this is d.w. news live from the united states confirms more coronavirus cases than any other country including china and its new york is the epicenter stressing the city's health care system to the many more people are dying health care workers are short of critical supplies and it's likely to get worse also on the program south africa's amit enforces the country's new 3 week coronavirus knocked out queues build up at supermarkets as people rush to stock up. village just and they deserted

village just sites and streets of jerusalem normally bustling with pilgrims have been brought up to easter coronavirus restrictions in this year's celebrations will be muted. i'm full gal welcome to the program united states now has more confirmed cases of corona virus than any other country including china almost 86000 people in the u.s. have become infected and the 1300 have died the crisis has hit the economy hard fewer than a record surge and unemployment claims and the country's biggest city new york is struggling. these are desperate days in new york with more than 3 and a half 1000 new cases in the last day alone medical facilities a critically of a stretch a long line of worried people will. 8 outside this hospital in the borough of

queens just to be tested for the virus. almost any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the current health care system. that's why the authorities a trusted please stepping up their response this hospital in manhattan is setting up a makeshift morgue getting ready for a wave of deaths or more that's creepy. trickle. down a temporary mark. if it is awful it's awful i'm scared to be here that's something where i'm as. determined president donald trump insists the battle will be won we are waging war on this virus using every financial scientific medical pharmaceutical and military resources to halt its

spread and protect our citizens i know that we will achieve victory and quickly return to the path of exceptional health safety impressed by the for all of our citizens other emergency measures include this 1000 bed u.s. navy hospital ship due to arrive in new york harbor on monday to ease the pressure on the city's own hospitals. normally packed times square is now eerily deserted with no tourists in town and do yorkers heeding a government ban on working and socializing in public. a city already in fear knows that the worst is still to come. in while the presidents of the u.s. and china appear to have resolved their feud over which of their countries started a coronavirus pandemic after president trump talked about the chinese virus the chinese foreign ministry suggested it had been brought to china by the u.s.

military presence trump and she should ping have spoken on the phone and agreed to work together to fight the pandemic it's full of chinese problems of who were the coronavirus pandemic began has reported no new cases since lifting its lockdown and reopening its borders on wednesday but a table at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine has warned who base capital on which remains under lockdown for another 2 weeks are the 2 hasty relaxation of restrictions there could make a new wave of infections more likely as a people of who buy a get out and about to get that counting the cost of the locked up. opening the fortress the ancient fortifications at the heart of shing shoe city a usually buzzing with tourists particularly now in spring but even though people are free it's to go out in the full there's not much going on and that's creating the next worry for those living and working there. who will not use you know why

the 1st half of the year is the season for flower blossoms many people come out to see the flowers they take photos and have fun the 1st half of this year is supposed to be the peak tourism season but the coronavirus will definitely have a big impact on us. the cities in who by province now up by would. for the pandemic. just look there are so few people those from outside will not come here for a holiday you know now by is the hardest hit area and no one dares to come yet when they know you're from who by they all keep away from you they're scared. hi yeah. she said she'd spent the equivalent of 2 months rent on food for her stall but that she wasn't able to sell its own even need to herself during the look down. and it had all gone rotten. thing in my head i had

a relatively smooth opening today some girls bought 6 corn cobs for me at once. this is the 1st business for me this year it's good because there aren't many people around after the outbreak this is big money for a small business owner with the thing you know. the hope is that the streets will quickly fill up again with people and that the hardships in jewett during the days of fortress gin show will soon be history. well south africa has confirmed its 1st 2 corona virus deaths as the number of cases rises to both of them a 1000 news comes at the start of a 3 week nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the virus the minister's been deployed to help in forced measures that include restrictions on people leaving their homes for anything but essential trips alcohol sales and dog have also been back. to africa correspondent adrienne creech joins us from cape town welcome

what's it like that on day one of this lockdown. well phil you can see behind me it is empty i'm on normally one of the busiest streets in the center of cape town on long street and there's almost nobody everybody is forced to stay at home as the sign says right behind me this is the order for the next 3 weeks and it will be enforced according to the president and his ministers nobody is allowed to leave the house it's only for essential services if you go to a supermarket for example but you're not allowed not even alone to walk around to go for jogging to walk your dog this is all forbidden so it's really very tough weeks ahead for south africa but it is necessary and necessary step the president says looking at the numbers how they're growing they have reached more than 1000 corona cases today so following on from those numbers how is the country's health care infrastructure coping. well at the moment it is still

