covering events there for us and he said the democrats continuing to gather pace. well it very much looks like a democratic victory a hard feel worn i guess you mention has been called winner by the us media john also of the other democratic candidate claimed victory himself he's receiving conrad you lation is already from other big names of the democratic party the votes however are not still not fully counted as we speak still counting is still underway and joe biden needs to win both senate seats here in order to be able to control the senate it really is the fate of his presidency that's here at stake if he wants to go on and undo donald trump's policies he needs to control the senate. reporting that the u.s. congress is expected to formally certify joe biden's presidential victory but that won't stop a few from strongest allies from mounting a last ditch effort to overturn the results several republican senators plan to challenge the certification of electoral college votes on. unsubstantiated charges

of election fraud outside of congress from supporters have gathered to call for biden's win to be overturned washington d.c. authorities won't have firearms would not be tolerated at the right trump is said to speak at the rally later in the day. or they don't use washington bureau chief enos paul is on the ground that she sent this report. here in washington thousands and thousands of trump supporters are gathering to support their president they're on his side saying these elections were rigged and i had to the chance to talk of some of them some from georgia has said no we won georgia this again is also just fake news the reelections are stolen it's really amazing it's many many white americans but you also as always it's ready see many asians there may take is we gonna support president trump we don't want him to leave the office

and if the republican party keeps supporting the outcome that joe biden actually won the election the we want to start a new party so this is going to be very very difficult for the republican party to handle all those strong supporters who are gathering here and waiting for donald trump to speak any minute. in spore reporting and other some of the other stories making headlines around the world today british judge has denied bail to wiki leaks founder julian assange 2 days after blocking his extradition to the u.s. where he's wanted on a spin off charges the judge said there were sufficient grounds to believe that sans would not turn up to court for a pending u.s. appeal if he were to be released from prison. but as well as new parliament has met for its 1st session leader nicolas maduro as united socialist party claimed it won

more than 92 percent of the seats a month ago after the opposition parties led by one word or boycotted the election day plan to maintain a parallel. thousands of author last recessions have taken part in traditional opinion celebrations in bug area despite coronavirus with directions religious leaders oversaw festivities including an icy dive for a crucifix in the town of. authorities in bug area extended covert 90 lockdown restrictions at least until the end of this month's. european commission has approved the use of the corona virus vaccine developed by u.s. drug company madonna it's the 2nd vaccine to get the green light for use in the e.u. off to the bio bio tech finds a job. to medan a vaccine requires 2 doses $28.00 days apart and was found to be 94 percent effective in clinical trials the us canada and israel have all approved its use and

the agency workers in california were among the 1st to get the shot. we have and that you would now like yes so here is that being in all and all of the patients to make a piece and it's kind of. a how can that change and why. that madonna vaccine and company name of based on modified r.n.a. it contains the genetic instructions to produce proteins with the coronaviruses telltales bikes preparing the immune system for an attack from the real virus. it's the 2nd such m. r.n.a. vaccine following the german developed by own tech pfizer shows the us company madonna is just over 10 years old and hasn't released a single approved product now the company's share value is in the 10s of billions

of dollars madonna's advantage it can be kept at normal freezer temperature making it easier to distribute than others which need colder storage it's disadvantage it is expensive costing up to 10 times as much as other covert 19 vaccines. by approving mcdonough the e.u. has unlocked the use of 160000000 doses pre ordered for its member states so other vaccines are under review with the pandemic still raging the news is the shot in the arm that many a desperately waiting for. the standing by brussels to the 2nd vaccine approved in europe how important is this. well it's very important gary hart as you noted it is only the 2nd vaccine approved in europe so europeans have been watching as other countries the united states israel canada britain have approved more vaccines and they see citizens lining up for jobs where here it's

gone much more slowly in fact the netherlands is just starting its coronavirus vaccination program today so people here very much feel like they're being left behind obviously adding another kind of medicine to to vaccinate the half a 1000000000 nearly half a 1000000000 citizens in the european union is going to be very important and as you mentioned it's also going to be easier to transport and to store than the pfizer biotech vaccine because it can be stored in a normal freezer so this should really speed up the deployment of this vaccine once it starts getting here to europe and speeding up since we sorely need to because there's been a lot of criticism of the slow roll of the vaccinations in the e.u. countries home once will this whole governments across the block speeded up. well each government is responsible for its own program of vaccinating its citizens and including the transportation and storing of the vaccination so so the e.u.

