The first episode of Netflix’s Covid-19 centric documentary series “Coronavirus, Explained” was released yesterday. It is the latest attempt by the streaming flatform to spread useful information about the ongoing pandemic and also cash in the global attention that the virus is getting. A lot of famous people have played a part in the making of this series, including one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates.
The Owner of Microsoft has been contributing a lot to mankind’s struggle against the coronavirus, with this Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation currently funding seven separate vaccine factories to works on Covid-19 solution. Besides backing projects, Bill has been appearing a lot on various media to combat misinformation: from social platforms like twitter to the newest Netflix Tv series. In this article, we would provide you with a general description of the series and what happened during the first episode:
Apparently, this is a continuation of the “explained” series, one of the most-watched on Netflix in 2018. There are going to be three 25 minutes episodes, with the first two elaborate more about the current situation of the epidemic and the last one being a prediction about what would happen next in the future.
In the voice of narrator JK Simmons (2002 Spider-Man’s Jonah Jameson), the audience is walked through a montage of various statements from global leaders: From Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani, Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Donald Trump… These countries took Covid-19 pretty lightly at first and are currently paying the price for their ignorance.
The scene rolls back to Bill Gates afterward – the man was amongst the few who managed to recognize the true danger of the Coronavirus. In an interview back in Spring last year, the man has made a pretty on point prediction… to an uncanny degree. According to Gates, the most dangerous enemy of Mankind right now is a pandemic that could kill millions – once that happens, the world economy would stop on its track and no countries would be untouched by this catastrophe.
The guy also mentioned SARS and MERS (the two viruses that were in the same group as corona) and how we are not ready to deal with an outbreak of this kind.
Afterward, the episode went into the specifics of the coronavirus, from its shape, name, transmission methods, symptoms when infected, life cycle, the reason behind the rapid increase in infected cases, comparison with SARS, and MERS…. According to scientists, this virus is 96% similar to the types usually found on bats – and the bat virus has mutated into a type that can infect humans. However, according to various analyses, humans do not catch it directly from bats – there was another species involved in the process.
The worse thing is that to this date, we have only barely figure out the nature of this virus – most of the questions asked during the episodes cannot be answered. Vaccines are really hard to make – it would take over a year for human testing results to clear – and during that period of time, the virus would continue to rampage and take even more lives. Overall, the only thing that is confirmed to work against this virus is Quarantine – the same method that was used against the Black Death seven centuries ago. In other words: Social Distancing is the key against corona.
The next two episodes of the series would be released this summer – they would go deeper about the virus with various explanations and analyses about recovery from the virus, both public health-wise and economy-wise.
For more information related to the Coronavirus pandemic and India, please check out this post: Bill Gates Praises PM Modi For His Leadership During COVID-19 Pandemic.
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