Panorama 2020 E16
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00We all want to know when lockdown will be lifted.
00:07At the moment, I don't see light at the end of that tunnel.
00:10The government will tell us its plans later this week.
00:13So how will we stay safe?
00:16It's clear that there are still infections spreading in the community.
00:19Tonight on Panorama, we're behind the scenes
00:22with the scientists racing to find answers.
00:25We need to go really, really fast.
00:27It's been very stressful trying to work out how do we do this safely.
00:31And we're on the front line with trial volunteers.
00:34We're hoping it boosts the immune system.
00:37So how long will it take before we can get back to normal life again?
00:43We're in this for the long haul,
00:45and I think we are going to have to adapt to live with this virus.
00:58Why are you watching me like that?
01:00Oh, my gosh.
01:03Five-year-old Theo Hamilton's temperature is rising.
01:07His parents are worried.
01:09I don't want to go and get in a tent.
01:11I really want to stay away from the hospital.
01:13He's got leukaemia.
01:15It's weakened his immune system,
01:17so Theo is at particular risk from coronavirus.
01:23What will this keep away?
01:25The germs.
01:26All the germs.
01:28Theo and his parents are following government advice,
01:31isolating at home because of his illness.
01:37Lawrence is on furlough from his job as a chef.
01:43Kat has been filming life in lockdown for us.
01:47Our normal daily routine of wiping everything down,
01:51making sure there's no germs.
01:55She's only been out of the house once in six weeks.
02:02So what are your big fears?
02:04Why is Theo so at risk?
02:06People who are healthy are not making it,
02:08so someone like Theo, I'm scared that that will take him.
02:18The COVID-19, with him not having an immune system that could fight it,
02:23if it was to happen to him, would he be able to fight it?
02:27And that's the scary part for me.
02:31And that must just be playing on your mind the whole time?
02:34Yeah, constantly.
02:37Theo's having his weekend meds, which is his antibiotics.
02:40We have this every Saturday and Sunday twice a day.
02:44This is the only thing that I can protect him from.
02:46If I keep him home in his bubble, then I know he's safe,
02:49and that gives me a little bit of peace of mind.
02:52Yeah.
02:59The idea of lockdown is to stop the virus spreading by keeping us apart.
03:06Theo's grandmother drops off supplies, but she can't come in.
03:14Cheers, Mum.
03:15Cheers, Mum.
03:19Lockdown has slowed the spread of the disease,
03:22but the virus is still out there.
03:25That's why Kat and Lawrence say they won't risk letting Theo go out
03:29when the government does start to lift restrictions.
03:33At the moment, I don't see light at the end of that tunnel.
03:35I just don't see how it's going to get fixed.
03:395.5.
03:41Chemo.
03:43When we was diagnosed with cancer, there was an end goal,
03:46there was a treatment, there was a plan.
03:48Now there's not, and that frightens me a lot.
03:50So that plays on my mind a lot, like how I'm not in control,
03:54we haven't got a plan, we don't know what we're going to do next.
03:58And that's hard.
04:01So when will Theo and the rest of us finally be safe?
04:07The international scientific community has launched
04:10an unprecedented effort to beat this microscopic killer.
04:14But it is not easy.
04:16Viruses are notoriously hard to eradicate.
04:18That's why colds and flu come back every single year.
04:22And remember, this is a new virus.
04:25There is still so much that we don't know about it.
04:37Know your enemy is the advice in war.
04:40So what do we know about coronavirus?
04:45Dr Stephen Griffin has spent his career studying viruses
04:49and how to fight them.
04:52How does the coronavirus infect us?
04:55The virus is present in droplets,
04:57then gets into the airway in your mouth and your nose
05:01and infects cells in our bodies.
05:03And then as the infection gets more progressively expanded
05:06within your body, it will start to spread further down.
05:09It gets in, hijacks the cells,
05:11because the virus can't replicate on its own.
05:13It's the whole point of a parasite like a virus,
05:16is to get in, get out and spread.
05:19The best way to beat a virus
05:21is to stop it spreading from person to person.
05:24And the best way to do that is with a vaccine.
05:27A vaccine should make us immune.
05:30If we vaccinate people enough,
05:32then the virus just doesn't have anywhere else to go.
05:35And so, therefore, you can eventually eliminate it.
05:41Around the world, more than 100 teams
05:44are racing against the clock to create a vaccine.
05:53One of the most promising is being developed here in Oxford.
05:57The process normally takes years.
06:00The team here hopes to produce a vaccine in super quick time.
