business day they'll be used from 10000000 protective facemasks touched down in germany from china to debut regulations for just a cover of pink shops i'm told public transport is also on the program. this week in schools and daycare centers remain open as a country avoids the kind of strict lockdown seen elsewhere in europe with a swedish government minister to facts his country strategy.

i'm phil gal welcome to the program as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide exceeds 3000000 germany is making it compulsory for people on public transport to cover their faces a move which in most parts of the country will also require people to wear masks while shopping a comes as other restrictions are eased but there are concerns that demand for masks could fast outstrip supply. to require wearing masks requires having masks to wear germany like most countries needs billions of them in the months ahead so when the world's largest cargo plane landed in the eastern city of lights on monday with 10000000 masks from china on board a leading member of cabinet was there to greet them defense minister on the great krakow and our says the mass will be sent to germany 16 federal states for distribution. into fans and if you were to hear. all those who have you know day

to ensure that this delivery a right. of something much bigger trial to try and make the current crisis bearable . 3rd dimension. non-medical masks or improvised coverings are thought to protect others from infected people public health officials say this is especially important for covert 19 given a suspected large number of mild and asymptomatic cases by wednesday mass will be required in most german states for shops and public transit measures many people appear to be taking in stride this is a crime because it's not a big deal varying the mass doesn't do anyhow and if it can happen it's fine. if it's to help people and protect older people it's ok you can deal with it it's harder to speak and brief place for a good reason. but. we're used to seeing this in japan but

here it's really strange i'm only doing it to protect all those other things. as if it just comes forward i think it's really terrible and it's congress someone you don't get a lot of after maybe it's a good safety precaution but who knows if this really doesn't do anything. about this book trust me if my 2nd. poll show most germans backing the restrictions on public life how long this new normal last open ended official saying until there's a vaccine which may be many months or longer. it's got the latest from d.w. such a political correspondent melinda crane welcome to the land so the compulsory wearing of masks has been has long been a controversial issue here what's changed and a people complying. 1st of all what's changed is that for

a long time it was controversial in part because there simply weren't enough masks to go around it was pretty clear that if everybody were to be required to wear a mask there would be acute shortages secondly there was quite a bit of contrast ing if not to say contradictory opinion about whether masks really would be effective that partly has to do with the misunderstanding that some of the experts who were giving advice were essentially trying to tell citizens look this is not going to protect you from getting the virus and that is a misapprehension when it comes to mask masks actually protect people from essentially giving the virus to others so that has now more or less been quite clarified although in fact some leading experts here are still doubting how effective masks are now as to compliance it's early days it's hard to say but i am

hearing from some colleagues who took public transportation today i did not that not everyone here in berlin in the public transport was wearing a mask as you said just now in shops here in berlin it is not a requirement it is recommended and so far i'm seeing at least half the people in the shops without masks that major change over time but we'll see where this goes in the course of the week because the regulations have just come into effect ok so the have been reports of defective medical equipment coming from china. people at least masks that will work. well they are being spot tested apparently they were spot tested in china before they were shipped they were also spot checked out here or will be spot checked when they're distributed to the federal states by the health authorities in the states and one must know that this shipment comes as part of

a very high level deal apparently it was negotiated by chancellor merkel herself with chinese president xi jinping so there's a lot riding for the chinese on making sure this equipment is reliable and does its job that's the chief political correspondent melinda crane well in contrast to germany and other european countries sweden's coronavirus strategy has been members of the light touch allowing bars restaurants and other businesses to our rights so long as they respect physical distancing recommendations schools and daycare centers are also still open the country's chief epidemiologists see approach has been carefully thought through but there are critics. daily life in sweden as in most countries is dominated by the corona crisis but children here are still going to daycare centers this one in stockholm looks after 25 boys and girls some things have changed even if you know the advent of mc is live on after i normally spend a lot of time outside but now it's even more if it's more i get

a pretty mess inside me do lessons in small groups everything else is outside we take it in turns. in the health and give the. details working parents that day care centers and primary schools are still open and the swedish health authorities say it's good for the children as well they are convinced young children do not spread the virus in fact schools have not become sources of infection there are rules in place. far more focused on what we have to wash our hands carefully and sing a song then after that we could rinse off the site. and we're putting it up for. sweden has followed a different path to other countries from the start the aim has been to protect the vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with existing illness it hasn't all gone smoothly a lot of old people have been infected nearly half the deaths in sweden have been

