i even got white hair. which not all of this gets me to go but maybe to interrupt would say you want to do their story. for margaret. you're watching d.w. news asia coming up today is it a setback for indian prime minister narendra modi's party in regional elections that finished this weekend as the pandemic spiked his ruling b.j. pete did not win in a key state of west bengal despite an aggressive campaign. and on world press freedom day what india's track record when it comes to open media especially when the government in power has shown so much hostility towards journalists.

i'm melissa chana thank you for joining us on news asia parts of india finished holding regional elections this weekend and they were closely watched as possible indicators for how people feel the ruling national government of prime minister in the renda modi is doing but it was the incumbent triple congress or a i.t.c. that prevailed by a nearly 3 to one majority of the b j p a day to gain new seats western goal saw a lot of attention in part because modi's b j p spent so much time and energy campaigning there. the pandemic has played its part in the election as it has in so many elections around the world this past year with many citizens pinning the blame on modi when the cases started rising up to plan. for turns out that it would in the 1st week or so that the

government have no idea they're not prepared for anything if you don't have enough manipulators in one hospital forget about all the whatever you need for the entire city ordinance armies we have minnows joshi with us he's a distinguished fellow at the observer research foundation i know should the pandemic has played a role in the outcomes of these regional elections but do we know how much well actually i was just reading. the newspaper analysis in the don't even deal with the. significantly in really you know all of the. 6 or 7 different. segments and they say that there was no change. to them in a congressman. right through. you know i'm not sure that. the outcome. i am still carious though is it really possible about the pen demick has

not played a role in people's feelings in terms of how they feel about modi's government i mean he's just pivoted to focus on the fight against kobe to help shore up his support what do you think about that and do you think moving forward this will have an impact on politics in india. well it could have an impact no you see the thing is that as the the elections were going on. was not immediately affected by the type of things that are happening now in delhi or know my way or in some of these other places you know where people are running around the administration has collapsed but in bangalore the elections are going on the people didn't quite focus on what is happening elsewhere meaning what was happening in march after a long way in delhi but no people are focusing on it and people are focusing on the absolutely the the state i was with it in a way meaning the state is doing nothing next to nothing in being with this

spending and that will have an impact i think in the coming days and so the chief minister is going to have a lot of pressure moving forward well what if depending on the course of the pandemic in respect of meaning just hope it shapes up dealing with it yes it's going to be you know more than a handful if it catches on like it caught on in maharashtra the catastrophe but no marsters improving but indeed as i said it's the pandemic is going on unchecked and there is absolutely to go there is no government meaning people are running it on their own looking for oxygen cylinders hospital beds medicines so if that kind of a situation occurs let's see how the west bank got up and deals with it but as i said that for the future that i don't happen doesn't. function so much for your

insights. it's world press freedom day and we're sticking to india and taking a closer look at its record for democracy the country ranks poorly 142nd on the index compiled by reporters without borders which says it has become one of the world's most dangerous countries to report in and like in many other places the government has used the pandemic as a pretext for its policies infringing on civil liberties. a health system that's crumbling. as the outbreak in india rages many have turned to social media to voice their criticisms about the country's handling of the crisis. criticism that the government has decided to go after. in april it ordered social media platforms to take down dozens of posts including

critiques from politicians that accuse the government of underplaying the crisis on the same day a report in newspaper the australian titled modi leads india into viral apocalypse prompted a shot rejoinder from indian representatives and camera the high commissioner asked the news outlet to refrain from publishing quote such baseless articles in the future. the couvade crisis critics say is another blow to the already embezzles media and press freedom in the country. under debate j p party which has been leading the government since 2014 journalists say intimidation and attacks against them have increased. in jammu and kashmir for example when the region was put under lockdown in 2019 after being stripped of his political autonomy journalists struggled to keep objectivity in

their reports. and why do we really give. in the latest global press freedom index india rank of this 100 and 42nd out of 180 countries and regions reporters without borders khost india one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists citing killings attacks prosecutions and coordinated hate campaigns against them. it also slams the government for taking advantage of the pen demick to step up control over news coverage like reports from supriya sharma the executive editor of a new sports over suresh to an accused of defamation and negligence that could cost a coronavirus to spread. a delhi based think tank price and risks in alice's

group says dozens of journalists were booked by the police or even arrested for their reporting 19. were prime minister narendra modi came to office in 2014 he said quote our democracy will not sustain if we can't guarantee freedom of speech and expression a statement many find contrary to what's happening in the country right now. joining us as pamela phillipos journalist and men for indian news site the wire pamela the wire has aggressively covered the government in power as it would presume for any other political party in power but their ruling b j p has taken this quite personally tell us more yes it's an address introduce you. to actually i'm sure they're not

