california and colorado confirm the presence of a new variant of covert 19 as president donald trump blames individual u.s. states for failing to meet vaccine goals. are watching al-jazeera live from a headquarters in doha i'm dead you know we're going to also coming up regulators in the u.k. approved the emergency use of the oxford astra zeneca vaccine boosting hopes that poorer countries may soon get help in fighting covert 19. and on to treat you in on the one year on from the outbreak that brought this city's health care system to a breaking point and that went on to infect millions of people around the world.

also ahead an attack kills at least 26 people in the airport were members of yemen's new government had just arrived from saudi arabia. thanks for joining us president donald trump is blaming u.s. states for the slow rollout of covert 1000 vaccines criticism is mounting over his administration's response to the pandemic so far around 2000000 shots have been administered a far cry from the promise 20000000 by year end and it comes as a new more infectious variant of the virus has now been identified in 2 u.s. states and the gallagher begins our coverage from miami. patiently waiting for the code 19 vaccine many of florida's over 60 five's and health care workers camped overnight for their chance to receive

a potentially life saving shot in the arm as the state's positivity rate hits record highs delays conflicting information and crushing websites left fax anation sites overwhelmed i want to i want to see the good in people and i want to hope that people are doing their bathroom but at this point i don't know their best this is really going on right now meanwhile in the same state the president continues to golf in his mar-a lago estate telling governors to get moving his administration promised to have 20000000 people vaccinated by the end of this week doctors say without a national strategy it could take years in fourchon way without a master plan after distribution national is going to be a lot of. and a lot of this is going to fall on state health departments and hospitals and doctors that were already in. more than 11000000 doses of madonna and pfizer's 2 dose vaccines have been distributed across the u.s. but according to the c.d.c. just over 2000000 of those most at risk have received it the government's health

and human services department say things will get better it's only 15 days since the 1st vaccine were given so things will evolve they were optimized over over the next week or so and you'll see you know millions and millions more vaccines the initial plan was to have 80 percent of the u.s. population vaccinated by june to reach that figure millions would have to be vaccinated every day so far that doesn't appear to be the case here in florida the positivity rate of new code 19 infections stands at more than 22 percent state health officials say that's because fewer people are being tested but with an apparent slow roll out across the nation the next few months could be worse than predicted all those most at risk can do is hope things get better and fast. i gallacher all jazeera miami florida let's get an update from our brunell's he's joining us now from los angeles so is there any merit in the president putting the blame on the states for the slow vaccine rollout rob.

well we do know that this is been the pattern of trump's behavior since the beginning of the pandemic he has done everything possible to deflect any responsibility or blame from himself and to lay it on others and blame china and blame. democrats he blame governors and state officials he blamed his own your brats and he blame agencies within the u.s. government so basically he has abdicated any responsibility for making sure that the vaccine gets to the people who really did it who are who need it and as into gallagher noted in his piece there is no national strategy there is no overarching plan and governors and other state health officials complain of poor communications again no planning and overall lack of funding that's a very important thing that the federal government has not yet provided funds

to states and localities to help roll out and administer the vaccine one might imagine a president or another leader seeing a perceived perceiving a crisis in getting the vaccine into people's arms taking action into his own hands the president trump refers simply to blame others and to be the california governor has given an update on the situation in the states what do you have to say. yeah the governor gavin newsome this afternoon in a in internet conversation with dr anthony fauci revealed that one person in the state of california has now been confirmed to have that. variant at 19 which was originally identified in britain and since spread to many countries around the world the surlier found in a patient in colorado now it is in california this means that the

mutation is circulating to what extent it is widely circulated through simply don't know because it does state gene sequencing in laboratories and that's a rather involved process but i can tell you that here in california things are very dire the situation in terms of the spike in cases is it's just getting worse and worse the los angeles county health department said in a news release that about 600 people in this county get a positive reading a positive test that is every hour and the california passed a. very unfortunate deadline or rather a milestone on tuesday with 440 crew people dying of the cold with these that proves that approximately every 3 minutes one person passes away from cold it and

this of course is putting an enormous strain on the capabilities of the health system. hospitals are forced to be treating patients in gift shops and the lobbies and conference rooms and so it's a very extremely worrying situation with the new new year's holiday just approach all right pavlov right evil bad because it is quite loud where you are an apology as far as i'm a robber and i thank you very much for giving us that update from los angeles. now the u.s. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has rejected a bill to increase pandemic relief checks from $600.00 to $2000.00 earlier this week the house of representatives voted to increase the payments and demand from president donald trump the bill needs a 2 thirds majority to pass in the senate connel has attacked proposed increases outlined in that bill she had chances in washington and explains what's behind mcconnell thinking. it's all rather nuanced mitch mcconnell right now has 3 main

