to see. the scene of the tragedy i've. secrets to. stores december 25th. this is do w. news and these are our top stories a u.s. government advisory panel has indorsed widespread use of the bio and take pfizer coronavirus vaccine putting the country just one step away from launching a mass vaccination campaign the food and drug administration is expected to follow the recommendation and approve the vaccine meaning the rollout could begin within days. a year leaders have agreed a massive long term budget in coronavirus recovery package that's after resolving

a dispute with hungary and poland who had earlier vetoed the deal the 1.8 trillion euros package is considered vital for the continent's battered economies and for tackling the coronavirus pandemic. the head of germany's disease control agency has urged people not to travel as a christmas he says contacts need to be cut by at least 60 percent to bring coronavirus numbers down new infections in germany rose by over 23000 on thursday a new daily record and more than 20000 people have now died from coves at 19. this is developing news from berlin there's more on our web site today w dot com. for . the coronavirus is ravaging the united states just last week the daily death toll

from kobe 1000 hit a record high of more than 2800 yesterday a new record more than 3 sales have been and remember the thanksgiving holiday it was 2 weeks ago today the surge from that super spreader event is only now beginning and hospitals are already flooded with coated patients testing the u.s. to city of america's health care system like never before how much more before it snaps i'm forgotten berlin this is the day. when you hear that everything the cyclones in american standing you know that we are in big trouble is still a lot of virus out there but i think people are really special at this point striving to get back to some kind of. physical distancing or boarding grounds that should. as we get into the back seat. not that it is going to prove for

a few months top the people get there but for me. also coming up big trouble for big tech almost every u.s. state has joined the u.s. government to sooth facebook they argue there was nothing fair and square when the social media company became a social media john. for nearly a decade facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition all at the expense of everyday users. but to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and to all of our viewers around the world welcome we begin the day with america's coronavirus carnage in the united states the virus is spreading out of control 288000 people in the u.s. have died from cove in 19 in just the last week the daily death toll has gone from

one record high to the next on wednesday there were 185000 new cases reported of the vaccines against the virus cannot come quickly enough and they won't public health officials say it will probably be the summer of 2021 before enough people have been inoculated to reach what is known as herd immunity but only enough people decide to get back to naked the death toll by february the middle of winter is expected to reach 450000 a hospitals across the u.s. are already at their limits in terms of space and personnel consider the state of south dakota the governor has refused to issue a stay at home order there has never been a walk till our next report on the consequences. south dakota one of america's least populated states but yet the virus has spiraled

out of control here like nowhere else in the u.s. . in the city of sue false a mask mandate was put in place recently without sanctions many citizens remain defiant i think it's a good idea that people wear masks but some people balk at the idea of being told to do so i think with some of the shutdowns are doing and the picking and choosing that they're doing is making it very difficult for a lot of businesses like most of the people nowadays like even ehlers are not right now but i think it's for the best like there's happy. south dakota now sees the highest hospitalisation rate of the u.s. and there is no relief in sight here at the vera mccann in hospital the intensive care unit is at capacity patients are dying from cold on a daily basis putting a big strain on nurses and doctors who are increasingly overwhelmed by the amount of patients they're seeing every day. out of schroeder is

one of them he and his colleagues are working 12 hour shifts trying to save those who are at the brink of death. a task which comes with the personal toll we deal with a lot of dying right now unfortunately not everybody is recovering how we'd like. it a little harder every day people are coming in typically requiring much oxygen a lot of them end up getting a breathing tube. and from there you know it's just a battle for their life you talk to their families we do that's one of the tougher things right now is especially for code patients we're not allowing visitors so. talking with families on a daily basis updating him on what we're doing and how the patients doing that's a really big thing right now i kind of see and understand his weekly press conference mayor paul 10 hakan of the republican party updates his community about

the latest developments the mayor has been criticized over his handling of the pandemic has its place with a mass murder why is it such a challenge for you to convince your sentence. in this part of the country i think there's a fierce independence a lot of people have made the mistake of calling a cowboy country at one point and people didn't appreciate that but the point of that term meaning we're independent we don't like people telling us what to do. christina bjorkman wishes for more government action against the pen demick told her she lost her husband took over at 19 after a 30 day long struggle at the hospital her ordeal. when. she says his death could have been avoided with stricter rules. the whole mask mandate got political and should never been political and should have been a medical thing and i think it just got so blown out of proportion