a. that just doesn't or t t one says bell has. a new spot so basically it is controlling the narrative that is the intention and they the government then has the right to ask us to censor settles all they have the right to take down content that they consider a sense kid that's a bit more detail about how cold it has given the authorities an excuse to curtail press freedom yes then cool it began when the pandemic began last year the intention was that the government and the government was very interested in projecting itself as someone or some entity that this is totally in and short and then the talk of the government of course it is personified in the secular

office the prime minister mr neville and then most of the so basically it was 1 seen as a way off to rejecting the netherlands or more of these governance that mortal and best choice was made important that the media the media as narrative control almost to the government's narrative and what was attempted at that time that was about your local awas your job the more the government reached out to all nets of the media as well as senior journalists and i asked them for their cooperation in handling a very difficult situation of course everyone understood that it was a difficult issue and that we didn't want to spread the nick so that was the intent of this tank on decision but now i come to help us.

initially i thought what was that they bent to court and try to get a court injunction against the media's coverage right and so you have issues with coal it also the legislation how can careless in india fight back. you know the movement got journalists in india facing a triple whammy on the one hand they have over it and many of them are falling ill and dying a slow bit they have quite a few about a 100 people have been affected to run the other hand you have governments trying to control it and the media narrative and finally you have a direct state to depression arrests and so on so you have the circle of i mean.

journalists are chasing how they're like that yes it does it just. does it's just for individual journalists to fight back although there are organized networks trying to you know dream jungles to get amplify their voice stress thank you so much pamela phillipos. that's it for this monday there's always more on our website dot com for slash asia we leave you with pictures of celebrations over the results of those weekend's regional elections in india thank you for watching see you tomorrow and defy.

the fate of the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus update. on w. w's crime fighters who are back africa's most successful radio drama series continue. this season the stories focus on. prevention

of sustainable childhood production. all of this or are available online and of course you can share and discuss among africa's facebook page and other social media platforms. and fighters to know. the full. herd immunity could be our best chance of getting back to enjoying ourselves together if enough people have the antibodies for covered 19 the entire population can be protected but is that an impossible dream can global herd immunity ever be achieved without it with a pandemic ever be truly over as vaccinations ramp up these are the questions being asked around the world.

from robots in berlin welcome to the do we use covered 900 special now we've been hearing the term herd immunity throughout the pandemic in the early days when some was suggesting we should let infections run riot to achieve it as fast as possible and nowadays with vaccinations making it possible to boost the populations protection in a controlled and or the safer way but how does herd immunity actually work let's have a look. what is herd immunity. that many in a herd are immune to a disease the pathogen cannot spread further that's when herd immunity is achieved . why is herd immunity important. we can use it to protect the weak babies for example they're too young to be vaccinated against some disease it's for people with chronic diseases as well because they can't tolerate vaccinations those with

a weak immune system such as after chemotherapy also benefit because herd immunity reduces the risk of getting infected. how many have to be immune and. that varies depending on the disease the important factor is the reproduction rate of a pathogen it indicates the number of people on average that one infected person will pass on a virus to the higher the number the more infectious it is for measles the basic reproduction rate is 15 for covert $1000.00 it's about 3. hours herd immunity calculated. very simply with this formula where h. is equal to one minus one divided by r.'s 0 for the corona virus that means that the herd immunity in each is one minus one divided by 3 which is 2 thirds that means 2 thirds of the population must be immune to have heard immunity and germany that would be over 50000000 people. what conditions must be met.

the prerequisite for herd immunity is that the antibodies we produce an infection need to protect us in the long term with covert 19 it's not yet clear how long someone who has survived the disease will be immune what is certain is that people who have been infected are protected for at least several weeks. let's speak to edwin michael he's an epidemic ologist the university of south florida's college of public health thanks for joining us on the call the 19 special you've been modeling timelines for immunity so i suppose the place to start is. is it possible to achieve it and if so when and if you look at the models which are in the predictions of you know the fraction of people that we need to human hearts to get herd immunity that is a function of you know the competition rate it is a function of the african c.

