virus deaths in the past day and 55000 new infections officials in new york times square are making their final preparations for new year's eve tens of thousands of people normally join the celebration but it's been scaled down this year because of the pandemic a limited group of 1st responders have been invited to watch the event in person. this is our desire these are the top stories a covert 19 vaccine by the chinese pharmaceutical companies sign a farm has been given conditional approval 12 months after the virus was 1st detected in was the vaccine said to be more than 79 percent effective china is aiming to inoculate $50000000.00 people by mid february u.s. president donald trump has blamed individual states for the slower than promised rollout of covert $900.00 vaccines there around 2000000 shots of it administered

well behind the 20000000 promised by the end of the year. south africa has experienced a nother record daily increase in infections over the past 24 hours only 18000 new cases have been registered the recent surge has been linked to a more contagious strain of the virus hong kong's top court has revoked bail for media tycoon jimmy ally the high profile pro-democracy activist is facing charges under new security laws imposed by beijing it was released on bail last week where prosecutors argued he should be put back in prison adrian brown is in hong kong with more. well the prosecution have got their way but the judges have granted the defense an appeal which will now be heard in february so this is not quite over for the time being now what has been going on today inside this colonial era building behind me isn't this is in a sense a conflict between hong kong's common law and the law of china as

characterized by the national security law and this was a conflict that legal experts had warned would happen and that moment has now in a sense arrived there have been reports of airstrikes by the saudi led military coalition overnight on the yemeni capital sanaa the set of targets positions that follows an explosion at an airport in the southern city of aden on wednesday the government's blaming hooty rebels for the attack norwegian rescuers are searching for at least 11 people missing after a village was buried in a landslide a hillside collapsed over the village of ask 25 kilometers northeast of the capital a slow only helicopter rescue operations are possible because the ground unstable and those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after the stream by phone or. the latest news as it breaks the measures introduced during this 3rd wave 5 resulted in a 20 percent drop in the amount the people are traveling with detailed coverage

protocols like both one hot property all of believe in one off out of poverty rate of increase in the soft clear from around the world the u.n. has identified $56.00 countries most need assistance what's worrying them is that many of those have a deteriorating situation. for the ok you are watching the stream on today show coverage 19 pandemic and homelessness in america one of the richest countries in the world now i am sure that wherever you're watching in the world you have your own stories and your own experiences about homelessness and coping 19 you know what to do with your new cheap jump into the charts and you too can be part of the conversation.

i'm going to say hello to these and mazing panel and begun to introduce themselves to you dr chris shall great savvy tell everybody who. nice to be here my name is marcus shallow and i'm a physician and researcher at university of california san francisco where i have devoted my career to try to recognize that housing is the best medicine and i u.c.s.f. direct the c.s.f. center for all of our populations my great to have you mark with an h. we have team up to date doubly lucky luck with an h. tell everybody here you are what the h. stands for. i mark or bath and i'm the founder of invisible people 25 years ago i lived homeless on the streets of los angeles and now i run a nonprofit called invisible people were we focus on education journalism and advocacy to help end homelessness we're going to see some of that incredible work for you today oh i forgot the bear and this is my last cold vid. i'm

getting. me feel so lucky thank you for saving the lone hand for us. how do you know. ok this show's going to be trouble we also have mark with the team up with the details of what he what he stands for welcome to the story. thanks for having me my name is mark there are a psychiatric apologist and i've spent the last 2 years really focused on the intersection of policy and anti-racism trying to get the united states to finally not be racist so i sleep real well. great great to have you everybody all right let me start with something that i remember seeing 3 months ago so this is a headline here in the guardian newspaper so many newspapers picked it up last week as parking lot turned into a homeless shelter with social distancing and marcus you can see that this is an old headline but this was the this was the image that truly truly shocked me look at this is this the way to treat people during a global pandemic oh i was stunned margot what are you seeing is or was this is

jennifer social distancing it's crazy. i mean i think it's a really. damning statement of where the united states is with homelessness right now that kind of a pandemic hasn't changed anything but it is really shown us and exploited the fault lines in our community the way that racism shows up in everything that we do you know it has really been a crisis upon a crisis that created this massive health crisis that that place people who are homeless at extremely high risk because they're living in crowded places they don't have access to to hygiene we've seen terrible outbreaks in shelters and i think that that non-response response of placing people outside and painting a line 6 feet apart just shows how far we have to go as so many people have