06:07We need to go really, really fast.
06:09It's been very stressful trying to work out,
06:11how do we do this safely?
06:13We're not skipping any steps.
06:15We're not missing things out.
06:17And it's been very challenging.
06:19The Oxford vaccine takes the gene sequence
06:22from the outer spikes of the virus
06:25and adds it to a harmless version
06:27of a common cold virus found in chimpanzees.
06:31When will you know whether this vaccine is effective and safe?
06:34We're going to know that it's safe pretty soon,
06:37as soon as we start to vaccinate people.
06:39But we can't put a firm date on when we're going to know if it works.
06:44In the past, your team have said the autumn.
06:47We would expect...
06:48We think there's a high probability we'll be there in the autumn.
06:51We can't say with any certainty exactly when it's going to happen.
06:54Maybe I'm just being too optimistic,
06:56but we see good results with the technology that we're using.
07:01The Oxford researchers are injecting 550 volunteers with their vaccine
07:06and 550 with a control vaccine, usually used for meningitis.
07:12OK, see you later.
07:14Today's the day of the vaccine.
07:16I'm just about to head to the hospital for that.
07:20I am a bit nervous.
07:24Jane Harrison is one of the volunteers.
07:27She is a senior nurse with the NHS in Oxford.
07:31It feels really amazing, actually,
07:33to be part of something so important
07:35that's happening right here in Oxford.
07:37It's a great feeling.
07:40None of the volunteers is told
07:42whether they're getting the coronavirus vaccine or not.
07:46I might be one of the few people in the world at the moment
07:49that have had a vaccine against COVID-19.
07:53This is my very small contribution to a much bigger effort.
08:01Researchers are now testing the vaccine
08:03to see if it's effective against COVID-19.
08:07Researchers aren't going to infect people with the virus,
08:11so they have to wait to see who catches it naturally.
08:14If hardly any of the volunteers from the vaccine group get ill,
08:18or 20 of those from the control group do,
08:21then they'll know it's worked.
08:23But lockdown means it could take longer to get a result.
08:27Lockdown, we hope, will be effective,
08:30but it makes it difficult to test the vaccine
08:32because we need a small number of people to become infected
08:35to know that the vaccine's working.
08:37More effective lockdown is, the paradox is,
08:39the longer it will take you to establish
08:41whether your vaccine's working or not.
08:43That's right.
08:47Everyone is hoping we'll get a vaccine soon.
08:51But some scientists warn we shouldn't be too optimistic.
08:58I think it will take 12 to 18 months still.
09:00We don't yet know if there's any product out there
09:02that will actually work.
09:03That's the first thing we have to establish.
09:05And we don't yet know whether, even if we give the vaccine,
09:08how long that protection might last for.
09:10And that's not something we can find out quickly.
09:13And to upscale for the mass production will take extra time.
09:18Despite these uncertainties,
09:20two pharmaceutical companies are taking a gamble
09:23on the Oxford vaccine.
09:25Before they even know if it works,
09:27they've agreed to go into production
09:29to ensure supplies are ready if the trials are a success.
09:34We're planning to be ready to have tens of millions of doses ready
09:37by the autumn as well, and then expand from there
09:40and start going into tens of millions of doses per month.
09:43Tens of millions a month? Yes.
09:45By the middle of next year, we should be up to the billion mark.
09:52It could be at least a year before a vaccine is widely available.
09:57In the meantime, what about a drug to help us fight the disease
10:01and make it less deadly?
10:03At the moment, doctors have nothing that's been proven to work.
10:10It feels like this will never end.
10:13Carolina and Steve live in East London.
10:16They struggled through Covid-19 and kept a video diary for us.
10:22It's a quarter past five in the morning.
10:28Steve woke me up because my body's burning.
10:34So I still have fever.
10:39Steve's completely got no voice or energy.
10:46Initially, I developed fever.
10:48Temperature would creep up a lot and I would feel really, really poorly.
10:52There were times when he would get out of bed and he'd be like,
10:55I can't breathe, I can't breathe.
10:58So what was it like when the virus went into your lungs?
11:01I couldn't take a clear breath, take in or take out a clear breath,
11:05and you could feel it.
11:07It was really scary, especially the times when Steve was struggling to breathe.
11:12Paramedics had to visit Steve three times.
11:16Today, Steve has been really poorly.
11:18He's just been assessed by an ambulance.
11:26And his oxygen saturations are quite low.
