just for the festive feeding. sorry, i hate thing. right. so i don't want to watch this. korea visitors can watch the dive every day until december 25th. ah. how policy are these are the top stories, the head of the world health organization is calling for limits to gatherings during the holiday period. he said there's evidence the on the constraint is more transmissible and can evade vaccines, though it's too early to say if it is a mild of variance, all funds are seek of this bundle. all of us want to spend time with friends and family. all of us want to get back to normal. the fastest way to do this is for all of us leaders and individuals to make the difficult decisions that must be made to protect ourselves and others. but uneven council is better

than a life cancelled. it's better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate the now and grieve letter. alma cron cases now account for nearly 3 quarters of all us current virus infections. the daily number of cases is up 50 percent this month. new york state is reported 3 consecutive days of record cases and 12 people are known to have died from on the ground in the u. k. prime minister bars johnson says he's looking at all kinds of measures to cut the number of cases of the headlines rebels from ethiopia to region, say there, withdrawing from northern territory. they've been losing ground in, i'm horror, and are far in recent weeks. fighters say they're pulling out of those areas entirely to open the door to humanitarian aid. took his lawyer, made a shop recovery off the bank of measures by the government to ease the currency crisis. president reject typo on announced a series of steps including a promise to compensate savers for their losses as the leeward decline. the jury

deliberation on the trial of a former u. s. police officer involved in the shooting of a black motorist, kimberly thought has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter over the death of dante wright. she says she meant to use a taser, but drew her gun instead and opened fire. chill as president elect gabrielle bartch has held transition talks with the outgoing administration. the former student protest at leda defeated his right wing opponent by his surprise at margin during sunday's run off boats. and a u. s. christian group whose missionaries were kidnapped in haiti, says the group escaped captivity as 12 people travel to forest walking for 16 kilometers. a gang kidnapped the group in mid october and were demanding a $1000000.00 ransom for each person. with that you are up to date with the headlines on al jazeera, the latest edition of inside story is next. ah,

how can only crawl be stopped from spreading the very end of the covey 19th virus is infecting millions worldwide. many countries are imposing emergency restrictions . some are even returning to locked down, or is it enough? this is inside story. ah. hello, welcome to the program. i'm hash and i had bhalla, the global search in covey 19 cases linked to the army cranberry, and is forcing some nations to re impose strict lockdown measures. days before the

holiday season begins, the netherlands was the 1st european country to impose a nationwide locked down on sunday. others are falling sir to try to slow the spread of omicron, france, austria, cypress, and germany have tightened. travel restrictions, some even cancelling christmas and new year's celebrations. and ireland is among countries imposing curfews and limiting the number of people allowed in bars and restaurants. yahoo da da well begun. i am a bit surprised by the new lockdown to go actually, how quickly it has come. again. we had some idea that we had it under control. after all, though, we have had done everything, we could, we are fully vaccine. you actually do everything you can to support society and in the end it all goes in the wrong direction. i'm of, she's thinking of bacon yoga. we often see that the government intervenes too late or with half measures. and now i think that with the emergence of the new variant,

they simply intervened really hard. that once i hope that will be able to tackle it and that in a months time will be out of it. especially when that booster campaign gets going. are you miss, but you sometimes missed the long term vision and that is frustrating. can you? we can no longer plan ahead and i think that's annoying. so it needs social work. i didn't expect the log down to happen so fast. i personally expected that if the numbers start increased with that very and that they could be strict to lockdown, but not so soon. but i know that care staff have had no rest either. so i understand you're sir, realizing what is happening now in the hague, trying to assimilate, beastly situation. so merger we did go down was through the stay at home, but we also have him for his air. be, sir, be nice. his winter is a dry, a little be winds about so yeah, we don't want to let sir. we just follow the rules from the,

from the logo. but while some countries are toughing up action against the new servers, others have just begun loosening up after months of restrictions, the united kingdom has not ruled out new measures. and officials are warning that the full effects of the latest wave i yet to be seen australia, which has seen some of the toughest preemptive action, reopened its border in november. and his easing restrictions all while recorded new affections hit new highs. and in the us top, scientists are urging people to rethink that christmas travel plans and warning about all microns, extraordinary capability to spread. ah, let's bring in, i guess, from london oksana pisec leader of the global citizenship program on our breaks of infectious diseases at university college london from amsterdam. yup. if he is