suffered from this pandemic. i mean. it's embarrassing if we have a nation should be embarrassed by how we have historically interacted with folks experiencing homelessness this should be frankly the final nail in the coffin with regard to seeing really clearly that what we do is unconscionable and tomorrow when about racism right i think that like it's really important to know that the majority of people experiencing homelessness in this nation are black and brown and that frankly the reason why we have been able to get away with the treatment that we have is because of that right like it is that it is this huge and of america's quest for them and raised that simultaneously allows us to say to people you don't exist and what you need doesn't matter. let's took. a few half an approach it could invisible people he spent

a lot of time with people on the streets he talked to them they tell me a story what happened. i 1st want to address the las vegas photo because yes that one in that article in those photos came out it was shocking and there was a lot of uproar about it and there should be but that's how las vegas is treated almost the best far before kovac 19 the city uses what a courtyard model where people are sleeping on a sidewalk in a courtyard before for. 19 came about so yeah everybody's screaming about this but we've been treating homelessness like that for decades. yeah exactly right but we've always been in the back right like we've you know we've never actually had an actual humanitarian dignity centered approach to homelessness and so i think that what you know is remarkable is how little have

changed to mark's point right like we see the sort of you know sort of before and after but if it's just the same before i guess as you're speaking i just want to pull back up this picture because as you speaking it becomes so clear to every single one of those bundles these are human beings these are people mark i was going to say god. you know i think as mark and mark were saying that you know the pandemic really hasn't has just amplified the problems that we've had with homelessness it hasn't actually changed things that increase in danger dramatically but the underlying problems have been there for a long time i think a lot of people with enormous racial disparities that we're seeing in who lives and who dies with kind of it have suddenly become awakened to what we've always known and has always been true in this country i mean maybe what's different here is the

painted lines but unfortunately the overall reality isn't that different from what we've lived with in the united states for far too often. this is some news to some people who live in communities where there are homeless people that they to your point mark h. invisible people i want to show a page from your website of invisible people the stories of people from around the world not just from the u.s. and he spoke to frank not too long ago. and he is living on the streets right now he's looking for work right now and he explained to you how can you us not to be homeless and also the impact of traffic 19 it's one of the right. really like a place to lock up my stuff take a shower and just a little piece of the world to close close the door on so that people can go through your stuff and. earlier coronavirus it close all the matter is that no place to get as far to go hard to go to the bathroom it is but everybody

has now shut the bathrooms down all the fast food restaurants is really where you go to supermarkets or service stations and they're always always closed even before they're always either under repair or not working or whatever it's very difficult to go to the restroom you always have to go to a construction site and one of those. it's real practical difficulties right now eileen you know about a month or 2 months ago we had a toilet paper shortage snow madge and you're homeless and you can't get toilet paper nor can you get access to a bathroom and where it is a real crisis is water. and hygiene i mean with code you have to wash your hands but also you you know homeless people use drinking water. that they get from public bathrooms and you need water to live i think there's something interesting

also about brant story that in los angeles a city you know right now the c.d.c. has come out with guidelines that are against homeless. so in los angeles advocates and thank god for that they were able to push this have really slowed down the sweeps so now brant in that story if you watch the whole video brant can stay in one place they don't have to move every day they don't have the threat of police every day but to be perfectly clear los angeles denver and many cities even though it's against c.d.c. guidelines are still being homeless camps and. yet. well i was there was there. you know i think why folks in the

housing and home of the fact there actually do have to have a whose decision on polling thing and we center after right again if we cone the fact that the majority of folks experiencing homelessness in the u.s. are folks of color like police interactions are not a. neutral thing right like the police violence and the brutality that has been documented in the demonstrations has been you know sort of really lifted so the 4 of the conversation last week is stuff that we have seen folks experiencing almost undergo for years there are tons of headlines right who least interacting the folks home with that and the brutality that comes out of that and so i think that like we actually again have to have to really clear racism as a core of that and right like i just i want to say really really candidly clearly the police budget is right that it comprised like 30 to 50 percent of us the whole

budget that's the money that could have people i'm sick of having conversations with mayors my own mayor right mayor get there and i'm sick of these these conversations we don't have the money to provide that they would have the money to do the right thing when 50 percent of your budget i mean we have 6 helicopters in columbus ohio columbus ohio why do we need to put in los angeles last year 30000000 dollars was spent on homeless 40 sleeps a day now they're still i get an e-mail every day from los angeles advocates trying to predict other advocates and people that care or know about the sweet sweets or still happened 30000000 dollars a year they're building bridge shelters and $2000000.00 those sweeps if you took the budget away for sweeps you could build 15 shelters and. that money that they're spending it makes no sense to me but that's the response to homelessness and

