welcome to you all. let's start with the question of europe. i'm going to leave this open to all four of you, who wants to be first in answering? do we think that europe missed a trick in not taking me draconian measures that we have seen, notjust in china, but also be quite fast measures we have seen in taiwan, singapore, japan, hong kong? possibly. i think possibly, asia and hong kong particularly it was a very quick, they were closing down schools. testing a lot of people. perhaps that has prevented the spread of the disease, but europe, that was not as quick, but there are other characteristics. europe is a much more open continent in the sense that the movement across nations, the movement from all different parts of the world, so europe is, to a large extent, more

exposed than those asian countries. populations are also less obedient to authority, so that perhaps also has had an impact on the response, but everything else is just conjecture. it is very difficult to know. and we will not know until it is all over our way through the next phase of it because this could be a very long running experience with various peaks and there is not a vaccine yet, which is the key thing, thatis vaccine yet, which is the key thing, that is the only thing which is ultimately going to end the crisis. which is health, social and economic, which is the appearance of the virus. it is difficult to know because her three weeks ago, even just two weeks ago when we were discussing this on your show, it still then seemed quite a long way to go. —— a long way away. in european terms it seems likely for a new story, other than that it was starting to take off in italy. and it was difficult to make that calculation. should the authorities effectively have closed and the

european economy three or four weeks ago and gone into lockdown or gone into something closer to the draconian restrictions of the kind and hong kong? it is difficult to know. and we will only know when the numbers are there at the end. know. and we will only know when the numbers are there at the endlj suppose that some viewers, whether they are in hong kong, taiwan, singapore, perhaps not so much the singaporeans, but the taiwanese and hong kong, which say that there early open societies, liberal, do not regard themselves as authoritarian societies, but we saw sa rs authoritarian societies, but we saw sars in 2003 and begot prepared for this. europe has open borders and so forth, which would suggest that because we are in such a location we have to be doubly careful, but has government is even now are saying that we must not act to draconian to early. if we act at the four sides of the disease from asia and began to introduce the similar measures,

the populace at large would say we we re the populace at large would say we were overreacting. the virus might not jam across the continent so quickly. it is very well to set after the event, but i do not think the population would have followed the population would have followed the government's need in clamping down early. even now we see the british government saying we must be careful not to expand our best efforts to early. we want to wait for the peak and then be fully prepared. so there is a judgment call to be made here. when you react. it also sounds as if thomas is saying, jonathan, that there is a question of taking a public with you and they have to almost, there is a sombre way of putting it, the severity of it has to be seen through deaths in order to make alert and make the joint everybody will stop south korea took a slightly different approach to italy and they both seem to have a very serious at peaks at about the same time, but south korean cases are now going on, with his italian cases are

not. i think there are a few things that play that i have been thinking about over this period and one of them is this comparison of how different countries are behaving obviously they are dictated by different governments and different cultural norms in those countries, but also there is an enormous temptation within each country, we are doing it here in the uk, and set around the world are doing it, to say that we are doing the bestjob. you hear certain countries saying, our leader is taking the best the toughest steps, or she, and there are those in each country who will be critical of whatever the government does because they do not like that coming. when it comes to this virus, it knows no borders, it knows no nationalities, it knows no class, it knows no elite. we are seeing world leaders catching it, doctors catching it, ordinary citizens, young and old catching catching it. younger people are still suffering from it quite badly in certain places. there is so much that we do not know that it and i think that also, the other aspect of

this is unintended consequences. when you country introduces extremely tough measures, they know what they are trying to do in terms of the epidemiology, but they do not necessarily know what it is going to do to their economy, to the mental health of the population, to the longer term planning for whether it is the economy, the health of the nation, the attitude of the nation, the culture of the nation, survivability, whether there will be a second wave in the country, their neighbouring country, there is so much that we don't know that i think the most important message that i haveis the most important message that i have is that people should, but and large, follow the advice of the experts in their governments, and if they want to supplement that with more action, perhaps people here in the ukjust more action, perhaps people here in the uk just i'd more action, perhaps people here in the ukjust i'd like more action, perhaps people here in the uk just i'd like themselves more action, perhaps people here in the ukjust i'd like themselves —— isolate themselves a little bit more than others, go ahead. follow the advice of your scientific experts and your governments, talk us through the uk advice. it is different. there is talk of herd immunity. the british are taking a slightly different approach and it is not the case that the british are

