troops in afghanistan and iraq before he leaves office. he stopped short of a threatened full withdrawal. the move has faced criticism from both republicans and democrats who fear it will damage fragile peace talks with the taliban. as fighting continues between ethiopian federal forces and tigrayan insurgents in the north of the county, thousands of refugees have poured over the border into neighbouring sudan. the un says they are urgently in need of food and fuel, but a communications blackout in the region means there is limited access. renewed clashes have broken out near thailand's parliament in the capital, bangkok, as lawmakers debate possible changes to the constitution. police used water cannon and tear gas against protesters

that is it from me and the team. it's now time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. this is a bittersweet moment in the global fight against the covid pandemic. joy that at least two vaccine trials have produced extremely promising results is tempered by the continued spread of the disease across much of the world. to put it bluntly, the global containment effort has had limited success. my guest is dr david nabarro, the world health organization's special envoy for covid—19. are countries doing enough to minimise the damage done, before mass vaccination changes the game?

david nabarro in geneva, welcome to hardtalk. hello, hello, stephen. how do you do? i am very well. may i begin by reading out to you something you tweeted very recently? you said, "covid—19 is surging back, "threatening to overrun hospitals, "causing long—term illness and more death." we have had nine months as a world community to contain covid—19. why have we failed? stephen, i think the first thing to say is that things would have been a lot, lot worse without the efforts that we've seen throughout the world in the past ten months. but at the same time, i have to agree with you that there's much more that should

have been done and there's more that must be done now to reduce the overall damage being caused by this virus. is this something we should view as a as a failure is this something we should view as a failure of public policy and national governments, or after these ten months, do we have to be honest with ourselves, all of us honest with ourselves and say that we as human beings collectively have failed to measure up to our individual responsibilities to fight this disease? yeah, i think that for many it's a question of whether humanity is able to deal with this virus with the current tools that we have. but i look at the world as a whole and i go to countries in east asia and i look at how they are managing to get ahead of the virus. let's go to thailand, for example, or to neighbouring cambodia, or further south to new zealand, to australia,

or a bit inland towards china or then to south korea. some of these countries are doing remarkably well. it's the same virus there as it is in europe, as it is in north america. but for various reasons, these countries have got ahead of it. and i think the rest of us need to look at the east asian experience and say, why has it proved so difficult for other countries to put that in place? i don't have all the answers, stephen, but i think that's where the solutions lie. which regions worry you the most right now? you look every single day at the figures right across the world. where are your worries deepest at this moment? well, stephen, number one is europe. i'm sitting in europe. i'm actually in switzerland, in one of the hot spots in europe. and i'm very concerned about this, but i'm at the same time seeing quite considerable impact of the movement restrictions that have

been adopted in europe. so i'm reasonably comfortable. but what matters here in europe is that, during the lockdowns, is that there are absolutely strenuous efforts put in place to make sure that the defences against the virus are strong, so that when the lockdowns are released, we won't get rebounding numbers of cases that then make it probably necessary to impose further lockdowns early next year. then i go across the atlantic and i look at the united states and the numbers there. they are really building up in several states, but particularly in states in the midwest, and the virus is coming back into states on the east coast and on the west coast. i'm concerned about the united states. it's not looking so good. and i want to encourage everybody concerned with covid in the us to do everything possible to stop this building up much, much worse in the coming three months.

you waded into the debate about the efficacy of lockdown recently when you said, quote, "we appeal to world "leaders — stop using lockdown as your primary "control method." what did you mean by that? because in europe in particular, governments have countered rising infection numbers by using this lockdown procedure. is your message to them that they are getting it wrong? well, lockdown, stephen, when you stop movement, and that means having people stay at home, it reduces opportunities for work and for leisure, lockdown is the last resort. there's not much else the government can do beyond lockdown, when dealing with this virus. beyond lockdown when dealing with this virus. it's terribly damaging for societies to put them into lockdown. it's not good for anything. and so what i'm saying

is there must be better ways to deal with this virus than all the time lurching in to lockdown. the basis for my saying that is the positive experience of what we're seeing in east asia, whereby having defences in place in society. and well—organised defences at that, you can avoid the need to go into lockdown, you can keep life going despite the virus. but if i may say so... if i may say so, the lesson surely of the last ten months is that there are many democratic societies, many western societies, which appear incapable of conducting that kind of localised test, trace, control, isolate procedure that you are talking about. and i don't wish to embarrass you too much, but it's clear even in your own building, in the world health organization yesterday, we learned there have been something like 65 staff infections, including 32 from people who come in to your building