journalist, specializing in medical science and in hong kong, john nichols is clinical professor pathology of the university of hong kong. thank you for joining the program. oksana from the data available so far. is it fair to say that the world may be bracing for a search of infections? similar to what happened in april 2020. well sir, we will see that vaccinations are going to mute some of the symptoms, but boosters are very clearly needed and in the u. k, there is a target of trying to achieve 1000000 boosters a day, which is very ambitious indeed, but it won't be enough to quell the crown wave that is rising faster than any other barrier that we have seen today. so it's likely that in many countries with a similar demographic to the u. k, will experience a similar rate of spread amongst its most vulnerable populations as well as in

europe, the countries of how started going back into locked downs or re imposing tougher restrictions. all these measures justified or there's a great deal of anxiety here. well, there is some discussion because actually our recent wave is still going down. but within that wave there, on the conway coming up and our hospitals are still kind of over flooded. a lot of people actually even getting oxygen at home because we don't have space in the netherlands in the, in the hospitals, and a lot of regular carriers scale down. so we don't have time to wait and we don't have time to big routes. what happens with amazon, whether it's more or. ready less severe as the other areas we had. so sort of it's, it's necessary now to it was necessary to take a step john, many scientists, i think it's just

a matter of time before on the chrome becomes the most dominant variant of covey. 19 taken over delta, but is it of why tom to start thinking about measures when we don't know yet whether this is less or more severe than delta? this is a thanks the session. this is a very challenging question because people are, does the data from south africa? says well, yes, it's very transmissible, but it's a mom disease, but more recent data i think or will have more information from you guys saying, well, let's hang on a bit. i saw the early stages, we need to wait for about 2 to 3 weeks to see will there be this massive increase in the hospitalization? because even though it, some people think it may be less dangerous to the patients. the sheer number of patients will just do what's happening in netherlands is that you do not want to

have the overwhelming of the health care system. so any measures which you can date a do to dampen down the people being admitted a bit through a social distance. seeing all or restriction measures or, or through the vaccination, is what is needed to stop the of one of the health care system. here again, hospitals and the increased mortality asada. why is it that the u. k, which is the hardest hit in the region with almost 93000 daily cases. not taking the same toughest approach than the other european countries are taking well, there's only a difficult political choice. in this instance, the scientific advisors and stage are saying that, you know, we could be looking at 3000 hospitalizations a day in coming weeks. if we don't roll out a more intensive plan and the current plan b and are suggesting more restrictions like circuit breakers, but tory m p 's have rebelled even against very miles measures that have been

recently re introduced. so again, it comes down more to political question and yes, the imperial study that has been published has also verify that at this stage we cannot say that in the u. k. armor, chrome is going to be milder and south africa. there's the younger population. there's also a huge amount of exposure to previous variance such as delta. so the picture looks different there, but it's not us to just make that assumption now. and if we go, based on what hospitalizations are today, knowing that there's such a significant lag effect, we're going to be in big trouble. the british medical association has already said that by a christmas day, we could have one in 10 health, any chess workers off sick as a result. so it's not just about the number of hospitalization. we also have to hope your staff to care for people with essential medicine and urgent care. you

know, since the thought of the coven, 19 all to break countries, took 2 different approaches, a drastic one, we have the look does. and all those tough measures, other one for something like a smart approach, where you, how the contact races and so forth to be able to contain the search, the netherlands when the up to, for the option of return to the looked is because they wanted to give some leeway for the medics to be able to start with the booster before they decide how to move forward. yeah, there was, there was an issue with the booster campaign. it started way too late. we are one of the last in europe that it started so, so only 846 percent of the population as received the booster while in most other countries in europe, it's like $25.00 until even 35 percent so so we need time to, to catch up and tracing has never been well performing well in the netherlands.

we lost track in march early in march. we tried to wrap it up in summer, but the last it's, it's september. so it's, it's never helped us are lots. we are municipal health service does work, do do conduct racing, but not in a way to sort of push down the cur, just to inform people about to get them to, to isolate. but it hasn't helped us a lot. john, people seem to be a little bit baffled by the fact that the, the politicians need to get their act together when it comes to how to move forward . i'll just give you an example. we were told of the beginning, you just need to vac 2 shots and this is it. a booster is just for those with underlying health conditions. now we're being told, you know what, everybody needs the booster otherwise on the call might be a nasty variant. yeah, i think the, the thing with the problems that were all these was coming back to,