coping rather well but this is at the moment the reason why president took the decision was quite clear he knew that the health system is likely to collapse of the numbers continue to grow the way they have grown in the past days and weeks 80 percent of south africa's mainly popular poor population is catered for by the public health sector and it's already now overwhelmed in the townships where millions of africans are living in very bad conditions access to healthcare is a mess of problem and it's going to be a worse problem in the weeks to come experts predicts that the number of cases will still continue to grow for at least 2 weeks and then hopefully we will be seeing a decline and that hopefully will give the health sector a chance to be to recover and not be totally overwhelmed and all this in a country that was already in recession with an unemployment rate of 29 percent what's being done to lessen the economic impact of this crisis.

absolutely still more than every 2nd young south african is already unemployed now and it looks very bad for the future of the country depending how this lock down will work on not work many people here have the feeling with the support of the governments they came up with a number of packages to support small businesses the economy could survive for the 3 weeks but it is not clear if maybe it could be extended in the future after the 3 weeks it is not successful nobody knows how things develop afterwards will tourists really come back right away remember the the country heavily relies on tourism which brings a lot of income and at the moment that sector is basically dead hotels shutdowns restaurants are shut down so the outlook is not very positive at the moment but south africans still remain optimistic that things will get back to normal after this lockdown thank you for answering creation in capetown all travel restrictions imposed because of a coronavirus pandemic coming religious celebrations in jerusalem will be a more muted than usual the past servers in 12 days followed by easter and then the

beginning of ramadan the city's streets and religious sites are already unusually quiet. the old 30 of 2 recently the ancient city with its holy sites has to adapt to see via restrictions to the pandemic. this is a very unusual to see in the areas completely quiet streets are empty shops are closed residents are required to stay home or foreign visitors cannot enter the country anymore. processions and prayers are being held to ask for the protection of the city and its people. the. church of the holy sepulcher usually thousands of christian pilgrims from all over the world come to visit what is believed to be this side of the tomb of jesus and his resurrection in recent days the church has been eerily silent except for the

monks guarding it on thursday it closed its doors completely to the public like other churches in the old city. churches have called on people to avoid touching or kissing religious objects some churches have started to lie stream their sunday mass and easter celebrations will most likely happen without and you are suppose a few 100 metres from there at the western wall daily jewish worship has also changed tapes separate groups of worshipers gatherings of more than 10 people are forbidden and access to the holy site has now been further restricted only jewish residents of the old city are allowed in the compound one of the holiest sites in islam has been closed by the islamic religious authorities to keep worshipers safe in other mosques people have been asked to pray at a safe distance from each other or to pray at home unprecedented times even for an

ancient city like to. get more from de w.'s a religious fast correspondent martin welcome martin so talk us through how the world's big religions are dealing with this crisis. well by and large i mean really just so tory these across the world and certainly across someone on the stick world have actually shut down operations to a large degree and have actually stopped large masses congregating or allowed large group groups congregating that includes of course synagogues churches and mosques there are some exceptions i think of the thing that he's. interesting to point out is that because religion is one of the ways in which people find solace at time of deep crisis it has not only sort of comes with every new political power so to say it's a place where people that do not find a space or 2 cannot find help in the state because the state simply that's not have

the resources now do turn to religious communities these also means that in some cases religious communities have actually the fight. the call to quarantine i mean not only we have seen this in pakistan for instance among the muslim community but also we get reports off of and jellicoe communities in the u.s. in which they're calling people to come into the church to essentially pray and you know present a spiritual let's say a spiritual response to the virus these things because of course extremely extremely dangerous and become a health hazard nonetheless it is clear that in times like these it has to be expected that people will turn to religion. pope francis's jews who gave his obey at all the blessing today 2 weeks ahead of a state which is rather unusual. yes i mean they're the sens at a time of crisis it's very important for the pope to talk to the city and to the world or to be a daughter you write that so many would and in fact i mean because the church has

