in tain the spread across the apollo is a similar agreement between the u.s. and canada. in normal times these massive flows place of this burden on our health care system producing a global pandemic that they threaten to create a perfect storm that would spread the infraction to or border agents migrants and to the public at large left unchecked this would cripple our immigration system overwhelm our health care system and severely damage our national security we're not going to let that happen. to overcome the coronavirus fog of an upbeat message marking the persian new year on friday and his address ayatollah khomeini called for u.s. sanctions to be lifted so life saving medical supplies can come in the government says more than 1400 iranians have died with nearly 20000 infected. those are the headlines our coverage of the crime the virus pandemic continues here on al-jazeera at about 30 minutes time. informed opinions the economy is actually what's keeping

donald trump the float right now and in-depth analysis of the day's headlines the protest movement is only getting stronger the more people he killed the more resilient the resistant they will become inside story on al-jazeera. on up front today it's the biggest story in the world as a coronavirus pandemic keeps spreading how is it that south korea seems to have controlled it and why is the united states so far behind i'll ask a top scientist in seoul and the top republican in the us. south korea has more than 8000 cases of the coronavirus but so far remarkably they've managed to avoid the staggering death tolls we've seen elsewhere in the world from covert 19 the disease caused by the virus how do they do it and should

other countries follow their lead joining me now to discuss this is dr jerome kim a leading american physician and research scientist based in the south korean capital of seoul where he's director general of the international vaccine institute drove kim thank you for joining me up front as the corona virus throws the entire world into unprecedented chaos south korea has been hailed as a success story as a model even for the rest of the world is that a fair description in your view so i think that every country will have its own approach you know the chinese exerted pretty draconian government control over movement of people it but then did the same thing that the koreans are doing they practice social distancing they aggressively pursued a test treat isolate and. policy they track people down if they could find them they close schools and they can all these things are things that the koreans did they never the korean government never

shut down restaurants and that you know i think is kind of interesting it's never walled up but city and again when the koreans heard that they should stay at home and practice social distancing people by and large did so so so what specifically is it the south koreans done that has helped keep the death toll much lower than other countries and some of the positions. so one of the things is that they opened up testing centers that people could drive in and go through they made it all 3. and you know once they identified people they they put them into quarantine and that early that ability to identify people who might be infected to isolate them was probably very important and more difficult to do in setting like in italy where it looks like there are actually a lot more there was a lot more spread that was not noticed or in the united states for instance in the nursing home in seattle where you had to see

a lot of deaths before you realized that there was actually something going on in the community you mention the importance of testing in south korea you mention the united states where you're from how is it that south korea was able to has been testing something like 20000 people per day i think there's been 5000 tests per 1000000 people in a country of just over 50000000 people in the u.s. it's 100 tests per 1000000 up until very recently why is it the south korea a country that doesn't have the wealth or many would argue the technology of the united states of america has been able to get tests out of the door so quickly working test drive through who's in the u.s. and other countries haven't been able to do that why so i think part of it is preparedness right the other thing is that south korea's biotechnology industry is very robust it's very active there are lots of companies small companies that are set up and spin outs of universities where the people who are in charge are scientists and they found you know they the chinese publish the sequence of the

crown of ours these companies look at it and they rapidly develop test but the difference between a university lab and a company is that the company can manufacture things and the government was then prepared to examine those kits and and to prove that they were good kids the same way that projects in development you know seppi the coalition prep the demick preparedness had identified organizations that could respond quickly with that same development so you. this is a part of knowing what's there and having people who understand how to develop kits i mean these molecular diagnostics are pretty sensitive and specific if you know what you're doing realistically you mentioned vaccines how soon is it going to be how soon is it going to be until we see an actual working effect a vaccine obviously there's a lot of red tape involved rightly involved in testing a vaccine before you put it out to the general public but all the line right now you see a lot of people making all sorts of claims about how near or far we are away from a vaccine you run the international vaccine institute what kind of time not only

talking about so at any party who's. very well known and very well respected stare at we will know the answer of whether the vaccine works in 12 months and depending on how you know the approvals process goes with us at the or through other regulatory agencies then with expedited review of the data on both where that it actually works and very importantly at the back to a safe approval could come within weeks and assuming that the company has been scaling up manufacture during the time when the final tests were done then a vaccine could come online very shortly after the you know the approval. most companies like the big company when they're doing a vaccine or in the final piece of testing are already developing the manufacturing facilities in order to have the vaccine when once it's a crew so you know what seppi it will be a little different because it's not

