How are democracies and authoritarian states reacting to the coronavirus pandemic? An investigative team is looking for clues worldwide and interviewing virologists, health experts and citizens. Where is the fight against COVID-19 working and where isn’t it?
Nine months after the new coronavirus first appeared, the documentary "The Pandemic Spreads" finds some initial answers to these questions.
The film takes the viewer on a journey around the world: We dive into seven different countries and analyze their ways of handling the virus. We return to the putative beginnings of the pandemic in Wuhan in China. We see how Taiwan reacted to the virus earlier and more decisively than almost any other country in the world, as Europe and North America were still lulling themselves into a false sense of security.
In retrospect, it is clear that the Western democracies saw the coronavirus as a local Chinese problem for far too long. Yet research from France and other European countries suggest it was probably already among us here in Europe at the end of 2019. Our viral world tour also takes us to the outsiders of the pandemic: Sweden, for example. At first the Swedes' special approach was still seen as daring, but months later it seems to have gone disastrously wrong.The biggest health and economic crisis in recent history has underlined recent global political developments: as the world power USA sinks into corona chaos, its rival China seems to have hit its stride.
Will Beijing’s authoritarian regime come out on top of the crisis through its aggressive and consistent approach to the virus? "The Pandemic Spreads" shows how COVID-19 is changing our world for good.