this is g.w. news live from berlin could germany's virtual lockdown be starting to bring the coronavirus under control the 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 the chance of medical herself goes into south pouring tea also coming up in 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. plus pressure builds on the tokyo olympics the japanese prime minister of knowledge is for the

1st time that the summer games may be postponed as canada and australia say they won't send a team. i'm sorry 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 a 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 now chancellor merkel who is $65.00 went into quarantine after being vaccinated against different virus 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. it's an unusual

sight. brandenburg gate deserted in the middle of the day. it's a similar picture elsewhere in the german capital as people start heeding the call to stay indoors areas normally bustling almost empty but experts say the decision by many to stay at home could be impacting the number of infections you're. in and we're seeing signs that the exponential growth curve is flattening off slightly schools but i will only be able to confirm this trend definitively on wednesday but i'm optimistic that the measures are already having an effect. which is very early because they've only been in place for one week. and. unlike other countries germany has so far held back from imposing a rigorous nationwide curfew instead appealing to people to restrict their

movements to a minimum. nonessential shops and schools are already closed but on sunday the government tightened measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus under new rules people must maintain a distance from one another for at least one and a half metres and only go out with members of their own household or in groups of 2 at the most chancellor merkel said this was the only way to save lives. it's rise does this footage i know that 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. and now michael herself is subject to restrictions her quarantine in her apartment in the center of berlin is set to last 2 weeks the chief of staff says

he's optimistic she's not infected. is following the story for us what does america going into quarantine mean for her and her ability to govern the country her ability to govern should be mostly unaffected as we hear that angle americal is well that she is not sowing any symptoms of a covert 19 infection so she is just doing what a lot of us do in this time she's simply working from home vice chancellor and finance minister orloff charles confirmed at a press conference earlier today that america has taken part in today's cabinets mating she wasn't present in person but via a conference call there's one thing she can't do she won't be able to speak german bundestag this week so this part will be taken over by

a vice chancellor all our choice and he will explain the measures and huge 8 packets the government decided upon in parliament i knew you mention that huge huge aid package that's been announced i mean is this going to be enough if this crisis goes on for an extended period of time. well the package which government has decided upon is really massive it consists of 750000000000 years of a to stabilize german economy and to preserve jobs in germany in all different sectors this is unprecedented held for german economy and it consists of several parts one part is a supplementary budget of $156000000000.00 euros and the other party is

a fund a fund similar to the one which has been set up during the financial crisis about 10 years ago and this will give big players big produces easy access to credit but in germany about 10000000 people work in small and smallest businesses and there is also our 1st aid for them a relief for them a 1550000000000 euro package. this aims. freelances or artists or small shop owners so they can survive for the next 3 months a month at least but if this massive aid will indeed help get the german economy along we'll only know interest rich respect correspondent reporting for us

thank you well there's been some worrying coronavirus the to fix coming out of parts of asia while china seems to have brought its outbreak under control the number of cases in india has soared of the last 3 days to 425 with 8 deaths in thailand confirmed cases have more than doubled to over 700 but there's been just one death there here's a roundup of what's 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 and 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 wrapping 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. i 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. right let's look at how the ongoing health crisis is affecting the global economy with travel restrictions of a shattering of retail businesses and orders to stay indoors people's livelihoods are on the line in the u.s. banks are predicting the country's g.d.p. to drop by as much as 30 percent and a slowing economy means job cuts one economist predicts u.s.

unemployment rising from 3.5 percent to 30 percent in the coming months now central banks are setting up a bond buying program sparking hundreds of billions of euros into their economies but experts say that's no cure all no amount of cash will unfreeze the economy until the pandemic is over. it's becoming increasingly likely that the tokyo a lympics due to take place in july and august will be postponed because of the virus several qualifying events are already cancelled and pressure has been growing on authorities to consider a delay today japan's prime minister shinzo are big knowledge that risk actually in the games may be the only feasible course of action. for weeks and even japan knew the international olympic committee was prepared to countenance it now prime minister shinzo abbay has tabled the possibility of postponement. i.o.c. president thomas back had been playing for time saying on sunday that the decision

