In many countries struggling with the Covid pandemic, the impact of the virus itself – in most cases a short-term impact on somebody's health – is increasingly being overshadowed by the long-term impacts of the measures themselves that are being imposed to slow the spread of the outbreak. These include not only severe economic impacts but also those on human health itself and on the education of our children, among others. Richard Kollár is a mathematical modeller who has been tracing the course not only of the virus but of these other impacts as well, and has recently formed a special advisory group of experts from a wide variety of disciplines, whose aim it is both to advise the government and inform the public on how best to proceed given the total situation. He discusses with Jonathan the impact this new initiative has been having, the serious epidemiological situation in Slovakia, and the likelihood that schools will be able to reopen sometime soon.