is to limit global warming to $1.00 degrees celsius. but protest is se promises made at the talks and not enough. i profile activist credit to him burg address the crowd in the last hour. it is still a secret that called $26.00 is a failure. it should be obvious that we cannot soul a crisis with the same methods that goes into it in the 1st place. and more and more people are starting to realize this many are starting to ask themselves, what will it take for the people in power to wake up? but let's be clear that they are already awake. they know exactly what they are doing. they know exactly what prices values they are sacrificing to maintain business as usual. ah, hello you watching out his ear and these are the top stories this our several

ethiopian anti government groups in washington, d. c. have signed an agreement to form an alliance against prime minister abbey ahmed. it comes as ethiopia, his army calls on former soldiers to join its fight against rebels from the to grab region. as a response to the mid of crisis facing the various nations of the country and to reverse the harmful effects of arguments. autocratic, rude to our pupils and beyond. we have recognized that the object need to collaborate and join our force towards is safe condition in the country. hence, hobby establish the united front of the opium federalist and confederacy forces. more than 100 people have been injured in protests against election results in iraq . security forces of fire in the air and use t gas to disperse. the crowds demonstrated say boat rigging took place. sedans military later has agreed with the us secretary of state on the need to speed up

the formation of the new government. general abdel fata alba han has also ordered the release of for civilian cabinet ministers detained in last month, military takeover. in the us, the predominantly want jury has heard the prosecution's opening argument in the case of a black men murdered while out chugging. 3 white men are accused of killing ahmad aubrey. in the state of georgia, prosecuted the ledge, the trade chased, and then shot the 25 year old last year. the case has become a focal point for anti racism protest. the funeral of former us secretary of state colin pal is taking place in washington d. c. pal died last month from cove at 19 complications. us presidents and colleagues have gathered at the national cathedral, the 84 year old was also national security advisor and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he was the 1st black person in the us history to feel those roles. those are the headlines that i'm emily, anguish state you now for inside story,

and i'll be back at the top of the hour. ah, europe has once again become the epicenter, the covered pandemic, the w h. o is wanting of half a 1000000 more deaths by february. the vaccines are readily available. so what's gone wrong with your parents have to spend another winter in lockdown. this is entire story. ah

hello and welcome to the program. i brought madison now in the warm months of july and august, much of europe give the impression the worst of the pandemic was over countries lifted, covered 19 restrictions. people traveled for holidays again gathered in large numbers and you didn't had needed to wear masks in many places, but infections and are rising to record levels. the world health organization says the region is once again the center of the pandemic. it's urgent governments to re impose restrictions and step up vaccination campaigns. vaccines are readily available, but many people still refuse to take them. we're going to bring in our guests in a moment, but 1st this report by john hall. while many people are out and about as if the coven 19 thread has passed, the world health organization says the wider european region is once more, at the pandemic epicenter across $53.00 countries, including parts of central asia. there are 78000000 current infections. that's more than the cumulative total of south east asia, the eastern mediterranean,

and all of africa. and it's a figure rising by a quarter of a 1000000 new infections daily with 3600 deaths every day. according to one label projection. if we stay on this trajectory, we could see another half a 1000000. gov at 19 debts in europe and central asia by the 1st of february next year. why is it happening in a region with generally good access to vaccines? the w h o points to waning immunity among those vaccinated 6 months or more ago. and vaccine hesitancy in countries like russia, where misinformation on social media has contributed to more than a 1000 virus deaths a day. there's also the relaxation of public health measures, england, for example, where mandatory restrictions were lifted in july is now responsible for around one in 10 of all new infections worldwide. efforts to distribute booster jobs are being

hampered by public apathy. yet the government is resisting calls from scientists to reintroduce precautions or risk and even more deadly winter. there is a glimmer of good news. the u. k. has become the 1st country in the world to license a new treatment for cove at 19 described as potentially game changing the anti viral pill made by us pharmaceutical company. merck has been shown to have the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk. of severe symptoms of the disease, this pill interferes with the viruses replication mechanisms. and by interfering with how it reproduces, it makes it make many mistakes. and by making many mistakes, it stops it from being able to reproduce properly. and that's how it works. but new treatments alone won't be enough to slow the renewed spread of the virus across europe, among countries, some of who believed until recently that it was all over jonah hope al jazeera.