found itself suddenly in a state of eventually going to save. the church is dependent on building the congregation and having essentially the priest in front of the congregation to minister to the pastoral words. what now the vatican is trying to use final turn to ways to actually build and help the congregation we have heard many reports particularly coming from their iran but again one of which is sort of the center of futilely which you said sells an epicenter of the crisis many priests actually losing their license they're actually going to hospitals are going to the very fake to keep the last rites and to essentially hold hands and hold people through the last moments of their lives that they're extremely isolated because one of the things that sort of the human tragedy of this besides polio is that the degree of isolation in which people in their last moments go through so. religious

a sense kind of mohsin get thank you for that you're welcome. this is. a special i'll be back at the top. of the. combating the pandemic. where does research stand. what are scientists learning. background information and. our daily update. on d.w. . how does a virus spread. through the technics and weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like to tell me

information on the clone of virus or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast so you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us and. we have a simple message for all countries has. a simple message yes a simple solution we're not sure and certainly not all countries have been employing it the fight against corona virus has multiple fronts testing tracing infection chains racing to create vaccines and treatments or seeing what already exists and what could be adapted to treat the novel coronavirus how should

countries prioritize. i'm gentle and those are the kinds of questions we want to answer in the. 19th special it's the same one scientists and government officials have a grappled with since the beginning of the outbreak now back to the message to test test and test south korea was one of the countries which followed the world health organization's advice most diligently and managed to flatten the curve here's how south korea did it. in hospital has created a new system for testing patients suspected of suffering from the corona virus covert 19 after an initial consultation patients enter a booth to have samples taken and talked to a medical technician using an intercom. so young here on have developed a fever and other cold like symptoms and decided to get a test just to be safe. if you don't know that you have it pandemics parents

even if you're a little anxious it's good to have a test at 1st i was scared when i had about it but it wasn't as painful as i thought and it was actually kind of interesting. the buddhists are the brainchild of dr kim saying gil really designs were quickly put in service on march 10th the booth helped medical workers process patients 10 times faster than the traditional procedure. to the introduction of this system patients were treated in large negative pressure reams which take a long time to sterilize them ventilate it's inefficient and doctors and nurses have to meet people face to face and we're nervous about exposure and tie it this physical separation is safe and enables prompt examinations. dozens of hospitals in south korea and abroad have expressed interest in implementing a booth testing system although these prototypes are not scaled for manufacturing

dr kim has shared his know how. testing has been a key pillar to south korea's response to the corona virus outbreak seeking to flatten the curve and reduce the number of new cases without implementing a complete lockdown test kits manufactured here have been exploited to other countries to strengthen their response to the pandemic. drive through testing has also been an innovative way south korea has battled the corona virus outbreak despite fewer coronavirus cases in south korea in recent days medical intern park chance who argues for rapid testing. the number of confirmed persons is gradually decreasing. the most important thing to get rid of the epidemic is to identify the suspect to patients as soon as possible and have them self isolate overseed necessary treatment if you have even

a little fifi suspected symptoms it's recommended that you go to the hospital and get tested conducted it with somebody after examining thousands of patients drive through and booth testing have only uncovered a few cases of the coronavirus but they have offered a lot of reassurance to a nervous population. joining me now is al edwards he is a professor and immunologist at the university of reading in the u.k. . now south korea's method seems to be working so why aren't all affected countries doing mass testing if they can. it's a really good question i think that the video you just saw gives you some glimpses as to why testing itself is a very valuable tool but it's quite labor intensive and it has to be done really carefully because if you do testing in a way that isn't properly and safely controlled there is

a risk that you can also spread the virus or put your health workers at risk when they take those samples so it's a delicate balance and it needs a lot of manpower. well because of the complexity of this task we can imagine that not all countries are able to enroll this kind of mass testing what would you recommend for those countries so i think the most important thing is to spread the resource you have wisely so what's really important is to 1st of all prioritize people who are in hospital and also health care workers because these are the most vulnerable people and also the most exposed people and by prioritizing the use of your testing results and by using that smartly as possible even if you have limited testing results it's still incredibly value and it gives you so much data and so much information about what's going on. what about home testing kits could they help at all yes there's

a number of different technologies and tools out there. these can even be a simple i have one here of this little plastic that could potentially be used at home this kind of technology is going to be incredibly useful but it does have to be used very carefully so when you do a lab test you have the best possible accuracy if you do a home test they're not quite as accurate but they're more convenient so you have to make sure that you use the best possible science and medical practice to use these tests effectively rather than just using them without proper consideration. now testing is of course one issue but how much of an issue is for example global access to vaccines and treatments going to be are we in danger of seeing a 1st come 1st serve the prochoice which could prioritize rich countries for example yeah and i think that's already happening to a degree with testing even the better of countries are getting 1st access to