completely out there on their own, but it is difficult, in this outbreak of amateur biology, which is of the charts, around the world globally fuelled by social media, all manner of people are sharing information, some of it correct, some of it from dubious sources, and forming their own judgments and shouting loudly on social media that one theory is the correct and the other is wrong. in british terms, they have concluded that it is better to try and flatten out the peak by doing this gradually can at the peak of this will come somewhere between the next month and ten weeks or so between the next month and ten weeks or so and that you do not go according to early and that you try and encourage a situation in which large numbers of people accept that large numbers of people accept that large numbers of people accept that large numbers of people are going to get this, and will experience the symptoms any mad way, and then the

correct moment to develop the measures. they are using the phrase cocooning about older britons and, at some point, you can expect to advice of change, if the numbers ability of, for people to self—isolate. this is an enormous political gamble, more importantly than that, it is a huge gamble with people's health and the experts are not in agreement. then again, experts are not in agreement anywhere in the world. experts are not in agreement anywhere in the worldlj experts are not in agreement anywhere in the world. i think there is one problem that people have some difficulty in understanding, this whole idea of herd immunity. in what way is it going to flatten out the numberof way is it going to flatten out the number of cases over a short period of time when nothing is being done to prevent people from catching it? the chief medical officer said that we the chief medical officer said that we might have, at the moment, around 10,000 people in the united kingdom who are infected with the illness. the nhs is no longer testing who think that they have the symptoms. only if the are already quite ill.

if this is happening, we are essentially opening at the nhs hospitals to receive, all of a sudden, quite a lot of cases, rather than people isolating themselves and protecting themselves from catching the virus. and we will not talk about in the uk in detail any more. i want to spend a few moments talking about the united states, which having taken, initiate, a fairly laid back approach initially, president trump declared a state of emergency. the president not taking it seriously early enough and then suddenly waking up, slamming a hugely dangerous ban on flights to the us, which i consider totally unreasonable. except that many european countries have also closed their borders. yes, but this is a different kind of buddha, the atlantic. the traffic from europe to america is central to business the

world over —— different kind of border. at least allow passengers and travellers to bring a medical certificate that they are free from the virus. i think it is the peak of unreason. you might have to call in, but i need to be careful, he is at the epicentre of unreason, the president. he has started according —— he is far to the coding, setting a massive blanket ban, and a threat to the world economy —— he is far too draconian. he had all of those captains of industry and examined behind him and i think that was quite clever on his part, because going from the position that many thought he had not done enough, behind the scenes he showed that he had swung into action and got google, walmart, drug testing companies to totally overhaul the syste m companies to totally overhaul the system so that they could act much faster and that of the american way, the trump of ways to say that private industry is going to help us get out of this and at the secondary

effect of that is to stimulate the economy, which is also suffering badly at this moment. it had that effect slightly. so i think it is an interesting approach is up again, we cannot know if it is right or wrong. when the stock market went down,... but as he said, it went up again after the news conference. he even tweeted out the rise in the stock market while he was speaking, which is idiotic. you are in the middle of something which is similar to the wall street crash and i think... who knows where politics will be in six months, but i think this is the week that finished donald trump. to move from a position, and unfortunately he is still in office, tojust a couple of weeks ago he was saying it isjust a couple of weeks ago he was saying it is just a fluke, couple of weeks ago he was saying it isjust a fluke, they couple of weeks ago he was saying it is just a fluke, they say it goes away in april, and you look at the chaos in administration and read the accounts of how they did the national dress and they did not know what they were going to say —— national address, and bits of it are

ad—libbed and freestyle, this is a moment when leaders, the fate of leaders is decided because human beings — like it is a very old—fashioned human instinct, humans are look to see, from the white house, that this person knows what they're doing, and this is not what this person should this week. one of the consequences of such a huge story is that other important news gets neglected. so i'd like to pause the pandemic discussion for a few moments and let each of you tell me which news story you'd have liked us to talk about on today's programme if the virus wasn't happening. jonathan, you have 90 seconds to two minutes. i think the death of lance corporal brodie gillen is something we should have seen more of any news. she was a british soldier serving in iraq who died in those rocket strikes on the allied camps and normally we do not necessarily