11:31It took Steve 15 days to recover
11:34and their three-month-old baby, Amaya, also caught the virus.
11:39I'm currently filming from Whipps Cross Hospital,
11:42a paediatric ward.
11:45Amaya has sadly developed COVID-19 complications
11:49and she now has viral pneumonia.
11:54Carolina was horrified when doctors said they had no drugs
11:58to help baby Amaya fight off the disease.
12:01She had to do it for herself.
12:04Her face was red, she was burning, she was sweating.
12:07Her palms and feet were really sweaty.
12:09You know, there would be times where she would be shaking and she would be lethargic.
12:13Did you sort of realise what a kind of terrible situation you were in?
12:17You know, I feel a little bit emotional just remembering.
12:20It was really scary.
12:25The whole family has now recovered.
12:30Right, so have a look at these.
12:32Today, Steve has been really poorly.
12:34We showed Dr Steve's ultrasound.
12:38We showed Dr Stephen Griffin the family's videos
12:41to find out how drugs might have helped them.
12:45His oxygen saturations are quite low.
12:48It seems as though this gentleman's infection has spread further down into the lungs
12:52and this has started to cause an inflammatory response,
12:55so your body's response to the virus is within the lungs
12:58and part of that is causing fluid to build up, which is what we term pneumonia.
13:02That's why he's feeling shortness of breath.
13:05So what kind of things would we want drugs to do in order to kind of attack this virus?
13:10So you'd either use an antiviral drug to slow that virus down
13:13so that your immune response can get on top of it
13:16or you can use drugs which interfere with that huge inflammatory process
13:20that's going on in your lungs,
13:22dampen that down so that the damage it does is less severe.
13:25And the last one is to give a sort of artificially intense stimulation
13:30to your immune response.
13:35Here.
13:37We've been invited to University Hospital Southampton
13:41where doctors are trialling an experimental drug
13:44they hope will give the immune system a boost.
13:49First I have to put on the protective equipment we've bought ourselves.
13:54The only way to test these drugs is to give them to people who have the illness
13:58so that's why we need to go on to the ward.
14:01The idea of the treatment is to increase levels of a protein called interferon beta
14:06in patients' lungs.
14:08It is one of a number of experimental drugs
14:11that have been given urgent public health research status.
14:15Professor Tom Wilkinson is heading up the trial.
14:19So interferon beta is a naturally occurring protein
14:22that many of the cells in our body produce on a daily basis.
14:27So when the lungs experience a viral attack,
14:30the cells in the lining of the lung produce this protein naturally
14:34and it helps the immune system coordinate a response to that virus.
14:3967-year-old Kay was admitted to hospital yesterday with the illness.
14:45Hi Kay, how are you?
14:47Alright, thank you.
14:48How are you feeling?
14:49I'm feeling fine, thank you.
14:51Yeah.
14:53What we're going to do, Kay, is give you some of that medication,
14:56that research medication now.
14:58Kay is one of around 75 patients trialling the drug in UK hospitals.
15:04So Kay, how has your breathing been?
15:06It was very, very shallow.
15:09So it's like your lungs are sort of blocked?
15:12Yes, it was.
15:13So you're trying to take a breath and it's...
15:15Yeah.
15:16Were you quite frightened?
15:18Yes, I was.
15:20When you start breathing, it will kick in.
15:24The drug is inhaled via a nebuliser to get it deep into Kay's lungs.
15:29We're hoping it boosts the immune system.
15:31We're hoping that will help fight the infection, the virus.
15:37The company says it's not a cure,
15:39but thinks it could save lives by helping our bodies fight the virus.
15:45So what would you hope would be the result of this?
15:48So what would you hope would be the results of your drug trial?
15:51Well, if we get good results from this trial,
15:54we'll scale up the clinical trial effort
15:56and hopefully have enough patients in to show that we can reduce mortality
16:01and we can get people out of hospital sooner.
16:06Government, universities and industry want to fast-track testing
16:10for promising experimental treatments.
16:14But new drugs still need rigorous clinical trials
16:17and that takes time.
16:21If scientists could find an existing drug that also works for COVID-19,
16:26that would really speed things up.
16:31There are dozens of trials around the world hoping to do just that.
16:36Today in Exeter, Dr Matt Massoli is trying to recruit coronavirus patients
16:41for a trial of five existing drugs.
16:46His colleague is filming on the ward for us.
16:56Dr Massoli's work is part of the world's biggest drug trial.
17:00More than 5,000 NHS patients are taking part and the numbers are growing.
