A Siberian lab worker's death, and BBC News asks 'should we be worried?' in nine chapters
The explainer drew far more viewers than the channel's own News at Ten report on the same death, and its comment section filled nearly eight times faster than usual.
BBC News
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 633,506 views a day, 11 times a normal first day on this channel (57,395).
Is Pnuemonic plague spreading in Russia? | BBC News
"Is Pnuemonic plague spreading in Russia? | BBC News" is not a bulletin. It is an explainer, divided into nine short chapters, built around a single death: a 28-year-old lab technician at a plague research center in Siberia, named in Russian media as Darya Shipilova.
The chapters move step by step. The video covers what is known so far, the American call for Russia to share more information, and what Russian authorities have said; the country's health watchdog has described the cause as pneumonia of undetermined origin. It then explains what pneumonic plague is, how it spreads and whether it can be treated. It reports that the World Health Organization considers the public health risk low, and looks at how the story is being covered inside Russia. The final chapter returns to the question in the description: should we be worried?
In its first nine hours the video drew close to 350,000 views. A regular-length upload on this channel usually ends its entire first day at around 57,000. It also ran far ahead of the channel's other video on the same story, a News at Ten report presented by Jane Hill with reporting by Steve Rosenberg, which had gathered roughly 30,000 views over the same stretch.
It was not the channel's only busy upload. A short on Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate whose lawyers say she is conscious after a failed execution, also opened several times above the usual pace.
The plague explainer drew the most discussion. More than 700 comments arrived in nine hours, compared with fewer than a hundred on a typical first day. Many viewers ask how an illness described as responding well to antibiotics could still take the life of someone working inside a research center. Others point out that the illustration shows a virus, although plague is caused by a bacterium. Several comments bring up the early days of Covid. One of the most liked asks readers to remember the young woman who died.
Published on Trari
Read next
Is this your channel?
Share the story with your audience: in a community post, in your channel's description or on your socials. The text and the badge are ready.
You may use the picture, the badge, and link it to this story.
- Channel
- BBC News
- Subscribers
- 20,100,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 31,074,049
- Channel views, pace per day
- 3,594,225 (on a normal day: 4,211,593)
- Video published
- October 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 349,816 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 633,506
The numbers
The figures below show how quickly the explainer pulled ahead of a regular first day on one of the largest news channels.
