are very stressed
taking care of their children who are
not going to school
will will likely uh postpone having
another child
that could very well happen so we could
see decreases you know first birth
second burst third birth this will still
unfold okay and you keep an eye on it
natalie nietzsche from the max planck
institute thank you so much
now here's some news biotech prizer just
announced their vaccine
is 100 effective in 12 to 15 year olds
some good news even if the pace of
vaccinations is still
uneven around the globe time for derrick
to answer your questions
if some countries vaccinate now and
others later
will it impact the drive success in
vaccinated populations
it very likely would let's
look at the current playing field for a
minute as of today
well over 550 million doses
have gone into arms worldwide
in just a few months um sounds great
until you consider that around
two-thirds of them went to people
in just five countries with another
quarter of them
distributed in only 15 others including
many countries in europe just 10 percent
of all doses have been given
in the world's other 175
nations for the obvious reasons
this is a huge problem ethically but but
it also
poses a clear danger to both
vaccinated and unvaccinated alike
that's because in the last several
months we've seen the emergence of
dangerous
new variants now for complicated reasons
related to how it replicates saris cov2
doesn't mutate as quickly as some other
viruses out there the flu
mutates much faster for instance but but
the coronavirus does
change and theory says evolutionary
pressure
from measures like mass vaccination
can cause it to change faster although
it's an
unscientific way to describe the
situation you can think of our
vaccination drives
as an attempt to to corner the virus and
and stamp it out
while it on the other hand constantly
looks
for an escape route it's already like
trying to to herd cats and and the
longer we leave
people unvaccinated hence unprotected
the more and better opportunities we
give the virus to mutate into forms that
might be
more contagious or more deadly or
simply unaffected by our vaccines so
it's a kind of race to control the virus
before
it can change in those ways and if we
stumble in that race by by not
vaccinating everyone fast enough
the virus will very likely rebound in
new forms also in countries that thought
they vaccinated their way out of trouble
that's all for now thanks for watching