to bias. you know, his predictions. you know, it's because we're dealing so much with the uncharted church, because when we thought that we had dealt under control, the vaccines were working and then along came across. and i think that was it, that some people were predicting it because in, in parts of a sudden, africa was a low vaccination rate. and also, you know, the reality is that this is an, are in a virus. and the more of our to again, to replicate the more chance you going to get of these mutations occurring. so i think it's in a way people were saying that there's been some, been some faxing inequality between the rich countries and other places where there's been a vaccine coverage. so i think it's not surprising that the on broadcast but i think it's basically a virus. this is, variance is basically found a sweet spot of being able to replicate very, very effectively. and it was great transmission. so i think in way we've only got ourselves to blame for when we've been treated vaccine programs around the world

asana. is it because army, chrome spreads as fast as measles, which means that it just likely to further continue spreading all over the world, which is creating the concern here was because we don't really know whether this is something that we could send many people to. i see is, and this is why we're going to have real problems. well again, so we're looking at the question of transmit ability versus severity. and i think what we've tried to explain is that any benefit in the virus being milder, whether that's due to vaccination prior exposure or the strain itself. because we are now looking at so many more people being infected at the same time that me or whatever reduction hospitalization, due to my list is,

is in some way sorted. so you still are going to see a big pressure, particularly in those who we already know in a certain populations, vaccines are just not as effective. so the booster, however, there's been good news that it provides 80 percent reduction in hospitalization. so that is great news that is going to take as time for many countries to get there. there are many countries in the world that still haven't even had their 1st. there's the vaccine, so it'll look very different in different places. but i think the key message here is that the negative impact on health is going to be exponentially worse. the longer that we allow exponential growth of the virus to occur. yup. it, sometimes the political advice outweighs the medical consideration. and we do understand that because in europe they have a to 9000000 cases and more than 1500000 cove it relate to dust. doesn't explain the reason why people are going into those tough

a drastic actions because they just don't want to end up having hospitals swamped in the upcoming weeks. yeah, well it's just, this is the, the main goal in particular in the netherlands. but in most european countries has been not to, we call it code black where people will not get a place in hospital to get treated either for a go over severe cove it or, or an accident or anything else severe. that's what they want to prevent. they have never actually really tried to keep the virus down the transmission low. actually they even flirted with or community for a long. busy time and try to sort of maximize the number of cases within their health care capacity. and that has proven to be a very short sighted strategy. and in particular, now that, that's even previous infections do not well, no longer create enough immunity to do not get read infected. so yeah, but still

a lot of people are thinking, oh well, it's too late to change that strategy now. and actually we should have done it earlier. maybe we should still do it. it's very difficult political situation now. now john explained this to me, please, don't you think that the the needs to be able to think of the strategies themselves because we thought we covered 90 and there was a 5 variant bit varian delta variant amik wrong variant. most likely we're going to see more many more mutations and variance in the near future. whatever you do, what, whatever kind of restrictions you will have to do. you would have to wait for the next winter and then you would have to re impose the same the sanctions. and i don't think weaknesses, question the in very quick way. because, you know, we, we can't predict what the next variance is going to be like that. the, some people are saying we maybe, hopefully this, this grant will crowd out the other ones. and just some we may just disappear.

and i think that as a big challenge is, is that, that's, i think, whether the frustration people, feelers, that they say, we've done the right things that have the vaccines have been done, done this, and now we've been told to go back to the restrictions just get back to saying which was said earlier, is that one of the recent studies just a lot just completed last week was that his armor can actually replicates about 70 times more effectively in the upper in the restructured track of the of humans and then delta. so this is a vice in which is each person is, you know, when you get infected, it's very, very fixed, effective at replication. so i think that's, i'm from, it's going to lead to far more more transmission. this is a different beast. the other variance oksana, when you look at the data, we know that the unvaccinated people faced 20 time, greater risk of dying from cove. it 19 compared to those vaccinated? does it bring to the table,

the issue that people have to be fully vaccinated now? plus the booster to be able to say, by the spring time we could see life at the end of the tunnel? well, certainly we know that the ad unvaccinated are also going to be putting on the greatest pressure and health care system as well because theirs are, as i already mentioned, even if they were infected previously. reinfection with our micron is 3 to 4 times more likely than with any other variance on that we've seen today. so there has to be a better effort and engaging with them groups that have up to this point to use. and we also need to ensure that we're rolling out and to younger populations as well. so the kids been late to that, but they are starting now with vaccinating younger groups as well. but we also have other tools and there's some promise with antiviral drugs. and it's key for to be able to be administered early and for this wave,