a big company if you are saying elaborating 12 months to get it check it works and then a few weeks after that to get the approvals. well. to see that it works then you know say 7 weeks to months. to get the regulatory approvals and assuming that the company has been scaling up manufacturing then you could have seen you know the radically. i don't know it's hard to say one to 6 months later so a year to 18 months is obviously still a very long time for people suffering from the illness a lot of more people are going to die in that time period let's talk about some of the measures that are being taken to trying to contain the number of deaths south korea you mentioned china took some draconian steps south korea has taken some extreme measures to that some people some people might say is a kind of you know in a normal world is a violation of civil liberties or people's privacy since the outbreak the country's been monitoring the movements of those people have tested positive they've been

using information obtained from cell phone records credit card receipts other private data to let the general public know where people have been where there have been outbreaks down to i think which seats people have sat in movie theaters is that the kind of sacrifices that a free society has to make in order to fight this pandemic so i think every country will will have a different balance the need for privacy and the need for public safety and we do this all the time right i mean this case you have the health of the nation or the health of the city and you have individual rights and so you know i think a lot of people don't mind because you know they want to know where they might potentially have been exposed particularly if they develop symptoms the other very important thing is it helps the government to rapidly identify the outbreaks and it controlling that by wrists. limiting its spread is felt by the government to be an overarching priority. you know you have to have laws in place that very carefully

explain what the balance of privacy versus he is and the korean government act. that as successful as south korea's been in responding to this pandemic we're also now seeing reports of new clusters of infections exuding 129 that were linked to a call center in seoul a region that's home to 23000000 people is the country prepared you're there on the ground is south korea equipped to wage a long term war against covert 90 because this is not going away any time soon is it the dangerous complacency thinking you've beaten it when you haven't. and i think the thing that a lot of people have been emphasizing is that that they may have won the 1st battle but this is a war and and like a war winning that battle is important but it's not the only thing and really what the government's ultimate aim might be is to restore normality to like you know the return to normalcy. and and the only way to really achieve that is to use

a vaccine you have to be able to ensure that as people carry on their activities that you'll be lit daily living that that they're going to be protected one last question before we finish you're an american citizen you were born and raised in the u.s. you're now working in seoul as an infectious disease specialist in a country that's had more cases of covert 19 than any other country in east asia but china where would you rather be right now where would you feel safer south korea or back here in the u.s. so actually for me and for my family i i don't think it matters we would follow as much as we could. see it social distancing we would follow good hand hygiene we would protect ourselves and protect others and i would counsel other people to do the same but it looks like you've actually has also made it must make a difference to be living and working in a country where the government takes it seriously as opposed to a country like the u.s. where some of your friends former colleagues dr anthony felt she and others are

having to work under a president who until a few weeks ago was calling this a hoax. yeah i you know i think dr tachi dr burke stuck to red field and i actually worked for all of them really are a good team they know what they're doing they're very competent they're directed they will start issuing the kind of clear messaging that you need i mean you know as a country you have to be decisive messages have to be clear and there has to be an integrated response and you know the united states actually was considered by many to be better prepared for this than many countries they're a little bit behind the 8 ball now but i think that that with the right team in place that they'll catch up. dr jerome came thank you for joining me out up front. here in the united states there have been more than 100 deaths with the number of confirmed cases over 10000 with the stock market in freefall the trumpet

administration is finally taking the krona virus seriously but while major cities like new york and san francisco are shutting down experts are warning that the country's health care system is about to be overwhelmed joining me now to discuss the u.s. government's handling of this crisis is mike leavitt a former republican governor of utah who also served as a us secretary of health and human services under president george w. bush mike leavitt thanks for joining me on outfront let's talk testing my previous guest on the show out of seoul was telling me about how south korea pulled off so many tests more than $5000.00 per 1000000 people here in the u.s. you have about $100.00 tests per 1000000 by the end of february the south koreans were testing 10000 people a day well in the 1st week of march u.s. the u.s. had only tested about 1500 people total that's a scandal isn't how can anyone explain the how do you as someone who's worked at the highest levels of government when you see stuff like that how do you explain or justify that to people. in the after action report is written on this episode it's

clear to me that a couple of things will have been learned in the 1st is that they need to open up to. 2 tests that have been validated in other countries yes the 2nd is that they need to spend some time and effort and well in advance of this merchants to develop the means by which those can be aggregated i think a 3rd thing that should be acknowledged is that this the. nature of the american demographic meaning it's just spread out there's 330000000 people it's a it's a substantially bigger challenge but it's going to be very clear that this will be seen as a weakness i think that it is being overcome over within the course of time. but it's cost us time and i think there's no question that it has weakened our response when you took over as the u.s. secretary of health and human services in 2005 you talked about how quote woefully underprepared the u.s. was for a major disease outbreak you then drafted

