In the first ever repeat episode of Life in the Time of Corona, where we get two of our favourite comics to come on the show and talk about what's going on in the world, including the coronavirus outbreak in China, and how we're surviving it.
00:00:18.000So, welcome to, as I said, the first repeated episode of Life in the Time of Corona,
00:00:24.820where we get two of our favorite comics come on the show,
00:00:28.380talk about what's going on uh so if you've just joined lee donahue welcome daniel kits welcome
00:00:33.420can you hear us well can you see us well just let us know because we've had some issues with
00:00:37.500the tech stuff uh tonight i am now really quiet apparently so let me speak up it's working fine
00:00:42.820for everybody brian welcome uh oliver o'leary welcome says working fine perfect well guys
00:00:49.360we're gonna actually do this we're gonna do it baby right and uh do you want to introduce a guest
00:00:55.520kk or shall i yeah why don't i do it since i'm already talking so uh ria lina who not only is
00:01:01.640a brilliant stand-up comedian a regular host at comedy only she's also a virologist she's an
00:01:07.220expert in viruses guys are we no one's excited about that no one gives a shit and the brilliant
00:01:14.860appropriate because we begin talking about coronavirus a lot oh yeah yeah yeah that thing
00:01:20.580that's been happening yeah i've been i've been indoors for the past few days i'm not paying
00:01:24.580attention to what's going on yeah uh well and the brilliant david mills who's just talked a terrific
00:01:29.880comedian again a regular comedy unleash so we've got some dark humor on board we're ready to go
00:01:35.180we're ready to roll francis foster kick it off oh well thank you very much for for tuning in guys
00:01:41.480to the very very first episode of laugh in the time of corona uh we have had some uh little
00:01:49.260problems little quirks but we've ironed them out now and we're going to have a brilliant first
00:01:53.620episode so the first question we're always going to start off every episode is is uh how has your
00:02:00.240self-isolation been going and we're going to take that to ria well i'm i'm not totally a self
00:02:05.940isolated because i live with five people two cats and two guinea pigs so there's you know there's a
00:02:11.040lot going on you can't there's no privacy there's there's you know uh now we have to have a rota
00:02:15.540for the bathroom we all have to you know we don't always wear clothes but that's fine we're all
00:02:20.640related so that's not an issue like if you were once inside somebody else in the household then
00:02:27.300you're allowed to see each other naked that's our rule so you're not allowed to see anyone
00:02:31.700naked then presumably based on the only person well i mean i'm the only i've ever yeah but yeah
00:02:37.360right they all get to see me naked and i mean i am making some assumptions about your sex life
00:02:42.500i am making some assumptions about your sex life when i say that but yes i am married with three
00:02:47.400kids what sex life yes okay and you're going over to david uh a man who looks like he uh enjoys a
00:02:56.980a hearty sex life i don't know why i said that that's weird doesn't listen no i'm happy with
00:03:01.880that i want people to think that if that's what i'm putting out there that's a good thing
00:03:05.020i think you're sexy yeah well i i want to draw those people to me who who believe that so uh
00:03:11.140but that's the problem about being indoors you know the only person i can have sex with is my
00:03:14.820partner and i mean that's that's unusual for me you know what i mean that's uh that's very that's
00:03:21.660very dark it's a very dark road that idea um no we're surviving we're we're i think i i have this
00:03:28.820sense that he's he's you know plotting how to kill me uh he's gone very quiet the past few days that's
00:03:34.720never a good thing so um anyway i'm staying out of his way as much as possible does your food taste
00:03:39.960funny yeah but he cooks so it's always tasted funny oh yeah so at least it's consistent it's
00:03:46.740absolutely consistent yeah no we're surviving well that's good let me get into a serious question
00:03:51.900matthew g in the chat says i'm starting to feel angry with the way china dealt with this in the
00:03:56.560first six weeks of the outbreak they could have contained the outbreak but tried to cover it up
00:04:00.440what do you guys make of this whole thing about china covering it up because i mean that ostensibly
00:04:04.620is what happened the doctor who uh first revealed it um he uh miraculously found himself dead within
00:04:12.300a couple of weeks um which is seems to be the chinese way of dealing with things what do you
00:04:17.160guys think about the chinese possibly covering this up i think there's two things to consider
00:04:22.760there i think that while it was clear there was some kind of media cover-up i don't think that
00:04:27.080necessarily means that there was a medical uh laziness and trying to get on top of this i think
00:04:33.400they knew something was happening but what they didn't want was information going out that they
00:04:37.260weren't in control of while they tried to figure out what was going on so just because there was
00:04:41.400a media cover-up doesn't necessarily mean that they just did what maybe Boris did which is go
00:04:45.580oh whatever let's just stay open oh maybe maybe should we should we should we should we should
00:04:50.840we shut this oh I don't know but the markets so I don't think it's totally for us in the UK to
00:04:56.920start throwing stones at that glass house given how we've handled the actual medical lockdown
00:05:01.720versus how the Chinese have handled their media lockdown.
