Radio Replay: Don't Panic!
After a long history of civil war and corruption, many Liberians didn’t trust their government’s attempts to control Ebola.
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John Moore/Getty Images
It may sound like the plot of a movie: police find a young man dead with stab wounds. Tests quickly show he’d had Ebola.
Officials realize the suspects in the case, men in a local gang, may have picked up and spread Ebola across the slum. These men are reluctant to quarantine themselves and some – including a man nicknamed “Time Bomb” – cannot even be found.
This scenario actually unfolded in the West African country of Liberia in 2015. And what followed was a truly unconventional effort by epidemiologists to stop a new Ebola outbreak.
On today’s Radio Replay, we hear how those epidemiologists built trust to prevent an epidemic. Then, we talk with author Tim Harford about the surprising benefits of messiness and chaos in our everyday lives.
Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Maggie Penman, Jennifer Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, Parth Shah and Renee Klahr. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.
How Airfare Is Changing
Our own Stacey Vanek Smith had to pay through the nose to fly home for Christmas. And not just because it was Christmas — her ticket was way more expensive than usual.
As we say in the news business: Stacey is not alone. Airfare dynamics have changed a ton in the past few years.
On today’s show: Why it’s getting cheaper to fly to some types of cities and more expensive to fly to others. Also: Why Stacey will probably get a better deal next year.
Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.
Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.
IOC Bans 11 More Russian Athletes For Life
Luger Albert Demchenko is one of 11 Russian athletes whom the International Olympic Committee banned for life on Friday. He will be stripped of the two silver medals he won at the 2014 Sochi Games.
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The International Olympic Committee says it is banning 11 of Russian athletes for life as part of its investigation into doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Ruling on the last 11 of the 46 cases it has been investigating, the IOC said all were now disqualified from the Sochi Games. The IOC has now banned 43 Russian athletes and stripped 13 medals from the country, according to NBC Sports. Three of the 46 were cleared.
The 11 athletes sanctioned Friday compete in five sports:
- Lugers Tatiana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko
- Speed skaters Ivan Skobrev and Artem Kuznetcov
- Cross-country skiers Nikita Kryukov, Alexander Bessmertnykh and Natalia Matveeva
- Bobsledders Liudmila Udobkina and Maxim Belugin
- Ice hockey players Tatiana Burina and Anna Shchukina
The sanctions mean that Russia has lost two more medals from its Sochi count. Ivanova and Demchenko had captured a silver in the mixed relay event, and Demchenko had won an individual silver medal.
Two of the cross-country skiers, Kryukov and Bessmertnykh, had already lost medals when their teammates were disqualified, The Associated Press reports.
Russia is banned from having an official presence at the upcoming 2018 Pyeongchang Games, as punishment for its widespread doping at the Sochi Games.
Some 200 athletes from Russia may still compete at the Olympics under a neutral flag. They are barred from wearing uniforms in the colors of the Russian flag, and they’ll sport generic red-and-white logos that say “Olympic Athlete from Russia.”