priorities in the final days of this session of congress which runs on sunday the 1st is to override president promises veto of the national defense authorization act the 2nd is not to jeopardize the chances of 2 incumbent republican senators who are facing a very tight runoff race next week in georgia and the 3rd priority is not to pass any bills that will give 2000 dollars checks to low and middle income americans so we're seeing the 1st part of that go into. into action right now as we speak votes are beginning to take place on overriding the veto of the n.d.a. however it's a much more cumbersome process than mitch mcconnell hoped for because the independent senator bernie sanders stood in the way of a very easy override the veto and said look unless you bring that bill which was passed in the house on $2000.00 tracks you know i'm not going to i'm going to stand in the way of the override of the vote of the n.d.a. now he can't do that forever so mcconnell has

a way around that and that means that he has as to whether have a vote today and then eventually a vote perhaps on saturday which will finally override the vote in the meantime though this idea of a $2000.00 stimulus check is very popular particularly in georgia where those 2 republican senators are facing a very close race so it seems that mitch mcconnell is now come up with a plan and that is not to bring up the vote directly on that house bill giving $2000.00 stimulus checks to people but combining the 2000 dollars stimulus checks with 2 other. shoes that are very close to president trumps heart forming a commission to look in to alleged electoral fraud in the presidential election and ending legal protections for social media companies he's going to combine those into one bill and have a vote that seems to be the plan that's what he was talking about earlier today health regulators in the u.k. have approved a vaccine developed by oxford university and astra zeneca the pharmaceutical giant has pledged to make 1300000000 doses available cost to low and middle income

countries it comes as the u.k. recorded its highest daily death toll since the 1st wave in april prompting further restrictions or a challenge reports from london if ever good news was needed in the u.k. it's now the numbers of new infections and hospitalizations are breaking records daily deaths are almost as numerous as the peak in april and medics are sounding alarms that the health service is struggling to cope with cope with 2nd wave a much anticipated announcement from the u.k.'s medicines regulator this vaccine kovac 19 vaccine astra zeneca has been approved for use in people and aged 18 years and older with 2 standard doses $4.00 to $12.00 weeks apart. rollout begins on january the 4th with the oxford astra zeneca vaccine joining that of pfizer biotech and use in the u.k. since early december both are effective but the new vaccine has numerous advantages

. here in this london vaccination center you can see some of the infrastructure that is needed to administer pfizer by on take vaccine you can hear the generators running people need to be kept warm and the vaccine needs to be kept super chilled the oxford astra zeneca one can be given out by any doctor or nurse where the bridge is much easier and that means many more people can be vaccinated faster the government is prioritizing getting the 1st dose to as many people as possible it's 70 percent effective the 2nd dose one to 3 months later makes that immunity last longer 100000000 doses on order add that to the 30000000 doses of pfizer and that's enough for 2 doses for the entire population if the government can achieve this it believes the country can return to normal life in the spring but before that announcement that millions more britons are moving into higher regional tears of coronavirus restrictions and there's

a delay to the new school term for many peoples all pupils in exam to return during the week beginning the 11th of january with secondary school and college students returning full time on the 18th of january during the 1st week of term on or after the 4th of january secondary schools and colleges will prepare to test as many staff and students as possible. the oxford astra zeneca vaccine is welcome news for the u.k. but things are almost certain to get worse before they get better. al-jazeera london. it's been one year since the 1st corona virus cases were reported in china thought to be linked to a seafood market in the city of han thousands of people died in the region was forced into a strict lockdown katrina you is there and she's joining us from it sells so it was the starting point katrina of the pandemic and the worst affected city in china was

a coping one in iran from the outbreak. well around the diary and it seems like normal life has resumed this is quite a busy area and downtown on a working the shopping and this is the image of the chinese government wants to portray to the world success in controlling the outbreak we have had a new case here new one for about 7 months but we are slowly learning more about how this illness has affected the city now according to government figures about 90000 people nationwide i did by the corner virus and about 5000 people died the majority of those people in will hunt but according to a report released by china's do use center for disease control many more might have actually been inspected by the corona virus the report found that up to 4 percent of the population in rwanda were found to have antibodies in their system that is to say what the half a 1000000 people might have been exposed to the corner virus now china's foreign

minister who asked about this report saying that this seems to contradict the government figures and they denied that saying look that this is not unusual this is based on a very limited sample size of people in ruhani and you can't just take this 4 percent and multiply that by the number of people in the city but certainly it does add some generals around the accuracy of these government figures now we've been hearing for a few days now speaking to people and many people have moved on from the outbreak but we've also spoken to people who are still mourning and we're still angry about what has happened and still grieving those that they lost they blamed the government for them and like all of the outbreak especially in those early days the demanding an apology and they're also demanding justice. 12 months ago done high spotter checked into one hospital to receive treatment for a broken leg while he was there the 76 year old course of fever and died he was one of the 1st victims of the mysterious disease which would later be named $1000.00.

