this is g.w. news live from berlin tonight german chancellor angela merkel calls for solidarity in fighting the coronavirus. right. there has been no challenge to a nation that has demanded such a degree of common and united action on the unfairness as italy's death toll reaches nearly 3000.

a month off it's good to have you with us chancellor angela merkel has addressed the nation in a rare televised speech saying that the country is facing its biggest challenge since the 2nd world war this as the country's top disease control officials say that germany could be dealing with 10000000 corona virus infections in the coming months if its citizens do not adhere to measures outlined by the government we have more news coming up for you later in the show but 1st here is chancellor merkel's address in full that's corner the it was found in that coronaviruses dramatically changing life in our country at this time a concept of normality of public life and of social contact is being tested as never before millions of you cannot work cannot take your children to school kindergartens. sentiments and stalls are closed you know and perhaps most. offical

dable we cannot have the contacts to one another that we otherwise take for granted it's natural that in a situation like this all of us have many questions and concerns about how things will continue. i'm addressing you today in this unusual manner because i want to tell you what is guiding me as chancellor and all of my colleagues in the government at this time that is part of an open democracy that we explain our political decisions and make them transparent that we do all we can to justify and communicate our actions so that they are understandable. good community and i truly believe that we will succeed in the task before us so long as all the citizens of this country understand that it is also their task. even. so let me say this the situation is serious take it seriously. since german unification no since the 2nd world war there has been no challenge to our nation

that has demanded such a degree of common and united action. $1.00 and called i would like to explain to you where we currently stand in this epidemic what the government and federal agencies are doing to protect everyone in our society and to limit the economic social and cultural damage. and who are out of it but i also want to tell you why we also need your contribution and what each and every person can do to help. as far as the epidemic itself is concerned and everything i say in this regard comes from the constant consultations between the government and the experts at the robert cock institute as well as other scientists and for all just i can tell you that research is being conducted intensively across the globe but as yet there is no cure for the corona virus and no vaccine against it at this new are so long as that is the case there is only one

course to take. and it is that which is guiding all our actions to slow down the spread of the virus to stretch it over a period of months and serve to win time in stop and think time in which researches can develop medication and a vaccine but above all time that enables us to provide the best possible care for those who do fall ill. that germany has an excellent health system perhaps one of the best in the world we can take some confidence from that but our hospital stay would be completely overstretched if too many patients with a severe corona infection were to be admitted in a short space of time. these patients are not just abstract statistics they are fathers and grandfathers mothers and grandmothers partners people and apart and we are a community in which every life and every person counts in the years. mentioned

see it. i would like to take this opportunity to 1st of all address all of those working as doctors nurses carers or in any other function in our hospitals or anywhere else in our health service. that you are on the front line for us in this battle you are the 1st to see the sick and to see how serious the course of some infections can be fitted and every day you go to work on your you are very for the people what you are doing is tremendous and i thank you from my heart for gunson help enough here as it is so our job here is to slow down the path of the virus throughout germany and the one thing we have to do and this is of existential importance is winds down public life as far as possible. of course with a sense of reason and proportion because the state will continue to function supply

lines will of course continue to be guaranteed and we want to maintain as much economic activity as we possibly can. but everything that might endanger people everything that might damage either individuals or the community must now be limited. we must reduce the risk of one person and factoring another as much as we can. levy and work and i know how dramatic the restrictions we have put in place already are no more public events no trade fairs no concerts and for the time being no school and university and a kindergarten no playing at playgrounds. i know how deeply the shutdowns are great at the national and state level of disrupting our lives and our concept of democracy. there are restrictions the like of which the federal republic has never seen before. let me assure you for someone like myself for whom freedom of

travel and movement were hard won rights such restrictions can only be justified when they are absolutely necessary. in a democracy they should not be enacted lightly and only ever temporarily. but at the moment they are essential in order to save human lives. that is why we have implemented stricter border controls and restrictions on people traveling into germany from some of our neighbors since the beginning of the week. because these are already difficult times for the economy for businesses large and small for shops restaurants freelances the weeks ahead will be even more difficult but i assure you the german government is doing everything it can to lessen the economic consequences and above all to save jobs that with all we can and will do whatever it takes to help all business leaders and workers through this

