raises heels of promissory this inflation to 40 per cent in a few months. it is unclear how he will manage both, but in the mean time to get citizens, i finding it more and more difficult to make n 3 sienna, his solo al jazeera, assembled facebook's parent company meta has agreed to pay $725000000.00 to settle a privacy lawsuit. the social media giant was accused of allowing 3rd parties to access users personal data. the lawsuit followed revelations that a u. k. based consulting firm cambridge, analytical, accessed millions of facebook profiles. the firm has also been accused of using the data to support donald trump's election campaign. in 2016, the american in russian space agencies are facing a dilemma. how to get several astronauts home. that's after a russian. so you spacecraft, spring a leak last week. it's doc to the international space station. yes, 7 people are on board, but they're not in danger. the craft might not make the trip back to earth as scheduled in march. instead,

russia may need to send another spacecraft to bring the crew back. ah, this is al jazeera and these are the outlines. more than 200000000 people in the us are under a weather warnings as a bitterly cold storm sweeps through north america. the arctic blast has left hundreds of thousands of homes without power and caused major travel. disruption forecasters are calling it a once in a generation weather events. a record breaking snow storm has hit parts of northwestern japan killing at least 8 people. it's led to traffic chaos, disrupted railway services and cut power to thousands of hanes forecasters are expecting more severe weather in the coming days. there been protests in paris after 3 people were shot dead near a kurdish cultural center. investigators are considering a possible racist, noted for the attack. a 69 year old suspect previously jailed for attacking migrants has been arrested nippers. sure,

it is not certain that the killer wanted to assassinate these people, and there is little doubt that he wanted to assassinate people. here in paris did so specifically to target kurdish people and he was clearly targeting foreigners, we need to know from the judicial inquiry presided over by the public prosecutor whether it was specifically for the kurds. but for the moment that there is no evidence to show that we do in $23.00 fighters who have seized large areas in the democratic republic of congo, have pledge to retreat from a strategic frontline position fighter se they'll give up the town of cuba, east african leaders have been pushing for an end to the conflict that's force hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. since october, oil giant shell has agreed to pay nearly $16000000.00 to nigerian communities affected by leaks and its pipelines. but the company says the settlement for oil spills between 2004 in 2007 is not an admission of liability. it also said the pipelines were sabotage. china is battling

a wave of krona virus infections that it has hit the elderly population hard. this video shows dozens of body bags piled up at a funeral parlor in the southwestern city of cha ching. but beijing has reported just a handful of deaths from the virus during the current search. it recently changed criteria for registration of coven 19 fatalities. those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after inside story. thanks for watching. ah . coven! 19 infectious are wising again in china, and many health officials are concerned, new varies are on their way. so could the well be facing another major outbreak and

with countries before to re impose restrictions? this is insight story. ah, hello, welcome to the program, i'm hash hm. how bala? cases of coven 19 are rising significantly in china days after it relax, restrictions following widespread protests. now. busy fears are growing a resurgence of the virus may lead to new mutations and trigger another global health crisis. neighboring countries like india are stepping up surveillance and the world health organization is urging badging to provide more information to help . well, prepare better for a possible new wave of covey. 19. katrina hasn't reports. these

people in china's capital are waiting to find out whether they have coven. 19. the government started reducing pandemic restrictions this month. but now infections are rising along with virus related deaths or an increasing number of patients have tested positive for covet 19 and we have seen a shop increasing the number of patients at the fever clinic. we seem to be getting more and more patients every day. the government stopped mass testing after widespread protests against it. 0 cove at policy, official figures on case numbers aren't available, as beijing has changed, it's testing and reporting criteria. and that's worrying the world health organization. doubly choice, very concerned over the evolving situation in china, was increasing reports of severe diseases in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground. w jo needs more

detailed information on business severity, hospital admissions, and requirements for ice. you support the as a growing that corona virus, mutations could lead to another global health emergency. there is always a risk that a new variance will emerge. it's really impossible to say how great that risk will be. it might be the all, the chrome is coatings fine old tricks to play as it were. i but we could see a new very going forward. some countries are preparing for another major outbreak in thailand, doctors urging people to get vaccine boosters after it recorded 700 new infections in december. the highest number this year. and in india, which is reported some of the highest numbers of cove at 19 related deaths in the world. the government has held an emergency meeting and stepped up surveillance and glossy. however, we have begun random r t p c r,

testing of 2 percent of passengers arriving from foreign countries at international airports. people around the world have been celebrating the holiday season free of pandemic restrictions for the 1st time in 2 years. but with infections increasing, those rules may be brought back to avoid another crisis. ah, let's bring in our gas. joining us from new york is doctor, we're 1st saw that she is professor of epidemiology and medicine at columbia university. andy mach is senior research fellow, or the center for china and globalization had joined us by sky from bay. jing dr. krishna or their cobra, is funding director of the duke global health innovations center. he joins us by sky from barley, north carolina, in the us. welcome to the program, dr. what far? the the case is now the spike in cases infections in,

