Name: Coronavirus vs other pandemics - 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2020-12-24T18:15:35.000Z
Duration: 6 min 17 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

Adverbs of degree

I've really had enough of this coronavirus, Georgina!

People getting sick, losing their jobs and to top it off,

I know it's bad, Neil, but compared to historical pandemics

like the Spanish flu and economic crises like the Great Depression,

You've got to look at the bigger picture –

the long-term, overall view of a complex situation.

Hmm, somehow that's not very comforting, Georgina! But tell me more…

Well, we've heard lots from politicians and scientists

about the spread of coronavirus but a historian's view

might give us a fresh look at the bigger picture –

So in this programme we'll be hearing from historian, Peter Frankopan,

author of bestselling book, The Silk Roads.

Ah, the title of that book, The Silk Roads, reminds me of my

quiz question, Georgina. Are you ready to have a go?

I'll try, Neil, but the only thing I know about the Silk Roads

is that they were the ancient routes along which people travelled the Earth.

Very good, Georgina! Not just people but also ideas, religions,

languages and diseases travelled from place to place

But where exactly did the Silk Roads run?

That's my quiz question. Was it: a) From South America to Europe?,

b) From Africa to Asia?,  or, c) From Asia to Europe?

Well, since this current pandemic came from Wuhan,

OK, Georgina, we'll find out later if that's right.

What's certain is that disease passing from place to place and

Listen to historian, Peter Frankopan, being interviewed

See if you can hear the reason he gives for how diseases are spread.

Well, it's a fairly predictable thing a historian would say but change

Our ancestors all lived through big pandemics, some of them which

And one of the products of living together in high-density populations,

going back as far as historical records go, is you find there are transitions of

disease from animals to human beings and they inflict damage.

And that damage typically you measure in mortality rates

but then the economic and social consequences of disease.

There's a lot of examples in history to learn from.

Compared to coronavirus, other big pandemics in history

have been much more lethal – dangerous enough to cause death.

One reason Peter gives for this is the high-density of populations,

meaning people living together in buildings very close to one another.

In olden days this included living together with animals,

making the transmission of disease to humans much easier.

Right, Georgina, like the flea-infested rats which spread the plague

But times change and today most people live in very different ways

So how can we explain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020?

And why have some countries been able to deal with it so much

Here's Peter Frankopan again, talking on the BBC's HARDTalk.

Listen and see if you can you spot his answer.

Well, your geographical position in the world matters – if you're

if you're geographically peripheral like Scandinavia or New Zealand,

then you have a different dose, a different level of connectivity

If you're a country like the UK which is the

centre of all global flight routes, then the incidence of people going backwards and

forwards, in and out of your country - you're going to

The scorecard is very mixed and there've been some

democratic systems that have been extremely resilient and

robust at anticipating it and some that have got it wrong.

According to Peter, countries which are geographically peripheral –

at the periphery or edge of things, instead of at the centre, are less at risk.

The UK, on the other hand, is at the centre of global flight routes –

the connecting flight paths used by airplanes.

Visiting air passengers who spread the disease are one of the reasons

Here, dose is used as an informal way of saying an unpleasant experience.

So from a historical viewpoint, this current pandemic

doesn't seem so bad – far fewer people have died than in

previous pandemics and with the arrival of a vaccine,

Hmm, I guess so, Georgina, but for now at least the pubs are

Anyway, it was interesting to hear how diseases have been

So what was the answer to your quiz question, Neil? Was I right?

You said the ancient Silk Roads ran, c) from Asia to Europe

They ran from Japan and the Far East through Asia and the Middle East,

bringing trade and spices as well as new ideas and languages to Europe.

Sounds like another example of looking at the bigger picture -

Diseases can be lethal – extremely dangerous, even causing death.

A high-density population is a population living very closely together.

Peripheral countries may be less at risk from pandemics because

they are at the periphery or edge of events, instead of at the centre.

So somewhere with fewer flight routes –