well, the european center for disease prevention and control says nearly 76 percent of people above the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. but this map shows huge differences between western and eastern europe. iceland island and portugal in the dark green have immunized more than 90 percent of adults. that figure is just 39 percent in romania and 26 percent in bulgaria. some countries of announced new measures. latvia was the 1st e you nation to reimpose locked out last month. all. busy public and most private gatherings have been banned and people can only shop for essential goods. estonia has counselled all public events and stopped gatherings for known, vaccinated people. those have been fully vaccinated, must wear masks in doors, and from saturday, people in the netherlands, something to wear masks in public areas, and show vaccination passes to enter museums. and jims, belgium,

as also reimpose mosque wearing and encourage people to work remotely after infections. they're hit the highest level in a year. the ok, let's bring in our guests in the sun, switzerland. we have of these will dismiss that she's professor emerging infectious diseases, a london school of hygiene and tropical medicine and birmingham in the u. k. lawrence young. he's an infectious diseases specialist at what university presented in poland, murray, or gunshot. she's head of the department of infectious diseases at the university of zillow. now go to a warm welcome to each of you on a lease. i'm going to start with you. how different, if at all, is this scenario that we're seeing in europe compared to the scenarios we saw in the early days of the pandemic? the situation is similar, but also quite different. last year we, there was a rapid upset already starting in october at the time when nobody was vaccinated

this, this time around, many has been vaccinated, not enough. but what we now see is also we have a high number of infections. the number of deaths are lower than last year with the same number of infections. so the good news is we have magazines, and these vaccines do prevent death and severe disease. these things do not prevent as successfully though mild infection, so you may still go to mild infection and a message is you are protected against severe disease and death. lawrence, is this just about low vaccination rates linked to higher levels of infection or is there a wider question to this? you? i think is a perfect storm really is a combination of insufficient vaccine uptake and the easing of restrictions. and i think less mos wearing more mixing in doors as the weather declines and gets colder and waning immunity actually to, to vaccinations,

particularly those were that were vaccinated here more than 6 months ago. so i think these are important factors, but i, i think it's the mix and the easing of restriction measures that are really contributing alongside low levels of vaccination in certain countries. maria, germany's could a high racer vaccinations that was really about 80 percent yet it's health minister was saying it's entering a 4th wave. now. i know that poland has a fairly high vaccination rate and yet figures are rising. they are. what do you think is contributing to that? well, i don't think that vaccination region is high. it's about 53 percent. so we can do much better and, but still there are many hesitant individuals in the population.

and i think this is one of the main drivers of this up surgery case. this info at the moment, but also school opening children back and schools and students back out to the universities. these places are not having much regarding doing much regarding implementing infection control measures. so people are very close to each other. and this is another factor which, which drives this, susan cases where if they, the situation continues and the figures continue as we're seeing at the moment, what do you think is going to be the impact longer term in poland? well, it depends. we have already developed some scenarios, but of course, i think depends on which assumptions you make in the beginning. so in the,

in the worst case scenario. well, the government is practically doing nothing to stop new cases. which way, well, maybe end up with 35000 cases reported every day and then according to be assessed and we will face around 40000 deaths in the in the end of this way. lawrence, let me ask you something about that. i know you mentioned earlier wrong, she's referred to the fact that the vaccines do seem to be having an impact. because overall, the number of hospitalized hospitalizations in subsequent deaths seems to be falling. is that something that is going to persuades people who are unwilling to up to this point about having the vaccine. do you think that kind of impact that

we're seeing, that the vaccines are actually reducing the number of deaths could persuade people who have up until this point been reticent about it to actually go and take the vaccine? i think it's a really important message, and perhaps we're not messaging this well enough across across europe. the vaccines are amazingly effective, more effective than we could have hoped for, actually not only in preventing death, but also preventing hospitalizations. and i think is partly not only thinking about yourself and your family, but also taking the social responsibility that comes with vaccination. i think some of these messages have not been clear enough, but now we have so much real world evidence about the benefits of vaccination and the fact that there are very few associated side effects that we need to be getting that story out to. as many people as possible and for people to realize that we're in a currently in a very, very precarious situation that we consult with vaccination if we didn't have that information, goodness knows where we'd be. but this is, these are very effective vaccines that we have available and people should just go