and i think maybe it came from our president he started it. christina bjorkman is pinning her hopes now on the president elect and a nationwide mask mandate once he takes office before then thousands more could die from cold at 19 in south dakota and the rest of the united states. well america between hope and helplessness let's put in dr schaffner he's professor at vanderbilt university in tennessee he's one of the u.s. is leading infectious disease experts dr schaffner it's good to see you again welcome back to the program this is the week that we saw the u.k. roll out its vaccination program we want to let our vote viewers know you're a member of the c.d.c.'s advisory committee on immunization practices what has the u.s. been able to learn and glean from the u.k. . well it's good to be with you and i think one of the things that we've learned

right away is that unexpected things will happen because on that very 1st day of vaccination in the u.k. they had 2 patients individuals i should say with allergic reactions noteworthy allergic reactions none of those had appeared during the clinical trials so we knew this in advance but there was right in front of us we have to expect the unexpected and so as we go about trying to vaccinate in the united states alone 330000000 people we are going to have some bumps in the road that we had best be prepared for and part of the way to deal with that in advance is to have very clear communication with people so they know what to expect when there's allergic reactions in the u.k. do they change the calculus at all when you're looking at this new vaccine.

i think they don't at all change the calculus but they may add an exclusion category going forward that's still being discussed by the advisory committee but in any event this is such an effective sexy and the studies show that so far it's so very safe that we can confidently go ahead recommended to our population but then we'll have to reach out to all of the segments of our diverse population here in the united states particularly people of color who are of different ethnicities those are the communities that have been very hard hit by the virus and we want to make sure that those communities have the information so that they can make good decisions for themselves and their family members and we hope those decisions are to come forward and be vaccinated if they want to give vaccinated doctors after is the infrastructure in place to ship and to deliver

a coronavirus vaccine immediately. welt of the vaccine will be shipped to places where it will go have been determined and all of those places have been plenty how to organize the vaccination campaigns so everyone's at the starting line ready to run the race and we're ready to get going and i think it will be done successfully u.s. president elect joe biden has called for 100000000 vaccinations in his 1st 100 days in office that sounds good it's easy to remember is that possible. it's an aspirational goal we would hope that we could do something that profound of course we have to have the vaccine and then we have to organize everybody coming in for most of us are looking beyond the 1st 100 days this will take several months and during that time just as dr felt she said in your setup piece we'll all have to

keep wearing our masks social distancing voiding large groups as we ended continually to the people who are protected in our population and maybe by this time next year we can celebrate the holidays in a more near normal fashion yeah i think everyone will agree with you that hopefully within a year from now we'll be able to do that what about between now and let's say the start of next spring how grim is the outlook in the united states. well i'm afraid that this virus is being transmitted throughout the united states for chile over the entire country in a rather uninhibited fashion at the present time there are so many people who have coded fatigue that they have cast their masks aside and are going about it meeting in groups and traveling and having family get togethers over the holidays those are

transmission circumstances those are accelerating events that that actually encourage transmission of the virus and then of course people bring it home and it's transmitted in families and in neighborhoods so we're all down this is going to be a hard winter and the medical care system will be as you say stretched you and i spoke earlier this year as the pandemic was 1st making itself known in the u.s. when you consider all that's been learned and experienced since then if you could go back to january or february what is the one thing that you think should be changed or you would change. i would change the link things of having 1st of all recognition of what the problem is then deciding that we have to have a national not a state wide strategy and then clear honest straight communication

and i would put it put the public health officials in the front and kept the pull 'd politicians in the background supporting public health that would have been a much more effective strategy man the of these deaths could have been prevented wise words from dr bill schaffner been to university of tennessee tonight dr jeffrey prefigured time and your insides of everything you're doing to help people thank you for only have i nothing to you to. by using its. data and money facebook has squashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats they reduce choices for consumers they stifled innovation and they degraded privacy protections for millions of americans. and that was the attorney general of new york announcing a lawsuit that you could almost call the entire united states against facebook