a plan i believe over the following year to deal with a potential flu pandemic this time around though there was no real planning done because discover a republican president got rid of the u.s. government's global pandemic response team in 2018 he's tried to cut the budget for the center for disease control and prevention the c.d.c. . surely those were incredibly reckless irresponsible things to do if you would still be in the cabin at that time i'm guessing you would have been advising against. the penn demick plan that i was deeply involved in leading it was about a 3 year project and candidly it remains underpinning our national response plan it was used in the obama administration and in dealing with the h one n one flu vaccine and that was considered to be a success at the same plan exists now and many of this and all of the same resources are there i think that we have can to we may have the testing part i

don't think we're going to find out as having been well executed but getting rid of the global pandemic response team in the national security council just 2 years ago . well there's some dispute about actually what happened and i'm not here to defend that one way or the other but i do doubt is that the united states now was responding in a very robust way the closing of businesses closing schools and universities with complete suspension of many of our stores leagues and no meetings that's a quite remarkable response that i think we'll look back on and say there was a lot of american willingness to do so now there will be cuts of it that will be criticized and that's always the case you're right to say it's been remarkable just seeing it happen in front of our eyes definitely remarkable you mentioned sports sports leagues businesses but on the other hand of course you also have beaches in florida full at the weekend you have bars and clubs fill filled to the brim of the

weekend in new york and chicago and boston a lot of people still not taken as seriously still listening to the guidelines and and therefore should there be more draconian measures taken because a lot americans won't do it on their own. my guess is that that could happen in many cities to the degree that this is happening well into early and to the degree that we begin to see the large sharp spikes in a number of cases we'll likely see additional measures taken to assure that. you've also famously said in the past that quote anything said in advance of a pandemic seems alarmist after a pandemic begins anything one has said or done is inadequate the problem now mike leavitt is not just that many people believe the response to be totally inadequate but that the president himself was the opposite of alarmist in the run up to this crisis in january trauma saying we have it very well under control and it's a very little problem he said in february it will miraculously go away by april he

again said he had it very much under control and also claim that the democrats were using as a hoax to make him look bad how many american lives do you think of been unnecessary loss because this president wasted more than 6 weeks downplaying and dismissing the threat from this virus. well given what we know now those statements are impossible to defend however i do think that what's important is what's happening now and in the next 4 weeks not what happened before what happened happened we now have to as a people rally to assure that we in fact respond now as you pointed out there are been about 100 deaths and that's regrettable that 0 is what we would hope for but that's not likely to be what will occur and so we in the united states like people all over the world have got to respond there are good examples around the world and there are bad examples around the world we need to emulate the good ones in the

void the bad ones you mention you know there's been a 100 cases and you wish it was 0 trump said less than a month ago you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to 0 that's a pretty good job we've done of course we now have close 210000 cases and more than $100.00 dead you say it's you know we should look forward and i understand that point but the importance of looking back is the only way you can move forward is if you can take the people with you and a poll out this week shows only 40 percent of republicans 40 percent of people who vote for your party see the coronavirus today this week as a real threat compared to 76 percent of democrats is it not because of what's happened over the past few weeks doesn't the need to be some acknowledgement by the president that he got it wrong now he's saying i always knew it was a pandemic i'm giving myself a 10 but the reality is there are people in this country who don't think it's a threat precisely because the president told them for 6 weeks it wasn't a threat but i can only speak for myself i am a republican i take this very seriously and i think increasingly as people become aware of what a serious circumstance this is pandemics are part of biologic history they're part

of the history of human history and they reshape the economics they reshape this. so she ology and economics that we're now moving into a new phase in the in this. in. this trite and that's what it is it's a battle between people and microbes and we have to be aggressive in our fight and i think it's clear that we're going to be seeing every american resource directed at this you say you mention your republican your republican governor a republican cabinet secretary as a republican who took this stuff seriously as a republican right now in this interview clearly takes this stuff seriously do you regret the behavior of your party in recent weeks. when i celebrate it is that we are taking it seriously i've never been through many large scale emergencies i've been through terrorist events i've been through major weather events i've been

through earth quakes i've been through a lot of different types of crises and what i've learned is that there's always a time. when after the fact you can go back and say what should we have done differently but there is virtually no value today in looking back we have to look forward and we have to as a country build on the strength of the american will which has been demonstrated by the fact that i'm working at home and most people who will hear this from the united states will be working at home and staying at home there's been a unified response if you could have said 3 months ago could you see republicans and democrats working together to create a set of legislation that would pass in the week they would cut that impossible no i understand that and and that's and i appreciate up on is a valid point but when you talk about people staying home you know 100 percent right people are staying home but yet days ago not weeks ago not months ago days ago the governor of oklahoma republican california republican devon it was saying

