revealed unparalleled beauty. ah, a special look at a special country loan from above. starts december 27th on d, w. mm. ah ah, this is d w. news lived from berlin cove at 9 saint cloud, yet another christmas. a surgeon, the army crown variant of the corona virus is disrupting holiday travel. airlines are facing a shortage of staff, and that's leading to thousands of flight cancellations. we saw on the program 3

decades and billions of dollars in the making. a powerful new telescope is set to blast off into space just a few hours time. scientists hope it will provide a view of the cosmos never seen before. and that is christmas eve, mass po process is every one to look beyond the lights and decorations and remembered the world's medius. ah, i am rebecca writ is welcome to the program. a surge in cove at 19 cases, driven by the army kron variant has been disrupting holiday travel plans all around the world. thousands of flights have been canceled globally because of the impact of the corona virus, on airline employees, and on passages. despite this, people are trying their best to maintain the christmas spirit. twas the night before christmas. but instead of the usual last minute,

christmas rush, the streets here in london have fallen silent. the u. k broke their record of coated cases for the 3rd day in a row, recording about 122000 infections. numbers have climbed so high that some estimates predict one in 10 londoners have the infection. the surgeon cases has dampened the christmas chia and left many industries struggling with staff shortages as sick workers. a forced to isolate it's a problem that has hit airlines, particularly hard flights around the world, had to be cancelled on christmas eve. adding another layer of stress to people's already precarious holiday plans. we were really concerned last night when i saw on the new that they had can thought our 100 white and i'm like, oh my god, we won't be able to get home. but luckily we kept checking the white bear to check

in the white that has got here and everything was fine. so we were really grateful for that. in spain, you don't have to be traveling far to face disruptions to everyday life. just stepping outside your front door now means having to wear a mask. the prime minister announced the decision after 2 consecutive records in daily cases. it's come as an unwelcome surprise to many wears when the more when we got off the train and i saw every one wearing their mask. i remembered that it was the 1st day of the mandates and i thought what a drag again with the mask. it's a bit suffocating, a bit claustrophobic. i'm not very happy before we go. no, nothing were gone. linda gala. though it may not be the coven free christmas that so many had hoped for people a doing their best to make sure some of the festive spirit remains as get more from

peter tin, hong. he's a professor of medicine at the university of california in san francisco. professor, welcome back to d. w. nice to say all micron is turning out to be far more infectious or what is the knock on effect in terms of the sheer scale? can we expect that everyone across the world but perhaps is going to come in contact and not just come in contact, but actually contract this virus in the coming weeks and months? well, that's what some people are thinking, rebecca, that it's so transmissible up to 4 times as much as filter that it would be hard to escape. but nevertheless, i think we could try to mitigate damage. i'm. we're most worried about unvaccinated folks. and folks with co morbid conditions, it's still going to result in a lot of hospitalizations, even though it's probably less ah, you know, severe to the general person as delta was. you mentioned vaccinate vaccine, there been studies just released in the last few days show that back seems to be

much less efficient than previous variance with one relatively large study in the u . k. suggesting even with a booster, you're only really protected for around 2 months. what do you say that, what does that mean for people? well, it all depends where i'll go. push is, if your goal poses prevention of infection, then sure you can look at the vaccines and say, to do, says, you know, 2030 percent. a booster or probably doesn't give you much more, but i'm not for that long. but if you look at the outcome of serious disease, hospitalization, and death are the vaccines are really spectacular that and as an infectious disease doctor, if you told me at a choice between just preventing infection or serious disease, i'll choose serious disease at any time. absolutely. does that mean then that we're going to be having those to shots every couple of months?

