exactly like said thomas. and the poison spirit. bear with me serious life the great documentary series destruction of a nation. this week on d. w this is did up the news asia coming up to date, east china, 0 corporate approach failing. 1000000 dead again in lockdown as the country sees. it's west increase in covet cases. in 2 years, the daily grind of testing, lockdown, and isolation. he's leaving people tired. i can't understand what's happening and other cities, the control measures were doing pretty well before. and now would stop again. when will it ever end? so is a 0 covered approach still the best way of ending the pandemic in china. i'll be

asking a well known expert. ah, i'm british manager, welcome to d w. news asia. glad you could join us. china is experiencing, it's westcove it out, break into years. more than 5000 cases on the mainland in just the past 24 hours alone. now that doesn't seem like much for the country of 1400000000 people. but remember, this is in a country with a 0 over the approach to containing the virus and approach that till recently seemed to have been working. just look at these numbers. on the 1st of january, the country recorded a 191 cases. a month later, that number had dropped to 63. and by now mid march, it spike to more than 5000 and rising. that has meant more and more people

under various forms of lockdown and covered restrictions. one estimate puts it at nearly 30000000 people across at least 13 cities in china. some of those include the capital b ging from john and shanghai also gillian. in the northeast. it's the worst hit across the country with more than $3000.00 total cases. so far. long queues flagged the streets of jaelynn as residence. a mass tested for co, with 19 nearly 90 percent of mainland, china's cases have been reported in here. and temporary hospitals have popped up to reduce the load on medical facilities. jillions roughly 24000000 residents cannot leave the province. all the restrictions are in place to battle, the omicron variant spreading quickly in spite of china's 0 covert policy on to the south in shanghai, food supply has become a concern. more and more residents have been ordered into quarantine and the city

is talking up on extra food and running deliveries. no luck, i did it. you know, there's no other way. we definitely have to do what the government has arranged. is there any other better way to solve it on the crown is highly transmissible. good. oh, i have friends who i hung up with a few days ago but was suddenly quarantined recently. i think the shanghai government does so to protect citizens in the long run. it's good. i got myself at school now only has online classes, but we couldn't go back home to our hometown. meanwhile, the industrial city of sion jen has fully closed down public transport driven by a flare of cases among factory workers. some people in china are frustrated with tight restrictions, forming a news again, especially as the rest of the world is opening up and learning to live with cove at

191 resident and beijing put it this way. did i can't understand what's happening in other cities. the control measures were doing pretty well before and now we'll start again. when will it ever end? joining us now for more from b, g is correspondent, far be ungrateful fabia. um, what is the corporate situation in beijing? yet the capital is not as strongly affected as many other cities in china, but the situation became noticeably more tense. they are basically 2 big changes. one is said, the am q's in front of the testing stations and became much longer a one of those testing stations you can see in the back. they just stopped operating for today. and the 2nd big change is that the number of residential compounds that have been put under lockdown is also increasing. and those locked downs within the city mean that am yeah, residential compounds are sealed off this. no, a going out any more,

at least for one week or often 2 weeks. and then during those time there are many of the rounds of pc artists. however, that being said, drink most parts of the city, life goes honest. normally our restaurants are open. even barza open, so it's really a very interesting situation right now from this is a city that's really been on the heart of china. 0 covered strategy that of immediately locking down arrows and testing people to contain the virus. as you were mentioning, do people still believe this strategy is working yet in general, i mean the number of roots are relatively high in beijing. for example, international flights have been diverted already for a long time. they can only lent and, and neighbor cities. and also if you end up aging from within the country, you of always need a, a negative piece, the artist, et cetera. and that has led to a relatively safe situation. and people, and he and paging are relatively confident of the 0 corporate strategy. why?

because in many of cases in the past, it has worked and they have been already ami crohn infections clusters and they have her that could be contained. also the recent winter olympics he and beijing, there were hold under a very tight closed loop management. and none of the important cases from outside, i mean, among our coaches and also athletes it over to the rest of the population. however, now we have a very um, unique situation. the number of m daily infections have never been as high. and the number of areas that have been affected has never been as high. i mean, they're more than 60 kid a cities that have reported cases today. so it's really a very crucial moment for china are on a national level or view on, are people getting tired of people getting fed up what i mean? no. one shift in public mood that was really noticeable is that, and the fear of getting stuck under lockdown is at least as high as the fear of am

getting infected. and i mean, there have been several discussions whether we should em, you know, relax the 0 covert regime. but the opening up of the debate recently am, was put back and pushed back recently. so now am what the government he has looking at is also the am case of hong kong. i mean, they are the situation that really out of control the case fatality rate is higher than even a drink than comparable what has happened in the u. k. before the vaccination rate went up, so early a horrifying example. and so right now m m is the relaxation will not happen before 2023. that's a constant among experts. also because in autumn there will be a very crucial a party congress happening. and yeah, so probably we will have to stick to a with a 0 covert. i haven't respond bigion, thank you very much for that update. and here's

