from. class from. this is where. the 77 percent. this week t.w. . this is the news issue coming up today quick action that could have prevented a pandemic. an independent panel of experts say is the action by china and the world health organization could have avoided the global spread of the virus but is it as simple as that. plus. taking down rescuers race against time to save $22.00 men trapped underground for 10 days in a chinese mine. and the school. teaching

kids what to do when disaster strikes. welcome to. glad you could join us the head of an independent panel investigating the death which was a response to the covert 900 pandemic has told you the pandemic could have been avoided had china acted sooner former liberian president ellen johnson sirleaf also pulled up the w.h.o. for not having labeled the outbreak a health emergency and a pandemic then it did. if china had given information on some of the earlier trying things about a breakout. oh had these captives nests

for a timely and effective alarm system yes it could have been 40 i think our report is very clear the reporter is a preliminary one that was made public earlier in the week the sunless heads of the so-called independent planning for pandemic preparedness and response along with former new zealand prime minister helen clark china responded to some of the findings in this report. and that's only as the 1st country to sound the alarm against the pandemic we talked prompt and decisive measures even though we had incomplete information at the time. that we should of course strive to be better i think any country whether it be china the u.s. the united kingdom or japan every country should strive to be better. let's get some perspective on this from dr clare went home for his an assistant professor of global health policy of the london school of economics and has been following the course of this pandemic over the last year dr welcome now ellen johnson sirleaf

told our channel that if china and the doubler to act in time this pandemic could have been avoided is that a fair assessment of think. i do think it is i mean i think there are some things that we know china could have done quicker so we know there were some delays in notifying the world health organization about its outbreak and maybe recognising the severity of this outbreak in the early stages but we have to remember that they were you know the 1st country to ever have seen this they didn't you know it could have been nothing they were you know juggling all these things so well if they could have acted sooner china we also you know shouldn't necessarily suggest that any other country wouldn't have done the same in their position. challenge i have is suggesting that w.h.o. should have acted sooner i think w.h.o. has done everything they could have done it this outbreak they you know convened an emergency committee they declared a public health emergency within a month of notification now yes it took 2 meetings over the course of a week or 2 weeks to get this declaration but if you think about the boehner

outbreak for example that was almost 8 months after the 1st case that we had the public health budget see of international concern declaration so i think they have to take quite quite quickly and they have been nothing but consistent in providing the best evidence and the best guidance to countries across the world i think the reason we're in this that there's a situation i don't think it's. sorry china w.h.o. i think it's that countries didn't listen to the b.h.a. right countries didn't respond quick enough when they said this is an imagine say path countries are complacent particularly countries in europe north america who would never really experienced a major pandemic or epidemic before just sort of waited and didn't really do anything and the only things they did do was stopping travel from china which we've seen and it's been widely shown to be effective you have the report says that the doubler throws a lot of response system is archaic and court needs to be brought into the digital

age now you mention the bowler every damn eric i'd imagine given an epidemic like the bull epidemic or the zico virus this would already be a done deal. so i guess that's the part of the post i don't agree with so much i think the w.h.o. system is quite you know forward thinking they have the go on network which you know collaborate data reports from across all sources using you know internet mining using what ports want to make a pregnant mail which is where doctors can share information with each other and so actually i don't think again that's the problem for me the problem here is in governments responding to that information when they have it fundamentally knowing about this virus a day or 2 soon how is it wouldn't really change the way governments then responded to when they had the information so what is the role that the doctor or through his playing over here of the if the if you are saying that the problem lies in countries not acting fast enough what is the role that the bubbler tour is playing

. so i think the w.h.o. is caught between a rock and a hard place it's an institution which is a member state institution so it relies on and you know informs member states but it's also you know and it should be empowered by member states of the moment what we're seeing is member states across the world departing from w.h.o. advice charting their own course taking national approaches brother thinking about the global level and i think this raises a much more important question about the role of the world health organization how do we get governments to both give it the political power to be able to make that is decisions then follow the guidance and importantly how do we get governments to pay it so it can you know pay it properly so it can it can do all the things that the world expects it to do briefly is that a political room a fire door or toward reform the bubbler of truth about the governor or has more teeth as you suggest. the director has been reform for decades already the problem is is that the way it will get reformed is through governments you agreeing to it

