COVID tested world health systems to near-destruction and killed more than 6.6 million people. Now new infectious diseases are emerging and the antibiotics we depend on no longer work the way they used to.

Arthur Snell meets doctors, epidemiologists, evolutionary biologists and veterans of the Coronavirus battles to discover the mounting threat of new zoonotic diseases which leap from animal to human, how COVID conspiracism is undermining our efforts against future pandemics… and how ill-prepared we are to deal with them,

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• “We could be looking at the end of modern medicine as we know it.” – Arthur Snell
• “New pathogens are in an arms race with humans… We were stunned at how fast COVID was able to evolve against our defences.” – Prof Ravi Gupta
• “Some experts worry that COVID wasn’t the worst-case scenario. The next pandemic could be much more deadly.” – Laura Spinney
• “It won’t take many mutations to turn bird flu into a human-to-human disease… And then you’ve got a whole new pandemic.” – Prof Christina Pagel
• “An ordinary trip to hospital could become a high risk journey across a minefield of superbugs.” – Arthur Snell

Photograph: Getty Images

Written and presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Assistant producer: Jacob Archbold. Original music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com . Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Doomsday Watch is a Podmasters production.

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