a quick look at some other developments are on the covert pan damage in china, or 2 more chinese medical workers as what i've been hong kong from the mainland to help with the cities fight against corporate 19 a spike in cases of hong kong has put its health infrastructure under pressure. hong kong has also been following be doing 0 over the approach to controlling the and them fairport in china's commercial hub, shanghai of more than 800 flights monday, due to the cities covered 19 outbreak bus services out of fund guy. it has also been suspended. city officials have seen the of select neighborhoods and aust residence to avoid unnecessary trouble. and the chinese official has said the sudden increase in court cases were likely in fact, local economic growth, financial bureau statistics hub over said on a national level, economic recovery would remain stable. retail sales and industrial production for january and february have been higher than the same period last year. but let's try

to get an overview of the corporate situation across china for that and joined by epidemiologist been calling from the school of public health at the university of hong kong professor calling. what explains this sudden spot in cases on the chinese mainland? i think in the past year we've seen a number of times the virus has found its way into mainland china and caused our place. there was a large one in c and some months ago. right now there's a large outbreak in gene province in separately. there's also a number of outbreaks in the south of the country in kwan don't thomas neighboring hong kong. i think we know that the virus we'll find his way in soon or later. so i'm not surprised that there are outbreaks, but the common number of cases is a concern because we know once the numbers of cases get larger and larger, it's actually more and more difficult to stop the spread and get back to 0. so there's going to be a lot of disruption, unfortunately,

particularly in julian province. i do want to talk to her about the 0 over the approach that china is taking. but i just like to clarify, if this is all because of the only cross variant or are we talking about a sub variant of or micron her is alma kwan in jail in providence and also in ground on provence. i'm not sure which of the sub evidence it is in the province. in kwan don't, i think it will be be a to does the same strain as in hong kong right now. and it's highly transmissible . we know all mac one is very difficult to stop, it spreads very fast, transmits to a lot of people in a short space of time and it will pose a major challenge to get back to 0. but at the same time, if you look at the entirety of mainland china, these outbreaks are still geographically very concentrated, and that's still an advantage for the 0. cobit approach that most of the country is still very much normal. it's only these few affected areas that are having that locked downs and the disruption with the restrictions that if it goes to planned

and then the restrictions won't be in place for too long, the case numbers will get back down to 0. it's going to be difficult, but when you overall assess so that this 0 covert approach is working and therefore it is what the continuing or is it a time for a rethink 70 for the previous 18 months. i think it's been the right thing to do back the coverage was, was low and then building up to a higher level. it makes a lot of sense to keep the virus out. now though, the vaccine coverage is at a higher and higher level. and so i think it is a good time to think about how much longer is worth pursuing the 0 cobra strategy for. it's been a good strategy in the past, but looking to the future, sooner or later, it will be time to relax the policies to exit from 0 cove. it may be not today, but we'll have to plan ahead, may be in 3 months time or 6 months time. the process for relaxing the public health measures would have to stop. and like now it in hong kong, we have

a serious epidemic going on. we've. we've seen the issue with low vaccination coverage in elderly, i think in mainland china, they also have in some form and says, relatively lower vaccine uptake in elderly. so any plan to exit from 0 cobit and to relax the public health measures would have to have as part of that, a plan to get the vaccine coverage in elderly as high as possible. right, we'll leave it there for the timing, but thank you so much for joining us today. professor ben calling from the university of hong kong. thank you so much and that's it for today. there's of course, more on the corona, virus pandemic, across asia, on our website. we leave your now with pictures from across china, as the country attempts to keep the rise and cobra cases in check with you tomorrow . bye. with

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he's always wanted to be alone. despair badly. oh, in that re credit that will go through with it. i was born in stuart's march 30th on d. w. ah, europe's russian gas problem is breathing new life into coal power plants once scheduled for cut off could come back on line of gas flow stuff. but there are many problems. the fossil fuel can't solved. we'll hear from an economist about the costs of quit and gas also in the show commodity prices have seen a wild ride in recent weeks, especially nickel. look at efforts to tame the market for around the medical of metal that's critical for carmakers. and the war is taking

a toll on trade like in moldova, for some farmers say they can no longer get their products to market. hello and welcome to the show. i'm super jersey and berlin. germany's dependence on russian gas has put the country in an awkward position. stopping imports would close a major revenue source for moscow. but it would also have wider consequences for the german economy, as well as the environment. among them are returned to coal, a fossil fuel, the berlin hope to leave behind. but the end of the decade. this open cast mine in eastern germany produces around 8000000 tons of leak night every year. it's taken straight to the nearby coal fired power plant on conveyor belts. that was all supposed to stop in 2028 due to environmental concerns. but now germany is looking at keeping its plants running beyond then after those are due, are still a long way from a completely renewable energy supply volume. so we look at ourselves as a way to close that gap. and as a complement.