pandemics from someone who knows this issue inside out Sheri Fink is a

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who works as a correspondent for the New

York Times and is one of the executive producers of the documentary series

pandemic how to prevent an outbreak and I'm glad to say she joins us live on

skype this morning from New York so Sheri your documentary debuted toward

the end of January just as the corona virus outbreak was making headlines

around the world the comments section in the trailer on

YouTube is a blaze of people raising suspicions about the timing of the

release well and I should say it's released on Netflix for anybody who

wants to see it and of course it took us a long time to make the documentary so

it was just a pure coincidence but it serves to highlight the fact that

pandemics can there the risk is always with us yes they pop up all the time

it's fair to say now we've put that issue to one side in your series you

bring up the Spanish flu that swept the world in the late 1910s killing tens of

millions of people that was a century ago but viruses don't much care for

humankind scientific and medical advancements over the past century do

they well viruses are wily and yeah they're always changing not just the way

that they infect humans but the way they can cause disease and all sorts of

animals and so that's why there's a lot of attention needed cooperation between

countries and all of us have a role in trying to just stop and an outbreak and

do the things that can help prevent us from from spreading a new virus and your

documentary is titled pandemic how to prevent an outbreak how do you rate the

response to the corona virus outbreak do you think the powers that be are

gradually getting better at containing such outbreaks mmm well I'd say it's a

mixed picture right I mean there's no such thing as perfect preparedness and

we all know there are real gaps in terms of

you know everything from you know resources and different countries having

different abilities to address these types of outbreaks but there's also been

some real advances so we saw today or yesterday in your case the World Health

Organization convenient scientists from all over the world trying to rapidly

come up with things like vaccines and by rapid I mean it could still take a year

but there's a sense I think some development in the way that we approach

this also this is just the common knowledge that these are threats to

humanity and that there's importance the importance of investing in being able to

detect new viruses as they jump from animals typically to humans yeah and on

that point more often than not these pathogens leap from another animal

species to humans that's always going to be a threat of course but there are

people out there that suggests rightly or wrongly

that the corona virus could have been cooked up in a lab somewhere are you

equally concerned about an artificially man-made pathogen potentially sweeping

the world well I mean I think that to take these as separate issues so the

corona virus as far as I've seen in the experts I've spoken with and you know

that the detailed work they're doing looking at the sequence of the virus and

how it relates to other known viruses and animals there is no evidence thus

far to suggest that some of these conspiracy theories are true in this

case that being said of course that's another scenario that that preparedness

officials people who devote their lives to this type of work and that's actually

what our docu-series did is it followed people all over the world who are trying

to stop outbreaks and protect all of us so there of course they look at the

possibility of you know biological weapons as being another thing to

prepare for but you're absolutely right the the bigger risk the risk that we all

know it has happened over and over again including 1918 that we just talked about

is this link between animals and and human animals now you won your Pulitzer

Prize for your covering the Ebola outbreak in West

Africa in terms of the coronavirus though few people are talking about how

it could affect North Korea now given how neglected and broken the public

health system is in North Korea in its proximity to China do you see any way

North Korea avoids a serious coronavirus epidemic I mean it all I think what's

what's really important is things like transparency so sharing information all

countries need to to do that to stop an outbreak because outbreaks don't respect

borders and of course it's very important that health systems have

resources to be able to fight this so those would certainly be risks on the

other hand you know as long as the virus is not circulating wife widely in an

area which fortunately right now there's still the chance that we will you know

that the world will stop this from becoming a pandemic so then hopefully

people there will not suffer more but certainly risks are lower resource

health systems and health systems where there's not a lot of transparency in

terms of sharing information okay sherry unfortunately we are out of time I know

you have to shoot off for a meeting now we appreciate your insights and best of

luck with your series we look forward to the next one please come back when that

comes out that will show you think New York Times correspondent and an

executive producer of the documentary series pandemic how to prevent an

outbreak available now on your favorite streaming service thank you thank you