testing technology and unfortunately i could see the same thing happen with their opie's there's some really good news and some positive news which is that people seem to be incredibly open to sharing the information they have about improved treatments and that's vital so everybody has that knowledge but whether we can see the same sharing of resources i'm not so sure about whether that resource in terms of ventilators or when vaccines start to be manufactured whether people will share them around i'm not sure whether that's going to happen we'll have to see. information sharing as well as resource sharing it's going to be vital thank you very much al edward he is a professor an immunologist at the university of reading in the u.k. thanks for your insights. now vaccines seem to interest many of you as you've been sending us your questions in the last few days our science correspondent derek williams has some answers for you take

a look. why will it take so long to come up with a vaccine the problem with developing any pharmaceutical product is that it has to go through an exhaustive testing process with the vaccine you 1st have to identify good potential candidates and that when astonishingly quickly this time within weeks of identifying the virus and sequencing its genome researchers begin talking about candidates but that's just the start you next have to test your candidate for safety usually you do it 1st in animals and then in increasingly large groups of humans but only after a candidate has proven safety developers usually begin looking at actually how effective it is so even if and when you're a candidate fulfills all of those criteria you still have to ramp up production to manufacture hundreds of millions or even billions of doses now there are ways to speed the entire process up a little bit for example by by running some of those trials in parallel rather than

one after the other but that approach has drawbacks to and that's why most experts usually predict that we won't have a vaccine ready to distribute on a wide scale for at least a year and a half. why do people talk so much about a vaccine is a medication more important. medications are of course important for limiting the impact of the virus on patients around the world but long term to defeat the disease we need what's called herd immunity and the best way to get that is through vaccines if we don't develop vaccines experts currently estimate that between 50 and 70 percent of us would have to get covert 19 before herd immunity kicked in and stopped the pandemic naturally but along the way it could potentially kill millions of people so a vaccine offers a safe alternative to achieving immunity in a large percentage of the population and thousands of prevention is really. worth

a pound of cure that's why although treatments are very important long term that scenes are even more so is that research on how existing drugs affect 19. a range of potential drugs that might one day help treat kovac 19 are being trialled around the world but we don't really have many results for any of them so far the world health organization is looking at 3 candidates in particular that have shown some promise 1st it's examining the effects of a stablished anti-malarial drug song coronavirus sometimes. you chose sponsor trials are also ongoing for combinations of antivirals that have already been approved for treating hiv and finally one of the most promising substances is a compound called rendez if here it was originally developed as a potential treatment for ebola but it didn't work out for that disease as well as hoped retrospective testing however showed that it did affect replication in the

summers virus so hopes are high that it might also affect that pathogens close relative the new corona virus the best thing about all of these candidates is that most or all of the development has already been done for them so production could be ramped up quickly if they did prove effective and these clinical trials we should know soon if any of them work. before we let you go we step away from the sobering world of tests and vaccines to indulge in lighter fare one restaurant in hanoi has created the corona burger so far only available in vietnam but it looks set to take off the world wide it's a piece burger in a green tea stand by a bought the restaurant owner is there lighted with his creation he says business is good i know hopefully remind customers to wash their hands before eating.

and there are swiss confectioner's that reminding us of the season but also of the times but chocolate easter bunnies a decorated with little face masks. and that was our d w 19 special for more do check out our social media channels and jenelle thank you for watching and stay healthy everyone. is a master of the art of confrontation this is room. for a big comeback doesn't mean you're going to. be disputed champion of top political talk to join the frightened people who so far everybody on the starboard except you enter the complex and join to sebastian as he holds the power to account is a fix for your whichever way you like to spin conflict.

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i have mocked my cities days for centuries and a company of my country turns on thomas until the day i mean they've done. nothing done differently stands a fool and. there it's something that is not working some people decide not to see it what a lot of the polling mentioned struggled to find countries and fields are you talking about baghdad pirates wanting to put the other side to france's president emanuel macrolides to be seen as one of the driving forces for reform with the new it is up its changes own country a run of the serious trouble i guess this week here in gross.