this is d.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 and yet germany's leading public health institute believes the lockdown may already be bringing results that's a chance americal tests negative for the virus after going 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 pressure builds on the tokyo olympics the japanese prime minister acknowledges for the 1st

time that the summer games may be postponed as canada and australia say they won't send. time soon you so much going to thank you for joining us german chancellor angela merkel has tested negative for cope with 19 a day after going into quarantine for having contact with an infected doctor her spokesman says she'll continue to be tested in the coming days now that is as germany's leading public health institution the robert cock institute says it has detected the 1st signs that the rise in corona virus cases might be leveling off in germany thanks largely to social distancing. tourist markets like the brandenburg gate should be buzzing with locals and visitors could look down measures mean people are after those only for essential reasons. like going to work shopping or

walking the dog. but germany's rabbit institute says there's reason to be cautiously optimistic that the measures are working. the indian turned we are seeing signs that the exponential growth curve is flattening off slightly but i will only be able to confirm this trend definitively on wednesday. kind of but i am optimistic that the measures are already having an effect which is very early because they've only been in place for a week. and. scenes like these from just last week a thing of the past for now anyway chancellor merkel is in quarantine at home she's been tested after contact with an infected doctor that test came back negative but she'll be tested regularly in the coming days meanwhile she's telling where king finance minister all of scholtz will be covering some of her duties. the chancellor has asked me to speak for her in the on wednesday and we will manage this.

however i believe that this is a very important sign that this infection can hit every one of us we are very vulnerable as human beings and you know one is protected from this. after today's virtual cabinet meeting the government announced a further financial aid package worth $156000000000.00 euros it's a break with germany's rules on strict budgetary discipline protect strawberry times require extraordinary measures. let's bring in. with the latest on this story we heard that chancellor merkel's 1st test for corona virus was negative can she now leave her quarantine. this was a very speedy test result for the chancellor sumi but by no means it is an all clear for america why is that so she encountered the doctor who carries the virus

only on friday last week and the average period of intra basin is 5 days the longest known period is 14 days so this is the time you have to wait out to see if you are infected or not and for the chancellor this would mean friday off next week until then she will stay at home work from home like so many of us do she's working in quarantine and. such so. she took part in the. cabinet meeting this morning via a conference call and this was the meeting where the government decided on the massive aid for german economy and i want to ask you about that math of vestibule this package and tell us what it involved and is it going to be enough if this

crisis goes on for an extended period of time. this is a package of 750000000000 euros all together part of it is supplementary budget this is 156000000000 euros the other the rest is a fund similar to the fund which was implemented during the financial crisis about 10 years ago this will give big companies easier access to credits but the government will also provide a relief for small and smallest businesses. 50 mil 50000000000 euros. the companies can apply for this relief for the next 3 months to bring them over the worst period because in germany there are 10000000

people who work as freelancers as artists a small shop owner but if these marriages the government has implemented today if they will do the trick we'll only know after the crisis is over. could live reporting thank you. let's take a look now at some of the more developments on the global covert 19 pandemic the current tally by johns hopkins university in the u.s. now counts more than 350000 infections worldwide over 15000 people are now known to have died austria is mobilizing its military reservists for the 1st time since world war 2 to help with food supplies medical support and police operations the united arab emirates is suspending all passenger and transit flights for 2 weeks dubai international airport is one of the busiest in the world and the mayor of new york has warned that hospitals are just 10 days away from running out of basic

supplies the city is the current epicenter of the u.s. outbreak. right let's take a look at how the ongoing health crisis is affecting the global economy with travel restrictions of a shattering of retail businesses orders to stay indoors people's livelihoods are on the line in the u.s. banks are predicting the country's g.d.p. had dropped by as much as 30 percent and a slowing economy means job cuts one economist is predicting that u.s. unemployment will rise from 3.5 percent to 30 percent in the coming months central banks are setting a bond buying program sponsoring hundreds of billions of dollars into the economies but experts say that is no cure all no amount of cash will unfreeze the economy until the pandemic is over and let's take a look at what's happening with the global economy now we can speak to on head of the secretary general for the organization for economic cooperation and development

the o.e.c.d. thank you for joining us mr good to you have said that this crisis is pushing our economies into a deep freeze state what do you mean by that well i mean. the social distancing measures all the containment measures that many countries have been gorgeous that kerry and others are going to follow until a rather brutal interruption of normal economic activity. 1st there was the impact on manufacturing in china that that was a big shock to the global supply chains. and then not only in china but also all over the world then there was a reduction in travel which did caroline's and railways and hotels and cruises. and now all of course we have a virtual shutdown of retail services including. restaurants

and you have. disruption to sports entertainment a host of other activities so it might be tempting to think oh that all of this is just a mere porson that is going to happen that once we are dealing with abundant it's all going to go away. to restart normally. but unfortunately we know that this is not so this is why you spoke of a deep freeze is going through the economy greece is going to last longer than the front didn't make it so. what do you make them simply of the measures that we've seen some the world's leading economies take i mean are they not going far enough or are they not courted nick ordinated enough there is an issue of coordination. if you look at you you're talking about

a few percentage points of g.d.p. 2 or 3 percentage points of g.d.p. which you would have thought well in normal times maybe even the crisis of gate of 2008 right now we are in a. more severe situation and also one that may last longer in terms of the consequences in the prices so. the virus and the and the the the the impact that yes we are taking some dramatic measures i mean the u.s. is talking about 2 trillion in the buckets of is being negotiated among the the the senators now 2 trillion i mean to clinton is is that's 1213 percent of the g.d.p. of the united states is enormous in spain you've got 20 percent of g.d.p. . it's the. everywhere you're talking about the u.k.