every day, including one cluster of infections. you guys, who are supposed to be the most disciplined advocates of this kind of, you know, test, control, trace, isolate behaviour. you can't even do it in yourown building. steven, i thought you were going to bring that up, but i didn't think you'd bring it up quite so strongly and quickly. here we go. you are going to get outbreaks of this virus even with the best—organised defence mechanism. they'll come. you can't get absolutely zero. but the key requirement is that every society needs to be able to react quickly and effectively when the outbreaks happen. it's interrupting chains of transmission, breaking the clusters. that's the new normal. and of course there's going to be infections in and around the world health organization in geneva. ijust mentioned to you that here in switzerland,

in geneva canton, we're in the epicentre of the infection in this part of europe, it's very high incidence levels. so it's inevitable that some of the 2,000 staff in who are going to be exposed to the virus, and will either get the disease or at least need to isolate. but it does look as though there was one meeting that may have taken place where a number of people, as you said, were infected during the meeting. what does that mean? it means that, yes, even with the best precautions being adopted, lots of hand sanitiser, wearing masks, and maintaining physical distance, you can still get transmission. and that's our point to everybody. practise all the measures, do it all. but at the same time, you're going to get the odd spikes and surges. have the capacity to deal with them quickly. the thing we don't want people to do is just to stand by and let the outbreaks build up, because that's when the problem gets really bad.

that's when you've got widespread disease and it's very hard to get rid of it. so in the midst of what is still a real global surge — not everywhere, but there is still a global surge in infection numbers — we have the news, wonderful news that at least two vaccine trials are producing extraordinarily positive, remarkable results. but ijust wonderfor you, as a guy who knows how epidemics and pandemics unfold and also understands human behaviour, is there a danger here that because of this extraordinarily positive news the world has received over the past week, it may affect people's behaviours long before the vaccines are actually rolled out? yes, it is a very challenging task right now to keep the message coming out in a very regular and rhythmic way. but the message is exactly what you've just implied —

we have to maintain the discipline to hold this virus back in our societies, even though we've got all this excitement about new vaccines coming, at least at the moment, through the tests, we haven't yet got them available. but we must maintain the discipline until everybody who needs vaccine, can be vaccinated. who needs vaccine can be vaccinated. then we can start to relax a bit. you know, stephen, quite often when you're dealing with these diseases, you bring the numbers down through highly disciplined activity. and as the numbers get near zero, people start to think, "0h, great, i can have fun again. "i can go out and do what i want. " and then suddenly the numbers build up again. and it's that requirement to maintain the discipline and keep it going that matters so much. now, the respected 0xford university epidemiologist professorjohn bell,

i don't know if you know him, but he said the other day that given the news that's come from the pfizer vaccine, and also the moderna vaccine, he said he really anticipates, quote, a return to normality being possible by the spring. do you go that far? i heard that comment. i think he's probably referring to certain communities in the uk that are likely to be able to be at the front of the queue for the new vaccines that are coming on stream. i'm trying to...i‘m trying to take a global perspective here. there are around 7.7 to 7.8 billion people in our world. there will be a need for a proportion of those to be vaccinated, for the vaccine to really get this pandemic damped down, and i think it's going to be a bit longer than the spring. what proportion? that's a very important point. what proportion of any national population, in your view,

needs to be vaccinated before one can start talking about the collective population developing a real immunity and, therefore, a return to normal life? the frustrating thing about this virus is that it tends to be transmitted in quite focal outbreaks, in quite narrow bands in the population. and so my view is it will need to be quite significant, the proportion of people that need to be immunised. i'm going to estimate here, because these are things... we're looking in to the future and it's a bit of an unknown. but i think it's going to be of the order of 70% of the population that one would want to be immunised to really stop this virus from being able to spread and continue to cause big outbreaks. how worried are you about vaccine inequity? i'm thinking in particular of the degree to which some countries clearly are already beginning to stockpile vaccines on the basis