here in britain of the death of every soldier and hear the names and i think that is a shame, especially now as that is sweeping the world in another way, but there are still people fighting for this country, fighting for the west and there are still people fighting against a tyra nickel iran, which itself is suffering from coronavirus, and i think it was important to remember her, herfamily, think it was important to remember her, her family, her friends think it was important to remember her, herfamily, herfriends and have our thoughts with him at this difficult moment —— against a tyra nickel iran. i think ithink we're i think we're neglecting, hugely, the subject that was dominating everything else are not so long ago, brexit, the transition period. we are in the middle of the transition period, and by the end of 2020 but i finally have left. nothing very much is happening along that front, except the negotiations are hampered by the problem of gathering to many people and to many groups in various locations, so that is going to have

a negative effect on the progress of the negotiations. if we do not have a sort of prospectus byjune, boris johnson has been saying that they would be a positive outcome, he made declare game over. it is not possible to be said under the current circumstances, so my suggestion, or my prediction is that we suggestion, or my prediction is that we will see a lengthening, a postponement of the transition period, which and december. —— which cannot end in december. we made going to 2021 a which leaves a huge credibility gap by the prime minister here does delay from brexit and the week that ended trump, we are seeing issued predictions her. the refugee crisis. that reopened when president erdogan decided to

open the greek and turkish border and we saw the greek police reacted to those thousands of refugees. they we re to those thousands of refugees. they were welcomed with tear gas. and the inaction of europe. europe so far has congratulated greece and said that we are protecting our borders. they're having very strong talks with erdogan, but where is the solidarity? we are talking about thousands — over 150,000 children— making greek refugee camps and in turkey heard extremely vulnerable, vulnerable also to coronavirus. we also letting the weakest economies of europe, greece and italy, those who are at the epicentre of the refugee crisis in europe and whereas the european solidarity to tackle this crisis? just a very quick read in afghanistan and what is happening with the taliban, which i think would be a big story globally if we we re would be a big story globally if we were not all diverted. it is only a few weeks since a deal was signed that was essentially supposed to

bring the conflict to an end and america is the start of a complete drawdown of its 40,000 trips and we learned this week, through evidence in congress, that the deal is already being flouted by the taliban and that attacks are continuing. this is a conflict which the americans and other countries and us have spent more than $2 trillion on fighting for the last 19 years and it turns out that, at the us is leaving afghanistan, the taliban is effectively reasserting itself. can i differed not. what i worry is about the look we have in the conflict between turkey and europe. nobody talks about russia. the real perpetrator of this crisis is set, who keeps going to those it is upsetting —— areas of syria, creating more refugees.

we are going to back to our coronavirus discussion. the last time we saw a global financial crisis, we saw the world's leaders are trying to come together to sort it out coordinated way. you are talking about the economic impacts, iain, and jonathan. iain, why don't you pick up on this. we've had a tumultuous week on the markets, a little bit of a recovery on friday on some of them. but global impacts, if you look at business, some of them are really and an existential crisis as a result of this. that is absolutely right. i think that that has been part of the equation that governments are struggling with. what to prioritise. you prioritise the economy and people say that you're the economy and people say that you' re heartless the economy and people say that you're heartless and you do not care about human life. but if you prioritise extreme measures designed, at least, to look as if you are protecting human life in the here and now, hey, they may have a knock—on effect later on if there is

a second wave and human life may suffer, literally, if the economy does disaster in, so i think that in terms of that, there is the psychological, epidemiological, economical dots all of these considerations and that is, i think, as we said, strong and good leadership is necessary, even if we do not think that our leaders in necessarily doing the right thing, as long as we believe that they have an informed, scientific, considered strategy, i think that as a society we need to pull together a bit and the support of their choices, rather than try to undermine them, cast out and cause chaos because then we will never know if the strategy would have worked. iain, you talked about leadership, but have we got enough can order dated leadership of leaders coming together —— coordinated leadership of leaders coming together? globally, economically, to rescue the global economy, we need global planning. there is good news and bad news on the economy. the good news is that