and you're talking about but at the same time the question is are you addressing those those same issues are you addressing. the same areas or are you are you looking at different kinds of approaches is it mostly liquidity is it only loans. that you have to be backed or are we talking about maybe equity participation that you don't have to be back but that involves that somebody else in this case the governments may have to take an equity participation in some companies etc now this is not unheard of they already did it in the past so we can do more by court. there can be there could be a mutually reinforcing measures on health you know this being treatment for all of us regardless of whether there is order or not

a whenever we can do more for people in terms of the import that unemployment is going to how we can do more for the firms small and medium as well as large above targets is so yes globally coordinated policy response is absolutely crucial because it will work a lot better but it's going to treat the measures that. along right may have the unfortunate we have to leave it there and have good rehab the o.e.c.d. secretary general thank you for joining us well shares in the u.s. are trading down as concerns grow over the impact on the economy goldman sachs says real g.d.p. could fall by as much as 24 percent in the 2nd quarter more than double the previous post war record drop as markets open the dow jones fell around 3 percent there's a percent despite the u.s. federal reserve promising to commit unlimited bond buying resources to stabilize

the economy shares in asia also tumbled on monday india's main index the sensex collapsed losing more than 11 percent european markets are also down despite receiving a brief boost from the u.s. fed's announcement. it's becoming increasingly likely that the tokyo olympics to take place in july and august will be postponed because of the coronavirus several disqualifying events are already canceled pressure has been growing and authorities to consider a delay today japan's prime minister shinzo are big knowledge that rescheduling the games may be the only feasible course of action for weeks japan the international olympic committee was prepared to countenance it now prime minister shinzo abi has tabled the possibility of postponement. but. if the circumstances make it impossible to hold the games as planned then we have no choice but to consider postponing the. 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 it gives certainly to the athletes to give certain sports and 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 similar to 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. coming up next are coded 19 special here on d w go to our website com for all the latest news and information around the clock

and also you can follow us with the latest headlines on twitter at d w news thank you for watching. why subscribe to d.w. books you meet your favorite writer write. to what i write is to share where to find beautiful. books are new to. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll. just 3

of the topics covered and i weakly read your blog is called spectrum if you would like any information on the drawing of virus or any other science topic you should really check out our top cats you can get it wherever you can get your podcast you can also find us at. science. 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 a 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 chancellor angela merkel that stricter containment measures are necessary until now it had largely been left to the country states and municipalities to can curb the contagion an 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 countermeasures 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. now in 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 immune to the virus automatically limit its spread now for weeks the british government for

example avoided 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 show how badly u.k. hospitals would be overwhelmed in such a scenario and the potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths it would cost priorities have shifted nonetheless british prime minister boris johnson remains hesitant about curfews. point that i think people in 2 g.b. understand about the timing of these measures you've got to impose these interventions in the spread of the epidemic the moment when they can have the maximum effect and offer all with the updated his is hope he's pretty tall let's hope i'm open to to impose. curfews and prohibitions on movement and so on so if you wait until i last until it's the right moment to do it and that's always been

hard we being god it's all right let's bring in our science correspondent derek williams for more on this hi derek so is now the right time for britain to be implementing these measures are they coming too late. well i think that most experts would say boris johnson has gotten something very wrong here starting with the use of the word and to it later the thing is epidemics like the one we're seeing don't follow intuition or hunches they follow certain statistical projections which is why we're 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 our numbers of people begin to get the disease 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 strict 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 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 prevents 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 have been they would have given it is already protected because they were viewed 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 immunity act 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 control that 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 we 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 shelly this weekend's german biotech you're back which we've been hearing a lot about in the news is so confident that its approach is going to were they did announce a few days ago that it's already 'd broken up production of its debts or and they've backed seem candidates even though the company is still in very very early testing you know if you recall we've been hearing from top built authorities that it'll take at least 18 months for a vaccine this 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 it just takes time but if you're confident a product there's 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 you know as maybe we will see an effective vaccine by me that you're after all that would be an amazing achievement thinkers crossed for your lab and all the other companies out there trying to make up that some

promising news there a derrick williams did have you 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 keough gain is producing diagnostic tests for coverage 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 parrot h.q. name. yes i mean i 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 of our time 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 been 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 act as quickly as you know 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 so stern. key

against track record has also piqued the interest of other companies hoping to cash in. u.s. law maker 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 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 our covert 900 special here on t.w. we have the latest on the pandemic on our website www dot com will be back with you at the top of the hour. you cold. hard to. conventional air conditioners users should be out of energy. but designers in delhi have come up with a new spin on a centuries old system insist fox. is really avis and. next on d w. staying

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