17:06So this is a gentleman in his 80s, normally fit and well,
17:10no significant cardiovascular history.
17:12Walk two miles on the flat, a bit of oxygen.
17:19They're testing an HIV drug, a malaria drug, an antibiotic
17:23and two anti-inflammatory treatments to see if they help.
17:28A leading expert on infectious diseases is overseeing the trial.
17:33So these drugs, we know how they work,
17:36we've got a very good idea of the safety profile and they're available,
17:39they're kind of off the shelf.
17:41So if they work, we can use them straight away in a large number of patients.
17:48Right, so this X-ray shows this gentleman's got severe Covid pneumonia.
17:53Dr Massoli has found another potential patient for the trial.
17:59So he's asking if he wants to participate.
18:03He actually looks a lot better than his X-ray and he agrees to take part.
18:09A number of the patients that we've recruited have done well,
18:12whether that's down to the study treatment
18:15or whether that is just normal care, it's difficult to know.
18:19When will we begin to get answers?
18:21When will we know whether these drugs work or not?
18:25I think June, realistically,
18:27because although we've got a lot of patients in the trial now,
18:30we need to give a period for the patient to sort of finish their clinical journey
18:34to either recover, go home or, you know, if they pass away,
18:37then, you know, that can take some time.
18:40Professor Horby warns against getting our hopes up too quickly
18:43about any of the drugs his team is testing.
18:47We have to be honest that these are not going to be game changers.
18:50We think that they may have a modest effect
18:53and I think that's the best we can hope for.
18:55I don't think we'll find anything that's miraculous.
18:59Given the severity of the disease,
19:01Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse thinks we've got to keep trying.
19:06When you're fighting an enemy like this,
19:08you have to use every tool you have at your disposal.
19:12And anything that works, we should apply,
19:15even if it's not perfect, even if it doesn't work 100% effectively,
19:19if it only works on some patients or some of the time,
19:22that is still going to be useful in the present circumstances.
19:26What is clear is this is all going to take time.
19:32Vaccines and treatments are many months away and, let's be honest,
19:35they may not deliver the miracle cure that we need.
19:39Meanwhile, lockdown is devastating the economy.
19:45So how can we ease the restrictions safely?
19:49Steve's recovered from the virus, he'd like to go back to work.
19:53He runs a dry-cleaning business.
19:57Lockdown has taken a great toll on the business.
20:02Even, I would say, two weeks prior to the government announcing a lockdown,
20:06we had literally a customer walking in a day.
20:09It has had a dramatic effect on us.
20:13The whole family has had the disease, so does that mean they are now immune?
20:19Sadly, it is not that simple.
20:23So are there reasons to think we might not be immune if we've been ill?
20:26Absolutely, because there are many viral infections to which we are not immune if we've had them.
20:31I mean, you and I get a cold pretty much every year or so,
20:34and we get them more than once, right?
20:37So at the moment, we don't know if we will get COVID again if we've had it before.
20:43We simply don't yet know how much immunity, if any, we'd get after having coronavirus.
20:50So to lift the lockdown safely, we're going to need to know who's got the disease now and isolate them.
20:57And the government says that means a lot more testing.
21:01I've paid for a home test kit, and I'm going to test myself,
21:05while following the instructional video from the NHS.
21:11Before you begin, blow your nose to ensure that nothing interferes with the test.
21:16Then, wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.
21:20Right, so I have blown my nose and I've washed my hands.
21:22Very important that you do that.
21:24Then you get your test out.
21:27Open this. There we go.
21:29Holding the stick end of the swab, open your mouth and rub the fabric end across your tomsils five times.
21:38Remove the swab carefully without touching anything else inside of your mouth.
21:48Oh God, that was unpleasant.
21:50I now have to test my nose as well, so I use the same swab for that.
21:55So let's do that.
21:56So you insert it into your nose, just to the point at which you feel a bit of pressure.
22:00Let's do that.
22:02Once inside, rotate the swab five times against the inside of the nose.
22:10I know it's a bit fiddly, but hopefully it wasn't too uncomfortable.
22:14I think that's about enough.
22:19It takes two or three days to get your results.
22:21I got mine yesterday, and here they are.
22:24Look at that.
22:25COVID negative, so I've got a positive test result.
22:29Look at that.
22:30COVID negative, so I got the all clear.
22:33So how does testing like this fit into the government's strategy to lift the lockdown?
22:43This is the Francis Crick Institute, one of Britain's leading biomedical research centres.
