iWorld
Discovery to premiere special show ‘PANDEMIC: COVID-19’
MUMBAI: Discovery, Discovery HD and recently launched streaming service Discovery Plus will stream PANDEMIC: COVID-19, a one-hour special that gives an in-depth look at the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe on 15 April at 10 pm.
As many have heard through the news, COVID-19 is believed to have transmitted from animals to humans in a market in Wuhan, China. But how does this happen? Experts will shed light on its treatment and transmission, which initially baffled doctors and scientists who first encountered early patients who fell ill. The special will also look at how, within a matter of weeks, COVID-19 spread throughout China and beyond, alarming healthcare professionals and scientists.
PANDEMIC: COVID-19 will take viewers inside the fight to contain the pandemic with the latest news on how the government is coordinating to test and treat patients, and to prevent further spread. Experts will reveal why COVID-19 is unique, why the world was so unprepared for it and what could have been done differently to contain its spread.
The special will also trace the origin of the outbreak in the United States to the first patient, its rapid spread in Seattle and probe the dramatic and unexpected transmission across the country. Viewers will hear from the leading experts in medicine on the frontlines as well as academia, government officials and patients with first-hand accounts.
PANDEMIC: COVID-19 is produced for Science Channel by ITN Productions. For ITN Productions, executive producers are Ian Russell and Sarah Jane Cohen and producer is Nick Powell. For Discovery and Science Channel, Executive Producer is Gretchen Eisele.
Is the US prepared to face this global pandemic unrivalled in modern history? Every day the story takes another dramatic turn, as the number of infected and reported dead in the United States continues on an upward trajectory. PANDEMIC: COVID-19 will look at the effects of the drastic measures happening across America as institutions, schools and businesses are shut down to prevent transmission. This timely special will shed insight from those leading the fight to find answers as well as a possible cure.
University College London cell biologist Dr Jennifer Rohn says, “The normal circulating strain in the bats probably isn't causing much of a disease. But when it reaches humans, that's when all havoc breaks out, because it's in a new environment. Respiratory viruses have one aim: that is to get inside a human cell and use it as a factory to make thousands or millions of replacement copies that will then spread onto new cells. So often the cells will, will literally blow apart, as the virus is producing its millions of progenies.”
“The virus, people say sometimes is a piece of bad news wrapped in protein. It is a vector for getting genetic information into a cell and that genetic information just contains a blueprint to make more viruses. They were able to tell that although this virus was new, it was closely related to the original SARS virus,” explains Professor Thomas Friedrich from University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the documentary. “With viruses it's much more challenging because mostly, they use our own cells to make more viruses. And so they're using our own cellular machinery, we can't poison that without poisoning ourselves.”
Highlighting the speed with which Covid-19 spread, professor Dave O'Connor, University of Wisconsin-Madison says, “I think this is an important reminder that we live in an interconnected world where viruses that emerge anywhere in the world, can be a threat to the entire world.” He adds in the documentary, “A vaccine for this virus is unlikely to be available in the next 12 months. What that means is these other sorts of preparedness measures need to be put into place, because we're not going to have a vaccine. And so expecting this to be like the movie Contagion is simply unrealistic.”
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