in china. could it possibly become the biggest coven outbreak the world has seen since 2019? well, 1st of all, thank you for the opportunity today. i think there is concern that a surge in china can in it, in a population that has largely been naive, have not experienced coven, 1900 surgery before. could really probably be one of the largest we have seen thus far. i think that lots of things that remain unclear in terms of the, of course, the protective effect of the vaccines that have been largely delivered and used in china. and then to, to also as well take into account the, the population and what, how they will deal with the surge itself, whether the people will adopt some of the protective measures. like for example, seeing home avoiding large, everything's and so on. so i think there are lots of unknowns,

but certainly there is concern that the potential is there for a very large church in numbers of cases in china, and potentially accompanied by a lot of potentially also hospitalizations. ok, andy, i mean we'd like to understand what happened exactly in china and i'm is to sit out for the last 3 years as a model for it 0 co with regina with a lockdown them and so on and so forth into abandoning that strategy. just just a few days ago and southerly. have the says in cases what went wrong? well, i would question, has she me this description of china's current policies abandoning its co good hawk. so we all know that the 1st very into coding was infectious, but also fairly lethal. and what china recognised early on was that prevention was vital to minimize deaths. now i think it's commonly agreed that the virus has

mutated quite a lot, the reproduction number i've seen. so the original delta very had a we production of about to this curve. these current variance are at 20. so they are much, much more infectious about as infectious as the measles smallpox. but the good news is that it is much, much less lethal. and i'll tell you on the ground here in beijing. in the last week, i've seen surveys that 70 percent of people and aging have already been infected with cold it's, i agree with the doctor that this will be the largest number of infections probably anywhere in the war. but the good news is that everyone around me, including me, has was infected. last week. people have described getting this barrier of coven as they've had worse. hang overs. so i think it is fairly mild. now again,

we should not discount and the government is very active. so i would not say it's abandoned by policy, but it's shifted its policy from prevention to identifying and making sure that those that do become severely ill have the medical resources. now one very important point in china is that one per capita big, it has much fewer. i see you beds. so this is a challenge and it's not very visible, but the government is working very, very hard at every level to ensure the more i see you beds available. the other piece of good news i would say is that i think that the chinese population might be less vulnerable to severe outcomes. we see in places like the united states, perhaps some parts of europe that these cold morbidities like obesity or other existing health conditions really contribute to terrible outcomes including death.

and fortunately, at least for now, i think china might be in a better position with regard to quality. let me go to the questioner. now, when you look at the figure, the government of china does not really seem to be forthcoming. we comes to the, the, the death tool, but when you look at the projections that 60 percent of the population is likely to be infected. and then within that segment of society, you have people with preexisting, you have the elderly and those with pre existing health conditions. that could be an indication that we are likely to see a growing number of casualties, and people are affected by the my cobit 19. absolutely. i'm much less optimistic unfortunately than are speaker we just heard from i do think this is going to be not just a massive wave of infections with some estimate. the already more than 200000000 people in china have been infected over the last 3 weeks. but i do think we are already starting to see many depths occur,

of course not reported in the data. we won't ever know what actually is happening from the official data. but if you look at the news that's coming out of crematorium being overwhelmed and what we saw in other similar population, like in hong kong, the latest projections i've seen are deaths in china of a 1000000 or more, which would just be horrendous. so unfortunately, i do think we're going to see a massive shift here, where we will start to see more depth, hospitalization, over the coming days and weeks. and our hope is that the health system can co, but i'm not sure that's actually going to be the case with this type of spikes. we're now seeing what 5, there is a squabble. over semantics here, when it comes to the way the was into bread, into brits, the, the, the death toll on the white china does to just, for example, that they have different criteria here. the chinese authority is saying that we'll look basically looking into the deaths related to respiratory problems. that gives us an indication that this is directly linked to a coven 19 in the west. now. so,

you know, we have to look into the overall number of deaths including those who died of an underlying conditions. heart attack could be an indication that this is something that could be linked to a covered 90. and i think this could explain why the chinese said that just 8 people died this month of go with 19 i think, you know, it's and i think looking at the death from respiratory severe respiratory disease can give you a good sense of what's happening. particularly in the context, of course, in 1000 search, i think it could be a good target marker in terms of that, of the numbers that that's due to it. i think on the other hand, we always think of 2 things. one is dying due to cold weather death due to go in and death with that is an incidental kind of diagnosis of call it when somebody sick from another condition. i think nonetheless, i think what, what the, who's the authorities in china and what others have done elsewhere is to be as

