and a weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any information on the chrono marash or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at. science fair. covered 19 is surging once again worldwide and here in europe urban centers are at the forefront of the wave from our say to munich paris to prague the continent cities are rushing to impose new rules ranging from prohibitions on parties and closure of bars to curfews and travel bans restrictions on public life still fall short of last spring's lockdowns for now as the world waits for a vaccine can the virus be stopped our title coronavirus hotspots are

europe's cities out of control. not much. and it is a pleasure to introduce our guests starting with martin meier he works as a science editor for the german radio broadcaster george folk and he believes despite scientific progress the pandemic will prevail therefore we will have to get along with further restrictions. and it's a pleasure to introduce reshad freberg he works as a science editor for the berlin daily tug and he says we are only at the beginning of the cold and indoor season and there is a real danger of things getting out of hand in some places. and i'm pleased to welcome our colleague mira because she's a science reporter and at. they're here ad d. w.

and she's convinced me ego isn't won't get us through the pandemic. so let me ask you martin. the pandemic will prevail as you said in your opening statement sounds pretty ominous we have worldwide nearly 40000000 cases now 800000 new infections per day here in europe how worried should we be i think we should be worried i think the next weeks will be very challenging for all of us because what we see is we have a feeling maybe that the situation is in control over the summer fortunately it's not this pandemic did not stop we are in the middle of the 2nd wave the numbers go up some places they explode and that is worrisome. that number i just quoted for europe means it now accounts for about one 3rd of cases worldwide so it certainly doesn't account for that share of the global population so what is the reason for

this rather dubious distinction for europe. i think we're not quite sure at the moment yet but i think it will take a lot of time so also after the pandemic to analyze what went wrong where where the turning points for certain regions what was the decisive factor i think at the moment it's still a lot of guess working but i mean what we can see is that europe is generally we have a lot of hospitals with a dense population that definitely causes problems but i mean there are other places in the world where the population is equally dense and maybe they're handling a better than europe so we will have to see if we should favor your opening statement mentions the change of season in summer here in europe for things almost seemed normal and i think perhaps a lot of us got lol to into a sense of false security was this 2nd wave that we're seeing and inevitable result

of colder weather or would you say that mistakes were made mistakes were made. were not. taken the way they could have been taken like you know i remember in late spring early summer people started to talk about corona in the past tense actually like it's it's disappeared. we had so much of an urge to get back to our normal waves and a lot of opportunities were missed. especially in trying to limit the number of infections as we go into the cold season it's kind of i mean scary is a big word but it i think it's reasonable to call it scary that we already now are seeing this surge in cases we could have done better we could've. gone into the fall season was much less infected it was much better preparation.

many people thought that germany was the poster child for handling. and in fact it did significantly better than many of its neighbors dealing with the 1st wave of infection how are things looking now i don't think you have a been the poster child to be honest i think we've been very lucky especially in the beginning because we had more time the virus was spreading in other parts of europe so we had more time to prepare for all measures and then i'd say the german government did a lot of things and they did a good job and in a lot of ways i would say in general and some especially the germans themselves they stick to the measures now we see we have tired i think we all are but i'm personally as well i want to go back to normal it's not possible but that is really something that it's very stressful so i don't think that we in germany should be in any way proud or prouder than anyone in the rest of the well because it's

a pandemic the word means we're in this together let's talk a little bit about that stress that martin just mentioned he also mentioned. fact that having information played a big role in the spring and helping germany to respond quickly and effectively at this point i think many people are beginning to feel overwhelmed by the constant media drumbeat of information of new findings suggestions and recommendations is there a risk do you think mira that this can backfire and make people perhaps less willing to take action and almost become defeatist i mean we know very well from your signs that we if we bombard people with information with the same information or with also shocking information scary information they will shut down at some point and not take that information as serious as we should and we might have a little bit off that effect at the moment i think it is also

a huge problem that we are sometimes not consistent enough with what we expect people to do and what we recommend and i think that this inconsistency can also cause some confusion or this kind of people wanting to now they come up with yet another thing out and come up with yet another thing and not trying to listen carefully what people or authorities would command let's take a deeper dive on what it is that we're expecting people to do we are seeing a plethora not only of new numbers but also new rules so let's take a quick virtual trip to see how some of europe's cities are coping and what regulations they're putting into place. hotspot madrid a partial lockdown has been imposed on the spanish capital and surrounding municipalities this affects a good 4000000 people only those who have to go to work or to

a doctor are allowed to leave madrid is responsible for around one 3rd of corona virus infections in the country so the central government feels justified for issuing the state of emergency mattson the alert level in paris cafes in bars are closed strict hygiene rules have been introduced in restaurants alcohol consumption in public spaces is prohibited as are large parties the latest measure is even curfews and more restrictions may be coming. or lynn is counting on a curfew bars restaurants and shops must now shut down between 11 pm and 6 pm no more than 5 people are allowed to meet up once and parties are considered to be the prime culprits of a pandemic are human so i actually wanted to celebrate my 20th birthday today and i was really looking forward to it with a curfew it's really a pity that you can't live here as free laydown. with the future of the pandemic be decided in big cities. let me ask that question straight on to