to the world health assembly at the world health assembly it's one state one vote and this can member states then go to him the problem is is it's quite hard to imagine a situation whereby governments will give greater power to the world health organization and in doing so that implies that they are then going to cede some of their own national power to be able to make decisions independently of suffering nations so they really have to recognise the benefit from a public health perspective that can come from having one global act and making the best public health decisions but as we know these decisions aren't just about public health they're also about the economy and so that's where it gets difficult and this is that real problem. or to claire when i'm from milan school of economics thank you so much for joining us. to china next where rescuers are intensifying that efforts to free $22.00 miners trapped underground in a flooded mine an explosion 10 days back blocked their only means of exit the who

shot mine in it is in the city of. east china shandong province rescuers have dug at least 2 lifeline tunnels to reach the men trapped more than 500 meters underground but rising floodwaters and injuries sustained by some of the men have made it a race against time. at the who shot gold mine they're drilling 24 hours to save lives not to find precious metal it's an all out effort to rescue the miners trapped after the explosion on january 10th never mind for now that the explosion went unreported for more than a day according to the influential china youth daily. there are now a steady communications with 11 of the miners 1st found alive on sunday when workers pulled up a scrawled and very wet note pleading for food and medicine and warning that water levels were high the work to bring back those miners and search for others

is focused on the men about 540 meters from the surface and another miner further down with whom they had earlier communicated all trapped by the explosion they haven't heard from the lone miner though for several days and are of course drilling further for the missing man. and now one of the 11 known to be alive has fallen into a coma with serious head injuries sustained in the explosion. and as a woman so we can see him and he can speak with us we can only communicate by phone so we're teaching his coworkers some basic medical and rescue knowledge so they can update us on the situation of the unconscious miner. we were on prominent. telephone lines were dropped down not long after the 1st rations of porridge and pickles were passed through even as they struggle to keep their critically ill

colleague and themselves alive the miners have said they're grateful for food and medicine but must now resign themselves to an uncertain wait for rescue indonesia's western sort of ac is still struggling with the aftermath of last week's earthquake at least 90 people are confirmed dead as such as continue to dig in the rubble for more victims thousands of people are sleeping outdoors fighting aftershocks tragic scenes that people in the region or know only too well a little over 2 years ago in september 28th a major earthquake and tsunami struck neighboring central sort of ac the disaster left more than 4300 people dead and devastated coastal communities west hey it was the city of fallujah and the nearby town of dung. in the terrifying chaos of a natural catastrophe every piece of knowledge could be key to survival so local schools are teaching children how best to react. a lesson among the ruins.

these children in the indonesian town of dong learning skills that could save their lives. teacher your mil mastery is holding a class in disaster mitigation students all survivors of the 2018 earthquake and tsunami the scars of which still surround them. of course we can't avoid natural catastrophes. but we can at least reduce some of the risk. tsunami waves up to 7 metres high tremors that liquefied the ground moments of peril when every 2nd counts i got under the gusty winds. up teaching disaster mitigation is very important because we live in a disaster prone area. when the earthquake struck we didn't know what to do the children suffered emotionally but now they learn about it and they know what to do

when disaster strikes again. they might be moments when i go back. and keeping a cool head is critical the children practice emergency responses and simulate evacuations. so come on really careful about who i'm down to but i think children are learning skills that allow them to take part in the 1st mitigation measures. and of course they can also share their knowledge with their parents and others around them. in the daily routine of school the dangers outside you're easily forgotten but education is giving these children a fighting chance if catastrophe strikes again. and that's it for today this morning a website i did up about called forward slash dot com the hottest becomes u.s. vice president today the 1st woman with south asian heritage to take the office

that's been in celebration going into the birth nation. that's all relieving today more tomorrow about. the fight against the coronavirus 10 damage. as the rate of infection in developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus update 19. on t.w. . life on earth one of a kind and. a gigantic coincidence.