inclusive as possible in terms of trying to get a sense of the severity of the, in this, the magnitude of the, of the effect of virus like covered 90 on the population of it seems to me that it's highly unlikely with the large numbers of cases that have been reported. and infections reported in china that there would be only less than a less than a 2 handfuls of, of death that have been reported. clearly there are, the elderly population were vulnerable to certain people whose going to be these. and those exist in china like anywhere else are particularly fundable. in addition, we know that many people received vaccination way back maybe a year and a half or 2 years ago. and protection has williams over time. and, and i do think that in a lot of ways, probably it behooves a country like china at this point in time to focus on how can you protect the most

vulnerable the elderly people with co morbidities. how can they me measures put in place to protect those who are most likely to give a severely ill and the lines bins and are true of of dying from 1900. i think that needs to be the urgent priority at this point. and the, the, the goal of the, the, the number of the death wish wish we see on social media and china is higher than the number presented by the authorities. why are they somehow dom playing the number of death from covered 19? well 1st i would agree with what the doctor just said that i think prevention, especially most the elderly is very, very work. and that certainly is going on. i think there's been another prioritization of vaccination of the elderly so absolutely, i think that's correct. my understanding is the shift in the definition of coded

deaths actually reflects the underlying science in that the nature of the illness has changed. i think that's one of the reasons you know, i would also say that this idea of these crematorium being overwhelmed as kind of a medium mean. and that if you read the western news compared to what i think, love the lived experience on the ground, it would seem to completely different worlds. i would caution. ah, that the whole coven pandemic. ah, the western media has gotten it pretty wrong. you know, from saying 1st of all that it's impossible to lock down such a large number of people. ah, it wouldn't work, can't be done. and in fact, china did do that. or in the shall hide lockdown. there were reports of people starving to death. i don't believe anyone actually starved to death in shanghai. so i would again caution that this humanitarian catastrophe. i believe

the washington post are described. this for china's coded nightmare is really quite overblown. now clearly there are more people dying without a doubt. and i think um they are people that are most vulnerable, either the elderly with existing conditions. and clearly i think the government is doing what it can are to minimize that. but every policy has its cost. ah, both are intended and unintended as well. so i don't dispute that there are more deaths. i do question that sir, is it as extreme i, as we're seeing in a lot of the western press, if i'm, i'm very, very scar and as a quick enough, irrespective of what is the debate, the different narrative, as far as what is happening in china is concerned, but when you look at the statistics themselves,

if you have 60 percent of the population, a population of a 1400000000 people to contract coven 19. no matter what resources you have, your hospitals will definitely one day will be overwhelmed. drugs will be out of stock and you are really have to grapple with how to move forward. how do you see china navigating through this complex situation? yes, i think it will certainly be a difficult few weeks to months. ahead. and china can certainly mobilize resources incredibly quickly and at scale. and that is some of what we're starting to see now to increase. i see you back to deal with the surge that is happening and continue to be expected. we also need to really ramp up the vaccination amongst the high risk wonderful populations as we've already heard. we also have to make sure that there are access to therapies, we have better therapies now for mild moderate infection to prevent hospitalization

. and we have seen news that as those drugs are being made available in china, now, the types of accedes that are being used is something we should certainly look at to make sure that the most effective vaccines to prevent severed the illness, hospitalization and death are made available, so there are lots of mitigation measures that are possible. and when we talk about this idea of flattening the curve, if you could see the same number infections happen over 6 months versus 6 weeks, you would give a lot more capacity for the health system to be able to deal with those challenges . so that's the phase, we're really in. now the offer you have those who would tell you covey 19 as far as we are concerned, is a turn chapter gone. well, those days of massive concerns about all future. and then you have those who would tell you this could perhaps be similar to when we were in the midst of the dark tunnel with people are really,

really concerned about the future of humanity from your own perspective. where do we stand now? globally, when i, i think, and i, i believe that many other experts also would agree that we are not in a situation to where we are in the early 2020. i think we're in a very different place. and part of the reason why we are in a different place today is that we know so much more about coping 90. we know how to diagnose this, we have the tools to diagnose it. we know how to manage it. we know how to treat it . we know how to prevented, so we have our knowledge in terms of what to do, how to prevent and manage. 1900 appropriately, is improved exponentially since those dark days of the early 2020 twenty's. i also think we have a very different population. we have a population in many parts of the world that has largely had already experienced people of experience go with, with some protection for prior infection. we have availability of vaccines,

some better than others. and booster doses and, and so on. we have treatments, effective treatments. so i think we're in very different place from where we were, but nonetheless, i think we need to, as much as we can try to minimize transmission. it is not good to get over 9. some people who get very sick. some people are maybe at risk of long coded wrong symptoms after an episode, of course. so why we have, we have a very different place. i think we should continue to do our best to minimize transmission. and also for another reason is that we want to avoid the emergence of new variance that may be more transmissible, maybe more fatal, maybe to outsmart our vaccines and, and treatment. so i do think we, we should appreciate that we're in a different place, but nonetheless, we should also appreciate the call. this is not gone, it's going to be with us, and we have to do whatever we can to protect the population as much as possible to