would be made within the next 4 weeks but pressure from athletes and associations has grown massively canada became the 1st country to announce that they would not send any athletes to the games shortly followed by australia where the local m.p. committee is demanding a delay if you are certainly to the athletes to get into. that's the most important thing over the weekend in japan where public life is yet to be restricted as in other countries 50000 people gathered to catch a glimpse of the olympic flame the country is experiencing a growth in coronavirus case numbers and experts have been warning of the danger of a wave of infections simulate of those seen in europe plans are now being made to scale back the olympic torch relay due to start on thursday for the games themselves postponement is looking increasingly inevitable. 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 now that the games will be postponed probably until 2021 possibly july or august 2021 and you know there are over options cancellation of this year's one but it's clear that the japanese do not want to do that they invested so much money in these games at the last count was about $12600000000.00 and it's only going to rise so this cancellation just isn't possible basically a scaled down olympics this year with no spectators and 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 parliament and given this i.o.c. for we win doe 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. committee. mark where do you think we are hearing these words from abi 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 that affleck 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 and qualify as for 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 feasible nor desirable to hold the olympics this year now one of your one of your major sports doesn't 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 mike. now in the last few weeks it's become a popular way to get through self isolation with others saying from your balcony well here in germany they're even looking up across the nation. in the land of beethoven it could only be the great composers owed it to joy from his 9th symphony musicians amateurs and professionals joined up to create a nationwide symphony orchestra on sunday evening now this year marks the 250th anniversary of beethoven's birth.

right you're watching t.v. news coming up next our corona virus special and don't forget we have comprehensive coverage of the pandemic on our website e.w. dot com thank you for watching. sure that people over t.w. on facebook and twitter up to date and in touch follow us. sleep. carefully. don't simply choose to do.

discover who. subscribe to documentary on you tube. this is deja vu news in berlin germany in isolation mode what to expect from the partial shutdown just ordered by the government and why critics in some countries are demanding the opposite they're calling for controlled herd immunity but what does that mean and what are the implications. plus our race against time how the german biotech company keoghan is preparing for a run on coronavirus test kits. i'm sumi someone's going to thank you for joining me on today's covert 19 special the corona virus is continuing to spread also in

germany convincing the chancellor angela merkel that stricter containment measures are necessary until now it had largely been left to the country states and municipalities to curb the contagion and approach that has created a patchwork of rules and guidelines the new measures are to be rolled out nation wide let's hear what the german chancellor announced. we have discussed today how all 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 most effective measure. the new measures medical and state leaders decided to implement ban gatherings of

more than 2 individuals with the exception of families and people who live together in one household now restaurants bars and cafes and other non essential service providers must also close businesses offering food delivery and collection will be allowed to remain open commuting to work helping others and exercising alone outside will still be permissible the measures will initially remain in place for 2 weeks the new measures are one step closer to total lockdown but not there yet and germany's a strategy appears to be to ramp up the strictness of measures in a controlled way as it seeks to limit the spread of the virus and keep the numbers of severe cases manageable for the country's health system. and when other european countries there are also ongoing discussions about what measures to introduce and when some countries are focusing on the best ways to reach what's being called herd immunity a critical point in the pandemic when the number of people who have grown a new in to the virus automatically limit its spread now for weeks the british

government for example of voided implementing restrictions on wider society at the goal appeared to be to allow members of the community who are considered less vulnerable to be infected in orders to reach the tipping point of herd immunity sooner but after models showed how badly u.k. hospitals would be overwhelmed in such a scenario and the potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths it would cause priorities have shifted nonetheless british prime minister boris johnson remains hesitant about curfews. a point that i think people. understand about the timing of these measures you've got to impose these interventions in the spread of the. movement when they can have the maximum effect to go through with the activities is hope is pretty tall that's what we've been able to to impose. could use some provisions on movements and so on so if you wait until i ask until it's

the right moment to do it and that's always been how we being got it right let's bring in our science correspondent garrick williams for more on this hi derek so is now the right time for britain to be implementing these measures i think coming too late. well i think that most experts would say for us johnson has gotten something very wrong here starting with the use of the word and to explain the thing as epidemics like when we're seeing don't follow into mission or hunches they follow certain statistical projections which is why we were able to model that mathematically the big fallacy with this comment is that from a prevention point of view the time to impose curfews on lock downs is not when large numbers of people are getting the disease it's before a large numbers of people begin to get that is that's the only way to slow it down because there's an incubation period new infections and deaths are going to continue to rise for at least 2 to 3 weeks even after strips social distancing

measures have been imposed so we'll only see the consequences of what we do today in 2 to 3 weeks that's one of the lessons that we've learned from china and italy if you wait until numbers shoot up to react with measures then ultimately many more people are going to get the infection and it's going to kill a lot more of their convention this concept of herd immunity can you tell us more about what exactly it means and what role that plays in slowing the spread of the virus. well a herd immunity is when so many people in a population are immune to an infection that effectively stops the disease from spreading there are 2 different ways that a person acquires immunity that you catch the disease and you build up an immune response that prevent you from being infected by the same bug in the future where you're vaccinated which fools the body into responding like it caught the disease even though it didn't but to return immunity it doesn't matter which of those 2 ways people have developed an immune response what's important is that as the