you want to groves yes conversation happening on you tube i want to share with he said i'm going to man 946 and it says we can't depend on the government for or as they say we should help the homeless at an individual level mark. i mean look i think that that is speaking for the united states to say the government hasn't had a role in this sort of the dispossession for black and brown people of their ability to buy housing. quote unquote american dream has been a major contributor to them by the way that was sanctioned by the government for many years major contributor to the enormous wealth gaps that we see and that is an enormous cause of homelessness the lack of the lack of affordable housing affordable housing doesn't just support itself affordable housing needs to be

supported by the government if we if we get you know come to things and think that magically the market is going to fix this you wind up seeing what we see in the united states that numbers don't have so out we have a minimum wage that hasn't kept up with the cost of living we have had a traumatic disinvestment in in housing supports in most parts of the world housing is something that is supported by governments and we don't really have that to the extent that we need that so i guess i would add that that the market has failed here that you know the living wage in the bay area where i live right now is that what we have a housing range where people could actually afford very modest housing would be 40 to $50.00 an hour we're fighting like heck to get the minimum wage up to $15.00 an hour something has to give and that i think i'm afraid to say is gonna need to federal investment or investment in housing investment in increase in our minimum

wage that we pay people the job that they do and the recognition that some people will always and have always needed support you know it's just that we have different you know we just are in a country where people take this individual view and don't actually believe they sort of have the sense that everything is everyone's individual fault when it just really isn't. i guess i will have and think about this if i may because when we are talking about an issue that has been an issue in the united states for a very long time also an issue around the world for a very long time i am wondering if truly 19 could change that i want to have a look at this this is analysts. on twitter doubling has outperformed even best scenarios for 1000 mortality among the homeless and drug using populations and a leaf is a group that looks after people who use drugs helps them to get out of their drug

he's totally duffin says 63 how most people would diagnose because 1000 and there was one death a fraction of what was predicted in dublin we feel that we were like tell me we need to talk this is what he told us a little bit. more government we have in dublin was. decisive leadership from the state partnership approach from n.g.o.s are working together. we have. increased housing provision and improved access to drugs like methadone. benzodiazepine and. many other supports in place so combined joint working meant that we were able to reduce frederick over 19 pounds to. ok.

i think it what we've seen is that this is doable right this is not rocket science there are in fact some parts of the country i think of the state of connecticut that very quickly moved a large proportion of the people experiencing homelessness into hotels which it suddenly become abandoned because of the loss of the tourism industry and then moved many of those folks into permanent housing we see in california not as many but i large number of people moved into hotels and we are doing things like i am showing that you can move people into housing this idea that people don't want to be housed has never been true i do fear though that we're facing an on coming train we have been successful in living some people into hotels we need to get them into permanent housing but but you know i just read this morning in the washington post said an estimated 44 percent of right next folks in renters in the country and 41 percent of black renters country are at high risk of have a chat and if we don't act quickly all of our efforts to move people out of

homelessness into housing are going to be overwhelmed by all of the new people who are going to fall into homelessness because of the economic collapse but this is not rocket science we know how to keep people safe we've always known how to house people we just need to do it. the idea. about moving people into that was a promise that. you have a story that's on you invisible people cite. people. missed it we've got to tell means we're going to give hotel rooms and. homeless people and a phone to keep up on his and he raised 8 to keep to devote about what he did. now when. the most famous musician and i'm in town for probably benefit concert. body god there for me the stylist had a group you know and we had

a woman caught in the door agent when i got in the police. as i get in the wrong she's on a. like i'm not home. oh i've come home as well actually i'm not famous i'm homeless and i live in a little car and i'm not leaving this hotel and america said come visit every room is hotel for homeless people in a state of emergency. yeah and i want to and i'm glad you transition this because one thing kovac showed that we can take action as a government and have impact prior to go call they had there was not a lot of inner engine see all of a sudden you know governor newsome is buying hotels townspeople that's amazing so we can't we can't they should have done it before but we have to keep going and if you look at advocates in l.a. had something if you go to project ruggie tractor they list daily and inserting 3

days there has been no change meaning right now there's 3601 rooms operational there are 50000 homeless people they've only housed put you 4000 of them and it's road blocked and i understand they're still in line eating people want at one i think i don't know i you would have to ask the cd you would have the city in the county has to push those to make it happen and we know they can because this actually started but let's grow it let's get it so all the rooms are used and then the people are placed in a housing. i want to dip back into chipmunk and i want you to take this one this is to see take a known addict to mommy and its people and government signal homelessness during death based at times to think they do something about it ging a pandemic is delusional. i have often