protect the most vulnerable as much as possible and to prevent, prevent transmission in order to avoid the evolution of new variance in the future, andy, was it a wise decision to lift the toughest structures ahead of the netherlands, luna? near holiday? yeah, i think that's a great question. jim. i think the big unknown at this point is exactly how severe these variance are. and again, if they really are no worse than a common cold, having a 1000000000 plus people infected might not be that big of a deal. and from as far as i can tell, beijing was the 1st major population of center to be infected. we're seeing the same dynamic play out in shanghai now. within the last week, there was no one at work. you could not order anything online because all the delivery drivers were out sick. this week,

pretty much things are returning to normal and talking to people in shanghai, it sounds like a similar dynamic is putting out. so i think the answer is that if indeed this is as infectious as you know, with a reproduction number, 1820, ah, and not much worse than a common cold for most people. i think it does make sense to get it over as quickly as possible. okay. i guess we shouldn't ignore the extreme economic cost of this machine as well. the question of india has stepped up preventive measures because of the concerns and fears about the b 7, a straight on the chrome variant of covey. 90 which is not hitting the continent. the subcontinent, should we be concerned about the mutations of this particular stage? i think what we're starting to see is continued evolution, and we don't see with any of the emerging variance, any overly concerning funds. even though as we've seen with the lineage of b, a 5,

which continues to be really the dominant force around the world. that the transmission rates are quite high. so we do need to continue to take appropriate measures. and i think especially with the wave that we're starting to see in china is likely to lead to new variance. we need to make sure that our surveillance systems around the world are up to the task of identifying new variance, including potential variance of concern as they emerge. and ensuring that we are taking the mitigation approaches, whether those are appropriate changes to vaccines or treatments, or making sure we're protecting the most wonderful populations. so surveillance and mitigation continue to be really central measures that all countries need to take ok very briefly, if you don't mind what you said, that it needs to be a focus on those vulnerable. but then when you look at the way people are questioning the boost the vaccine, their confidence has been eroded when it comes to the effectiveness of the vaccines . do you think that it's about time for us to rethink the way we should have to

deal with cove it from now? onwards? i think we have to adjust our messaging. definitely. i think the messaging is very different from the messaging that we have to use before. and we're also we're fixing these headwinds of people who want to return to what they call normalcy. and also if relation then or, and their confidence in the vaccines have eroded over time. unfortunately. so i think in our communications have to focus differently. we have to find champions within the communities, the vulnerable communities that can advocate to others within their community about why it's important to get the booster, those. and we have to use different messaging that focus maybe more clearly, that the goal of these vaccines is to prevent severe in this and ok. and it is not that people against every single interaction. second. and if you don't mind, do you think of a concern about the 2nd largest economy being battered,

constantly over the last few years, which may the, the government think it's about time to relax the restrictions? absolutely. i mean, this is a, not just a public health crisis, but it is an economic crisis, and it is a public opinion crisis as well. people were getting tired of the lock downs. fortunately, the virus has become less lethal. so i think we're able to move past this now and resume a trajectory hopefully of economic rebound. do you see the questioner, the world going back to restrictions locked downs? no, i think world, well past that stage, we are now transitioning in a messy way from the emergency response to something that needs to look like long term code control. so the pandemic is not over, but we have to think about how to manage it effectively with all the tools that we now have available without forgetting that we have lots of other health and other economic challenges ahead of us. that he hasn't really appreciate your reassuring.

and so looking forward to talking to you in the near future, i promise you will continue to talk more and more about coven 19, and the spect own our health and the global economy of total other and do most of the questions. but i call my thank you. thank you very much indeed. and thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting on what site al jazeera dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation twitter. our handle is at a j inside. so for me hash my hub on the entire team here in the ha, hyphen i ah

a talk to, i'll just see a bend in by the international community. we listen, we have a huge price for the rural, i've got a terrorist that's going on. so we meet with global use maintenance, i'm talk about the store restock matter on out. you see, i all ready for the 1300000 that will be that this is only the beginning. that equity always going to keep moving forward with the type that make or break the moment for senate go back to being forgiven for thinking that sounds great. right. well, happy, trans hair i can tell you about,

i said, don't discount australia because they're going to come out fighting and fighting at the end of an incredible dramatic game. i n a i buried on what's going on in vladimir putin's mind right now. could this war go new player is being on that front team, the golden ticket to electoral victory? can americans agree on any immigration policy? is there a middle ground between 0 tolerance and open border? the quizzical look us politics, the bottom line. oh i'm.