this is c w news life from berlin britain's prime minister shuts down his country boris johnson instructs people to stay only minute bit to stop the 1st threat of coronavirus the lockdown will last at least 3 weeks also coming up a warning from the head of the world health organization. the plan them to accuse accelerating. new cases of covert thank you keep rising global event in some places as an as a faster pace for the w.h.o. says there's still time to change the trajectory of the pandemic.

i'm eunice and i must and welcome britain's prime minister has announced a nationwide lockdown to fight kovac 19 for strength and told the british people the government is shutting down the central shops and services and banning gatherings of more than 2 people let's listen in. from this evening i was give the british people a very simple instruction you must stay at home because the critical thing we must do to stop the disease spreading between households that is why people will only be allowed to leave the home for the following very limited purposes. the basic necessities as infrequently as possible one form of exercise

a day for example. with members of your household any medical need to provide care or to help a vulnerable person and travelling to and from work but only where this is absolutely necessary and can't be done from home. for more on that let's talk to the w.c. a lot of pots and london nationwide knocked on also in the u.k. now tell us more about the details well life is about to change prime minister boris johnson asked all people told to stay home for and they can only leave their home for 4 reasons he set to go to work to help to get medical help if needed to go for exercise in the park once a day so those are the reasons that people are able to leave their home otherwise

there will be fines and the police will be enforcing those rules another thing that is different in the u.k. from other european countries is that people who are vulnerable and the elderly are told to stay home to self isolate for 12 weeks now starting from today they've been called by their doctors and nurses to tell them to self isolate so there's this kind of for you turn for boris johnson now. well critics have said that boris johnson acted tough heartedly and too late but he himself has always said that he would do the right measures at the right time and now the time has come for that nationwide lockdown he has gradually. introduced stricter measures over time closing pubs and restaurants before the weekend but as we've seen this weekend also people were still hitting the beaches hundreds of

people were gathering in the parks and the social distancing rules were not at all followed so now has come the time for that national lockdown so a lot of parts in london thank you so much the head of the world health organization says the covert 19 virus continues to outpace efforts to contain it and that cases of the infection accelerating more than 16000 people around the world have died of the infection here's what the head of the w h l said just a few hours ago more of the city 100000 cases of corbett 19 have now been reported to double. from almost every country in the world that's heartbreaking the pun demick is accelerating it took 67 days

from the 1st reported case to reach the 1st 100000 cases 11 days for the 2nd 100000 cases just 4 days for this. 100000 cases. and here's some of the more of the latest developments on the global covert 19 condemning for the 2nd straight day italy has posted figures suggesting the spread of covert 19 in the country is slowing down italy is europe's haddest hit country u.n. secretary general antonio tabish has called for an immediate global ceasefire that's to protect vulnerable people in conflict zones from the ravages of the virus and britain's supreme court building is closing justices will switch to video conferencing to hear cases and hand down judgment. and he enjoyment of the country's leading public health institution the robot caucus institute says new

data suggests that the rise in corona virus cases might be leveling off here and for now concerns that chance i'm going to america may have caught the virus has been dispelled. tourist magnets like the brandenburg gate should be buzzing with locals and visitors could lock down measures mean people are out of doors only for essential reasons like going to work shopping or walking the dog. but germany's rather 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. to find. scenes like these from just last week i think 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 working finance minister all our shoulders will be covering some of her duties of these devices the chancellor has asked me to speak for her in the pond as tag 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. mary times require extraordinary measures. to the u.s.

now and the pentagon says it's preparing to deploy field hospitals to new york to new york and seattle to national hotspots of the covert $1000.00 out break but defense secretary mike espy also set the global pandemic could impact u.s. military readiness new york is america's worst affected city where possible knock down is in place of sorties there say some 1900 patients are hospitalized with the virus the number of cases nationwide has reached almost 42000 with more than 570 deaths. from on the topic let's not talk to our washington correspondent out of a salad about donald trump just gave a press briefing where he stressed again that he would not let the cure be worse than the problem what does that say about his way of dealing with this crisis. well he's contradicting his experts forest of all he's also contradicting himself

to a certain extent but 1st and foremost he's trying he's afraid to lose his reelection and he even implied that in the press conference when he was praising the strong economy saying that this was all his achievement and that's now all taken away due to the coronal pandemic that's how he's putting it the problem is the president comes facing here is that the job approval rates have always been quite low except one field and that is the economy now ironically the all the measures put in place to fight the coronavirus are bad for the economy so all those lockdowns and stay in place shelter in place all terrorists have essentially one result in that is the unemployment is going up in the stock markets are going down and that is all reducing his chances of getting reelected again so what we saw here today is president trump getting slightly nervous. the u.s. military will help out with medical equipment is that proof of how desperate the

situation is in the u.s. right now a little we are about that certainly has proved that the health system is increasingly overwhelmed in some cities and in new york city 1 mayor de blasio said that the city could run out of supplies as early as next week so there's a shortage of ventilators of mass and certainly also of hospital beds in particular are in intensive care units and that is where the military could fill in at the same time as politicians are trying to appeal to the to the american public to take this virus seriously. that in spite of lockdowns and many cities people were seen in parks and new york's governor andrew cuomo use some very dramatic words to describe the situation and he said that the real crisis in the united states hasn't even started yet. but efforts to advance a trillion dollar rescue off the u.s.

