Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic

Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic creates the first ever life-saving pandemic in an ambitious citizen science experiment for BBC Four, fronted by mathematician Dr Hannah Fry and emergency medic Dr Javid Abdelmoneim. The government has ranked pandemic flu as a serious threat to the UK. To predict the impact of the next pandemic more accurately than ever before, new data is needed - and lots of it. Dr Hannah Fry is on the case. The groundbreaking BBC Four experiment uses app technology to ‘infect’ users whilst tracking their movements and social interactions over 24 hours. The information collected from the app could inform public health policy and help save lives during the next pandemic. But will Hannah persuade enough people nationwide to download it? If she does, this will allow a team of mathematicians from the University of Cambridge to create a simulation of how a deadly flu virus could spread across the UK, predicting how many of us will be infected - and how many might die. Whilst Hannah masterminds the experiment and adopts the role of Patient Zero - walking the streets of Haslemere in Surrey to launch the outbreak - Javid finds out why flu is such a danger to society. He meets the researchers trying to discover what makes some people more contagious than others and visits a factory that will produce vaccine when the next pandemic virus emerges. Armed with the information gathered and the results of the BBC Four experiment, Hannah and Javid make a shocking revelation.