there's just not going to be enough supply for it to make a big enough dent. but certainly, hopefully is going to be the last winter of even discussing restrictions. because we'll have a wider tool available in terms of treatment, which perhaps some people who, although the vaccine remains the best preventative measure, it may be that others are also more willing to take other treatment. we did that with a wider therapeutics that are available, more population immunity built up, hopefully more efforts in ensuring that other countries have access to doses as well. so that we're tackling that vaccine equity problem. if we look at it globally, we can, we can push things further along, as long as we, we do try and learn those lessons about i, we can't ignore the rest of the world. it's going to have local impact. and that seems to be, for whatever reason, a difficult message to get through. oh that's,

that's a massive got by the way, because if you were talking about africa, you're talking about some places where you only have 28 percent of the provision which has been vaccinated. you mentioned the issue of antiviral drugs. yup. the biggest fear for a doctor, for us on a politician is the same pick of hospitalized issues that we saw last year. and which means obviously more tragedies and more death. how do we spent and invested more time and energy and money on the undivided drugs? do you think that we could have reverse the trend? well, i think it's one of the tools we'd love to hear about the swiss cheese model. we need all these different tools and at not all, at the same time, every time of the year. sometimes the season helps. sometimes we have a very and that's more, more sensitive or more vulnerable and more sensitive duties, treatments and but yeah, we will need them. these extra tools, but also that's what else i learned from the facts. knowledge is this week that even for collection of people that have not had their booster and they get effected

that might even benefit from getting their vaccine the day after they get attacked . that that might also help. and then as empty bottles along with that could also help or for unvaccinated or other people that have not that chance to get there at extra shot. john, in the u. s. she have a, you have some great news coming from different parts of the country fall ship. she's saying basically that the country should be bracing for tough, few weeks, 2 months. and then you have places like maryland, where the surge infections is going to something like a 150 percent if same trend, which is in places like new jersey, same trend in places like new york. what's the problem here? what, what is the failure here? what, what does it come from? i think it's been mentioned a few times in this, in this debate, is that it, i think it really comes down to politics and it comes down to people's appeals

attitude is that is i think most studies have shown is that the high rates will come from that way, i'm getting the low rates of vaccination where people are reluctant to even have the mosque mandates. so i, i, you know, even in hong kong and see we didn't had a community case of kind of it for about 2 or 3 months. yet still everybody goes around wearing masks even outside in doors, because, you know, we had this experience with size and we don't see it as being a, like a social stigma wearing a mask. so i think that you know, that this, that to me is when most cost effective ways to try and decrease infection is, is a simple mass. and, and i think if people were to, i think just bite the bullet and just say, look, you know, masks are effective, they're cheap, and they're way of actually decreasing transmission. and then, you know, when there's no vaccines,

vaccines available. i have less than 30 minutes here and i'm of the grim statistics that we've been showing globally. is there any good news or limit of hope that we should be sharing with our viewers to today? i'll start with the oksana. very brief. if you don't mind. yeah. well, i think that all the thing that we know about breaking change, the transmission still hold true. so for every viewer, again, making sure that you are taking a test is that before you leave the house, that's a good move. if you can get access to one, i know here in the u. k, there have been some shortages, but this same measures to protect yourself and your loved ones. at this time, you can employ a to really gauge your own level of risk, even if you are somewhere where there is a perhaps more flexibility around that. so i would say that in the 6 weeks we're going to go through and in the winter period, it's going to be a bit difficult. but going round the other side, there's going to be

a better whether people are going to be outside more and we're going to have more tools available to us. so and how that spirit of cooperation of global solidarity we can make a significant difference in stadiums and economic recovery. yep. yeah. well, but i think it's important to emphasize that that, that the dynamic of. busy of having boosters every couple of months, people are bidding a lot about it, but it's not so different from the things we know from influenza, except for influenza only sticks to the season, at least in the north or on the northern hemisphere. we have the flu season and then we got this shot just right in front of that season. and as long as we can keep the virus as low as possible, just by a having enough people that have some immunity during the rest of the year, we have those once a year. that would be a good perspective, right?

with some, some perspective, john good news. the good news is that, but i think we're much better position. and this time, last year, family vaccines are looking at ways of treatment. and i think we've, it's just going to be a matter of, i think of, and also making sure that you protect and look after the health care workers are the ones who will be looking after you when you, when you come to hospital, it's always good when you hear scientists, i'm just telling you there's always the lights at the end of the tunnel and that's always going to be a better day and pick you up if he's john nichols, i really appreciate your insight. thank you. and thank you for watching. you can see the program, i got a time by visiting our website and i dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page. lots facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter. i'll 100 is at a j inside the house and the entire team here into my, for now,

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