ordeal. these are free of approval. and you can all rest assured that the supply of food is guaranteed at all times and if on some days shelves supermarkets are empty then they will be restocked to those of you visiting supermarkets let me say this of course it is sensible to have a household supply of things that was always the case but in moderation stockpiling products as if they might never be available again is both senseless and ultimately completely lacking in solidarity. and let me at this point say thank you to a group of people who rarely get thanked. those who are working on supermarket checkout and filling shelves of doing one of the toughest jobs that exist at the moment thank you for being there for your fellow citizens and for keeping your stores running. yes to the him now to the most pressing issue for me today. all the steps taken by the government would be to no avail if we want to

implement the most effective measure against stopping the virus from spreading too quickly and that is we ourselves. everyone can be affected by the virus we are all the same in that regard and that is why everyone must now help and the 1st thing we all need to do is to take what is happening very seriously not to be panicked but also not to think for a single moment of what each and every one of us does is not important why we need everyone everybody counts this requires our collective effort that is what an epidemic shows us how vulnerable we all are how dependent we all are on others showing consideration for us but also how we can protect and support each other through our collective actions. it's down to each and every one of us we are not doing to help closely watch the spread of the virus we have

a means to fight it we must practice social distancing out of consideration for one another. the advice from for all adjusts is clear no more handshakes thora and frequent hand washing keeping a distance of at least one and a half meters from each other and preferably only very limited contact with older people because they are particularly at risk i know how hard it is what is being demanded of us especially in times of need such as this we like to be close to one another we understand care and affection in terms of physical closeness and human touch but at the moment the exact opposite is the case and everybody really must understand that at the moment the only real way of showing you care is keeping your distance. wellman visit the trip that wasn't really necessary all those things can mean infection and should therefore no longer be taking place there's

a reason why experts say that grandparents and grandchildren should not be meeting at the moment. those who avoid unnecessary contact with others are helping all the people working in hospitals who are having to deal with more and more cases every day that this is how we will save lives it will be hard for many and it will also be important not to leave anybody without help to take care of those who need consolation and assurance that we will find new ways to help and comfort each other as families and as a society. there are already many creative ways to brave the virus and at social consequences there are grandchildren making pod casts for their grandparents so that they don't get lonely. we all have to find ways to show affection and friendship by skype ing telephoning sending mails and maybe writing letters again letters will of course be delivered we're already hearing wonderful examples of neighborhoods helping the elderly who can't go shopping themselves. and i am

certain we can do much more and we will prove as a community that we don't leave people on their own and. i appeal to you all to stick to the rules we have put in place for the foreseeable future when we as a government will continually check which restrictions we can left but also which need to be kept in place of all. this is a dynamic situation and we will continue to learn as we go along so that we can change tack at any time and take different steps using different tools. and we will explain that to you as the time comes that's why i also ask you to please not believe room us but only the official announcements which we also always have translated into many languages and they will cut we are a democracy we don't live by force but through shared knowledge and cooperation

this is an historic challenge and it can only be overcome together and we shall overcome it of that i am completely sure. but how high will the number of victims be how many loved ones will we lose to a large degree we have control over that. we can all now act together and with determination and then we can accept the current restrictions and support one another. biased this situation is serious and how things develop remains open that it will very much depend not entirely but to a degree on how disciplined we all are when it comes to following and implementing the rules. oh even though we have never experienced anything like this before we must show that we can act with common sense and with our hearts and in doing so

save lives without exception it depends on every one of us and therefore on all of us take care of yourselves and your loved ones thank you. that was the german chancellor there delivering a message unlike any other that she has ever delivered in her 15 years in power let's take this now to our chief political correspondent melinda crane she joins me now for some analysis of what the chance just said melinda merkel has just said that germany is facing its worst crisis since the 2nd world war. yes and that from a leader who is by no means given to exaggeration and you saw her delivery as always was downplayed very very almost monotone and yet these are the strongest words probably i've ever heard her this was also a historic speech that she gave except from her for her new year's greetings that

