by Thinus Ferreira
CNN International (DStv 401) will broadcast another special Covid-19 coronavirus documentary this weekend, Witness to the Pandemic, that will be broadcast on Saturday 4 April 2020 at 19:00 with a repeat on Sunday 5 April at 18:00 and give the first-hand perspectives on how CNN correspondents across the world have experienced covering the unfolding global medical and economic crisis.
As reports of a mysterious pneumonia-like virus spreading in the Chinese city of Wuhan surfaced in early January 2020, CNN correspondents around the world started tracking what we know today as novel coronavirus or Covid-19.
Now, as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infections surpasses 1 million and with more than 50,000 deaths worldwide, Witness to the Pandemic will look at how the world got here through the eyes of the CNN correspondents reporting on this unprecedented global crisis.
"I think it's really hard to compare what is happening now to just about any story that I've covered over the last 20 years," says CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta, who has been at the forefront of CNN’s coverage of Covid-19.
"Unlike a conflict or a natural disaster, this obviously is continuing for a long time and has fundamentally changed the way of life, I think, for everybody on the planet."
CNN's David Culver, Nectar Gan, Paula Hancocks, Will Ripley, Kristie Lu Stout and Ivan Watson all reported extensively on the spread of this virus across Asia, visiting field hospitals and businesses, interviewing residents, business owners, quarantined cruise passengers and health care workers including the Wuhan whistleblower Dr Li Wenliang shortly before he died from coronavirus.
In January CNN sent a team including David Culver to the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan before Chinese authorities placed the city of 11 million people on a partial lockdown.
"I remember looking around thinking: 'This feels like the same mood ahead of a hurricane coming, where you're in the projected path. You don't know how bad it's going to be and how long it's going to last. But you know it's coming.' And that's the same sentiment that I felt walking around Wuhan," says David Culver.
As the virus began to spread to Europe, CNN’s Ben Wedeman covered the first major outbreak of coronavirus in northern Italy, while Al Goodman reported on the spike in cases in Spain and Max Foster covered the impact in the United Kingdom.
"What's different about this story is that unlike covering wars where you could see the enemy, with this story it's invisible," says Ben Wedeman. "You cannot see the germs spreading, so it's a whole different level of danger of risk involved."
The first major deadly outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States happened in Washington state, just a few miles down the road from the city of Seattle in a place called Kirkland.
CNN's Sara Sidner travelled to Kirkland not long after it was discovered that someone had died from coronavirus and several more were dealing with some kind of terrible respiratory problem inside of a nursing home, which is now tied to 35 Covid-19 related deaths.
On the global business front, CNN’s Julia Chatterley tracked the stocks, sectors and indicators most affected by the pandemic from New York, speaking to economists, market analysts and business leaders about how people will be able to financially survive this economic crisis.
"I had an early sense that some form of economic crisis would come from the health crisis, once you see that happening all around the world. The risk that it became a financial crisis, and as we're starting to see now, a jobs crisis too," says Julia Chatterley.
"The speed at which this has happened is also what makes this so dramatic. It's unlike anything we've ever seen before. The real heroes are those on the front lines saving lives and we have to do everything we can I think to tell their story and acknowledge these are people that are at times giving their lives to save others."
"They're the heroes of this story, not us. We're just here to tell theirs."