almost all of the states along with the federal trade commission are suing facebook for illegally killing competition they argue that the company should be broken up my colleague you know the reporter jill dougherty is on this story for you know i mean you've got a case here we're facebook it is a giant but it became a giant by buying up smaller companies what's wrong with that well read you a quote directly from mark zuckerberg the regulators say they found in one of his e-mails now in 2008 zuckerberg wrote it is better to buy than compete now that summarizes the alleged misconduct that went on here because under u.s. antitrust law it's illegal for companies to buy off their rivals in order to get rid of competition now the f.t.c. says that's exactly what facebook has done in what it calls a buy and bury strategy you have to remember that facebook started in the desktop era and when smartphones came along it was really threatened by these new apps that let people share photos more easily and messages more easily and rather than improve its own services facebook used its financial power to buy up these rivals

an effective effectively create a monopoly in social media and messaging and regulators say it has gone too far and what's been the response from facebook will mark zuckerberg has previously said that breaking up his company would be an existential threat that he will go to the mat to fight it and he thinks he will win integrating all of these apps and adding more that's really the backbone of his growth strategy and you have to also remember that this regulator the f.t.c. gave facebook for mission to make these takeovers in the 1st place a couple of years ago and now the company put out a statement on twitter where it said years after the f.t.c. clear acquisitions the government now wants a do over with no regard for the impact that the president would have on the broad of business community or the people who use our products every day and facebook has weathered many legal storms before just last year was fined $5000000000.00 for privacy. breaches the european commission is currently carrying out its own

antitrust investigation into some of its practices but this case is different because in this case the f.t.c. is calling for the company to be broken up into smaller entities that are separate from each other and it's hard for facebook to argue that it's not everywhere in its own sector i mean it owns whatsapp it owns instagram as well yet and we can give you some numbers there it has 2360000000 active daily users according to its other numbers that's up by 12 percent since last year and all of these apps that it has purchased is integrating them tightly and as if to illustrate that today on social media the biggest talking point about facebook was not about these antitrust issues it was about a simple taney a service outage that occurred that meant that users from multiple apps were unable to send messages and that really illustrates how this is going to be difficult it's going to be a difficult legal case it's going to be difficult technically if they want to try on wind the companies and it's not clear that are going to be popular because many people use these apps and it's not really clear that users are quite as upset by

these monopolistic an anti-competitive practices as other regulators that that's true maybe resistance is futile we will find bill joe as always thank you ard let's take this story over to the u.s. my next guest is an authority on antitrust law in america i'm happy to welcome george paid to the program mr he is a professor of law and economics at cornell law school in new york state professor hey it's good to have you on the program with this how do you see this has facebook become a giant by buying up all of its possible rivals well the claims are very limited that it has made a lot of acquisitions there are only 2 claims identified and at the time both of those rivals were quite small you have to see believe know that there's a possibility that if left alone those rivals could have become much larger and pose a serious threat to facebook. every exit there are many acquisitions of competitors

all the time that are allowed. and not challenge or the challenge and show it doesn't succeed but if he sees claims that these days acquisitions will small time were different in the sense that they could have grown much much larger and enough to pose a threat to facebook now that remains to be proved. what about the argument from facebook that it has grown thanks to purchases that were approved by the us government the f.t.c. i mean can the government respond we always have the right to change our minds. there's no will there's no legal obstacle there's no question whether or not that should have been a policy when the laws were enacted different story but the government certainly is entitle to go back and say with the wisdom of hindsight we believe those acquisitions were in a competitor so there's no legal obstacle no the government to conduct to explain why it is they decided this wasn't a problem back at the time. and it could be things in the government's files which

we could quite damaging to their current case but there's no specific legal obstacle to coming in 6 years after the fact and saying we now believe those mergers were in a competitive but is it its sales professor you i mean correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds like the f.t.c. is saying that. facebook should have known back then what was going to happen and if that's the case should the f.t.c. also have known back then that this was going to happen when it approved those purchases. well the f.t.c. is are even if facebook didn't know what was happening. don't you reference those emails from dr berger yeah if he she needed didn't see those at the time period they didn't didn't anticipate the argument. and so yes that that's a problem for them what again there's no legal obstacle they simply have to make the case that that those acquisition should never been permitted and with of

hindsight they have contributed to my microsoft to a facebook's monopoly there is so much political will at the moment against big tech you've got bar bipartisan support for regulating social media almost every state attorney general has joined this lawsuit i mean what does facebook have going for it at the moment other than lots of cash. well they've got the courts that is to say. although we have now is an allegation a complaint and it really looks good when you read only the government side or only the state side but at the end of the day they've got to prove this in a court of law and if they the f.t.c. is going to prove that these acquisitions might have grown to really compete against facebook's core business and that's not that easy what does facebook have a monopoly what's the market. what about twitter what about you tube what about tick-tock so a lot of things which have to be proven and courts are not always that sympathetic to government argument all right towards