go out go to the restaurants go out that's not history that's happening right now and people like yourself shouldn't you be able to say you know what that's wrong i know the members of my party but it's not helping the public health effort now i say i don't think this is broken down strictly along partisan lines and i'm clearly an example of bad and there are many others many governors who have been saying. it from the very early on we've got to act. it and it makes truly milk it serves no practical purpose after that to occur today we'll have an election in 6 months i'm sure that will be part of the discussion but today we need to talk about what we're doing to prepare and how it is we're going to end shacked as a culture and as a society and as a world this is not something that any one country suffers on its own it's one that we're in together if president obama to remap today and ask you for a one piece of advice something he's not doing that he should be doing what would you say what would advice would you give him. i would just say you are following

a well grounded plan now there is a pandemic plan follow the lead the scientists who have experience with this doesn't mean that all of them a lead those who have been elected don't have to make the decisions they do but following the advice of public health officials who studied this for years and what grounding their decisions based on data and tracks is the important thing you had state says some treasures tony fouchier is a person i worked with for a long time we're seeing a lot of him it's because he's a seasoned thoughtful scientifically based leader who i think is doing a great job there have been reports of president trump tried to offer a german company large sums of money to get exclusive access to a vaccine for the current virus only 3 use in the united states and surprisingly the germans weren't happy the german government are on record saying this vaccines for the whole world not for individual countries trying to buy vaccines only for your own country to hell with the rest of the well that's the behavior of

a sociopath is it not. well i don't have any evidence that 1st of all that it's true and 2nd of all i do all i know enough. about having played this out a number of times about. economics and sociology and the politics of maxine's and the global basis to know that when we get to the point of having vaccine will be a lot of these discussions and it won't just involve the united states or any one leader and as i say i have no evidence that any of that is true we begin with ok and we've seen a growing list of celebrities from the actor tom hanks to basketball stars from multiple n.b.a. teams that they've tested positive for covert 19 in recent days they got tested quickly and promptly and many of the ordinary americans look at that especially health care workers and they're saying well we're on able to get tested is that another reminder that in the u.s. especially when it comes to health care the does seem to be one rule for the rich and powerful one rule for everyone else mayor bill de blasio of new york came out this week and said it's not right that you know rich sports stars are getting

tested and you know poor and nurses or health care workers are not what's your feeling on all of them. could 19 is no respecter of persons and i feel confident that. news new society that is not in or is in fact. the sociology that comes with power of shame and. it's just human nature i suspect it's not fair but it's just human nature and hopefully we'll get to the point that everyone can have it and that quality will be that you're a conservative obviously a former senior official in the republican party a party that's long advocated for small government for a smaller state what do you say to those who point out that no one's a conservative or a libertarian in a pandemic everyone is a kind of a socialist i mean everyone including donald trump your friend senator mitt romney of utah once the government right now to step in and save the day to spend

trillions of dollars to bail out the economy and american people. one thing i believe we can say with certainty and confidence and that is there is a role for everyone in this kind of an emergency and i have said repeatedly that anyone who use the federal government as being able to ride to their rescue will be sadly and tragically disappointed not because there's a lack of will or because there's a lack of wallet but because even the federal government doesn't have the capacity to be everywhere the only assets they have actually are those at the state local level and so even any way you look at this we're going to have a need for every sham really to have a pandemic plan or every disney has to have a plan for every church for every university and college every small every every city and chaldee that's the nature of why this is so complicated and so

potentially destructive so you know us and politics are what they are but a cold at 19 and viruses don't have politics they attack and their job is to in to to to find the most hosts they can inside of the bodies of human beings and animals and we have to as a people as a world we have to fight back mike leavitt thank you so much for joining me on outfront. i'm not so certain outfront will be back next week. joined the listening post as we turned the cameras on the media india has more than 424 hour television news channels. and focus on how they report on the stories that matter the most the states misleads the public to still be here

reflects a sense that. climate change their editorial shows a title leave they have anything to apologize on their listening post on al-jazeera . join the global conversation to pop the bubble so the people that expand their brains maybe have a different view this is a dialogue women in cambodia are in fact selling their hair we don't know how much they're getting paid for it it's hard to track it's hard to treat everyone has

a voice tell us what you think and your conversation could be a lot right here in this space we need to step away from gaming people are not necessarily game perfect this is a journey of progress and not perfection on al-jazeera. new restrictions on the u.s. borders with canada and mexico aimed at stopping the spread of the corona virus. left unchecked this would cripple our immigration system overwhelm our health care system and severely damage our national security we're not going to let that happen . i'm convinced all this is all just there a lot from doha also coming off hundreds more da initially a pandemic has now claimed more than and.