well, again, it comes back to what our goal in society is. so i can give you all the science and tell you that this vaccine or booster might only last 10 weeks before it wins in efficacy against infection. but if we reevaluate and think that we were thinking mainly of hospital capacity and the ability of hospitals to, you know, take care of sick people, then maybe after, at some point we'd be able to accept that, you know, with 3 doses, maybe i will be good enough with prevention of people going to the ice, you are dying and we will accept the sentiment of disease in the in society. i'm sure everyone certainly hope so. professor peter chang hung in san francisco. thanks very much for your time. merry christmas. merry christmas. rebecca, thank you. a sign to say there's never been anything like it. a revolutionary new telescope is set to blast off into space in just a few hours time. the james web telescope, named after a former head of nasa,

is expected to be back new clues about the origins of the universe. the new i in the sky is the successor to the legendary hubble space telescope. it's 6 and a half meter mirror makes the hubble look tiny by comparison. the james webb, the biggest telescope ever sent into space, is made up of 18 segments plated with a raise, a thin gold coating. the instrument has to be folded up to fit into the rockets nose cone. the telescope will scan the heavens using long wave infra red light. ah, astronomers will be able to look back towards the big bang, nearly 14000000000 years ago. back to the origins of the universe and the

formation of the 1st stars and galaxies. the new telescope could also prove decisive in the search for extraterrestrial life to it can probe so called exile planets. nearly 5000 have already been discovered orbiting distance sons. the james web will monitor how exxon planets move in conjunction with the stars. transits like this mean, it can take a virtual fingerprint of the atmosphere of these remote worlds and assess for the 1st time whether they hold the building blocks of life. before the research can begin, there will be a delicate 2 week operation in which the telescope has to unfold itself. never before has a satellite been launched with so many moving parts and nothing can be allowed to

go wrong. it will be 6 months after the launch before the telescope is ready to gather it's 1st scientific data. ah, antony marston is where the european space agency in archive scientist for the james web space telescope. he joins me from address and a welcome to date. abilene, thanks for joining us on what it must be a huge day for you, and the many scientists involved in this launch. excitement versus nerves. how do you feel? well yeah, it's just a moment in the science where you have a launch it, it can go wrong, but very, very rarely. we do not expect anything to go wrong here,

but still mean so you have a little bit of nervousness and lots of excitement. i mean it's, it's being doub hobbled to point talk us through the upgrades there is like going from black and white to color. what will james webb be able to do that hobble? couldn't there are several things here. we're talking about telescope that's using technology. this 30 is a bombs what you have with them. looking at a much larger diameter power telescope comes from its ability to collect the light from the universe. in this case, we're talking about infrared, like the fact that we're using infrared light is another advantage for many of the things that we want to study. for instance, plants around of the sauce, a red light preferentially. so there are many advantages to the change

from my understanding, we're talking essentially about going back in time. and as we had met, pe said that the james webb will be able to take a fingerprint, if you will, all of the universe. what does, what does that mean? well, we can go back in time to see in the sense that we can pick up things that are very few are what we're going to get to the very edges of the observable universe. as far as 13 are 1000000000 light years away and anything that's making a radiation at that distance from us, we should be able to pick up that we can detect a b signature on the moon. so we can pick up things that are really very faint sitting at the edge of the universe. the fingerprints come from the fact that

frances has celebrated the annual christmas a massive and paid as the silica despite a shout rise in kind of the cases. the traditional midnight mass was held at the earlier time of $730.00 p. m, and focused on the point of workers and the world's pool. oh, it goes over a reduced crowd to the 2nd year in a row and estimated 2000 people attended the pope's traditional christmas eve mass compared to only 200 last year. the 85 year old pontiff focused his message on addressing global poverty, saying that people who are indifferent to the world's poor offend god. it keeps saying that's a sign. a child, a baby lying in the dia, poverty of a manger hewn and had just a poor child wrapped in swaddling clothes,

with shepherds standing by monday, by 30 i thought that is where god is in little nosey. ah, francis also used his 9th address to remind people that serving others is more important than spending a lifetime in pursuit of success. but the corona virus pandemic still cast a shadow over the service. ah, just minutes before the mass began in italy announced another reco daily tally of new coven 19 infections. because despite the shop rise in cases, the fateful outside would just happy to be celebrating. again. this is the 1st time in the last 2 years that we've been able to gather both as a family and to attend mass because of the pandemic. so we are very excited and grateful. unlike last year, the pope will once again deliver his traditional baby at all the message from the balcony of saint petersburg, silica on christmas day. ah,

wanting date of the news. that's all from us here. this hour. we'll leave you with some images from christmas decorations and celebrations from around the world. i'm rebecca written all me back with more news headlines next hour. thanks for watching . ah mm mm . mm ah

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