this is deja vu news live from berlin could germany's virtual lockdown be starting to bring the coronavirus under control streets have been deserted for only about a week yet germany's leading public health institute believes the lockdown may already be bringing results that's as chancellor merkel herself goes into self quarantine also coming up india cities close down as the number of coronavirus

cases rises we'll take a look at the impact of the virus there and in other asian countries and the pressure builds on the tokyo olympics the japanese prime minister acknowledges for the 1st time that postponing the summer games may be inevitable as canada and australia say they won't send a team. i'm sumi so much going to thank you for joining us german chancellor angela merkel is in quarantine at home after a doctor who treated her was diagnosed with the corona virus merkel's cell faisel lation comes as germany's leading public health institution the robert costa institute says it has detected the 1st signs that the rise in the corona virus might be leveling off in germany chance americal who was 65 that went into quarantine after being vaccinated against a different fire. by

a doctor who later tested positive medical spokesman says she will now be tested daily her last act before going into quarantine was to announce sweeping restrictions on freedom of movement and social interaction. angle americal about to announce the most severe restrictions on freedom of movement seen in germany since world war 2 the corona virus continues to spread rapidly convincing the chancellor that further containment measures are needed so far it had largely been left to states and municipalities to curb the contagion creating a patchwork of rules and guidelines the new measures will be rolled out across germany. today. we have discussed today how our counter measures are working we have no vaccine and we have no drug against the disease all we have firstly the efforts we are making to prepare our health care system especially hospitals for the expected continued high rise in infections. and

secondly our own behavior. that is currently our most effective measure. in a video conference medical and state leaders decided to ban gatherings of more than 2 people excluding families and housemates she thanked the population for observing measures and guidelines already in place. it's wise. i know that it entail sacrifice both economically and on a personal level when shops have to close and it's not possible to socialize it's even more painful not being able to visit grandparents or meet friends we all have to live without this for a while i am deeply touched that so many people are following those rules.

within an hour of america leaving the press conference news she was going into quarantine broke the chancellor has put herself at the front and center of germany's response to the pandemic anglo-american now gets to lead by example. and let's bring in our political correspondent kate brady with the latest on the story hi kate what does this mean that the chancers going into quarantine how will this affect her ability to govern. well so far sumi we know that medical has moved most of her meetings and conferences to video calls over the next couple of weeks and what should be required to stay in quarantine home of course size he said as we heard there in the report sorry she is leading by example but a lot of business it's a case rating of business as usual she is trying to continue and take part in as many meetings as possible and of course there are a lot of issues to be dealt with at the moment possible increases and measures in the coming weeks even and of course today we also saw the usual cabinet meeting as

well which she took part in via a video call so she is trying to continue her work as chancellor as much as possible while still remaining at home of course we haven't yet got the test results either the german government spokesperson said the chancellor will be tested regularly in the coming days and of course the public will be informed over a result as soon as that. kate meanwhile germany's public health institute says there are signs that the rise in new corona virus infections in germany could be leveling off let's listen to that. we are seeing signs that the exponential growth is flattening off slightly. but i will only be able to confirm this trend definitively on wednesday. but i am optimistic that the measures are already having an effect which is very early because they have only been in place for

a week. or a kid so how would that news possibly affect policy i mean could we see some of the restrictions that are currently in place actually relaxed. it is certainly unclear as to how quickly that might change policy but it's very unlikely that we'll see a change within the next couple of weeks mean as we heard that these restrictions are have now only being in place for a week we saw those heightened just yesterday so it's very unlikely that we're about to see a turnaround of course should those measures be suddenly lifted we could indeed see pockets of the of infection spreading across germany again so certainly the the plan now is to keep those measures in place most of these restrictions school closures for example as well are in place until april the 19th so it's very unlikely that we'll see a change before the end of these initial measures kid how are things looking on the economic front or the finance minister all of charles has been announcing

a big stimulus package i mean is this going to be enough if this crisis goes on for an extended period. well we certainly seen some unprecedented numbers come out of a germany today the german finance minister and vice chancellor scholtz announced that there would be some 600000000000 euros available in credit to larger businesses here in germany and also a supplementary budget has been announced of some $156000000000.00 euros which would indeed of break germany's debt break which is very much in srong going to into the german constitution so of course not only are these huge numbers that are being thrown around here in germany in a bid to to limit the impact on business in the economy here in germany but this really is unprecedented the german economy minister peter out my i said earlier today as well that these are figures that are just not being seen in germany's post-war history and there's also an extra 50000000000 euros that will be made

