let's take a closer look at the corona virus outbreak and the issue of global
pandemics from someone who knows this issue inside out Sheri Fink is a
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who works as a correspondent for the New
York Times and is one of the executive producers of the documentary series
pandemic how to prevent an outbreak and I'm glad to say she joins us live on
skype this morning from New York so Sheri your documentary debuted toward
the end of January just as the corona virus outbreak was making headlines
around the world the comments section in the trailer on
YouTube is a blaze of people raising suspicions about the timing of the
release well and I should say it's released on Netflix for anybody who
wants to see it and of course it took us a long time to make the documentary so
it was just a pure coincidence but it serves to highlight the fact that
pandemics can there the risk is always with us yes they pop up all the time
it's fair to say now we've put that issue to one side in your series you
bring up the Spanish flu that swept the world in the late 1910s killing tens of
millions of people that was a century ago but viruses don't much care for
humankind scientific and medical advancements over the past century do
they well viruses are wily and yeah they're always changing not just the way
that they infect humans but the way they can cause disease and all sorts of
animals and so that's why there's a lot of attention needed cooperation between
countries and all of us have a role in trying to just stop and an outbreak and
do the things that can help prevent us from from spreading a new virus and your
documentary is titled pandemic how to prevent an outbreak how do you rate the
response to the corona virus outbreak do you think the powers that be are
gradually getting better at containing such outbreaks mmm well I'd say it's a
mixed picture right I mean there's no such thing as perfect preparedness and
we all know there are real gaps in terms of
you know everything from you know resources and different countries having
different abilities to address these types of outbreaks but there's also been
some real advances so we saw today or yesterday in your case the World Health
Organization convenient scientists from all over the world trying to rapidly
come up with things like vaccines and by rapid I mean it could still take a year
but there's a sense I think some development in the way that we approach
this also this is just the common knowledge that these are threats to
humanity and that there's importance the importance of investing in being able to
detect new viruses as they jump from animals typically to humans yeah and on
that point more often than not these pathogens leap from another animal
species to humans that's always going to be a threat of course but there are
people out there that suggests rightly or wrongly
that the corona virus could have been cooked up in a lab somewhere are you
equally concerned about an artificially man-made pathogen potentially sweeping
the world well I mean I think that to take these as separate issues so the
corona virus as far as I've seen in the experts I've spoken with and you know
that the detailed work they're doing looking at the sequence of the virus and
how it relates to other known viruses and animals there is no evidence thus
far to suggest that some of these conspiracy theories are true in this
case that being said of course that's another scenario that that preparedness
officials people who devote their lives to this type of work and that's actually
what our docu-series did is it followed people all over the world who are trying
to stop outbreaks and protect all of us so there of course they look at the
possibility of you know biological weapons as being another thing to
prepare for but you're absolutely right the the bigger risk the risk that we all
know it has happened over and over again including 1918 that we just talked about
is this link between animals and and human animals now you won your Pulitzer
Prize for your covering the Ebola outbreak in West
Africa in terms of the coronavirus though few people are talking about how
it could affect North Korea now given how neglected and broken the public
health system is in North Korea in its proximity to China do you see any way
North Korea avoids a serious coronavirus epidemic I mean it all I think what's
what's really important is things like transparency so sharing information all
countries need to to do that to stop an outbreak because outbreaks don't respect
borders and of course it's very important that health systems have
resources to be able to fight this so those would certainly be risks on the
other hand you know as long as the virus is not circulating wife widely in an
area which fortunately right now there's still the chance that we will you know
that the world will stop this from becoming a pandemic so then hopefully
people there will not suffer more but certainly risks are lower resource
health systems and health systems where there's not a lot of transparency in
terms of sharing information okay sherry unfortunately we are out of time I know
you have to shoot off for a meeting now we appreciate your insights and best of
luck with your series we look forward to the next one please come back when that
comes out that will show you think New York Times correspondent and an
executive producer of the documentary series pandemic how to prevent an
outbreak available now on your favorite streaming service thank you thank you