you know. this is g w news weidner from the berlin tonight in the un president of fight against the curve all of iris a german chancellor angela merkel calls for unprecedented solidarity. the situation is serious take it seriously since germany cation know that since the 2nd world war it has been no challenge to a nation that has demanded such a degree of common and united action the chancellor calling on everyone in germany to protect the most vulnerable including the elderly.

by bring it off it's good to have you with us german chancellor angela merkel has addressed the nation in a rare televised speech saying that the country faces its biggest challenges since the 2nd world war this as the country's top disease control officials are warning that germany could be dealing with $10000000.00 coronavirus infections in the next few months that if it's the citizens do not adhere to measures outlined by the government such as social distance. i'm addressing you today in this unusual nana 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 her actions so that they are understandable. i truly believe that we will succeed in the time before us so long as older citizens of this country understand that it is also their tomsk that was joins us on their let's go now to our chief political correspondent melinda craning good evening to you linda i mean there's so much about this speech that stands out but what do you say what stands out particularly from merkel's words well 1st of all simply the way she addressed the german people she has never done this before in her very long time in office except for her new year's speeches this is the 1st appeal of this kind that she has ever made and for her it's really her blood sweat and tears speech her delivery may have sounded low key but the fact is the words she used to i simply never heard her speak like that they were very personal they

were very urgent there was even something that for her amounts to pathos and i think that as strong as some of this language was saying that this is the biggest challenge the country has faced since the 2nd world war and that's a high bar given the fact that germany went through the cold war i think it's undoubtedly correct to say with this kind of life and death threat looming that it is indeed a challenge of that nature and surely she has done her absolute utmost as a communicator to bring that home to the german people do you get the impression melinda that the chancellor's message that it will hit home that people will you know react positively to her buhl. hard to say the picture is mixed at the moment the pretty drastic measures that were put into place early this week have been followed to some degree in the official sector that is to say schools closing bars

and restaurants mostly closed and or almost empty big events being canceled but the fact is that if you go out on the streets and into the parks at least here in berlin you see that a lot of people are absolutely not respecting these new these new requirements and particularly young people now they may be thinking to themselves well even if i got sick it's not going to really do much damage to me but the fact is they are known as super spreaders they can carry this infection on to the elderly and the vulnerable and that's the whole point of what she said but will these young people pay attention when the chancellor speaks in this very old fashioned way on national television let's hope so but it's far from clear here's another excerpt from the chancellor speech to give us i appeal to you will to stick to the rules we have put in place for the foreseeable future that we as

a government will continually check which restrictions we can lift but also which need to be kept in place she did not announce a total walked in the country. do we expect the german government to consider the out into take further measures to contain the spread of the virus i think if we see the numbers keep going up and if we see that many people are not practicing social distancing absolutely i think that's in the toolbox i think it's something that the government absolutely would consider they'd have to issue a declaration of national emergency but i think they'd certainly get the support for that at this point and in her speech the chance or mentioned the german economy the health of the german economy take a listen. these old lady difficult times for the economy the 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 all that. we know that the german government is in a very india's position with a budget surplus so what is the government already doing on this front there are so many different instruments being considered at the moment that i can't take you through the whole panoply but let's just look at a couple of them support for small businesses and freelancers who are basically facing an existential reduction of demand then there's the whole system of short work which is a system that's long been in place here in germany part of this social market economy basically what happens is that when firms face a drastic reduction in demand like the w. dime lawyer shutting down their production for now those workers are not laid off those workers still get paid to they get paid not their full amount of wages but 2

thirds i believe it is and the government hopes to top that up so that not all the burden falls on the employers it's to the benefit of companies because they can keep their skilled workers it's to the benefit of the workers because they can maintain some economic stability and it's to the benefit of the macro economy because it keeps money in circulation those are provisions that have been proven time and again to help in a crisis and germany is in an enviable position in that sense as well all right to our chief political correspondent melinda crane with analysis of the chancellor speech melinda thank you. italy has reached a new record in the number of deaths and new infections 475 people have died of the corona virus in the past 24 hours italy's death toll now stands at nearly 3000 now that's almost as many as in china. pulling out all the stops officials in rome are converting general hospitals to intensive care units for coronavirus

patients it's a race against time and right now italy's losing further north in lombardy the hardest hit area of the country the governor asked retired medical personnel to help in overwhelmed hospitals. the media i want to appeal to all of these doctors and nurses make yourself available to our system and lend us a hand in these days. so that in my opinion with the availability of these professional health workers we could better meet the challenge to ante in britain prime minister boris johnson announced that schools would now close at the end of the week in a bid to slow the spread of the pandemic. and us president donald trump said he may invoke wartime powers to order private companies to produce more medical equipment he also announced that naval hospital ships will head to some infection zones.