before my father died he said the song we are i don't want to die can you ask the doctors to say for me those were his last words junk high is now suing the chinese government he says local officials withheld information about the current virus outbreak allowing it to spread. of course work wars are merely a mistake it was a crime murder none of their relatives died only the ordinary people died was because they knew how bad the virus was they protected themselves but they were supposed to care for older citizens as the new morning unlike disease to cool it across one pod in january a mass banquet celebrating chinese new year went ahead regardless just over a year to go one on one with the place locals to buy arrested for and meet today

it's shut down completely then stop and believed by many to be the starting point of the pandemic we lost the world and that millions of people. china has not suffered as badly as other countries since the outbreak according to official figures about 90000 people have been infected and 5000 have died for almost 3 months millions of people to put a district locked out and able to leave their apartments. joe was one of them but the business owner says life has now returned to normal. division with the silver the very the day the chinese government did the right thing they saved us there was no other way look at what's happening in western countries now it's scary it's safe here. a world health organization team will arrive next month to investigate the origin of the outbreak beijing was reportedly initially reluctant to provide access when it comes to the growth of ours china's leaders appeared to

be doing all they can to control the narrative. this week citizen journalist jug john was sentenced to 4 years in jail for. lockdown charged with picking and provoking trouble. tongue high is still mourning the death of his father he says he's been intimidated by local authorities and called a traitor for his complaints against the government. who are you girl who will never shut up even if only one. chinese people say truth is always in the hands of the few if i don't speak up and hold those responsible accountable. one year on he would be silenced and we'll never forget. the long much anger remains surging many questions namely how did this corona virus outbreak 1st begin now according to an associated press report the chinese

government has been controlling and strictly restricting the investigation into the origin of this corner virus outbreak certainly beijing has been focusing its attention in recent months in the threat of the virus being imported by the cold chain imports and state media has been stoking this theory that the virus 1st came to china via imported for years and fruit now the world health organization says this theory is highly speculative but many think we're hearing on do believe it now the world health organization is sending its own team here in january the government and the horses later reluctant about that required months of negotiations and definitely hope to learn more about this outbreak once that team does arrive right katrina thank you for that reporting from china. and in a special program on thursday al-jazeera will be looking at the devastation caused by co in $1000.00 in the year since the virus emerged and is vaccines offer hope of protection will be asking how long it could take for the world to recover that's at

800 hours g.m.t. right here on al-jazeera coming up in a moment. why the u.n. chief is pushing to extend cease fire monitoring operations to eastern libya a centuries old town flattened in seconds the urgent search for a temporary shelter for cooling shows earthquake victims details after the break. right prepare for another meter or 2 of snow in hong sure that's the reason why extremely cold air come across the ever water again for home she ha carter and to some degree south korea most likely on the west coast or existing that dying out during friday's the wind becomes lights and starts to turn around a bit it still remains really cold the harbin as an example the flood of austin the

beijing is slightly warmer the sun take a bit of work i suppose and hong kong come up from 12 to 14 so cold but not as cold as it was and that cultish push will make bigger showers in the south china sea just catching vietnam service through the central philippines otherwise pretty widespread shaft for the rainy season which you'd expect at this time of the year this is jump to south asia and here it's a familiar combination the fog particularly in the west the northwest of india or if you're out of the fog a bit higher up in kashmir the sun over the snow those 2 conditions remain the same there is rain further south of course but across to carolyn into of sri lanka but there might be an interruption from this rather dismal cloudy foggy weather knew that delhi for example once again comes. today or sunday the skies could turn over all the shells on the storms and the improved quality.

of. gay calm and make sure you're not hyping the situation be part of the debate my main characters are women when no topic is off the table there was in the last allow child marriage to happen legally these are basically archaic walls their ads often legitimize them grega was pedophile on air online jumping to the quick section and meeting to be part of the discussion this stream on out is there a. form . when you're with al jazeera here are the top stories this hour u.s. president on the trump is defending his administration's rollout of cover $1000.00

back scene is blaming states for the slower than promised distribution becomes a more infections variant of the virus has now been identified in colorado and california health regulators in the u.k. have approved a vaccine developed by oxford university in astra zeneca more than 50000 infections were reported there for a 2nd day and millions more are moving into the toughest here for structures. the number of car virus cases in the chinese city where the illness was 1st detected may have been 10 times higher than official figures suggest that's according to a study by healthful forty's in the world. and there have been reports from local media in yemen of saudi led airstrikes on the capital sanaa there are said to be targeting her with the positions in the city it comes just hours after at least 26 people were killed in a blossom the airport in aden valid tack happened shortly after members of yemen's newly inaugurated unity government returned from saudi arabia. reports.