she gives every year she has never addressed the german population directly in this fashion before and she's been in power a very long time as you know and her statements were very very strong she's talking when she says this is the biggest threat that germany has faced since world war 2 we're talking about a country that made it through the cold war so that's a very high bar and yet if you look at the life and death risks that she just set out she is undoubtedly correct. according to merkel the government is continuing to examine what other measures are still needed them she did not announce a full walked on for the country tonight but what do you think we can expect moving forward. well i think that certainly something that the government has in its toolbox and is keeping an eye on whether they conclude that that will be necessary now as you know she announced these measures just this week these new drastic

measures so i doubt at least she wants to give them a little bit more time to really be taken seriously and go into effect but the fact is if you look at the situation today some of the measures the official ones absolutely are being adhered to the closure of schools the closure of bars and restaurants some of the social distancing recommendations but by no means all if you were out and about in berlin today you will have seen what i saw people in groups in parks playing soccer together by no means taking those words seriously that we just heard so i think the government absolutely will be watching that and i think they will move to declare a national emergency if they conclude that an absolute lockdown is needed you know we heard from the country's top health authorities. the entire public hears to these social distancing measures we're going to be looking at possibly 10000000

people infected with the virus do you get the impression that the german government's message that it's going to hit home i mean is this the last chance if you will for the public to do all of this voluntarily without being forced to. yes i think so the numbers are climbing very dramatically by the day experts say that germany is a week or maybe 2 weeks behind italy and we've seen what has happened to the italian health care system and the italian population and let us not forget that like italy germany is an aging population and the older the elderly are the absolute most vulnerable amongst the citizens so i think for all of those reasons it is time to take these measures seriously 80 percent of the germans say they think the measures are important now it's time to act on that. political correspondent linda gray linda thank you. well germany is just one of several

european countries struggling to contain this al break all of which is adding to fears about the health of the eurozone economy with many businesses facing potential ruin some countries most notably debt ridden italy have been calling for the creation of a so-called corona bar such a measure would essentially allow individual countries to borrow money with the debt responsibility pooled among the member states. that has been a very very controversial topic even today. do you think that governments now are beginning to understand exactly the scale of the of the threat to the economy i think they are slowly brand that's what we're seeing is on the stimulus packages keep creeping up and up and up in size and there's the question still if that's enough basically what we understand this to be is a basic pause in economic activity across many of the world's leading industrial nations the question is how long is that going to be and so what that means is

a cash crunch when businesses aren't being paid for their services they can't pay their employees the longer this goes on the fewer people the less money there is for people to pay their mortgages to pay their bills for firms to pay their people and eventually for governments to take in tax revenues as well. that's why we're seeing more of these stimulus plans that are trying to really directly put money in people's hands in spain for example to talk about mortgage payments the government will give you the money to make that italy providing babysitter vouchers so some unorthodox solutions and it might have to get a lot more an orthodox to really tackle the scale and of course with all of these solutions we're talking about countries taking on more and more debt that's going to be a problem isn't it to assure that liquidity you're going to have to take on debt and that is of course a problem debt and assuring credit is that was at the heart of the recession of 2008 and we still have a lot of countries that frankly haven't recovered from that so if you. germany if you're the us you're not going to have

a hard time convincing people generally to buy your debts those are countries that both have good standing in terms of their credit worthiness if you are italy however you're going to have some problems and that's what everyone is watching right now what a spread look like how does look like in italy compared to those in germany as they get further and further parts then you're going to see more calls for something like that corona bond that says hey maybe germany can help take on there sponsibility that will be a test of ease solidarity perhaps like we've never seen before stephen beard but the business even thank you are now into the united states president trump has why can himself to a wartime president in his fight against the coronavirus he says that he will invoke the defense production act in case it is needed that would a while the government to use the private sector to accelerate the production of needed equipment trump says he'll send hospital ships to affected areas. we're sending. upon request the 2 hospital ships are being prepared right now of the