number of people who are immune to the bug rises in a population it begins to spread more slowly let's say that at the beginning of an outbreak when no one has an immune and infected person gives it to 2 other people but once 50 percent of the population has acquired immunity an infected person can only give it to one other person rather than 2 that's because the other one would then they would have given it to is already protected because they're immune so rising immunity and the herd in society as a whole is puts the brakes on the spread of the disease so are there ways to actually control the process of reaching herd immunity. well most researchers i've been talking with to say it's an interesting thought experiment one that you know this idea of controlled herd immunity but it's one that has a couple of very serious flaws 1st we still know very little about about immunity to the virus or how long it lasts we assume there's going to be an immune to fact of some kind after someone gets over $1000.00 but we still don't know enough about

that it's a it's a major risk to just allow the virus to spread when you don't know whether people could quickly get it a 2nd time then there is the question of how controlled it would all remain you know the point behind social distancing measures is to slow the spread of the disease to flatten the curve and tell you medicines and vaccines and place herd immunity can also be reached with vaccines and they don't kill people if you allow people to catch the piracy but in a controlled setting then some of them are going to die and it's far too easy to imagine a scenario where intentionally allowing people to catch the disease could spiral out of control and bring down the health system so the message most researchers are sending as i think of course we want herd immunity but trying to get it by intentionally allowing people to get sick is going to cost lives probably a lot up until you have medications and a vaccine as tough as they are lockdowns and social distancing are better choices what is the latest that you're seeing from researchers in the fight against the

virus. well there's a story on that seems that caught my eye surely this weekend's german biotech cure back which we've been hearing a lot about in the news is so confident that its approach is going to were that it announced a few days ago that it's already broken up production of its its or and they back seem candidates even though the company is still in very very early testing you know if you recall we've been hearing from topcoat authorities that it will take at least 18 months for a vaccine that's really but before widespread use and that's because there are a lot of regulatory hoops to jump through starting with safety issues and you have questions about the fact of this it just takes time but if you're confident a product is a good chance of working you can start making doses while testing is going on they don't work out you've wasted time and effort but if you do then you save a lot of valuable time who knows maybe they will see an effective vaccine but you know that you're after all that would be an amazing achievement then there's frost for your lab and all the other companies out there trying to make up that some

promising news there a derrick williams do you have any sign thank you very much well as we just heard here in germany pharmaceuticals biotech companies are racing to come up with a vaccine for the virus and to think of solutions to take pressure off of the health care system now one german company called gain is producing diagnostic tests for covert 19 and it's had to overhaul its operation in response to the crisis. start ferric here again can barely keep up with demand the biotech company produces molecular diagnostics equipment now including a rapid test for the novel coronavirus production has been ramped up paris h q now. you know it could start side we've increased our output by more than 70 percent in a very short space of time. so on we're increasing production to such an extent that instead of producing $1500000.00 tests per month we'll be making $20000000.00

per month by the end of the yeah and that's one test is needed per patient martin we've introduced a 3 shift per day system 7 days a week. the company reacted quickly to the new coronavirus outbreak testing equipment that's been on the market since 2018 has been upgraded and can now diagnose a person for corona virus in just one hour. this rapid test is intended for use in hospitals and of our trees and it was approved for use in europe last week. as i have always fought on busy and this is a global challenge and the situation varies from country to country especially in how quickly they recognize the virus and whether or not they acted quickly in their views of asian countries like south korea responded much more quickly than countries like the u.s. demand to storing all over the world and so it's a global challenge to make testing facilities available everywhere staring. key

against track record has also piqued the interest of other companies hoping to cash in. u.s. law to quit my fish is now set to buy key again for around 10000000000 euros right in the thick of the current crisis. shareholders have to approve the acquisition before it goes ahead. people across europe are being told to stay indoors many countries have severely restricted freedom of movement from parts of the u.s. to argentina in the philippines and some countries have even declared a national lockdown in a bid to slow the spread of the virus it's a very different picture in japan coronavirus infections there have been increasing at a slow rate but experts fear that could suddenly change as the famous cherry blossoms start to appear various festivals are still set to go ahead and authorities fear that japan could witness a surge of new cases as people head outdoors to mark the start of spring.

right thank you for watching a covert 1900 special here on t.w. we have the latest on the pandemic on our website get every dot com we'll be back with you at the top of the hour. hand. he's quite as soon as it sinks. to understand the why. we need to take a closer. experience knowledge bulges. from.

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