of the vaccines you know so those 2 will vary between places and if you look at how people are mixing if you look at you know the normal models of e.u. which is the worst case scenario if you assume people are mixing randomly then you can work out what fraction of people might need to be immunized to get herd immunity and that works out far. between 80 to 95 percent. 80 to 8090 percent of the people who need to be vaccinated to get her immunity not answer your question we are now above 50 percent just above 50 percent of people who are immune year in the u.s. you know it's a combination of acquired immunity as well as vaccine india's immunity so that means we have to go you know another 30 percent of the people need to get immunized in order to achieve herd immunity can be acute herd immunity well that's going to

depend on people taking up the vaccines and that kick up is slowing and also there's a substantial people who are going to resist getting the vaccine now we were just talking about and i just say this here there are a we're just talking about the united states can you name i am and you know how to me it seems like a tangible concept there although that there are a lot of people who still need to be persuaded to get the vaccine to get there but what about for the entire world can it i mean is it realistic to say that we can get there for the entire world. yeah i mean if you look at you know if you look at vaccination rates you know and see huge difference right between countries the top countries would be israel as we know united arab emirates you know and among the major countries is the u.k. and the united states you know and they are reaching 50 percent of both already and if you look at europe and the european countries in general the other european the

e.u. countries is between 20 to 30 percent you know and so they're a long way to go so you know it's so the countries that have started vaccinating very early of reach very high levels of immunity already the rest of the country africa's going to be a concern not much is known and you've seen what is happening in india with just below 10 percent of the population being immunized you know and the danger with that is you can release ocean my heroes you're going to get the kinds of spikes of the wave that he had seen in india which is devastating you know that country so you're right there's a long long way to go before globally you're going to achieve herd immunity so i can well let me tell me i succumb if. we're talking about say herd immunity to specific strains of corona virus only talking about to take to every possible

incarnation of the smelter and a virus that's a really good question you know and that is going to depend on the kinds of immune responses which are been in use by the vaccines right and if you look at a vaccine yes the m.r. and the rx in there are you know the immune response you know is induced a spike protein yes my you know that is a whole range of immune response of spike of good is not just one particular response to the spike protein. so if you get another strain unless that strain you know the mutation the strain is completely novel and completely you know elsewhere from the spy protein you know that is going to reduce the accuracy of the vaccines you know it is the happy to see rates which is going to govern the traction of people there be need to immunize now evolutionarily you know getting to that kind of in a brand new straight you know if it's

a long shot you know for the wireless as well so we can us right now was initially i think could be looking at needing multiple herd immunity is right and there's not actually there are aiming 10 this pandemic with had immunity is that we need head immunities to the various different variants yeah i mean yes because africa's is world very you know. between strains you know the vaccine or to disease and that's going to dig you know the amount of people that you're going to need to vaccinate but in general you know. even if it can present in a difference in the africans the rates in all the vaccines against the different strains we're still looking at dad you know that window of you know 80 to 90 percent right of people need to be vaccinated and remind of the universe to be as you rightly look at it you know globally you want to see the end of this pandemic

as a global phenomenon where we get there one day hopefully when michael from the university of south florida's college of public health thanks for joining us thank you for now you may be one of the lucky ones who's already been vaccinated against covered 19 if so you may have also asked yourself today's question for our science correspondent very quickly. how long with the vaccines of protection. we don't know yet and even when we do know more there won't be a single answer to this question since about a dozen different vaccines are currently in use around the world and since they're made by different manufacturers and are based on a range of different platforms they almost certainly won't all protect people for the same periods of time on average what we can say is that the makers of some of

the 1st vaccines to enter use widely last december are now reporting back that levels of antibodies have generally remained quite high in recipients which is an indicator that those people are still well protected 6 months after getting their shots those results have researchers hopeful that immune response at least that induced by those that seems will last at least a year and possibly a lot longer but developers aren't leaving it to chance most have already started modifying and testing the next generation of vaccines some of which specifically target variants of concern trials involving a 3rd booster shot with them are ongoing and don't forget. though there is no sign yet that vaccine induced protection is beginning to wane even if it does but it

won't happen overnight and even if immunity does start to drop faster than predicted health care authorities would notice it early and a lot of the experts i've read seem to be pretty confident that we'll be able to perspire and quickly. derek williams that if you got a question for derek you can submit one through our you tube channel we're putting as many of them a many of them to him as we possibly can and before we go things are starting to look a little bit more like normal in the spanish capital madrid where the 1st bull fight has been held since the pandemic began seating was restricted and spectators will face masks as they watched matadors take on 7 bulls in a charity event to raise money for out of work both fighters attempt just take another dog and another tradition was also back animal rights protesters outside

raising their objections while remaining socially just. not so for me and this covered 19 special if you want more check out our website so next time you buy.

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