00:05:06.120I mean, if I could jump in, I would say, you know,
00:05:08.160the one thing that the Chinese are really good at is mobilizing people, right?
00:05:12.340They've got a lot of people and they can mobilize them really quickly
00:05:15.360to build like hospitals in a day and shut down a whole city and all this sort of stuff.
00:05:20.680So I agree with Ria, like they're not particularly good at managing the message.
00:05:25.920Of course, they always try and manage the message
00:05:27.540when they don't understand transparency and the value of transparency
00:05:30.200and how actually that could have gotten them out ahead of things much more effectively.
00:05:35.220But that's because they're so scared that the people will rise up
00:05:38.400because, in fact, it's actually quite a fragile regime without their, you know, authoritarian control.
00:05:44.960So, yeah, you know, they didn't manage the message well,
00:05:48.660but they certainly could mobilize the situation so that once it got out,
00:05:52.920they were able to manage it and get it under control pretty quickly, certainly in comparison to us.
00:05:57.520well just yeah sorry francis go for it i was gonna say so ria you're actually a virologist
00:06:03.160so you're an expert in these matters yeah well again but let's be clear there's two there's two
00:06:09.400areas of expertise right now there's virology but there's epidemiology and those are two different
00:06:13.880areas of science virology is understanding the science of it it's understanding what a virus
00:06:18.000is understanding some of the science and the medical and behaviors behind it but epidemiology
00:06:23.240is the understanding of how it spreads through populations and understanding how society works
00:06:27.180And and it's the epidemiologists that are the ones that are tracking down every case that we remember at the beginning where they they found the super spreader and then he came over and then they tried to track everyone he'd been in contact with.
00:06:38.400That's the that's the job of epidemiology. And I think it's important to understand that they are the ones that are going to give us a lot of they are the ones that are doing all of the predictions.
00:06:48.620They're the ones that are telling us how far ahead behind we are.
00:06:52.180And it's the virologists that are trying to work on the vaccines
00:06:54.640and are trying to understand the immune response
00:06:56.620so that we can better improve our testing.
00:06:59.380And then it's the doctors and the NHS and the healthcare system
00:07:03.780that's going to just provide the support we need
00:07:06.480as and when people are affected by this.
00:07:10.080The other thing, Frances, just to say,
00:07:12.480you know, definitely Rhea's a virologist,
00:07:14.600but let's not forget, we might not be experts
00:07:18.080but we're comedians so we can talk about whatever the fuck we want right and make it sound like
00:07:23.760we're experts you know we you know that doesn't matter with words yeah we have opinions it doesn't
00:07:28.600matter if we're we're experts we have opinions that's the important thing absolutely and we've
00:07:32.460got access to a facebook account in which we can make our opinions heard to roughly around 37 people
00:07:39.660yes on a good day well we're making our opinions heard to over 100 people already uh in the five
00:07:45.840minutes we've been going uh and guys if you're watching uh please hit the like button we're
00:07:50.320still getting trolled by those idiots from last week who are downvoting videos just for the sake
00:07:54.420of it so if you're enjoying the show please hit the upvote and if you're new here hit the subscribe
00:07:58.880button it's good to have you uh on the show so francis you wanted to ask some more questions
00:08:03.640of our brilliant guests i did so what's the best and worst thing about self-isolation ria go first
00:08:09.880the best thing is how much i'm saving on laundry detergent because i am pretty much wearing the
00:08:17.520same outfit for three four days in a row uh i mean changing the important bits you know what
00:08:21.520i'm saying but you know i don't need to change a sweatshirt more than once if it hasn't even
00:08:25.540been outside and uh the worst thing is uh well you know how they say you can pick your friends
00:08:32.780but you can't pick your family i you know one of the you know i i may have made people you know
00:08:40.460you can make children that look like you but they don't necessarily think like you or uh like you
00:08:45.760and that's that's what i'm beginning to discover but but in my case i'm mixed race half my kids
00:08:52.860don't even look like me so that's so yeah but that means they're easier to disown