and get jogged. and i know these are one of the fundamental problems. and this seems to be a lack of trust amongst a lot of people in terms of the government, in terms of the pharmaceutical companies, even straight up in terms of the w h. o. people don't believe that the, some of the messaging that the w h o can be putting out at times. why do you think that lack of trust has come in and why? how is it that you get over that? social media is really our biggest enemy in this, in the sand, damming, you know, words matter and words can kill misinformation and intentional dis, information. conspiracy theories are harmful, they kill, we need, we do, we need to be become better communicators in the benefit of the sex of a vaccine, but also a communicating this pandemic. it's, you know, it's an invisible learners and young people think they are invincible. as a saw,

and this is not about a collective societal response to a very tragic pandemic. and we haven't had such happen that make for decades in our society is not trained we, i'm mostly not ready for such a tragedy by now. our daily lives are so disrupted, so indeed it's a major challenge, and we need to get better in the media, in politics, in un organization agencies that we have an empathetic message that comes across all age groups and also all educational backgrounds. maria, is this the situation in poland as social media and a part of misinformation playing a big role in the way that covered is being dealt with fair well, i'm sure that there's one factor,

but i would say that it's let me try 1st august hesitancy and especially in most communist countries, we don't have a long lasting tradition of adult vaccination. what we do is mandatory vaccination in regarding children and we're really doing well just with the vaccination coverage of 90 to 98 percent among children. however, when you just think about maxine and we are in poland, we are in the bottom of the list of the countries, the new countries with vaccination coverage, about 20 percent. it depends on the population but to

just made a long story short so. so there is no transition from nation and out of elation, but it's also the lack of trust in government and the lack of trust in experts that according to the latest research post paid to try to more relatives and france than experts. so it's quite a challenge here to really give information which, which will be heard. why is it that the government seems able to introduce a mandatory vaccination program for children? and yet it seems unwilling to do that for adults. well, again, the problem is very complex. you know, there is no tradition of explanation on candles,

so many anti back service and according to the polls, these are supporters of the league party. so there are some conflict. so i would say conflict of interest to maybe the government to just so far as that some some hard policy policies regarding cognitive explanation that will be badly and badly received for implants the pulse long. sorry to interrupt lawrence. this is clearly not just a situation that exists in poland and other countries as well. interestingly, russia is one of them. no one would have thought that given the political

circumstances in russia, the introducing a vaccination across the country will be relatively easy. but i understand it's vaccination rates are low and of course it produces its own vaccine. why do you think that's happening there? what is it, what, what this does come down across the whole of, of these different countries to trusting in the government. and i think there is an issue about trust, there were experience in the, in the you k, read it to some extent where there is so much complacency. now, actually, in that case, complacency spread through society in a sense that actually this pandemic is somebody else's problem. we don't trust the government any more, we don't believe in the information they're putting out. and i think that's one of the big issues in, in russia as was in other, in other countries, it's trusting the government entrusting, indeed the vaccination process itself. but it is, there is a lot of concern, misunderstanding, misinformation, and mistrust in russia. analogous we've, we heard in jonah's report just a moment ago that mark has introduced a pill note for gives a vaccine,

some form of vaccine. and i understand that pfizer is introducing another one as well. i think that might be correct. and do you think that if that is going to make a difference in terms of persuading people that a vaccine is, is able to be taken? is a pill easier to understand if you like, than an injection? is it less frightening? will it actually make a difference? so this is anti virus, are these, these pills and they are indeed important additional tools they cannot replace vaccines. remember, vaccines are meant to prevent cases, so you want to bring down the cases. if you don't prevent, you will just have, you know, an explosive rose again of cases. and even if you now can treat some of them with a success rate of only about 50 percent, you will still overwhelm hospitals. so yes, we embrace every drug treatment. we need to manage these it's

a very ill patients. but a, but really to, to help us get out of this tragic condemning with the strongest tool that we have at hand is a high, maxine coverage rate in all population. but particularly amongst the older persons how easy is going to be to persuade governments who have in of countries that have a low vaccine rate to step up their efforts, if they've not been able to achieve that in 2 years. and yet, the vaccines are available if they're willing to spend the money lawrence to let me ask you that 1st. well, i think we've just got to look at what's going on in their own countries and pay some attention to the horrific consequences of not giving a vaccine. if you have something that can prevent the population from getting sick and from being hospitalized and dying than surely, that something needs to be messaged very, very well. the other problem we have of calls that we do need to stress is that as