available to freelancers artists for example just small business owners and they will be eligible to direct payments or some 3000000 people could be ready to benefit from these payments which are being handed out by the german government in a bid to protect the economy and these stream of measures that are coming out today our correspondent kate brady reporting there for us thank you very much. now germany's health system is struggling to cope with the crisis hospitals and clinics are busy doctors practices in rural areas are inundated with calls from concerned people and they have to contend with even greater shortages of both staff and equipment. the streets are deserted in the town of. we're on our way to visit a family doctor she's had to deal with a sharp rise in the number of people consulting her since the corona crisis began.

yanna course suspends up to 15 hours a day advising and treating patients a practice is in a near constant state of emergency it was particularly crazy at the beginning of the outbreak so i called it was chaos people coughing and sneezing on each other everybody had lots of questions and badly needed advice and information it was too much all at once or. the doctor now divides patients into groups anyone who wants to see her has to phone 1st and ask its details and the doctor then decides whether the patient needs to come in a tool the aim is to break the chain of infection and especially to protect the chronically ill they're particularly at risk if they contract corona contemplation of the time we split up our consultation times in the morning we see the chronically ill then i do consultations by phone then the smear tests that need to be done and the final part is for those who might just have to check with the

stethoscope off for an infection that approach went a long way towards easing the stress but now her assistant dr is sick and calls can hardly keep up and next patient is an ambulance driver he has a chronic cough which has recently gotten worse. the doctor writes in a sick note but there's not much you can do to reassure him. if there's already something wrong with your lungs and then you contract the coronavirus it can go badly for you i am a little panicked and probably a bit panicked there's no reason to panic. keep calm and carry on that's perhaps the doctor's greatest challenge at the moment she's running out of facemasks and has no proper protective clothing on top of that the authorities have provided conflicting information with regard to protective gear we were told at the beginning that you could only carry out a corona test if you had the full equipment then another authorities that just go

ahead and test and we do need to test after all this huge uncertainty now she take samples wearing a surgical mask and her husband cycling goggles she's turned her yard into a kind of driving facility so that people don't have to come into the practice at all. i think it's important that we make progress and i want to do my part in that what do you mean by progress and i don't suppose that we get accurate information on say how effective isolation is the response was sluggish at 1st. yana growth expects corona virus infections in rural areas to rise sharply in the next couple of weeks she and her colleagues are doing everything they can to avoid getting sick themselves so they can continue to help those who really need it. and we can speak now to to a b.s. court professor of public health an epidemiologist at the sherry tate medical center here in berlin good to have you with us on d w i want to ask you about what we heard from a german

a center for disease and control saying that the exponential growth curve of positive cases appears to be slowing down what do you make of that. the thing is in the nest. it is. quite interesting to see the reaction or a few days of the restriction however when this is not to your research this isn't encouraging them to continue doing what we're doing and if we. exclude wholesale e.c.s. or a decline in the rate of inspections rather than carting. not a sign that it's. all right so it's important to keep those restrictions in place for now now there's been a lot of theories positive about why germany has a relative relatively low mortality rate compared to other countries let's say like italy despite a high number of confirmed cases why do you think that is. so reasons.

first of all one has to understand each country has their own policies in place so when an tested person sorta coronavirus and then decides it seems also in the reporting of course a huge difference not only certain regions in italy owns a norm france there is a certainly the health care system is not functioning properly and physicians have too many decisions on their own to lay she mentions are not an office biggest increase the number of people. in germany. has not reached its limits the certain areas. over use of the medical system hopefully will not get their face in at these numbers there is also an important distinction for example in italy the rich people who have symptoms have

been tested positive it's younger those to those in germany other people who die are on the same never change slightly over 80 so i expect you know jeanson differences in motels rates coronaviruses if you compare age groups all right well we'll have to see what the picture looks like here in terminate a few weeks time but damn this outbreak has been ongoing since early january really a what do you think the most important things are that we have learned from watching how it has developed. yes many things to. improve a system to improve. international cooperation and our measure however right now is to. look at the restrictions to really help those who are helping a patients who get sick that they received its treatment and who are. in great.

