For the final instalment of this series we are turning over the programme to you, our listeners. Over the past four months we’ve asked you to send us your questions, and you have obliged. But we haven’t always managed to reciprocate by answeri

What We Have Learned

Mar 29th, 2021 28m 46s

Way back in the distant past that was last November, we rushed to produce the first episode of How To Vaccinate The World. Those were heady days. Pfizer and BioNTech seemed to be able to produce a stunningly effective vaccine using a brand new

What The Numbers Tell Us

Mar 22nd, 2021 28m 33s

Tim Harford is an economist not an immunologist, so he's on solid ground with this week’s programme which is all about numbers. Some of them are small but significant: 7 reported cases of cerebral venous thrombosis in Germany. Others are huge:

The Global Roll Out

Mar 15th, 2021 28m 45s

More than 300 million doses of Covid 19 vaccines have been administered - that’s nearly three times the number of official Covid cases. But, the novelist William Gibson once said: the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distribute

BAME Vaccine Take-Up

Mar 8th, 2021 28m 37s

In the UK alone, more than 20 million people have had a first dose of a Covid 19 vaccine, and the government hopes to speed up the roll out by offering every adult a first dose by the end of July. But the word “offering” may be doing a lot of w

Vaccine Passports

Mar 1st, 2021 29m 20s

Monopoly is a good parallel for life in a pandemic because it deals out suffering at random, and it seems to go on forever. So people can be forgiven for asking: where’s our Get Out of Jail Free card? The answer might be vaccination passports.

Vaccines and Variants

Feb 22nd, 2021 28m 42s

Vaccines and Variants is a great title for a fun new geeky game but a very bad combination for public health. New variants of the virus which causes Covid 19 are turning up in countries all over the world. Can the vaccines we have keep up wit

Incentives

Feb 15th, 2021 28m 52s

More than a 100 million people around the world have received a jab for Covid 19. But, we’re greedy - we want more. The virus is mutating, so vaccinations need to happen faster. And our vaccines are good, but will have to get better. Econom

Dr Anthony Fauci

Feb 8th, 2021 28m 23s

This week's panel of guests include President Biden’s Chief Medical Adviser, the long-serving director of the Infectious Disease Institute at the US National Institutes of Health, and a doctor who has been played on screen by Brad Pitt. All thr

Vaccine Nationalism

Feb 1st, 2021 28m 44s

No one’s safe until everyone is safe - it’s a phrase we are getting used to hearing. We are all going to look after each other and make sure everyone gets the vaccines they need. But this noble sentiment seems to be buckling under first contac

Vaccination Strategies

Jan 25th, 2021 28m 29s

The development of new vaccines for Covid 19 is a stunning scientific achievement. But now we some a cunning plans to get them out of their vials and into billions of arms around the world. Different strategies are being rolled out around the w

Roll On The Roll Out

Jan 18th, 2021 28m 25s

The vaccines are finally here, and countries around the world are running a race against time to get them into our arms as fast as possible. At the moment, Israel is leading the way, and the UK is currently forth in the world for vaccine doses

The Second Dose

Jan 11th, 2021 28m 59s

So, like buses, vaccine approvals, in the UK at least, seem to come in threes. First Pfizer/BioNtech, then Oxford/AstraZeneca and now Moderna have been given authorisation to be rolled out across the country. But, Britain, for the moment, is g

Larry Brilliant

Jan 4th, 2021 28m 33s

Epidemiologists don’t often hang out with rock stars, and not many of them can say they’ve played a part in eradicating a disease as deadly as smallpox. But Larry Brilliant isn’t your run of the mill public health official. He’s been warning

Bill Gates

Dec 28th, 2020 28m 24s

As the co-founder of Microsoft, and one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates has long been a poster child for geek power. But, through his Gates Foundation, he is also at the centre of the effort to end the pandemic of 2020. In this edition

The Vaccine Year Ahead

Dec 21st, 2020 28m 59s

What might the wonderful world of vaccines have in store for us in 2021? And what are the challenges that lie ahead in getting them to the billions of people who need them across the world?Tim Harford is joined this week by Dr Anna Blakney, Bi

Vaccine Hesitancy

Dec 14th, 2020 28m 39s

For a vaccine to work, people need to take it. But some are hesitant. On this week's How to Vaccinate the World, Tim Harford looks at why some people have concerns about taking a new coronavirus vaccine - and discussing how health providers,

The First Shots

Dec 7th, 2020 29m

So, after much waiting and hoping, a Covid 19 vaccine has been approved for use in the UK. Now the roll out begins. But, it’s not easy moving around a vaccine that has to be stored at temperatures of an Antarctic winter, or organising two dos

The Oxford/AstraZeneca Vaccine

Nov 30th, 2020 27m 42s

Tim Harford reports on what we know and don't know about the Oxford/Astra Zeneca Covid 19 vaccine, as well as answering questions from both the audience and our editor. On this week's panel of experts is Danny Altman, Professor of Immunology a

Who gets it?

1 Nov 23rd, 2020 27m 56s

It looks like we may finally be getting a coronavirus vaccine. But who’s “we”? Who is at the front of the queue, and who should be at the front of the queue? Should it be those with the greatest need or the highest bidder?In the second of the s

The Beginning

1 Nov 16th, 2020 27m 53s

A dramatic breakthrough in the race for a Covid vaccine has been announced. Now what? An unprecedented logistical effort unfolds. How effective are all these new vaccines? What goes on behind the scenes as they are manufactured, distributed, i