more than improbable happened. to the creation of our solar system with our planet is a bit like winning the lottery as a. search for unique starts feb 11th on t.w. cool. now the effect scenes are rolling off the assembly lines where they go off to. more developed economies are at the front of the mind some country. these are starting to vaccinate the super ritual celebrities like here in indonesia where the government inoculated instagram influences. the world health organization is calling foul. health. be for. people in poor countries the problem many saw

coming too late for equality in the largest vaccine drive in world history. well check this out the news organization vises discovered the wealthy paying big bucks for a specially organized vaccine holidays at a time of travel bans they take a luxury trip. going off to get. some sightseeing critics say using their money to jump the queue ahead of the more vulnerable is unacceptable. campaign and nick didn't says research shows many more people will die if the rich get the vaccine 1st instead of doing it fairly we'll talk to him in a moment 1st health care workers in kenya fear for their lives the vaccine hasn't arrived yet and covert is taking out their colleagues one by one. 0.

nobs had to help us clinic an officer a big part of it though was to work closely with covert 19 patients then one day she got sick herself i saw her call then i went through a lot of problems after i was infected i didn't have a medical problem which could come on my notes and a good source see i was supposed to go on oxygen my blood of my sons were infected it was very traumatising she survived 9 of her colleagues did not and then another shock she had to pay the expensive hospital bill from our own pocket for over a month now she's been on strike with her nurses and medical lab offices more than $30000.00 according to the unions their demands include protective health insurance and compensation for families in case of death if any of us is to die for another 8 hours today. we have finally is going to leave investigation. and as if that is not enough then they tell you if you do not go back to that

transit working environment we are going to start. indeed how to work across kenya have lost their jobs for participating in strikes the government says illegal nobody is denying that he should be getting your money you should. it's not a gittin it right but we're also saying that when there is this situation in the country let's also visit to get them you know and don't make it look like you're blackmailing the government at his weakest point. as dorcas doesn't feel protected by her employer she's awaiting the covert 19 vaccine kenya expects to receive the vaccine through the kovacs facility among other sources but experts say a 60 percent vaccination target is needed to achieve herd immunity on the african continent meanwhile wealthy nations have reserved more than half of the vaccines even though the home to only 14 percent of the world's population so they've kind

of some selfishness to say live a fuss resign it now for people i think the issue here is that global responsibilities you can reserve as many as you want for your country but what is your responsibility to ensuring there while he says to be safe that's also doctors wish for herself and her colleagues obviously not all bad but plenty of african countries get the vaccination later yeah. we are less you mind we feel like we are not going see that but anyway that's a little never at least we're hopefully we're going to get them up in this. kenya 1st tranche of 24000000 vaccine doses is expected to arrive next my doctor has now hopes the vaccine will finally ensure her safety. well hopes are higher elsewhere leaving some to accuse countries of hoarding we'll get to that in a moment firstly though let's look at some of the numbers because funnily enough the welcoming and tolerant canadians

a 1st in line having secured the most vaccines per capita the us as we mentioned it's organized of a 7 doses for head the e.u. with these for india $101.00 half indonesia just one person and the codex scheme as you can see there to share out shots is sadly struggling. and it did in the is director of global justice now and joins us from london nic you've been campaigning for global economic justice for over 20 years where is the justice in this case well it's a really good question because you know we're so impressed with the scientific ingenuity that brought us these vaccines but unfortunately most of the world a lot of access to the immunization that we also desperately need they've been told it by rich countries and the monopolies on these vaccines are held by some absolutely enormous businesses for the next 20 years which just makes it so much

more difficult to produce the numbers that we need it makes it so much more difficult for those of us who don't want to get the corona virus because you know if you're going to immunize all vaccinate only half the world it's not going to solve this problem is it. well that's exactly right i mean we're already seeing at the moment mutant strains of course one of them's come from my own country but there's one from now we believe from south africa one from brazil the longer us allow this virus to run on checked in other parts of the world the more mutant varieties of it will come back and around us so i mean on the one hand it's just simply unfair of course i mean nobody in europe would consider vaccinating the richest part of the population and keeping the rest of us in lockdown yet which perfectly happy to do that on a global basis or at least all governments are and i believe that's you know not ethical not right but i mean even if you just look at it purely selfishly and unless we reduce the fact of the virus is spread everywhere it's going to come back