work we have to do you to create an uncertain future that's just. a right to be escorted professor of public health in epidemiology at the sheraton medical center here in berlin thank you very much for joining us thank you very much now there have been some worrying coronavirus statistics coming out of parts of asia while china seems to have brought its outbreak under control the number of cases in india has soared over the last 3 days to 425 with 8 deaths in thailand confirmed cases have more than doubled over 700 but there's been just one death there here's a round up of what is happening in asia. no man's land the streets of delhi deserted emptied of millions of people now under lockdown here until march 31st the order applies to several cities in districts across india the only reason

to be outside getting food or other essential services those flouting the strict measures got a scolding from prime minister narendra modi he tweeted even now many people aren't taking the lockdown seriously please save yourself and your family please follow instructions seriously. restrictions are also ramping up elsewhere in asia in thailand's capital bangkok major shopping malls under orders to close. but the new measures triggered exactly the scene authorities want to avoid laid off migrant workers crowding the city's bus station trying to get back home in indonesia some limits on life in jakarta but no lockdown bars and cinemas have shuttered and people are advised to work from home but president yoko widodo has ruled out a nationwide lockdown instead he's ordered mass testing and 200 hospitals to be

prepared for the anticipated surge encoded 9000 patients. here in beijing despite the reported drop in numbers the virus still looms large over public behavior temperature checks and social distancing are the new normal. over to the face think it's basically under control. and now most of the cases that are increasing are imported. and it looks like there's no more new domestic cases found i think it's quite safe. a sense of security yet to spread to the rest of asia where the battle against coronavirus for many has only just begun. the u.s. government is doubling down on efforts to halt the spread of the corona virus the

country has more than 33000 confirmed cases the 3rd highest number after china and italy new york city is a hot spot and its mayor has warned that hospitals are just 10 days away from running out of basic supplies several states including new york have already ordered people to stay at home. even the buzzing heart of manhattan has now gone quiet all nonessential businesses must stay closed and their workers must remain at home it's part of a stringent a set of rules coming into force as new york scrambles to contain its surge of current virus infections and there pressure from state governors president donald trump has now pledged to send help to the states worst affected by the outbreak including new york. in addition to large quantities of supplies i've also directed fema to supply the following 4 large federal medical stations with 1000

beds for new york 8 large federal medical stations with 2000 beds for california and 3 large federal medical stations and 4 small federal medical stations with 1000 beds for the state of washington the u.s. economy is also reeling from the virus on sunday the u.s. senate was expected but failed to reach a go ahead for a trillion dollar economic rescue package aimed at helping businesses and regular americans democrats dismissed a bill saying it was still to tour helping large corporations legislation has many problems at the top of the list includes a large corporate bailout with no protections for workers and virtually no oversight. also very troubling in the bill were significant shortfalls of money that our hospitals states cities and medical workers desperately needed this is

a public health crisis it is inexplicable to skimp on funding to address the pandemic which the senate to set to vote on the emergency bill again on monday both or it is in new york urged the peak of the contagion is yet to come and warn of stricter measures if citizens fail to comply. let's check in on the markets now of the dow and s. and p. $500.00 futures have jumped on the news that the federal reserve will commit on limited bond buying resources to stabilize the economy shares in asia tumbled earlier on monday hong kong and shanghai is indexes both closing in the red india's main index the sensex collapsed losing over 11 percent european markets fell but stabilized today on the day's losses on the news from the u.s. . and our markets correspondent is in frankfurt chelsea delaney is there for us hi

shall see the dow seems to have come back a bit but the u.s. senate failing to pass a rescue package seems to have investors worried what is a picture there in frankfurt today. well stocks did open up quite a bit lower here in frankfurt the dax is down about 5 percent at the open but this news from the federal reserve that they're going to do on limited quantitative easing a limited buying us bonds has really helped spike this turnaround that you can see behind me on the screen that we've we've already seen a lot of action from central bankers including the fed they have an ounce trillions of dollars in support for markets and liquidity and there's been a lot of references to bankers in the bazookas but investors are saying about what the fed is doing is now bigger than a bazooka they're doing everything that a central bank can really do they're guaranteeing credit for basically the end tire u.s. economy at this point and we also did see the german government today the federal cabinet passed 156000000000 euro bill stimulus support for the economy and i think