22:49Its director, Sir Paul Nurse, has overseen the transformation of its labs into a temporary COVID-19 testing hub.
22:58Emerging from lockdown over the coming weeks and months is going to rely mainly on testing.
23:07It's the only tool we have at this moment, coupled with the social tools that you can apply to it,
23:12until we know who is infected and therefore who might infect other people.
23:17We can't really manage it.
23:20But Sir Paul, a longstanding Labour supporter,
23:23has criticised the government for being too slow to roll out more testing.
23:28We would have gained more information about the virus and how it works more rapidly,
23:33so by the time we got to this point, we might have had more information
23:37that could have advised the authorities on how to get out of lockdown into a more normal life.
23:44The government told Panorama it has taken the right steps at the right time,
23:49guided by the best scientific advice,
23:51and has launched the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history.
23:58We can't relax social distancing only when the government's five tests are met,
24:02and that means particularly getting the infection rate right down.
24:06Testing will help to keep it under control once we're out of lockdown,
24:11but our levels of testing have not kept us in lockdown a day longer.
24:17There has now been a big increase in our testing capacity.
24:22But when lockdown is lifted, we'll need more than just tests to keep us safe.
24:27We'll need a system to track down those who might have been infected.
24:33This is how the great British virus hunt is going to work.
24:38If you've got symptoms of the disease, you get tested.
24:41If you've got it, you go into isolation.
24:43Teams then trace the people you've been in contact with.
24:45If it seems likely they've got the disease, they get tested.
24:48If they've got it, they go into isolation too.
24:51The idea is to hunt this virus down in the community and to run it to ground.
24:58The process is known as contact tracing.
25:03It's almost public health's best kept secret,
25:05because we've been doing it for decades.
25:07It's basic old-fashioned shoe leather, phone calls, post and ringing people up.
25:12It's a tried and tested method.
25:14We know how to do it and we know it works.
25:18Jim McManus is Hertfordshire's Director of Public Health.
25:22Local authorities will play a key part in delivering the government's plan.
25:28We do have a contact tracing system in place in the UK,
25:31but it's nothing like as big in Ireland.
25:33But it's nothing like as big enough as it needs to be to cope with the volume.
25:38So a new system is being built as we speak.
25:41The aim is to build a team of 18,000 tracers by mid-May.
25:46Public health officials like Jim McManus say it is a big ask.
25:51There's been a realisation as we've gone on
25:54that contact tracing is much more important
25:59than perhaps some of the advisers and modellers had thought it was.
26:07Will you be able to do it in the time?
26:10The honest answer is I don't know, but we will give it our very best shot
26:14and we will work as hard as we can to help government deliver this.
26:19A new NHS smartphone app may help.
26:22If someone tests positive, it will alert everyone they've been in contact with.
26:27The government told us contact tracing has not stopped
26:30and tracing and testing is essential to limit the spread of the virus.
26:35It is working with clinicians, scientists and other specialists
26:39to plan a safe, staged path to national rollout.
26:46When testing and contact tracing are rolled out,
26:49it doesn't mean life will just go back to normal.
26:53Because when the lockdown is lifted,
26:55there's a risk the virus will start spreading more quickly again,
26:59so we'll need to maintain some social distancing.
27:03And if there's a resurgence of the virus, there may even be further lockdowns.
27:09I think we're in this for the long haul
27:11and I think we're going to have to adapt to live with this virus
27:14unless we have a very effective vaccine.
27:17Science for sure will solve this problem.
27:20What we can't be certain of is how long it might take.
27:30For at-risk families like Theo's, that is little comfort.
27:36What is the way out of this?
27:38Hoping and praying that there'll be a vaccine sooner rather than later.
27:43So you think you won't be able to go out until there's a vaccine?
27:46We could be talking 18 months, we could be talking two years even.
27:50I'm not willing to go out just because it's 18 months
27:55and risk him contracting it and then being out without him for life.
27:59We know a lot of parents in our ward that have lost their children
28:02and I would never, and I've always said this,
28:05never ever, sorry, never want to be in their shoes.
28:12Sorry.
28:14Many of us are anxious about the lifting of lockdown.
28:18To keep safe, vulnerable people like Theo
28:21may have to continue to live under severe restrictions.
28:27And the rest of us, well, we are going to have to change the way we live,
28:30the way we work and the way we travel to reduce the risk of infection.
28:34Scientists around the world are making incredible efforts to defeat this virus
28:39but we can't expect a silver bullet to come along any time soon.
29:09Find out more at iq.org