is only partially responsible for the slowness on these decisions admittedly you know the european medicines agency only considered and approved the moderna vaccine today so this is behind other countries and they do have their share of the you know responsibility for for that coming behind other countries but now it's up to the governments themselves one of the problems is of course the production capacity and says that it is only going to be able to produce $100.00 up to $125000000.00 doses in the 1st 3 months of this year so out of that $125.00 only a portion of those will be exported at all only a portion of that amounts to europe so we don't even know how many will be coming here but certainly not that 160000000 doses that the european commission has ordered some officials are saying they should see some of doses coming already perhaps within the month but it won't be the number that the european commission is waiting for so we may not see a huge bump in the speed of the vaccination process across europe with this single

approval. from brussels thank you well germany is one of the countries hoping by the 2nd approved vaccine will help speed up immunizations critics say the rollout of the german complain has been too slow with the government failing to secure enough vaccine doses the rate of new coke with infections remains high that's a problem to the extent that national lock down as well as tough new measures to further strict social contacts. perlin is far from its usual lively self with shops and restaurants close there's a somber mood in the german capital and that's not likely to change for weeks with chancellor angela merkel and regional leaders deciding to extend the lockdown in this they're keeping schools closed is a big problem i don't understand why we don't test everyone and then let all those who test negative do their thing schools are closed again and teaching just gets on

your nerves you sit at home you can't follow everything you really start to fall behind. and with you they really have to speed up the vaccination so that things can get better. the vaccination program is off to a slow start only around 400000 of germany's more than 80000000 people have so far been vaccinated most of them elderly people and stuff in care homes many vaccination centers are still waiting for the 1st batches of vaccine to arrive opposition politicians accuse the government of ordering too little of the 1st job to be approved. the government is demanding enormous sacrifices from its citizens and that means it has to do its job right now we see that when it came to procuring the vaccine the one thing that can get us out of this situation it didn't buy everything that was available for countries such as the united states were able

to help those additional doses instead so it's obvious that things were not done as they should have been. merkel's government is denying it failed to act in a crisis meeting the chancellor and ministers discussed how production could be increased germany's health minister denied beilin had failed to buy enough jobs instead blaming a lack of production capacity for the bottleneck and pinning hopes on a 2nd fact seen. new york we have ordered more than enough vaccine. decides the 1st vaccine from buy on tech germany has placed orders for the 2nd from adana in all we've signed contracts for more than 130000000. doses. with the e.u. now giving the go ahead to the madonna job people here hope the vaccinations can begin to pick up speed but few expect

a quick end to the pandemic. and football arsenal's out of favor midfielder mesut ozil is in advanced talks to join istanbul club. according to reports the 32 year old could join the former turkish champions later this months despite being assholes highest paid player is ill hasn't played there since last march easter the controversy in the 2019 when he criticized china's treatment of the muslim population on social media with arsenal distancing themselves from his comments. you're watching the news here's a reminder of the top story we're following for you georgia democrats rough and warm all because of one his u.s. senate race defeating the republican incumbent in a 2nd runoff election democrat john also claimed victory after securing a narrow lead over his republican rival if i felt the results will give president elect joe biden's party control of the senate. and that's it from

me and the news team for now up next is all covert 19 special so don't go away thanks for. the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus update 19. on t w. 2 children to come to terms. one giant problem and move in on it because she beat

you. legal drinking late. how will climate change affect us and our children. w dot com slash water. staying at home during a lockdown with much time to eat and little movement at the same time no wonder that many people all over the world have gained weight during the pandemic and while it is quite a stretch from too much comfort eating too straightforward gluttony too much body fat is bad for our health. in fact those additional pounds can increase our risk of severe illness from code 19. are

overweight and there are i think i need to do is a bit overweight so drug cases are good in fact i'm not. excess weight has always been a health risk in times of a coronavirus pandemic it could be lethal. welcome to a special on the news some want to johnson berlin good to have you with us now then when it rains it pours it's the perfect idiom for overweight and obese people these days they already have enough health worries as it is and now a tiny virus is added to their plight putting them into the same risk category as the elderly and especially vulnerable. dr marcus riser heads the coded 1000 unit here in clinical test a hospital in western germany most of the serious cases they've seen here during the pandemic are elderly patients as well as another high risk group. unit is

that patients who are overweight especially those who are morbidly obese have worse outcomes in this infection they're more likely to need intensive care. studies and several countries have shown a link between excess weight. sylvia shafer is overweight and she survived the corbett 19 infection in early march 1st she developed a sudden fever and a dry cough a few days later she tested positive. i was in the hospital and they told me i was a risk patient and that it could end fatally. 2 years earlier she had been diagnosed with diabetes to get the disease under control she changed her diet and lost a lot of weight she's convinced that helped her to get through the covert 19 infection relatively easily. if coded 19 had appeared a year earlier than it did i don't think it would have ended that well for me. with poorly managed diabetes and high blood pressure and much more excess weight and now