that's helping to offset the disappoint that shows we've talked a lot about the aviation industry taking a huge blow here what are you hearing from that sector. well last week we did see the c.e.o. feel tons of describe this as a substantial threat to the aviation industry and that they won't be able to survive without government support. airlines like the tons of how to cut basically all of their fights at flights about 90 to 95 percent and they will need state support but as we're seeing in the u.s. an idea of a large scale corporate bailout is quite controversial. new reporting there for us from frankfurt thank you. the tokyo olympics in july and august could be postponed because of the coronavirus japan's prime minister shinzo abbay has now acknowledged the possibility of pushing the event back a had previously insisted that the games would go ahead as scheduled the

international olympic committee opened the door to a postponement on sunday when it said a final decision would be made within the next 4 weeks but it added that a cancellation was not on the agenda canada and australia said they will not send teams to the games if they go ahead as planned in july and we have mark meadows from sports with us to tell us more hey mark it does look like a postponement is increasingly likely i think it's almost certain though that the games will be postponed probably until 2021 possibly july or august 2021 and you know there are over options consolation but it's clear that the japanese do not want to do that they invested so much money in these games the last count was about $12600000000.00 and it's only going to rise so this consolation just isn't possible basically a scaled down olympics this year with no spectators maybe less sports it's possible but i don't think anyone really wants that that's not what the olympics is all about and we actually heard from the japanese prime minister shinzo ali earlier

today in palm and given this i.o.c. 4 week window it's pretty clear now that postponement is most likely. the i.o.c. decision is in line with what i've said we want to hold the event in its complete form. if that becomes difficult we will think of the athletes 1st and foremost we may have no option but to consider postponing the games or. maybe. mark where do you think we are hearing these words from abbay now that the pressure to postpone simply become too much yes it's become overwhelming and especially from the athletes themselves i mean it's very hard to find an athlete who actually wants to go to the olympics this year canada the olympic committee there is going to even further they've effectively boycotted any games this year they said in a statement it's not safe for our athletes their families and the broader canadian community astray has said something similar they said they had to make a call now and basically tell their affleck's to train for 2021 because obviously

with the coronavirus pandemic all the athletes training schedules have been completely up in the air everything's all over the place qualifiers for the tokyo 2020 even if it was to happen this year a lot of the qualifiers have been postponed so we don't even know which athletes would be tokyo 2020 and then we've also had sebastian coe the head of will def let 6 he actually wrote a letter to the i.o.c. saying that it is neither thiis a bill nor desirable to hold the olympics this year now one of your one of your major sports doesn't actually want to be there and it's pretty clear there's no way tokyo 2020 can happen all right mark meadows from sports reporting for us thank you very much mark. now in the last few weeks it's become a popular way to celebrate self isolation with others saying from your balcony to defy the coronavirus here in germany there even the linking up across the nation by .

the end of beethoven it could only be the great composers ode to joy from his 9th symphony musicians amateurs and professionals joined up to create a nationwide symphony orchestra on sunday evening this year marks the 250th anniversary of beethoven's. this is news and these are our top stories german chancellor angela merkel is at home in quarantine after coming into contact with a doctor who tested positive for the corona virus that announcement came shortly after german authorities banned gatherings of more than 2 people saying the public should avoid unnecessary social contact outside their own household the government has agreed on a multi-billion euro package to deal with the economic fallout. u.s. president donald trump has released federal funds to help states combat the corona virus outbreak the steps include funding for deploying the national guard new york has enforced a strict lockdown one in 3 americans are under stay at home orders. japanese

prime minister shinzo obvious says a coronavirus may make postponing the summer's olympics inevitable ave told parliament the safety of athletes came 1st he ruled out canceling the games and the tokyo olympics chief executive a said all options are open canada and australia have announced they won't be sending teams to tokyo. this is news from berlin for more follow us on twitter or visit our website dot com. we're back with more at the top of the hour.

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