after an event like this, it should be the case that they bounce back, economically, will be very rapid because human beings are social animals and want to get back out there, people want to feed their families, people want to get markets moving again. the bad news is that, unlike a conventional financial crisis we do know all you need to do is assemble sufficient firepower to say to the markets, we have got this, and you restore confidence and packet comes. unfortunately, in this case, we do not know how it is going to ask whether it is a three monthly, or year—long issue until it acts ina monthly, or year—long issue until it acts in a vaccine is fun. i think this is much worse, actually. because it is longer lasting —— until a vaccine is found. if you think the price of oil since january

is effectively done 50%, which is goodin is effectively done 50%, which is good in terms of petrol at the pumps, but points to a massive fall in global economic activity. what is happening to the us bond market, it is notjust happening to the us bond market, it is not just about stock prices. underneath the surface, the wiring of the economy, the banking system, is struggling to cope. the good news is struggling to cope. the good news is that the us fed, the us authorities and the bank of england do seem to understand the scale of it. i'm not quite so sure that the ecb do that look set for the euro zone, but i think there are serious problems can be done in line. it is an old story, once you get into something like this, businesses get distressed, the people who work for them get stressed and we are experiencing enormous changes in global patterns of change, heavier, and global consumption and it is going to be tougher to stop the priority for governments is going to be had for helping people through

this because a lot of people imagines and not have a huge amount of savings and you're going to have to see governments in the next few weeks to see governments in the next few we e ks start to see governments in the next few weeks start to illustrate to people how they can support them through this difficult period. how they can support them through this difficult periodlj how they can support them through this difficult period. i think in europe this is going to be a need for a coordinated action that is absolutely urgent. so far that coordinated action has been found wanting. if we think about the intervention of the president of the ecb this week, it was pretty disastrous in terms of not reassuring markets about with the ecb be there to help the italian economy, which are suffering tremendously. we heard yesterday the german government announcing a big bazooka to help german businesses, so any help that they might want. the french government has made similar announcements in terms of opening the coffers to help all the businesses that will be affected by the coronavirus. but what about the smaller economies of the euro zone?

they are bound by the euro zone governments bills and the need to keep an eye on their deficits and public debts —— government's rules. if we had ecb saying that italy, it is not ourjob to keep them in the yearbook, it is not a job to keep portugal or any other vulnerable euro zone country in the euro, that is very serious. i really hope there will be far more coordinated action because the impact of this in european economies is going to be absolutely catastrophic. and can we just, in the last couple of minutes that we have, can we talk about some of the psychological social costs? because they are less visible than the immediate economic ones, but they are the inevitable knock—on if people do not have jobs, they are the inevitable knock—on if people do not havejobs, incomes, the money to pay their rent, or keep their business going. thomas, what about that? the social cost of all of this? before i get to the social cost, you have the financial cost of begin with and you have to coordinate a good dose of individual

countries will have to at home before the coordinate. if you look at germany and the huge opening of the coffers, that is a positive sign because germany has been accused of sitting on their balance budgets policy and suddenly it has all the time the crisis has led to great generosity. and in england also, after yea rs of generosity. and in england also, after years of austerity,. you have to strengthen your efforts on that front to make available health care workers who would be ready to come and deal with those who suffer most from the lack of attention, so that is part of it. a huge challenge for each individual country. in terms of the social cost as well, it is absolutely the case that we are thinking a lot more about isolated

people, the moment, like the elderly and the vulnerable and that is one of the reasons that the british prime minister chose not to suggest that the isolate themselves yet. he said he wants to protect them during the hype week —— high—risk peak moment. people are wondering how they can check on their neighbours, bring food around, check their neighbours. maybe we should do more of this all the time, not just when there is a crisis. we can do things like the silver line helpline which dot like notjust in terms of her community, but in terms of behaviour asa community, but in terms of behaviour as a society. i suppose that is a long time, but we need to be doing that right now to protect people from isolation. i just that right now to protect people from isolation. ijust want to close. we only have a few moments left. what is your personal preoccupation at this moment in this crisis? jonathan, let's start with you. i wanted to ask about the