been called delusional so that's that's fine with me i mean look i think the bottom line is that we particularly in this country in the us but i think frankly globally are at a crossroads with regard to what is our focus and bring a fact that what. we talked about a little bit earlier might like the us has operated for a long time out of the individual a sick and particular a sick notion right that mike you know it's just i got to do it for me and everyone has to do it for themselves but that's not the only way to live and i think that one of the things that i think we're starting to see is that. point right. in this country in this moment we have to begin to pivot toward the housing justice agenda and then the gender that says like everyone gets how it's full stop and i think that actually means right that you're doing more than in the homelessness when we say that we're about to have that because right like we would be talking about

a livable wage you're talking about not having the ada diet be that month to month anxiety of like i can't afford it if one thing goes wrong that's it for me and like we have as a society i think globally have to begin to say it's unacceptable to continue to architect policy in a way that puts by some estimates 60 percent right of the population in a state of precarity almost every month that that's that that actually is what we're talking about right we're not necessarily talking about like oh we have to end homelessness we're talking about we have to end economic repair or for people who shouldn't have to live with that anxiety and that actually in congress is every . this is one more person i want to add their voice to this conversation that's peggy bailey peggy bass a vice president house and policy to the center on budget and policy priorities this is what she told us earlier whether acting at the federal state or local level policymakers have to prioritize people with the fewest resources because whether

they're directly impacted by the virus or not this is the group that will feel the effects of the health and economic crisis for the longest. and we know that for people with low incomes housing is their biggest bill so targeting rental them for rental assistance whether medium short or longer term assistance through housing voucher makes per makes all the sense in the world it will help stabilize these families and ensure that they don't fall into homelessness or other bad outcomes. this sounds like good advice to any time not just given 1000 you know a global pandemic. i mean absolutely in the united states right now it's very hard to qualify for housing assistance but even amongst those who need that difficult sort of barrier only one in 4 households who qualify get it it's like a lottery system that you can't even get entered into the lottery and actually the

true cost of fully funding those vouchers is not extend astronomical i think it's estimated to be about $41000000000.00 a year to fully fund those vouchers we spend nearly that on homeless shelters and frankly if you go up and down the west coast most people experiencing homelessness can even get a bed in a shelter this is doable but we just haven't had the policy energy around we know that if you give people housing vouchers they are no longer homeless and yes we would need to work on the housing production side and some other things but this is a this is a doable thing we just haven't had the energy to do it and i think you know what i don't said is exactly right i mean the fact that that homelessness so disproportionately affects black and brown folks i mean the black community is that $3.00 to $4.00 fold. of homelessness across the united states this speaks a lot to people who has political power who gets to make the decisions and why we have a prior ties. in the last 30 seconds of this program. through

a t.v. know how well that means i'm going to show you. this it will people. because i want to see people who do not have people do not have the resources these are the faces of the people that markets to talk to you much you always the people who are on the streets that's 3 wishes what do you spend in mind the context of a conversation. i'm just going to go with one right now into it to wrap up. is we have to start influencing. change the black lives matter to defund the police to me that's the american dream. i had given up that politicians listen to us but black lives matter and defun police has shown that we can speak up and change policy so when it comes to housing when it

comes to providing support and solutions to end homelessness we have to speak up and if you're in the united states right now i mean there's a lot of advocacy you have to get involved you have to get involved at the local level and at the national debt right now the emergency rental assistance and rent legalization act. contact your senators we have to do something change policy get a house. using its capital by half the chance not muck of the 3 ends thank you say much for bringing your way 7 to the string today. and thank you chief for the incredible compensation to see an extended. the american people have finally folk in america is i split when america is off balance or will become more dangerous the world is looking at us live next year of

sadness and seek. with the election behind us will the republican party dump trucks to the fuel we keep take on us politics and society that's the bottom line. when all that seems to matter is the headline and always 2 sides to a story when narratives and counter narratives of just curiosity the lead there on the one hand the enemy is all believe there on the other hand the listening post strips away the spin what kind of reporting if you can see on the ground misinformation is right lays bare the bias a lot of people believe things because they want to believe them done covers the uncomfortable truths do you think they did enough to scrutinize the case for war the listing posts on a. held for over 3 years in an egyptian prison cell denied their right to a fair trial no charges have been brought against al jazeera correspondent new saying his crime journalism. to demand my true thinks and boy solidarity with all

detained journalists sign the petition. my new saying. china gives approval for a coronavirus vaccine one year after the 1st cases were detected. i know about this and this is our desire live from doha also coming up to us states report cases of a more contagious variant of covert 19 amid complaints that the vaccine rollout is too slow. another day of record infections in south africa with the surge in cases threatening to overwhelm hospitals. and hong kong media tycoon and pro-democracy.