into your homes senior hospital dr johan still has many elderly patients i do hope and it's got a dollar to good says scandal that will need looking into when this is over i think we are still going to see a significant rise in fatalities in old people's homes but with sweden has added considerably to its hospital capacity since the start of the uk rake there are spare beds but many health care staff are off sick. the hard one don't test there we're not testing you know we test all patients suspected of having the corona virus and everyone who needs an operation i would like to see all a workforce being tested but we aren't able to do all that and they already did all that despite these criticisms most people do support government policy day care centers are counting on the earth or it is getting it right. to put it had it's our job to look after children. i hope and i believe that those responsible are making

the right decisions for sweden if it's broken some tar the deficit for somalia sweden is going its own way with no end to the crisis yet insight let's talk this through with sweden's minister for european affairs the hans doll good what welcome to be w. mr daalder a do you have any doubts about the strategy. well the outcome of whatever strategy would every country is using we don't know until after the crisis the time to evaluate what has been right then what is your own his but right now it's off to the we're all in this together of course we're faced the same problems as many other all of the nations i would say in europe and the globally it's we're trying to save lives we're trying to improve our health system to make sure that we have care for everyone who needs it and it is a related to engine life as we did not all that different probably because another

european countries we do it perhaps in a different way we have less of formal rules more all strong recommendations and ask the inhabitants here themselves to decide to do the right thing and on the whole that is we're also or pretty well here ok completely accept what you say about now we'll have to wait and see whether or not it's worked but personally when you look at they they infection rates in that and the death toll do you have any doubts that sweden is doing the right thing. i'm not sure i cannot say who is doing the right thing and was doing the wrong thing at this time it is too early to say but i would say that if you look at the way that we have been handling this is no different from other countries we have a lot of social distancing is we don't we have a lot of us who have to stay at home because we are moral 70 years old we have many people who are at home we have closed our universities over secondary schools we

have very strict rules for restaurants for example as late as yesterday 5 restaurants here stop and were forced to close. down their business because their tables were a little too close to each other. and we absolutely get vats you have a set of rules and you win for some i suppose the question really is whether the rules as they stand are tight enough and the figures at tele tell quite a story when you compared sweden's death rates with those of your your neighbors nearly 900000 infections in sweden more than 2200 deaths compare that with denmark 888-0427 deaths no way i just under 8000 cases and 202 deaths that must raise questions of course it raises questions and it is being discussed here but let me say this. there is a difference between rules and recommendations but it's not that

a recommendation is just wrong and advice is you can do whatever you want with the recommendation in public health has a very strong message and it's repeated every day the team and he speaks to the nation the prime minister when he speaks to the nation or all the ministers in the press conference and they make these cases very very strong that this is not just to yourself it's also well there's that you have to follow these recommendations stay home if you're at all in his final signals stay home if you can to work those who are over 70 years old don't have any sort of conflicts don't visit the elderly because they are more vulnerable and so on so we don't see at the end of this whole crisis what is the best outcome but i'm not going to predict the article let's talk about the health and a cording to the figures about half of sweden's deaths in care homes why is that. we don't know yet exactly the reason for that it is

a very negative piece of information of course of the elderly people some of these elderly also helped the this virus spread in a way that has been very unfortunate that this could be one of the reasons why there is a difference between sweden and the some other countries but the i can't say more than that i'm not an expert on these things so is anything being done now to address that disparity rather than waiting till more die and at the end of this crisis. oh absolutely we hope the waiting for more people to do we are doing our best to fulfill the kind of rules that we have set up to have a social distancing to make sure that people don't assemble together in large groups to make sure that those who stayed home staged will to make sure that your very very careful with personal hygiene etc we're doing our best and we're not talking at all here about lowered restrictions we're talking about enforcing

restrictions it's a very serious message we thank you for joining us once dalgard finish minister for european affairs thank you will take a look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world syrian authorities say 3 civilians were killed and 4 others injured in an israeli missile attack on times south of damascus syria's military says the added fence is intercepted and shot down several missiles fired by warplanes of the lebanon but that some of them made it through israel has made no comment on the incident. chinese human rights lawyer huang quine jiang has been reunited with his family in beijing after being separated from him for nearly 5 years he was detained in 2015 as part of a crackdown on hundreds of lawyers and rights activists. u.s. house speaker nancy pelosi has a book a toast to joe biden's presidential terms it is say the california democrat said mr

biden would be voice of reason and resilience and made the coronavirus work right. up to date more at the top of the hour with the bread or around the talk on the website d.w. dot com how did. this state of emergency is the normal people around the world are documenting these dramatic times. they're keeping the coronas diary and welcoming us into the lives they live escape as a close and personal as the pandemic will allow. the diary starts may change on t w.