ah, ah ah ah ah, this is b, w, news ly, from bol it. as the u. s. tops a 1000000, new corona, virus infections, and a single day. presidential biden makes another appeal. please, please,

please get vaccinated. now. the surgeon cases is raising concerns over disruption to public life, but biden says the army con, very, and poses the biggest threats to the unvaccinated. also coming up tennis don over joker, which is granted special permission to play at the australian open, even though he hasn't revealed whether he's vaccinated against cove 90 on france or the drivers seat of the european union president about, well, my call has a big ambitions for the block, they include in a european army and more spending power, the member states about how much can they get done? ah, i'm good. how about as well come to the program? and we begin in the united states, which has recorded more than one me in new cove at 19 infections on monday, that's

a world record for confirmed daily cases. it was partly due to a reporting backlog. after the new year's holiday, confirmed infections have doubled in the past week as the only cron variance spreads. that hospitalization and death rates have been lower than in previous waves. meanwhile, the u. s. center for disease control has recommended shortening the wait for booster jobs to 5 months. that with more than a quarter of the population still completely unvaccinated, president joe biden addressed the nation urging people to get the job unvaccinated, taking up hospital beds and crowding emergency rooms and intensive care units as displaced other people need access to those hospitals. so please, please, please get vaccinated. now there's no excuse, no excuse for anyone been on vaccinated. this continues to be a pest demick of the unvaccinated. so we gotta make more progress. and for patients

who still haven't gotten your kids vaccinated, please get them vaccinated. look out for their interest. here is the best way to protect them. folks, i know we're all tired and frustrated about the pandemic is coming weeks are going to be challenging. please, where your mass can palmer to protect yourself and others. really get through this . we're going to get through it together, just present joe biden speaking. there. i'm now join for dr. peter chin. hong is an infectious disease specialist at the university of california in san francisco. the number sounds massive. $1000000.00 new infections in a single day, but with only con, reportedly less dangerous than previous barriers. how worried are you really? well get hard. we're still very worried because we haven't even hit our search yet . remember, we had 3 holidays thanksgiving christmas and new year's. we're still waiting for the repercussions from new years. so even though

a small proportion folks do get hosp lies, a small proportion, a large number is still streaming many hospital systems. but if you asked me, my biggest worry, it's about the workforce. you know, we pod sick health care worker is sick restaurant workers, sick teachers i, it's really disrupting all of our ways of life. and that's leading to burnout. 40 percent of nurses and 20 percent of physicians in say that they intend to quit within a year. so that's to tell you the scope of what we're talking about. so joe biden just said that everybody needs to get vaccinated. what else can or needs to be done? i was vaccination. the only remedy here? well, i think so. the vaccinations are the 1st 2nd, and 3rd most important thing we can do with boosters. but i think the biden ministration historically and currently have been critique for not diversifying enough of the mitigation strategies. putting all the eggs in the vaccine basket.

because after all, vaccines are so politicized in us that if joe biden is seeing good get vaccine and you're in the red, said you, you probably not going to do that. i think what we are seeing is that people who are not wanting to be vaccinated probably feel less queasy about getting monoclonal antibodies or getting pills or maybe doing testing. so i think these are all strategies that need to be, you know, i really ramped up. they didn't do it in time for omicron, but hopefully for the next variance. so the new variance appear regularly just a week ago that has been new cases of new variant in france. and some say we ought to get used to corona learn to live with it. what, what's the mood there in the us among scientists and policymakers? well, i think today's news of the i h u variant from france, which doesn't stand for, i hate you very. and which, you know,

we all feel at this point. i was read with a lot of anxiety and people. i think that's what you're going to get. you going get a lot of anxiety every time. there's a new variance at the end of the day, will this be the one that everyone gets some sort of community immunity from? is the question. but again, the variance keep on popping up that a more resistant than the previous period to which the population gain immunity. i, you know, at some point we need to probably change our goal post that talk already of not focusing on numbers of cases going up dramatically by 1000 percent or 5000 percent like in puerto rico, but rather hostile capacity. you know, at the end of the, hopefully we won't see it had lying light. hugh jackman has gotten a cold, which is essentially what i'm hoping, clovis will devolve into, eventually, after world pandemic do. and like the 1900 flu pioneering array of hope that dr. peter chin hong professor of medicine up in the us t of california. thank you very much for your time. thanks gearhart. quite

