Coronavirus (COVID-19) struck just a few months ago, it was a deadly virus that took an unprepared world by storm. But as the world scrambled to react to this growing emergency an astonishing global scientific effort began to understand the nature of this new enemy and how we could fight it. In this two-part documentary series, we see Horizon assemble a team of BBC science experts to analyze the urgent work being done to combat this crisis.

Episode one aims to explain where this virus came from, what makes it so infectious, and how science is trying to suppress the spread and find a cure at a pace never seen before. We are facing one of the greatest medical and scientific challenges in history, with new information emerging at an astonishing rate, this is a battle we are fighting not just in the lab but also with numbers and data.

The worlds media was and still is flooded with data, information, and misinformation. But what are the facts? What exactly is COVID-19 and why is this particular strain of coronavirus so different? This BBC special takes a close look at the biggest public health crisis in living memory and attempts to bring us nothing but the facts.

In episode two we see how the fight against coronavirus is a very long way from being finished and how eradication altogether is technically impossible. With science now being center stage, changing the lives of millions, it can often seem confusing. Early predictions were wide of the mark, wonder drugs have failed to deliver and immunity passports are yet to materialize. Science has never moved so quickly so what do we know now? will we ever become immune? How close are we to finding a vaccine? and what have we learned about how this virus is attacking us?

As we enter this new phase of the pandemic the task now is not just learning more about this novel virus but more about ourselves, how our bodies work, how we interact with each other, and how we can use this information to protect those most at risk.

Directed by: Rob Liddell