mental health impacts of the anxiety, etc, for people who have ocd anxiety, etc, for people who have 0cd and wash your hands a lot anyway, this particular moment when every moment of every day that message is being driven home to them, it potentially takes them into a more difficult space.|j them, it potentially takes them into a more difficult space. i am certainly waking up much more anxious these days than i usually do. it had a couple of minutes when i woke do. it had a couple of minutes when iwoke up do. it had a couple of minutes when i woke up feeling fine and reach of my iphone, looked at the news and with any bed ten seconds i see a disastrous —— within a few minutes i see a disastrous covid—i9 sorry. a lot of us are germ and go about washing your hands anyway and now emmylou immunosuppressed family. it may have an effect on people are already quite anxious. it is having already quite anxious. it is having a slight effect for me and anxiety. lam also a slight effect for me and anxiety. i am also waking up far anxious and i really worry about the length of

this crisis — for how long are we going to end this crisis environment questioning how long is it sustainable for us to keep our sanity? i worry about friends and family as well as the economic impact. but also, really focusing on understanding that we have lived quite through decking decadent area, a lot of things we have taken for granted, leisure, travel, and what really matters is those people, those friends, those connections. we have a community organisation in parts of london when i live and that is something very helpful to me. i wa ke is something very helpful to me. i wake up and find a little later, a piece of paper thrown into my letter back saying, call this and that person in your neighbourhood, make yourself available if someone has difficulties, cannot access food and so forth. that is wonderfully positive. indeed. we should all show leadership on her own community. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. thank you to all of you and i think

to all of you for watching. goodbye. hello there. if you're craving some spring sunshine, bear with me, i might be able to help with that. but for the time being, we have seen some rain around during the early hours. as you can see, it's starting to ease away from eastern england. and we had rain and mountain snow in scotland. that will clear as well. but it's a real messy picture, really, this weekend. there will be some rain at times and it's going to turn increasingly windy. so, a legacy of cloud for the next few hours. hopefully that cloud will thin and break for some brightness to come through, but by the end of the afternoon, more wet and windy weather arrives into northern ireland. at least the wind direction coming from a south—westerly so it will be

a little bit milder than yesterday — temperatures ranging from eight to 14 degrees as a maximum this afternoon. now that wet and windy weather will push in from northern ireland and it's going to bring some heavy rain for a time into scotland. the winds are strengthening as well, and during the early hours of the morning, the heavy rain will then push into north—west england and wales. we could see as much as 30 to 40 millimeters of rain as well. with a blanket of cloud generally across the country, it's going to be a mild night — overnight lows, five to nine degrees. so we're going to start off sunday morning with some rain — some of it heavy and persistent as it moves across the midlands into south wales, across the channel coast. it may well stay dry for much of the day into east anglia and the south—east corner. behind it, sunny spells and scattered showers, and with the wind direction changing to a northerly, well, here, it's going to feel a little bit colder — top temperatures of five or six degrees. but elsewhere, we're looking at a maximum of nine to 12 celsius. now, as we move out of sunday,

monday and tuesday look like this. monday will actually start off frosty with some decent spells of sunshine, but we've got more cloud and rain pushing in on tuesday and then the weather story is set to change. so, yes, we've got a weather front. that's going to move in. but look at this, later next week, an area of high pressure is set to build and it's going to stay with us right into the weekend so a good deal of dry, settled and sunny weather to go with it. so let's take a look at those five days then. yes, some rain around on the tuesday. it's worth bearing in mind that although we'll see some sunshine, it could just feel that little bit colder. hopefully the sun will compensate. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm geeta guru—murthy. the headlines at 12: plans to ban mass gatherings are being drawn up to curb the spread of coronavirus. the whole approach has been, what does the science tell us? what is the guidance we're getting from the chief medical officer and the other experts around him, bringing in behavioural science so we that take the right steps at the right time. jet2 cancels all flights to spain, the balearic islands and the canary islands with immediate effect. a number of european union countries say they'll close their borders to most or all foreigners. us president donald trump declares a national emergency, releasing £40 billion in federalfunds. many sporting bodies have already cancelled events, including professional football leagues. and in half an hour, click will show you