waving at supporters as they climbed off their flight attendant apple members of yemen's new unity government returned days after being sworn into office at a ceremony and saudi arabia. but the hopes of rebuilding the country up to more than 6 years of civil war turned into chaos a devastating attack on 8 and since national effort and the work of more than a year of saudi prick talks and the deal signed in 2019 now in question the government members were led to safety but analysts say the authority of the new administration has been undermined this is of additional research that the challenges are many c.d.'s which i'm just an enormous. that unity government will have to deal with see those judges on the ground. no matter what no matter who stands behind this explosion i think there is

a huge security breach has happened yemen's new prime minister moved quickly to try and restore confidence you're both with the people this attack gives the government the responsibility to put an end to the quick to and to restore the country and the state again the government an addon will go on continue its job supported by the people of yemen we will never let our people down the terrorists never defeat our people we will be victorious we will accept nothing but victory sides government was formed as a compromise between you separatists in the southern transitional council of aden and saudi backed loyalists of president abu reprimand so hardy in riyadh the 2 camps for teach other after separatist declared a state of emergency and self government in aden and surrounding southern provinces but together they aim to launch a knighthood front against iran backed who was in yemen's capital sana'a who deny they were behind the attack but the bloodshed at the airport is likely to put any

hopes of peace in yemen back a long way. to syria. the united nations secretary general it's on your terrace has asked for a new u.n. seems far monitoring team to be set up and based in certain eastern libya the city has been devastated by recent fighting and efforts to oust iceland 2016 presence and only has more from the united nations. the security council asked the secretary general all the way back in february to come up with some ways to help libya the international community being very concerned about the situation there to help them move forward with a peace plan and a way to implement a cease fire that was before they even had a cease fire in place back in october they did agree the warring sides there did agree to a tentative ceasefire and the secretary general was asked to advance these recommendations he's asked for more time to present them citing ongoing peace talks between the

parties he's also been looking for a new envoy to lead the u.n. mission in libya so all of this combining to bring it down to the end of the year and the last possible minute and we did get a copy today of a letter that the sick secretary general sent to the security council with some of those recommendations and he's focused on the area of sirte and setting up a u.n. monitoring mission there the u.n. has never had a footprint in this city it's been at the front lines it's a very tense area and in a recent report to the security council the acting envoy in libya stephanie williams described the area as very tense with the warring factions yet to withdraw despite this shaky cease fire they are uganda's musician charen presidential candidate bobby wine says he's been allowed to return home after being arrested for the 3rd time in 2 months wine was detained along with his team while

campaigning in the central region of cali. police dismissed reports of the arrests they accuse one of holding rallies in violation of corona virus rules presidential election is due to be held next month. moving on to a story out of the u.s. in fact in the trumpet ministration is facing legal action over a 23000000000 dollar weapons sell to the united arab emirates the new york center for important foreign policy affairs is taking the u.s. state department and its head mike courts saying the deal was rushed and violated u.s. law the sale included drones an f. $35.00 jets court documents allege a review process that normally takes years to get matter of months the ngo says the sale could lead to an arms race in the middle east as well as a fuel conflict in yemen italy says age of suspicion to

terminate a criminal investigation into the murder for an italian doctoral student is unacceptable earlier this month the prosecutors officially charged for egyptian security officials in connection with kidnapping and murdering julia read jenny in 2016 egyptian officials say there is no point in launching a criminal case because they don't know who is responsible but a journey was researching independent trade unions in egypt which is a controversial topic aftershocks continue to rattle central core a show where a powerful earthquake struck on tuesday killing at least 7 people left several towns in ruins and an urgent search is underway to find shelter for dozens of people left homeless the epicenter of $6.00 magnitude quake was near the town of picher india china novak reports from nearby where an aid distribution distribution center has been set up. buildings collapsed lives destroyed

the extent of the damage and in surrounding villages is becoming more clear as emergency workers search for anyone who may still be buried under the rubble the 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck on tuesday and as far away as vienna and munich. a serious strong aftershocks and the potential collapse of more buildings have forced many to seek shelter outdoors. reporter we live in a flood and patrol in a building that's heavily damaged and it's not safe anymore to be we have a camper an individual spent the night in it it's a bit better now because we have electricity so we can study for you must say are. very frightened it's chaos in the house it's not destroyed that everything is part of our stuff fell out of the cupboards and was broken we spent the night in the car but we couldn't sleep at all we have 2 children and i don't know what are the towns

of 39 c sec where the hardest hit some have returned to their homes to find little more than debris forced now to create makeshift shelters from the bitter winter weather the damage to infrastructure has made it difficult to get help to those who need it the center has been set up to collect and distribute food water and other aid to those affected by the earthquake. as the government urgently organizes temporary shelter for those left homeless the army clears the rubble and helps look for survivors this was the 2nd earthquake in tracer in 2 days people here are fearful and. the monument to rebuild lies ahead. al-jazeera bleeding or greater.