a different picture in south africa where it seems as if the army cron waive may be on the way out without the feared surge in hospitalizations and death. officials say there is still reason to be cautious, but they have lucent corona virus restrictions, as case numbers drop. it was just over 6 weeks ago, november 24th. when the world's 1st case of amazon was announced, then new cases shot up picking at some 100 or 127000. in the middle of december, daily infection cases then fell by roughly a 3rd in the week ending on christmas day. and they have fallen dramatically since just ahead of new year's eve. the south african government lifted up the late night curfew, social distancing, mast mandates, are still in place, though an official say army kron is still a threat of a team that 1st identified the army con variant is, was the barrels is volcanic prizes from the university of stella bush,

glad to have you with us. of of can 8 we mentioned earlier, no apparent surgeon hospitalizations and or death in south africa can the rest of africa or indeed the rest of the world breathe a bit easier now. very cautiously i would say yes, but definitely the worst is still to come for most of the world. i think we, you know, some of the concerns that we had early on when we 1st discovered a me, kronos in your area. and they have come through and one of them is that it is incredibly contagious. so it's very fast and furiously. and that is reflected in the very rapid increase of case numbers that we observed here. and we also went to unprecedented heights and looking at african figures. and the same is true for many other countries. you know, they're only reflect portion of positives. we think that we only diagnose about one

of the cases that are in the community. so it's, it's, it's really a dizzying number that we reached in no time when we then hold our breasts and prepare for the worst in terms of hospital admissions. we were disappointed in a positive way. we didn't see the in seen increase in just people. we still get them, i mean i have to stress that there are still people being manipulated because of go with and being admitted to i see you and people are dying from me. but in terms of the proportion of infections polish them you've seen previous, can you put a number to that? how less dangerous? how much was it? that is a difficult question. so i mean there are 2 basic factors. one would be, is this virus in itself, and this is very in a less dangerous than the previous ones doesn't have decreased. maryland as the quality that basically means its capacity to make people seriously ill. and i think

we are now getting to a point where increasingly we can say yes, that is true. there were hopes, but now with data coming out of lab experiments in south colleges in the animals. but also observation studies. i think it is true that in itself this virus is of a somewhat less been and then the previous one i think is not an all or nothing. so i'm not talking of a common code bars. it's still of ours that make you seriously ill and kill you. the chance happening are diminished probably about 30 percent. but what, what really made a difference. it is that the majority of the population have some degree of underlying which is obviously not enough to keep off infection and doesn't prevent also becoming in pictures. but it helps in developing c b s. and you mentioned, let me just briefly interrupt you the, you mentioned the specific reasons for this playing out like i did in south africa

. the w h o 's says south africa is an outline because of its young population and other factors. is that something that you would agree on briefly if you can't? absolutely. yeah, no, they did a very different from here and, and industrial countries. so clearly to have all the people and people with underlying conditions that increase their risk. and i would say that our, you know what the observed in terms of or is it all of these people? i'd high risk right now, but what saved us is the underlying community. in most cases, a she comes from having had of the previous, the ends of africa, which is obviously not a desirable thing because many people died from me. so i would just like to underline the need for everybody to get fascinated and digital to all, to get a booster shots, because this is the best strategy to even if one gets infected. and i think the

risk is very high. avoiding c. b, for ahead of medical virology and south africa university of stolen bush. thank you very much for your input. thank you. and here are some of the latest developments in the pandemic. healthcare professionals in india, a bracing themselves after a sharp rise in infections. the government is bringing back curfews in both deleon, mom by britain's prime minister, boris johnson, says he hopes his country can ride out the current wave of coven 19 without further restrictions. despite britain seeing a new day record in daily cases and german finance minister crystelina says the country wants to avoid another lockdown. germany has registered nearly 60000 new cases in a day. that's almost 20000 more than a week ago. tennis star, nova joker, which has confirmed it, will defend his australian open title in melbourne this month after being granted

an exemption to play this afternoon, continually refused to reveal his vaccination status against the corona virus. was number one applied for a medical exemption according to tournament officials, and it was granted after a quote, rigorous review process. victoria state government has mandated that all place staff and attending fans, fans be fully vaccinated unless there was a genuine reason for an exemption. now to talk us through this, i'm a joined by tennis commentator, steve pierce in melbourne, steve, australia, so the liberal, toughest pandemic restrictions and still joke, which has been given a medical exemption on what grounds? well, that's a very good question. and one which i think about 5000000 people in melbourne would like to know the answer to because it is, it hasn't gone down particularly well as you would imagine, given some of the restrictions and locked downs and vaccination push that's been particularly the case in melbourne. the tenants, a strayer, and military government outlined 4 or 5 ways, fairly acute,