that they are, obviously, prioritising their own populations. and, of course, the rich world countries find that easier to do than the poorer countries in ourworld. but, also, going beyond that, there arejust huge infrastructure problems rolling out a mass vaccination programme in the developing parts of the world, so we could end up with haves and have nots. you're at the world health organization. presumably, you have a massive commitment to avoid that. yes. i mean, this is why the world health organization exists. we work for the health of everyone, regardless of nationality, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of sex or wealth. every life is valuable. and so that's why, ever since this pandemic started, who, the secretariat, actually supported by all the member states, has been doing everything possible to make certain that there will be equitable

access to vaccine. now, you can't, of course, you can't make sure that that happens unless you're given the power to do it. but one thing that the who executive board asked the organisation to do in may this year was to develop a system that could enable wider access. this is called covax. since it was established, 186, ithink, countries havejoined and are part of what is a shared purchase arrangement designed to ensure that even people in poor countries can access the vaccine... but.. ..as and when they become available. right. i understand that. but you know better than i do that the united states, the richest, most powerful country on earth, has refused to join the covax initiative. that surely undermines it from the very beginning. well, it certainly makes it harder when you've got one very wealthy and important country not being part of it.

i mean, the united states is a very important contributor to global health. and the people of the united states have been so strong in supporting everything that i personally have been involved in in more than four decades. and i suppose i'm hoping constantly that the united states will not fulfil its threat to completely withdraw from the world health organization, i know they've started the process, because, really, we need the united states in. it's rather hard to deal with a pandemic of this size and severity without the full involvement of the us and its people. so the united states represents something of a challenge for the who, but i wonder if you're also somewhat perturbed by reports coming out of china that the chinese government has already launched vaccination programmes involving many, many thousands of ordinary members of the chinese public, who are seen to be queuing up to take vaccine immunisations from officials. now, these are not thoroughly,

completely tested vaccines. these are still in, it seems, the trial stage. but the chinese government is rolling them out and, therefore, there will be people around china who've been vaccinated, who won't really know what with, and who won't be sure that it actually works. isn't that actually a big problem for the world? because it undermines confidence and trust in the entire notion of proven vaccine. i think your point is well taken. every country must be absolutely clear in a transparent way about the basis under which a vaccine candidate is subject to the tests that are necessary. and then the way in which the decision for emergency use authorisation is reached inside a country is extremely important. but, remember, the who does not have jurisdiction over what happens in individual countries. if a country chooses to offer

a vaccine to people, then that is the sovereign right of the country so to do, and we need to be encouraging every country to continue to make sure that people know as much as possible about vaccines that they're offered. so we're now moving in to this territory, which is about trust and confidence around the world in the vaccination idea, as specific vaccines are rolled out. the who has been doing some work on this. one of your staff, kate o'brien, says that she is really concerned about the numbers of young people who are currently saying, around the world, notjust in the west, that they doubt whether they want to get vaccinated. 31 million people, apparently, are following anti—vaccine groups right now on facebook. 17 million people subscribing to similar accounts on youtube. is there anything the world community can and should be doing to stop this

spread of misinformation? there's only one thing that we can do, and that is to treat people everywhere with the utmost respect, to offer them every bit of information we have with total honesty, transparency and authenticity. because the reason why people, i believe, are following some of these particular trends is that they're not fully confident that those of us working in public health are disclosing everything we know, and they're developing alternative theories that challenge what it is that we put out. we should not in any way criticise that, because that is what they believe. instead, what we need to do, as public health professionals is just level with them. be very clear to them about how vaccines are tested. be very clear to them that

a vaccine is a biological product from inside... it leads to defence that is mounted by your own body. it is an incredibly natural way of responding to a disease. but one can only understand that with a proper explanation of how vaccines work. we need to do more talking, more answering questions, more being called to account on the issues of vaccines and vaccine safety. and we also need to be doing everything possible not to use vaccines that haven't been fully tested. right. but as the un secretary general, antonio guterres, pointed out the other day, we cannot say that we've beaten covid—i9 until all countries and all peoples have had the vaccination, have had access to the vaccination, have used it. and, therefore, immunity is collective. it's no good some people in some nations being immunised if the disease is still spreading elsewhere.

