rowing and young people clearly had the solution. the future belongs to loop is 77 percent every weekend on d w. ah, this is did up the news asia coming up to date is china 0 over the approach failing 1000000. that again is locked down as the country sees, it's west increase uncovered cases. in 2 years, the daily grind of testing lockdown and isolation is leaving people tired. i can't understand what's happening in other cities. the control measures were doing pretty well before when i 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 outbreak in 2 years. more than 5000 cases on the mainland in just the past 24 hours alone. now that doesn't seem like much for a country of 1400000000 people, but remember, this is in a country with a 0 cove. it 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 spiked 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, john 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 julian 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. the restrictions are in place to battle, the omicron variant spreading quickly in spite of china 0 cove, it policy on to the south in shanghai, food supply has become concerned. more and more residents have been ordered into

quarantine and the city is talking up on extra food and running deliveries. a new one, mark. i did it. you don't. there's no other way. we definitely have to do what the government has arranged. he said any other better way to solve it on the crown is highly transmissible just to hurry up. well yeah, 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 to know like harvey, how sure, really gazelle olivia 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 coven

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 it starts again. when will it ever end? joining us now for more from b, g is correspondent fabi on christopher saga. 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. m became much longer. 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 m with in 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 rounds of pc artists. however, that being said, drink most parts of the city, life goes honest. normally our restaurants are open. even bossa open, so it's really am. yeah, a very interesting situation right now from this is a city that's really been of 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? in general, i mean the number of roots are relatively high in beijing. for example, international flights m has been diverted already for a long time. they can only lent and their neighbor cities. and also if you end up aging from within the country, you of always, nita and negative p c, artist, et cetera. and that has led to a relatively safe situation and people, and he and beijing are relatively confident of the 0 corporate strategy. why?

because and many m cases in the past, it has worked and there have been already army cron infections clusters and they have her there could be contained also the recent winter olympics in beijing there were holt and are very tight closed loop management. and none of the important cases from outside, i mean among her 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 on a national level or far beyond. 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 them getting stuck under locked on this at least as high as the

fear of am getting infected. and i mean, there have been several discussions whether we should, you know, relax the 0 cobra to regime. but the opening up of the debate recently am, was put back and pushed back recently. so now and what the government he is 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 am the, 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 an oregon. so probably we will have to stick to a, with a 0 covert iris, moran bigger and thank you very much for that up to it. and here's

a quick look at some other developments around the covert pandemic in china. a team of chinese medical workers as what i've been hong kong from the mainland to help with the cities fight against grove in 19 a spike in cases of hong kong has put its health infrastructure under pressure. ongoing has also been following bridging 0 over the approach to controlling the pandemic 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 has also been suspended. city officials have seen the of select neighborhoods and aust residents to avoid unnecessary trouble. and the chinese official or said the sudden increase in court cases were likely in fact local economic growth. financial bureau statistics however 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. for let's try

and get an overview of the cobit situation across china for that. i'm joined by epidemiologist, ben 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 and separately. there's also a number of outbreaks in the south of the country in kwan don't. com is neighboring hong kong. i think we know that the virus will find its 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 dealing province. i do want to talk to you 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 here is all make one in julian province and also in ground on provence. i'm not sure which of the sub variance it is in gene and 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 mach 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. its only these few affected areas that are having that locked downs and the disruption with the restrictions, the 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 what your 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? so me 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 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 and elderly, i think in mainland china, they also have, in some provinces, 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 you now with pictures from across china, as the country attempts to keep the rise and covert cases in check with you tomorrow by

3 people in trucks injured when trying to flee the city center. more and more refugees are being turned away. families in the reason for the credit on it is with demonstrated people fleeing screen around getting 200 people with june around the world. more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. yes.

why? because no one should have to flee. make up your own mind. d w. made for mines. ah, ah, ah, europe's russian gas problem is breathing new life into coal power plants want scheduled for shut off. could come back on line of gas bo stop with there are many problems the fossil fuel can't solve. 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, welcome to the show. i'm super busy in berlin. germany dependence on russian gas has put the country in an awkward position. stopping in ports would close a major revenue source for moscow could also have wider consequences for the german economy, as well as the environment. among them a return to coal, a fossil fuel, the berlin hoped 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.