long as we are continue to circulate in an unchecked way, it will, it will change and the virus could be, could, could, could mutate again. and this would cause untold problems as we are experiencing with the more transmissible dealt of areas. so i think it comes back to the discussion. we've just been having about governments taking the responsibility they have to protect their population. and in this instance, they've got something that really does do the heavy lifting that really can protect . and if you have a preventative measure like this, why would you not want to make sure that your population is protected and indeed your own hospital? the health infrastructure is protected on these you said right at the start of this discussion that this wasn't just about the vaccinations, it was about the way that our society is responding to it in terms of ma square in terms of, of social distancing. but of course, as we were saying, many people in europe are now used to having a degree of freedom. it's going to be very difficult, isn't it? in order to be able to pull people back and say, actually in order to fix this,

we're going to take away those freedoms that you just had. and we're going to reimpose locked and we're going to be imposed mosque wearing. that's a big hurdle, isn't it? o, and need a be a big challenge. people i'm fatigued, all one to be out of this. and so as i, we, we need to be creative. how to reach people who are otherwise difficult to reach, you know, of a rec scenes at concert that football games. and if you're using every possible idea to increase lexianne t and indeed we need, we need to learn how to better message the importance of axis. maria, it seems as though from our past discussions that we've had, that one of the most common and solutions to this would be to effectively produce a society which is haves and have nots. if you have the vaccine, then you can go out and lead a normal life. if you do not have the vaccine,

then you cannot do x, y, and zed. you cannot have a normal life. is that something that is practical? do you think? do you think at the end of the day, governments have to, as lawrence was saying, step up and say, right, you get your freedoms, if you have the vaccine, you have fewer freedoms. if you don't yes, i do support this idea and it really works. when we look at, for example, friends or italy at the certain moment, the vaccination vaccination campaigns seem to be not successful anymore. so they introduced come to passports and immediately there was a rise in and they up in the outtake. so i think that depends, of course, the country depends on the society. it depends on the population due to which you

address your campaigns. because you've got to speak different language to different groups. we have experiences and so far that such messages should be oriented to young people in a different way than to the for example, shown what? so yes, we are now at a sort of like there, there is no progress in vaccination at all info alone. so people asked, you know, has about half of the population show we've got to use. and the other 2, which is supposed to work to increase the vaccination coverage on a lease. one would think that we've got to a point after this length of time where people who refuse to take the vaccine for whatever reason, whether it's a distrust of the government,

distrusted the vaccine companies or any other reasons are really not going to shift the view unless they get very tangible evidence and it's kind of overwhelming and we're not really at that stage. do you think that the situation that we've been discussing this plateau that maria was talking about is going to continue actually for some time before we reach a point where something is going to shift i'm afraid that you're right. we have, we have plans towards maybe will with sex successful in bringing that by not a 5 percent, hopefully even 10 percent but, but that will always be empty of access and the i, d, l a g and the whole controversy around it is now so strong it's not such a solid ideology, it will be hard to break through. so indeed, you know, measures like the us, but france, as we said, we have taken way, have to have vaccine passports for certain professions and or to get into museums,

etc. is pro, is, is the way to go, but there's also danger, and this is, we are my, a divided society. it will even divide further. you get more and or more hatred, more polarization. so it's all day tricky. the, this is i, that we are living in the moment, lawrence of just very quickly just in a couple of sentences. how do you think this current situation is going to develop over say the next 6 months to a year? i think it's really difficult to predict because we know that unless we do get vaccination rolled out across a larger proportional population, the virus will continue to spread and continue to change and continue to call sickness. and i think the, the problem with facing now is not only coded, but the other risk for virus infections like flu, that we see over the winter months. and the enormous pressure that's going to put onto the health systems across europe. so i think, i think the winter is going to be very challenging. my view is if we can make it to spring next year, we've been a much stronger position. but what,

what told is that going to take in the meantime? lauren's thank you very much indeed. not thanks to all, i guess these was smith loans young and maria gunshot. and thank you to you too for watching. you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website, odyssey dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page. that is facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. and you can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is a inside story for me, rob madison. i'm the char. see here. i found out the me ah,

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