the island and be jing, it's not a pro cation to come to tie warm. it should be no more. and this is a method we are sending. we don't think that it's adding oil on fire. we think it's the contrary, the more we sure we care about our relationship with day one, the lease a chance you have to enter into a conflict in beijing. the parliamentary officials say europe must veer away from its previous approach on china, which these seem to have contributed to the decline of democratic freedoms in hong kong. the tree, the trip is expected to be the 1st of many. the members of the parliament say it is important for europe to see taiwan as a strong democratic power, capable of standing up on its own jamal alan dog and al jazeera manila. ah,

this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. 9 groups, including to grind, forces have formed an alliance against ethiopians government. they want to bring down the governments either by negotiations or by the use of force. un security council is calling for peaceful resolution to be intensifying conflicts, and is demanding access for humanitarian aid to the take ry region. the members of the security council express deep concern about the expansion. an instance, if it gauge shown of military clashes, inordinate your plan. they, for their call to put an end to host tidies, and to negotiate a lasting see fire and for the creation of conditions for the start of an inclusive it to your p n. national dialogue. protests over iraq's parliamentary elections have turned

violent. demonstrate is called the october vote, a sham or the 100 people were injured in the clashes the u. s. house of representatives is expected to vote on the nations infrastructure bill and has delayed president joe biden, social welfare bill until the end of the month, month rather. these alive pictures. you're looking at a one trillion dollar infrastructure bill has already passed from the senate with 15 percent. thousands of climate change activists have marched through central glasgow to pressure wild leaders at cop 26 summit. they say the promises made it the common talks and not enough drug making. pfizer says a new pill. it's developing counts the risk of hospital admissions or death from corona virus, by almost 90 percent. the company is going to ask regulators to authorize its use when use heroin under there, right after in fine story there shortly for like, ah,

europe has once again become the epicenter, the coven 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? and will europeans 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 coven 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 donna 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

labor 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 over well, you'll be in 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 immune is 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 you nation to reimpose a lockdown last month. all. busy public and most private gatherings have been banned and people can only shop for essential goods. the sonya 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 hoping 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 there, hit the highest level in the 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, 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, nor 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 maxine and these vaccines do prevent death and severe disease. these vaccines 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 that 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 more than 6 months ago. so i think these are important factors, but 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 is 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 the poland has a fairly high vaccination rate and yet figures are rising. they are. what do you think is contributing to that? oh, i don't think that vaccination wait and it's 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 the upsurge of cases in poland at the moment, but also school opening children back and schools

students back out to the universities. and 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 drives this search in cases where if they, the situation continues and the figures continue. as we're saying 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. so well, maybe end up with 3035000 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 these mentioned earlier on, she's referred to the fact that the vaccines do seem to be having an impact. because overall, the number of hospitalized hospitalizations and subsequent deaths seems to be falling. and is that something that is going to persuade 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 death? could persuade people who have up until this point been reticent about it to actually go and take the vaccine i think is 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 hope 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 you fill out 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 vaccination, 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 jabbed and these, but one of the fundamental problems in 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 strangely, 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, 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 collector's 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 live in the drivers of the hesitancy, in,

especially in most communist countries. we don't have this 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 tradition next 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 friends 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 vaccinations and alt so many anti back service and according to the polls,

these services are supporters of the party. so there are some conflict. so i would say a 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. and it will influence the pulse long. this is where, you know, sorry to interrupt, learns 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, a lot of this does come down across the whole of these different countries to trusting in the government. and i think there is an issue about trust that we're experiencing in the u. k. really, in a, 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 russia is, was in other, other countries. it's trusting the government and trusting, indeed the vaccination process itself. i think that 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 markers introduced our pill. no, 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 the vaccines. remember, vaccines are meant to prevent cases, so you want to bring down the cases. if you don't prevent, you will just hire, 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 vaccine 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, 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 that 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 of 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 delta various. so think it comes back to the discussion . we 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 and 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 mosque where 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 hide and we're going to reimpose lockdown. we're going to be imposed mosque wearing. that's a big hurdle, isn't it? oh, in need of the hell,

big challenge people and the teeth that all want 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 use every possible idea to increase maxine up t and indeed we need, we need to learn how to better messaged the importers of vaccines. 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 tell me at the certain moment, the vaccination vaccination campaigns seem to be not successful anymore. so they introduced come into passports and immediately there was a rise in and they had to in the outtake. so i think that depends, of course, the country depends on the society. it depends on the population do to which you address your campaigns. because you've got to speak different language to different groups. we have experienced it 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, hasn't about half of the population show we've got to use and they to, which is supposed to work to increase the max and they should coverage on a lease. one would think that we've got to a point after this length of time where people who refused 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 are right. we have, we have plans towards maybe will with sex successful in bringing up. i'm not a 5 percent of the 10 percent but, but that will always be empty axes and the i, d, l a g and the whole controversy around it is not so strong. it's not such a solid ideology, it will be hard to break through. so indeed, you know, measures like the u. s. 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, is the way to go, but there's also danger in this b, r i a divided society. it will even divide it further. you get more anger,

more hatred, more polarized ation. so it's all day tricky that 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 to population, the virus will continue to spread and continue to change and continue to call sickness. and i think the, the problem we're all 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 on to 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, but what, what told is that going to take in the meantime? lawrence, thank you very much. indeed, not thanks to all of these weather smith, florence young and maria gone, shook and thank you to you too. for watching you can see the program again anytime

by visiting our website, odyssey dot com and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j 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. bye for now. the me ah. a fluent to stretch some neighborhoods, a run by social and economic despair. one 0, what

a fake the bad of local heroes. every one of us ever got a responsibility to change our personal life for their suburban drake on out to 0. i prefer to see things for myself to look at things, not through the lens of politics, but through the lens of humanity. ah, i've been to the playground where to mir rice was shot and killed. i've been to the streets of ferguson, a protest. i've seen the anger and frustration of so many americans, but what was most clear was a desire for change. it, you could see black lives matter transforming from hash tag to a movement. ah, being a journalist is about listening to people and understanding where they're coming from, following a story, no matter how long it takes or where it leaves. i'm christian saloon,

ah, ah, mm. mm. hi there can vanelle the top stories on al jazeera. if your b infections have formed an alliance against the government, h position and armed groups, the joining forces with rebels from the northern to dry region who are threatening to advance on the capital as a contract escalates. the un security council is calling for restraint and talks for lasting cease fire like horrible fall from the feels of comfort.