missive ships the big white ships with the red cross on the it's what is called the mercy of the others called the comfort and. in tip top shape they were to will be they're getting ready to come up to new york i spoke with governor cuomo about it he's excited about it and also we haven't made the final determination as to where it's going to go in the west because. the comfort is located. in san diego and it's going to be we'll be picking the destination fairly shortly. and his response is going to trump there now as the world in x. ever stricter measures to slow the spread of the virus the challenges in some countries is together citizens on board as we've been saying about the threats of the pandemic in the united states that challenge is amplified by the political divide between democrats and republicans still be used and he joins me now good evening to you carl it sounds like in the u.s.

at least not everyone sees the virus as a serious threat yeah that's exactly the situation brant i mean the it's one of the bigger divides that we see around the world in same terms of how seriously people take it the gap is between democratic and republican voters and the numbers are really striking you can see in this latest poll that was released this was released on tuesday and the statistic here is what i want to draw your attention to 76 percent of democrats see the corona virus as as a real threat only 40 percent of republicans feel the same way and that's a striking number if you look at the rest of the results of this poll it also shows that republicans are less likely to change their behavior because of the virus less likely to cancel their travel plans and less likely to stay home and cook rather than go out to a restaurant less likely to avoid public gatherings i mean these are all the things that health officials are urging people to do to help slow the spread of the virus

that makes things like social distancing a lot more difficult to implement when you have a large part of your population that doesn't seem to take the virus quite as seriously as others in the car why is this so wide sciri the severity of a pandemic transcends party politics and viruses they don't recognize right parties . this should just be pure science right i mean this doesn't come down to really a lack of information what this is is a lack of quality information you've heard there from the president saying he's a wartime president taking this seriously that wasn't always his is m.-o. the past days and weeks leading up this pandemic the president trump was downplaying the threat of this virus so were conservative bloggers a conservative news outlets like fox news even going as far as saying that this virus was a democratic hoax here's just some of the messaging that we were hearing from fox news just a few days ago take

a listen do you want to know how i really feel now the coronavirus won if i get it i'll beat it. i'm not lying it's the cold the power of positive thinking and i think america needs to wake up to that we we didn't even see this kind of insanity for sars and sars and a bola those viruses were far more deadly so why the mellow drama on such an agitated scale right now but i will just say one of the things you can do if you're healthy you and your family it's a great time to just go out go to a local restaurant likely you can get in get in the usually. the those comments coral are. disturbing to say the least but we have to say to that on fox news right now they've changed their 2 they're not saying that anymore so we know fox news sets the tone for conservatives in the united states how does that contrast with what we see happening right here in europe. to be just an american issue i

spoke with a conservative blogger based in sweden his name is peter emanuel's and he's actually very controversial figure here for his anti immigrant views he's obviously someone brand to who i disagree with on almost every issue but i wanted to talk to him because he's been tweeting recently a lot about the threats of the coronavirus he has a lot of conservative followers in the united states and in europe it's interesting to hear from him the reaction the difference between american trump supporters and european conservatives about what he's been saying about the coronavirus here's what he told me i've got psychic some pushback you know they're saying i'm just overhyping this just playing into the media panic and trying to destroy the trump economy things like that when it comes to the kind of right wing followers conservative followers in europe it seems to have a different approach than the ones in america. especially especially

a lot of. the lee. of c.n.n. . have been taking this a lot more seriously and. you know the pandemic is really showing us the importance of getting past politics karl absolute them are calling us but as always thank you for. sports news now a plane has left japan for greece to pick up the olympic flame ahead of the summer's games in tokyo despite fears that they might be postponed due to the coronavirus crisis the plane had no olympic delegates on board due to concerns about the virus the traditional 1st leg of the olympic torch relay in greece was scrapped because of health concerns and the relate in japan has been scaled back the international olympic committee is to make an announcement later today on whether the games are to go ahead as planned with athletes concerns.

you're watching the back of the top of the hour with more world news followed by the day i hope to see you.

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