so is there a case, in this instance, for mandatory vaccination? i would never say that vaccinations be mandatory myself. i think it's a fairly unwise direction to go on, because that's a way to incline people to start rejecting. in fact, i'm against mandatory on most things, stephen, because i think, in the end, we want people to do the right thing in the right place at the right time, because that's what they want to do. but there's something that mr guterres said that was very strong in the background to his remarks that i want to say to you and to anybody who's watching this, and that is that covid is revealing some of the terrible inequities in our societies. poor people seem to be at much greater risk of getting the disease, and much less easily able to get treatment, or also they get more affected by containment measures.

so we do have to recognise that it's hard to deal with a disease like this unless we also recognise that poverty and inequity puts people at greater risk of ill health, and that's why getting the vaccine to poor people, so they can take it if they want to, is such an important part of the next step. a final question for you, and it goes back to what you were saying just a little bit earlier about the importance of trust and confidence, and having the people around this world believing in institutions like yours. there has been, over the last ten months, much discussion about whether the who was too close to china at the beginning of all of this, when wuhan was at the epicentre of the covid—i9 spread. whether you told the truth, whether you aided and abetted the chinese covering up what was happening in december, january, the beginning of all of this. you've had time to reflect now. do you believe the who is now being transparent

about what happened ? and are we being told exactly what happened ? we are very straight and it's, in fact, characteristic of all of those 2,000—odd people who work in the geneva part of who, and the many other thousands who work with other parts of who. we don't hide anything from anyone. we operate under the rules that are given to us. and i don't believe that we've been excessively kind to or excessively praising of any country or any community. we do what we have to do. at the same time, we can't be rude to people because, in international life, that's not how you work. but right since the very beginning, when we first found out about this, at the very end of december last year, we've been consistent. we've discussed it amongst ourselves. we've had arguments and debates, because that's

what professional people do. but honestly, stephen, and to all viewers, i have no evidence that who was in any way hiding anything from anybody. and i don't think we'll do it in the future. and if anybody finds things that have been hidden, we're to be called to account, called to account, because that's how it should be. dr david nabarro in geneva, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, stephen.

hello. the very mild air that's been with us for the past few days is going to get swept away, and we're set to see a real change in weather type through the course of wednesday. it's going to be windy with some rain moving eastwards, and behind that, some colder air moving in, too. it's all down to this area of low pressure with its trailing cold front here, which is moving its way eastwards. lots of isobars on the map, indicating strength of the wind as well. still very mild out there. in fact, first thing wednesday, the temperatures well in double figures, teens for most of us. more typical, really, these temperatures of daytime highs. now through the day, we've got some initial heavy rain across western parts of britain and northern ireland, western scotland, too. the rain will edge its way slowly eastwards. something really persistent for the northern isles and also for western parts of scotland as well. but it becomes a little bit more patchy as it heads across eastern england during the course of the afternoon. so, cloudy ahead of that, with a return to some showers behind it and a drop in those temperatures. we are back into single figures in the west late on wednesday.

now, wednesday evening, that's when the winds are really going to picking up, particularly for parts of scotland and northern ireland, western fringes of england and wales, too. further showers moving south and across scotland, those showers will be wintry, even down to low levels, first thing for thursday morning. so, certainly colder air moving in. you can see those northerly wind arrows and blue colours that are going to be spilling further south, a colder air mass across the uk as we head on into thursday. a bump of high pressure is going to be squeezing away most of the rain, but we've still got some pretty windy conditions, especially in the east. so, gales possible for eastern scotland, down the east coast of england as well. some sunshine for most places of the day on thursday. one or two showers dotted around here and there, and they could be wintry across parts of scotland, in particular over the higher ground. it's certainly much colder than recent days. largely in single figures for most of us. we may welljust get io—ii degrees across parts of wales and the south west of england. but it doesn't stay cold for very long because by the time we get to friday, we see more cloud and outbreaks of rain working into the west.

the breeze coming in from the south—westerly direction once again. so, many of us back into double figures by the time we get to friday, and it's looking fairly unsettled through friday. into the weekend, it's a little bit up and down, quite breezy through the day on saturday. cooler but brighter for most of us. some sunny spells by sunday. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm mike embley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. president trump dismisses his top cybersecurity official chris krebs, who denied there was evidence of fraud in the presidential election. president trump to cut troop numbers in afganistan and iraq, but stops short of outright withdrawal. as fighting continues in ethiopia, thousands flee across the border into sudan. in thailand, more violence in the streets of bangkok as protesters demand changes to the country's constitution.