Dr. Paul Monk on Coronavirus, China, and Conspiracies

In this interview, Nick and Dr. Paul Monk discuss:

• Background on epidemiology, virology and global transmission as they relate to COVID-19

• Major plagues throughout history, and literary representations of pestilence and plague

• The context of wet markets, corruption, totalitarianism and secrecy in China

• The divergence in global reactions to the outbreak of COVID-19

• The emergence of conspiracy theories about the virus

• Silver linings from the current crisis, such as the need for global coordination and cooperation to respond to similarly global problems
  
  

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China.