and rebound illness potentially in varieties which are immune to the vaccine and we knew there was going to be this in justice that's why this kovacs system was set up of what happened to that. that's right and the kodak system 2 has bought fight scenes for lower income countries greece will begin distributing this vaccine soon but it hasn't got enough money to buy all of axioms it needs and frankly even if we did have the money the vaccines just simply don't exist at the moment so kovacs was invented for a great reason it was understood that if we gave this vaccine out in proportion to those who need it the most so family around the world at the same time that's the way you're going to cite most lives you're going to immunized those who are most at risk and it could save millions of lives compared to only allowing the rich to immunize their own populations 1st so it's a great idea the problem is that many rich countries like my own decided that they

were going to jump the queue and simply by millions and millions of vaccines themselves so that there wouldn't be enough flexed on the market why why did they line up why can't the brits line up orderly like the germans did. it's a good question. we've seen a lot over the last few years but. i mean they they just decided they wanted you know if they wanted to vaccinate the whole british population funds then i think seemed pretty immune to the questions of global injustice it's not that they haven't given any money to kovacs they have they've given quite a lot to kovacs actually i think one of the problems with the british government particularly is it always stands behind the pharmaceutical industry some of the companies of which are based and regularly puts the returns that those companies make before the needs. of the population globally so the most recent has happened if i think i mean we only have a few seconds how do we solve this then is it

a case of governments having to take over those patients from private pharma. precisely and let's bear in mind many of these vaccines have been produced with public money some of being produced entirely with public money so the idea that you that private eyes that knowledge and allow those companies to make profits off it in coming years is just completely wrong this is a pandemic it's about people's health not about return to shareholders so the government should keep the patents share the technology and help countries around the world produce the manufacturing capability so that they can produce the amount necessary to every to end this virus it didn't global justice now thank you very much pleasure. as part of the show where our science correspondent derek williams takes the reins and says he'll questions on the coronavirus. what makes the new u.k. variant of the corona virus more contagious viruses evolve over time collecting

genetic changes called mutations most of these changes don't make them more effective in some way and therefore payers but every once in a while through sheer chance a variant like the one discovered in britain will acquire changes that give it advantages in this case they appear to have made it more transmissible so it's able to infect more people to find out exactly what's going on at the molecular level scientists 1st had to look at exactly where changes occurred in the variance genome that made it different from earlier versions of source code to then they had to try to figure out how those genetic changes translated into changes in variant protein structures that could explain why people who get it are more contagious to enter cells sorry to use

a structure called the spike protein those are those bits that stick out all over the surface of a corona virus and that's what it uses to latch on to specific receptive ears on a cell surface as it seeks to break in to make more of itself in the new variant investigators discovered 17 quite recent mutations and 8 of them affect the spike they change its molecular shape in different ways and it's likely that at least some of those changes make the variant better at latching onto receptor and if the spike fits the receptor more snugly the hypothesis goes it's probably better at infecting the. cell possibly a lot better for reasons that are less clear some of the mutations might also drive up viral loads in the throats and noses of people who are infected so so when they speak or cough they spread more of the virus to others those 2 aspects the experts

say likely explain at least to some extent why the new variant is more transmissible. turk williams that if you've got a question just leave it on our you tube channel i'm ben for thanks for watching stay safe and i'll see you again sort of like.

it. or not too well. what about assuring a cut instead. the change in thinking is changing the economy to create something that. the economics magazine made in germany. equal 90 minutes w. . has

a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll all miss him. for just 3 of the topics covered and a weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any information on the clone of virus or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you can get your podcast you can also find us at d.f.w. dot com and slash science. i was fishing when i arrived here i slept with 6 people in a room for 3 nights in. it was hard. i even got white hairs that. manning the edge of my language help me a lot this keeps me a little bunch of nicky to entrap would say you want to do their story to my parents are providing a reliable information for migrants. who

. cannot sleep because you know for a reason. and those boards smaller. only 0000 ers rose. there's no use in the lolo for good with. her clothes. her rooms.

this is d.w. news live from for len after a 4 controversial years donald trump has left the white house the 41st president departed flanked by his wife malani up to board marine one on andrews air force base it's believed will fly into florida in doing so he will become just the 2nd president not to attend the inauguration of his successor and as donald trump exits a new era begins all is ready in washington for joe by to officially become the 46th president of the united states states the president elect.