Confronting Coronavirus

The return of restrictions on life in Beijing comes as over a hundred new cases are linked to a huge food market. Peter Goff explains what's happening in Beijing, how the city is handling it and why the outbreak is a major blow to the efforts of China, and the world, to control the virus and reopen economies. Plus, a deadly skirmish on the India-China border.

In this episode, Irish Times Features Writer Patrick Freyne brings us back to the year 2011 and the release of the scientific thriller movie Contagion. Starring Matt Damon, Contagion tells the story of a deadly virus which explodes into a global pandemic, bringing society to its knees. Nine years on, in the midst of our own virus outbreak, it all feels eerily familiar. Freyne catches up with Contagion’s screenwriter Scott Z. Burns and the virologist who advised the script and plotline for the movie, Dr Ian Lipkin. The pair explain how their working relationship began over a couple of cocktails in a Manhattan bar and was sealed on the agreement that this pandemic movie would be grounded in science rather than blockbuster action. So, nine years on from its release, what it is like looking back on Contagion for Burns and Lipkin? Has the pandemic played out like they expected both scientifically and politically?

Conor Pope has been looking at how Ireland is reopening this week, in shops and other public places. His assessment: it's going quite well, but many small problems remain, from queuing to distancing and the wearing of masks. And as more restrictions are eased, more such problems will crop up for Irish consumers and businesses.

In our hospitals and psychiatric clinics, it has already begun. Increasing numbers of people are seeking help for mental health problems associated, in one way or another, with Covid-19. Professionals warn that the psychiatric effects of the pandemic and the lockdown will endure much longer than the physical effects of the virus. And those psychiatric effects are alarmingly diverse: anxiety, psychosis, eating disorders, PTSD. Prof Fiona McNicholas is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Crumlin Children's Hospital. She talks about the tsunami of mental health problems we face, the unexpected ways Covid-19 can harm our minds, and the potential for technology to aid therapy in a time of social distancing.

Today we talk to Washington correspondent Suzanne Lynch about the growing Coronavirus outbreak in the United States and trace the Trump administration's shifting response.