what you would call acute medical conditions as to how you can get a medical exemption. and they range from anything from a bad reaction like an alexis to a kind of a nation, or having recently had major surgery or, or even maybe a mental health condition that you might react badly to a vaccination. but one of the key ones in there and there weren't many others, was a recent case, a positive proved case of code 19 in the last 6 months and, you know, reading through the exemptions and no one's revealed. and no one can in fairness reveal, apart from the man himself, what his particular medical condition is. you would think, although we don't know that that's probably the loophole that's been he, he's been able to exploit. but there's no proof whatsoever in the public domain that neither job just to me until it does this indicate that he may have

slipped through the net, if you will, because he previously had a covey. the infection has recovered from it, but doesn't want to share that information. well, that might be the case. so tennis destroyer is, has spoken publicly about this is you would imagine that they can't really avoid the government both governments victorian government, federal government has spoken and they are very cane for now back to reveal when he gets here. what exactly the reason is that said that he's been able to as you put it said through the net get a medical exemption where everyone else pretty much is had to had to be jad but it, that's the only solution we can think of july, i think was june 2020, when he had a publicly confirmed case of kind of whether that's whether he's had another case in the last 6 months. that seems to jump out from the list as to how he could possibly have received a medical exemption to come and play in the strategy. and it is bewildering at face value. so how is this going down briefly? if you can in india trillion public it's not going down well at all. i don't think

i've seen any positive comments around it. people have been through the wringer as they have been around the world with, with karen of ours. but there's been an enormous push here to get vaccinated and there's been really, really strong statements from all levels of government about how important it is that you get vaccinated, that there will be no special cases for tennis players. and then neither jock of it, the public anti vax, a person who, who really has advocated against it, held those, you know, prominent tournaments last summer with picked up kevin himself. he's the one that gets medical exemption it's, it's not gone down well at all. cause i to force trillion open radio stiff, fierce. thank you very massive pleasure gap for i'm not of look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world to day. japan says north korea has launched what appeared to be a ballistic missile into the sea of japan,

prime minister, fully, okay. she died expressed regret that north korea continues to launch missiles in the direction of his country. united nations resolutions ban chung from ballistic missile tests. so now you demonstrate, as have taken to the streets of kazakhstan for a 3rd day over soaring fuel prices. police say they have detained more than $200.00 protesters. the central asian countries cabinet has been sacked in a bid to head off the unrest. a palestinian prisoner has ended his nearly 5 month hunger strike up to his railey authorities agreed to release him next month. he sham abala. has family said he had achieved a victory for all hollis didn't. he began his hunger strike in september to protest his detention without charges being made. a judge in the us says he will decide soon whether to dismiss a civil sexual assault case against britons. prince andrew. the prince's lawyers

say he is protected by the tooth that 2009 settlement between his a choose of virginia jeffrey and sex offender jeffrey epstein. to fray says prince andrew, sexually assaulted her when she was 17 president obama call has presented his agenda for francis stint at the helm of european union. he wants to boost the blocks roll on the world stage, but how much can he achieve and what obstacles cause he face t w's. brussels corresponded christine montoya, as that story. i've arrived in paris today because france has taken over the presidency of the european union and for the next 6 months. the agenda for europe, if you want to call it that will be set here in paris. what's clear is that the french president emanuel micron has big ambitions for europe. he wants europe, in his own words, to be more powerful in the world. in the heart of paris, the country's most recognizable monument now wears a circle of stars to mark the

e. u. presidency, france last held 13 years ago. the position gives the french more influence over the future of the european union. a more capable europe with its own army is paris is top most ambition. it's referred to as strategic autonomy. what that means is a more suffering, more independent europe, particularly when it comes to the issue of defense. do you feel that your needs to be more stronger? well, i'm not sure that that's a good idea, but i, i, even, i, i think that we are, we depend too much on the united states now or so. i believe we will be taken more seriously by other countries. if we had a european army before we have an army, let's have a union. frances agenda for the union also includes relaxing roles to allow e u. countries to borrow more money to finance big infrastructure projects and trying to bring the block to consensus on the long standing thorny issue of

migration in december, emmanuel con, summed up the goal of francis e u presidency. this way is ridiculous. hoopa said, you know, we need to move from being a europe of corporation in cycle borders to a powerful europe, world's full sovereign, most free to make its choices and most of its destiny. hey michael, it's on this stuff. but microns own destiny is in question. france is holding a presidential election in april. if he doesn't get reelected, he can't see his plans for europe through eunice. earlier, i spoke to heart of your heart up from the german council on foreign relations here in berlin about my cause. ambition for the european union right now is the time to discuss things. so mccoy's, now the chance to approach the other member states, especially germany, and she now has the chance to convince other member states of his, of his ideas. and i'm, i'm not very sure germany is going to really accept his ideas when it comes to