35 kilograms. i think that would have finished me off. that's going to. become a global phenomenon usually expressed using the body mass index. which is the ratio of a person's body weight kilograms to the square of their height and meters. a b.m.i. of 20 to 25 is considered a healthy weight 25 to 30 overweight 30 to 40 is classified as obese with over 40 severely obese. we don't just have a covert pandemic we have an obesity pandemic all around the world and in germany. at clinic on fast specialized obesity center martin boozing is a barrier trick surgeon he can hardly keep up with the many obese people seeking gastric bypass surgery and other weight loss procedures in germany their numbers

are climbing at the moment more than 2000000 people in the country would qualify for this kind of surgery with a b.m.i. of over 41. severe obesity goes hand in hand with a number of other conditions including diabetes respiratory problems part of vascular diseases doctor losing puts this development mainly down to poor dietary habits and over consumption of sugary drinks. you see again and again in overweight patients is that they simply can't drink plain unflavored water soda water or tap water they always need some kind of sweetener in it it's developed into a kind of addiction. better prevention can help but when it comes to the health systems often fail and the food industry has a powerful interest in the nutritional agenda both these problems explain why the doctors here continue to battle to pandemics over 19 and obesity.

now for more i'm joined by susan jep nutrition scientist and. professor of diet and population health at the university of oxford script to have you with us. let me start straight away with the way our report ended to it mentions there that we're battling 2 pandemics obesity and covert 19 which you could agree. i absolutely words i mean in the u.k. we're bracing radically south situation the 2nd 2000 deaths are ok but that's all for 2 tracks headlines every single day the fact there's around 60000 people's deaths are attributable to obesity every single year this is obesity is a problem which has been with us the decades and shows no sign of going away there is no vaccine for obesity right so it has been

a big problem even before the pandemic however now with the pandemic it seems to be exacerbated and you've conducted a study involving 7000000 people looking at the connection between obesity and coping 1000 what are your findings. well some colleagues have her contrasting data set to reach drools and data from primary cat health records electronic health records social anonymized we have seen people all that we do have data about their weight and about whether they have heart or positive test where they've been damaged well spoken i'm sorry all we were able to look at was the relationship between peoples b m i t mass index a measure of their weight status and the likelihood of going into hospital or being admitted to intensive care or dying from catered to and what we saw was that there was a striking association with the if you like severe outcomes from case it in particular

admissions to intensive care so for people with the body mass index of the level that we say people have clinical obesity actually your chances of going into intensive care are about to retire. than somebody read a healthy weight by the time you are 40 it say the 6 times higher now i don't have the problem the problem is to a large extent a lot of people are not aware. suddenly not aware of their b.m.i. on that they are viewed as essent and at such risk. well many people might not consider themselves to be living with obesity but i think many many people are aware that they're a bit heavy at impacts is good for their health the problem is that we've struggled to convert that to you know general understanding that weight supports the problem into a real sense of the need to act on what. it has started to do is make us

really recognize that obesity isn't just about how really actually the really important issue is the effect it has on our health and obesity is that every single organ system of the body says we know it leads to more diabetes my heart to see these many different cancers are increased people have problems with the joints there's a whole raft of ill health that goes with obesity so it's perhaps not a very surprising that this extra strain that being overweight works on your body also increases your risk from caves and of course we hear all the time that we have to protect the elderly the vulnerable but nobody ever talks about protecting the overweight the obese what can we do about that or we need to recognize that being severely overweight creates real under ability and so i think we need to kind of at

least one list of people who need extra take extra care during the turned. right susan jeff the nutrition scientist and professor on diet and population health at the university of oxford thank you so much francie. before you step on your scale at home now to check if you've gained a few pounds too many let's bring in another aspect of this pandemic faience and its ability to solve problems time for your questions and over to our science correspondent derrick williams. if covered vaccines work could the research help developers create that seems for the common cold could cover 19 lead to a huge step forward in this area i love questions like this because they don't involve where we are now which in europe at least often feels like a pretty dire place but instead they look forward to the end of the pandemic and they ask whether all the misery might lead to anything positive but while it's

possible that the vast numbers of research projects being driven by covert 19 could lead to breakthroughs in fighting coronaviruses as a whole there's still a lot we don't understand about how they in general evolve and how they're transmitted what's called cross reactivity would certainly play a central role in research into any future offshoot of vaccines and that's when the weapons that your immune system produces to fight one virus might also work at least to some extent against other viruses that share similar characteristics some experts believe that cross reactivity from earlier infections with cold causing perona viruses in some people is influencing how badly they get coated 19 or or how easily they fight off the disease but we still don't know nearly enough about it

one promising avenue for example that could help in the development of future coronavirus that seems involves molech you are subhuman it's in the spikes those those proteins that stick out of their services. that allowed these viruses to latch on to cells and in fact them researchers have discovered that some of those areas look. conserved in all of the coronaviruses that infect humans and they're so they're quite similar across the group that's a great starting point for future work but but it's still just a starting point so so when you ask whether covert 19 could contribute in a big way to coronavirus research in general i'd say it already have those but i also don't think that will necessarily be enough to spawn vaccines in the near term for the corona viruses that cause colds though i'd be happy if that prediction

proved wrong. and eric williams has so many more answers so do keep sending a question just send an e-mail to feedback a dot. dot com type expert in the subject line or you can comment on our you tube channel that's all thanks for watching.

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