a professor of law in economics in law school professor here we appreciate your time your insights tonight thank you. happy to help. christmas is only 2 weeks away and there are reports from the u.s. to the u.k. to you right here in berlin that more people than usual are decking the whole sales of everything from trees to garland are up this year and it's not only homes this is what travelers see when they arrive here in berlin at the central train station now germany is known around the world for its christmas markets it's a tradition that goes back 700 years last year there were $3000.00 markets across the country they generated nearly 3 and a half $1000000000.00 in sales this is what these in dominant christmas market in central berlin look like last year it's one of the city's upscale markets and this

well that's the same square right now the corona virus pandemic the lockdowns social distancing they have stolen much of the magic that you find at these markets only a small fraction of vendors are setting up shop this month and they're hoping that there will be customers but most people will tell you they visit these christmas markets for the socializing huddling together in the cold warming their hands with mugs of hot mold wine a perfect spreader event for the coronavirus it is that threat which prompted the city of nurenberg to cancel this year's market germany's most famous nuremberg is located in bavaria where the corona virus is giving new meaning this season to silent night. this is christmas eve as it gets back in 2020 usually the central market square is bustling with the city's famous christmas market at this time of the year but it was cancelled weeks ago and now the city

center has become almost ghostly. only fruit and vegetables on offer but no one comes to buy them. and it's been working here for 3 decades he says he's never seen his city so empty. feels it's all full for us there's no christmas here now no tourists it's terrible just look the market square is completely empty. and it's the same all over the city the state government has asked variance to only leave their homes if they have valid reasons like going grocery shopping visiting the doctor or going to work wearing a mask is compulsory in most areas of the city center partial school closures a ban on alcohol in public places and a nighttime curfew complete the strictest lockdown in germany police have increased their presence in the city center to remind people to stick to the rules but for

now this little resistance they tell us. of course there are people who intentionally defy the rules there have been incidents of people refusing to cooperate when police tell them to wear masks but luckily those people are really the exception in the fella bones. no bagus seem very conscious of the risks the city faces right now and they're willing to play along all the people we speak to think the authorities should be even tougher. in the monitors that we think the lockdown is absolutely justified there's just no alternative at the moment the restrictions should be tightened even further for shift. among matters of this was very much needed and the fact that everything's been kept open for all the business in the run up to christmas that's a very corporate driven attitude even the numbers are higher than ever so in fact i think we'll need even tougher measures like in spring i mean just when and we're

going to suppression of no money in free i think i'm totally fine with it because there are so many people suffering and people not taking this seriously should see what it looks like in hospitals. and that discriminate and getting worse every day at the moment more than 180 people are being treated in hospitals for cope with 19 and while that doesn't sound much it means that hospitals are working at capacity over the past weekend for the 1st time ever patients had to be moved to hospitals in surrounding areas to make sure they get the treatment they need to survive that scares people including those who are suffering from the effects of the lockdown that is already in effect like market trader day you need to go on the 2 things are hard lock down is the best option now there are 3 and we've just got to get through this and maybe things will get better that get spaces. maybe even in time for christmas for that no back us

a willing to make sacrifices in the weeks ahead. well the day is almost done but the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter either d.w. news or you can follow be a goth t.v. and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day stay healthy and stay safe and.

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will make you rich less is to take. the took hold of the west coast of gum in 2000 so that investors make big promises but years later reality looks very different. good drinking water shortage. of. oil reserves. in 45 minutes on d w. in the far north. it's lonely. and breathtakingly beautiful. the arctic. will he take a journey around the north pole reach profiteers and talk with people experiencing

a changing environment through the ice disappears earlier and it keeps retreating our future depends on what happens here. northern lights within the arctic circle stuart's december 21st t.w. took to. francis in a turbulent autumn with the pandemic only part of the reason ongoing street protests against police violence multiple terrorist attacks now president barack obama wants to take back control this legislation that critics see as a repressive turn to the right following terror attacks in october a new draft law to curb the influence of islamism would make it easier to inspect or shut radical mosques limit home schooling and otherwise widen the government's powers to restrict behavior deemed harmful.