will the battle against corona be decided in cities and if so why. well i mean we we see the rise in cases now in the cities that there's a lot of reasons for that people living closer together but also due availability of testing maybe the population of small countries off to a problem. so certainly we're now seeing a lot of the cases there but it could spread especially. because awareness in the countryside sometimes seems to be not as high so it's a very complex situation and nobody really knows the answers that's also true for what measures work well what measures work best during the lockdowns and spring and

early summer a lot of measures for taken at the same time so it's really hard to distinguish what what works best where the school clothes decisive where the mass decides that all we know is that everything kind of worked together it might have been some of those measures that didn't contribute much to it but we will. have no other choice than probably going back to some of those things. which in concert were. able to limit the numbers as i said or as you said in the beginning we are facing the cold season we had the big advantage and the spring the weather got better people. could know those restrictions go outside more i mean we are now only in the middle of october and it's might get worse i want to get all of you to parse the different

measures in a moment but let's stay with the question of cities just for a 2nd and martin certainly president caught france sees cities as decisive yesterday evening on wednesday he ordered a nighttime curfew for paris and 8 other french cities saying this quote we won't be leaving restaurants anymore after 9 pm and we won't be partying with our friends do measures like these and those we saw in that report do they make sense do they strike the right balance would you say well in the end all these measures follow one big idea this idea is to keep people apart keep social distancing and not have big gatherings and of course you can argue what do you do do you have a curfew for pops for restaurants do you do you say that big weddings aren't allowed anymore things like that in france a situation god really worse over the last weeks or the last days especially and i think that's why michael did that i think no politician is happy to step in front

of his people and say like that's close everything's specially in paris where eating is such an important thing so it is a balance we have to have to discuss but i think this strike a balance done that in germany right now we have other measures as well that in certain areas the pup's close at 11 i do think that's a good idea but i think we have to just add to that we have to really monitor how people are reacting to these curfews you know when they're end up drinking in the streets crowding up in a different place instead then we have won nothing here so i think we really have to see how different. yeah even cultures react to that because i think there can be a difference some people may respond to that quite well and might work and in other countries it might not work because people have a different talents and we cannot forget about them. talk about a little more about that because your opening statement mentioned eco wisdom and the importance that people take responsibility essentially not only for themselves but for each other so at the end of the report we saw that young man in berlin who

was disappointed at not being able to celebrate his birthday how can we reach young people because it does seem that young people are increasingly becoming the spreader generation and the 20 to 30 year olds i think in particular what do you think is a way to get them not to be egoistic i think we have to make people aware of the consequences of their behavior and i think it is always good to say yeah you might not be so severely in factor that you need to go. you know a respiratory device or that you need lake intensive care help but you have potentially a lot of. people in your close surrounding that might as well have that problem and you might be responsible for actually killing a person by infecting him i mean i think we have to be that drastic to 2 to make

that comparison and i think also we don't we always talk about the elderly right we want to all the elderly are going to die and you know oh your grandmother might get infected but i think it's really important to say the risk group is not the elderly the risk group is also a lot of people with cuomo better t's with asthma for example with preexisting conditions exactly there are a lot of young people with asthma as well and i think we've already seen that some people who have cost more and contract the virus and go for covert 19 that they come up come down with really harsh long term effects off this things. richard one country that we didn't see in our report but that is quite notable is italy it was at the absolute crest of the 1st wave of covert in europe with disastrous consequences for the health system many of our viewers will remember the pictures of the italian nurses and doctors breaking down now the situation there is looking better than in many other european countries what is italy doing right can

we learn from that. actually it's very hard to tell you know i think. the experience there the harsh experience was a lesson that they still very much remember their lesson was very decisive for us to take measures and in the spring so i really don't know there is as i said it's very complex chance might be involved as well you know. the structure of the population. maybe people older people taking better care of themselves as before or being taken care of better by their from of these so it's really really hard to pinpoint one certain one particular thing i think but in both bavaria is mr president and also the mayor of berlin who are not exactly on the same political wavelength most of the time both say they're not

ruling out that we may see still more severe restrictions imposed in germany including even a lockdown once again can you really in visit that happening here particularly given the economic impact it would have the chancellor said it must be avoided at all costs it should be avoided for a lot of reasons for economical reasons for social reasons as well because we sometimes tend to forget that a lot of people were locked away elderly people in care homes that's also very big effect we think shouldn't forget. i actually don't know i hope it's not going to be like we've had in germany like the situation we've had at the beginning of this pandemic but it is not a given fact that it's not going to happen the chances are there that we still or might face another lockdown near the chancellor has also been saying that she absolutely wants to keep schools open but it's very important not to sacrifice the

educational wellbeing and social well being of children will germany and will europe be able to do that going forward you think what's the latest finding on the degree to which schools are spreaders i think there is not yet very strong scientific evidence that schools are the origin of big infection clusters of thing that we can say that it looks like they are not reason number one which then again is a reason to keep them open especially for small children i think it is totally possible to find a. good balance. teaching some children in school having a little bit of home schooling for others have some kind of maybe a shift system where they come in every 2nd day or where the younger ones go to class where the older ones rather stay at home i think it's absolutely possible to keep schools open with a reasonable hygiene concept and another another point where there's perhaps the