nuclear entities. so germany will definitely oppose it. but it is the chance to really find a solution in a compromise. and this is, i think, the most basic idea of the rotating you, presidents, each of high compromise and a move to gather the member states at one table or to really discuss things. so michael has said the bob a very high saying 2022 must be the year of the european turning point it. how big is this support for this? by the french public, you think my car has been put forward. his id is already in 2017, during his presidential election campaign. and it was perceived is very progressive by lots of french citizens to the french public assurance up to be very pro european during this campaign and the following years. and i would even go one step further and say that the french do like the idea of having considerable influence

on a new level to of course, push forward certain political issues that they have interest in. and even those were not very likely to support my cause, i'd use of what then you should look like the future. one frost change or the next 6 months. even though they want, they may not want to change your in, in m acronis way. so i would say that the majority of france will support the idea of changing europe in either one way or another. how to shop that of a german council on foreign relations. a man accused of setting fire to south africa's parliament has appeared in court 5. i'd have said they had finally brought the blaze under control after a 2 day battle defended, as pleaded not guilty to charges of arson and possession of an explosive device. the suspect denied all charges when he appeared in court and faced the assembled press. the

49 year old who lives in a township, se of the city center was the only person arrested in connection with the fire. his lawyer said the wrong person had been detained and that his client was being made escaped, gotten. he advocated for a release on bail, but the prosecution seems certain they have their man and are trying him on 5 charges. for those charges include housebreaking, we intend to steal and hand it to count of awesome. it was, as you know, it's music device, empty section of essential infrastructure. the case has been closed, gone to the 11th or january, an explosion could have made an already chaotic situation. worse, firefighters 1st tended to the blaze on sunday. hampered by the fact that the building sprinkler system had malfunctioned, then it flared up again on monday evening after high winds and was eventually

extinguished late at night. no one was injured with parliament still closed for the holidays. the building is expected to be out of use for several months. over the next 7 days, police will continue their investigations gathering additional evidence. the accused will remain in custody until his next court appearance. snowstorms are wreaking havoc in the us with road and train travel closed or delayed planes have been grounded, and schools closed in virginia and interstate highway was brought to a standstill overnight with hundreds of drivers, stranded in their cars. in freezing temperatures, 100 stuck in both directions. a snowstorm coupled with a traffic accident shot down a stretch of 15 years. i 95. the us east coast may north south highway, leaving motorists stranded for a freezing night. among them, a senator on his way to the capital. it was,

it was nerve wracking overnight and i'll tell you, i had 2 things. i had a heavy coat and i also had a full tank of gas. and the problem is a lot of people, when you're stuck that long between, you know, 5 miles from an interchange and the traffic isn't moving. folks are running out of gas. motorists have been helping each other, sharing what least will they have with them. but as the weight stretches on food, water, and fuel a running out, and some of those stark angry at the slow response from officials. i don't think they've done a good job whatsoever. i feel like they could have prepared if they knew about the weather. ah, in from i understand they knew about it. maybe 14 to 18 hours ahead of time. they definitely could assaulted the roads or maybe they're not, you know, maybe shut down there, the highways, virginia authorities said they would start the rescue effort at daybreak on tuesday

. but hours later, an unknown number of people are still stranded on the icy road. and finally, organizations all over the world are coming up with creative campaigns to encourage vaccination. here in germany and entrepreneur teamed up with a shepherd for unique stant. the push to achieve schumann well heard immunity, 700 sheep and goats were let loose and formed the shape of a 100 meter long syringe. the animals were coaxed into position by pieces of bread . the stunt organizer said he hoped to reach the emotions of vaccine hesitant people where scientific reasoning had failed. you're watching d. w. news. his remind of the top story we're following for you. was president joe biden as urged unvaccinated americans to get the job off to more than 1000000 new

coven. 19 infections were reported in the us, within a 24 hour period, confirmed infections have doubled in the past week. as the on the con varian spreads. but hospitalisation and death rates are lower than in previous and that's it for now from me and the early team here in berlin, up next when fish help to grow vegetables, aqua phonics, w's environment, magazine, eco. and yet don't miss that. i have an update for you at the top of the out of the office in berlin. thanks with

with ah, who he

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