economy failed in congress today for the 2nd time why can't democrats and republicans agree on such a basic measure in crisis times it's an ideological divide and that shows again how strained the relationship between republicans and democrats is at this point essential of the democrats are trying to demand that the financial aid that this cost is used to protect workers and to avoid layoffs and the republicans allegedly are putting the corporations 1st and that is all very frustrating for the american public because they look at 2 parties who can't cooperate even in such a dramatic situation like the one we're experiencing right now. a lot of us ayelet in washington thank you so much. it's becoming increasingly likely that the tokyo olympics due to take place in july and august will be postponed because of the coronavirus several qualifying events so ready cancelled and pressure has been

growing on authorities to consider did late today japan's prime minister shinzo avi acknowledge that rescheduling the games may be the only feasible course a fact. for weeks and even japan nor the international olympic committee was prepared to countenance it now prime minister shinzo abi has tabled the possibility of postponement but obviously that. if the circumstances make it impossible to hold the games as planned then we have no choice but to consider postponing the committee 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 get into our 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 seeds 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 here in europe singing from one's balcony has become a popular way to get through self isolation people in germany have been playing and singing beethoven's iconic 9th symphony that's of unless. he. was. far.

too good ok still got all this tremendous are at home practicing without an audience so based on the italian role model where they've been playing the ode to joy for several days we thought we do the same thing on sunday evening at 6 pm for us and for our neighbors for once a buffalo not. results because i really should have been conducting beethoven this week. and i can't do that. you get very very sad. about it so to be a bit more positive just play some music and bring a little more happiness and life brings this in milligan's floated.

you're watching news from berlin i'm nearly and i was stunned thanks so what's. the global corona crisis you can find more information online at g.w. dot com and on t.w. social media channels. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll. just through the text and i weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any

information on the crown of irish or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast 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 our race against time how the german biotech company keoghan its repairing for a run on coronavirus test kits. i'm serious i was going to thank you for joining me on today's covert 19 special the coronavirus 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 to 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 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 the strategy appears to be to ramp up the strictest 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 if 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. point that i think people in to to be 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 an awful when they have diabetes is hope he's pretty tall let's hope i'm open to to impose. curfews and provisions on movements and so on so if you go to wait until i last until it's

the right moment to do it and that's always been probably being god it's all right let's bring in our science correspondent derrick 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 explain the thing as epidemics like when we're seeing don't follow into question 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 lockdowns is not when large numbers of people are getting the disease it's before a large 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 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 have been they would have given it to is already protected because they're immune so rising immunity and the herd in society as a whole 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 so you have 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 them 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 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's already broken up production of its of 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 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 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 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 by me that you're after all that would be an amazing achievement thinkers frost for cure that and all the other companies out there trying to make up that some promising

news there and derek williams do 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 key had gayness producing diagnostic tests for covered 19 and it's had to overhaul its operation in response to the crisis. start fair and 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 this 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 a spot on museum 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 he staring. he

again struck recalled has also piqued the interest of other companies hoping to cash in. u.s. law pickwick mica 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 19 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. in africa but. in the morning she's a student in the uk. i reporter you learn to tara is sticking the camera works. in her free time she goes out and reports on ecological issues in her home country south africa it makes me people go away and it makes them want to take initiative and join us and be cool for go. on w. even if the coronavirus is sending football into

a force to train. the un we will still be bringing you the stars and small panda stories and dentures surrounding our favorite sport. because we want mother to soccer fun stop just yet. to go. in 60 minutes on d w. in the height of climate change. africa's most of. what's in store. for them to come for their future. e.w. to come for to make a serious toll to get inside. i'm sure. i'm not laughing at that.

because sometimes i am but mostly i love him with the germany think deep into the german culture the. new team will take his grandmother down to you because it's all about who no time rachel join me for me to get the money the polls. it's no secret that our planet's resources are dwindling and the climate crisis is real that's why our show africa offers ideas on how we can protect our environment welcome to the show i'm knelt in lagos nigeria. and a woman welcome for me sandra teen a different compiler here in uganda the.