lesson to be learned from how things were dealt with in the 1st wave of the virus and they said it was every country for itself at that time borders were close national authorities scrambled to get hold of masks and equipment sometimes at the expense of others who needed more since then there have been a lot of vows to not have that repeat itself what do you think will we see better coordination and cooperation amongst the different countries in europe and also amongst different cities than we did during the 1st wave and i'm thinking especially about the sharing of hospital capacity for example i mean again experience is a plus on this side i mean we've. started doing this kind of coordination in the spring i think it's going to work better but it also is also going to depend on the on the extent of the on the severity of the depend demick so

if things may get out of hand just because you know medical personnel in large numbers will not be able to cope anymore deborah they've gone through it before so . i think coordination is key but. it's it's hard to really to predict how much you can count on it. speaking of cooperation let's take a quick look at the state of vaccine research it is proceeding apace yet even under the best case scenario europe cities will have to manage the virus for some time to come here's a closer look at the timeline for one project based here in germany. ad by bryan tackett the mains based biotechnology could soon become the 1st german company to produce its genetically engineered vaccine by the millions with us partner pfizer

and. that's because biotech is currently in the 3rd critical phase of vaccine testing with 37000 volunteer test subjects and an accelerated approval process is already underway at the moment research is moving at an incredible speed currently the ministry for research expects that large portions of the population will be able to be vaccinated by the middle of next year. 2 other german pharmaceutical manufacturers are competing with bryan tackett and not only that the world health organization lists $180.00 active vaccine programs of which at least 8 are in the 3rd phase of testing. we see this less as a race against each other and more as one to keep the pandemic under control there will be several rounds of approval. but competition has been raging about when each country will receive the vaccine.

there what do you think which country or which company will win the competition and your opening statement mentioned. so let me ask you how cut throat you think that this vaccine competition is likely to become. i'm going to be. honest and say i really really hope it's not going to be because situation i really will encounter i really hope that everyone will see my subsidy no sense in this pandemic that we have to work together that we have to. really think about what is best for everyone no matter which country they are living i do think that pfizer. is a good candidates to maybe bring one of the 1st vaccines in europe onto the market . but we will see something can always happen and the trial phase but in we heard a pretty optimistic prognosis there from the german research minister that large

segments of the population here could be vaccinated by the middle of next year would you share that optimism no i wouldn't i'm not that sure i'm not so sure i think in the end we'll have more than one vaccine that will come to an end at the moment w.h.o. says more than a dozen are in the clinical 3rd phase of the important phase of of the testing but still that this vaccine has to be produced and then we have to think and we have to make a call who is more important to get the vaccine 1st elderly maybe people who work in hospitals i'd say but i'm not that sure as our minister is that this will be for everyone or almost everyone we should martin and our report both mentioned the 3rd phase that is usually seen as pretty far along in the testing process but the u.s. company johnson and johnson just interrupted phase 3 trials because a participant unexpectedly became ill now does that mean that phase

3 is perhaps less decisive and more fragile than many people have led us to believe . well i mean there's always going going to be does it you agent in face 3 something will happen the problem with the current situation is that we have speeded up things so much so there will also be tradeoffs and the tradeoffs will be maybe vaccines that are less effective than they could have been if we had 3 years to develop one. another tradeoff might be when even larger groups of people get a vaccine after it's been approved that they may there might be serious problems with it so those tradeoffs are going to be there. to look at a possible vaccine or a group of vaccines as the big solution to the whole crisis is a little bit short sighted i would think then let me come back to our title for one very quick final round to all of you and it's this in view of that fact in view of

the fact that we're clearly going to be this virus is going to be with us for a number of months to come what for you is the most crucial thing you can't it we can do to get it under control coming back to our title. most crucial measure i think everyone of us should be aware that day make a difference every single one of us makes a difference we have to be proactive not reactive and i would always say just wear your must. fight if i would totally agree and i would just add that i think we all have to ask us of these days do we really need to travel now is that really the most important thing at the moment or should we sometimes just limit ourselves as annoying it is stressful it is i think it's the only thing we can do a big discussion right now here in germany with people looking to go on fall break and using corona testing capacity to try to get the means to do so. i completely

agree with both of you i think we have to embrace the situation with all the. it's insecurity and also the fact that we can make a difference. we can be solidarity with other people by just acting responsibly responsibly wearing modest keeping distance not overdoing party thinks that the rubber cock institute chairman is leading our essential center for disease control says that a mask could be as important as a vaccine if not more so would you agree that's right i think the mask is what we have now and it's proven to be very effective so let's stick with the mask for now thank you very much thanks to all of you for being with us and thanks to you for turning and see you so.

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this is do you know the news life from berlin a horrific attack on a teacher your parents the victims are headed outside the school where he talks authorities are treating it as a terrorist attack. also prepare for a no deal breaker to be european union prime minister boris johnson's warning to the u.k. he says the e.u. doesn't want prague.