we're sending. upon request the 2 hospital ships are being prepared right now of the massive ships there the big white ships with the red cross on the it's one is called the mercy of the other is called the comfort and. in tip top shape they were to be they're getting ready to come up to new york africa has so far experienced far fewer cases than europe but the head of the world health organization said the continent must brace for much worse. we have to prepare for the worst in other countries we have seen how the virus actually accelerates at. tipping tipping point so the best advice is to prepare for the worst few new cases have been recorded in china where the outbreak started beijing is now sending me. nicol equipment to france and italy along with offers to advise other

governments coping with the virus. or let's take the story now the. monkey is in washington d.c. good evening to used to fun so trump says he's a wartime president invoking the emergency authority of the defense production act to run us through exactly what this means. well 1st of all that means that he calls himself a wartime president now a significant change in attitude and maybe a realisation that he has a real real problem on his hands remember this one point this out a few days ago just a few days ago the president was busy downplaying and under playing the entire thread of the coronavirus calling it reeks before that even a hoax however. 3 the law we're talking about now what he said walking no is making is basically an enabling the government to direct industry segments to produce specific things that means for example to nail down mess why mess because

our the a united states health system and hospitals are totally overwhelmed already are not equipped to handle very many more. coronavirus patients so the health care workers can't work without mass because they have to protect themselves the president has now more leeway to tell for example a company called 3 m. not to produce post it's not masks yeah that's a very good point let's talk about what don't trump said today at the press conference he referred to the corona virus as the chinese virus and what happened when a journalist challenged him on that today. all of president was defiant and said he had no reason of not calling it the chinese virus because there's where it's came from but of course you know it's not just the president trying to rebrand the coronavirus as the chinese virus secretary of state my pump a of calls it and called it yesterday the wu han virus of course the chinese are

not really happy about this and there's many people here many observers experts and just average people americans who say like that's a wrong it is a coronavirus doesn't matter where it comes from and beads dangerous why dangerous because of course asian americans are looked funny here in their polling on the streets and that is not a very comfortable position for them to be in if the president of the united states is now branding the problem the united states with has with this virus as the chinese. virus it was not uncivil that's what it is irresponsible but we know that not everyone in the united states sees this virus as the serious threat and a new poll shows that the political divide between democrats and republicans is amplifying that. reverend so most of the democrats most of the americans who call themselves democrats or say they would

vote democratic party they are absolutely appalled of the performance and failure of prudent management of this whole crisis by this administration and they actually don't believe anything or hardly anything what comes out of the mouths of this administration anymore now it republican voters 'd it looks very very much different and maybe this has to do something with for example that fox network the conservative right wing network here in the united states just recently changed its tune from downplaying the coronavirus now calling it a crisis to. you know that's a very good point to make stefan he was there on the story for us in washington d.c. thank you well we asked our correspondents around the world to give us their take on the corona virus outbreak from where they are. i could never have imagined that people in europe would ask me to send them this 10 minute misers from now. but

nothing is normal these days here in west africa a region where people already facing a neighborhood structure the security challenges they know watching disbelieve us people are fighting over the for in parts of the world considered much better off the government has shut down schools colleges james and from influence across the country and as advice private companies do one law for them cloister to work from home the streets however bad a business of usual look because shops i markets remain open some states have employees a ban on gathering for more than 50 people do interesting me and deadly the one exception that is being made is to readings since in the soviet union and accidents usually house up people in russia think the government must be hiding something from them so when it comes to the corona virus many people here don't trust official reports and to the. true extent of the catastrophe can only be guessed at

. our correspondents and the corona virus outbreak around the world this is news live from berlin stephen beardsley is up next with business stick around he'll be right back. every day this for us and for our society. global ideas is on its way to bring you more conservation. how do we make seduced greener how can we protect our.