well, conservation is taking shape around the world and how we can all make a difference. knowledge grows through sharing and download it now for free. with this is d w. news coming to you live from berlin. china's health care system struggles to cope with a surge. in corona virus cases, hospitals are overwhelmed by the wave of new infections. now that the country has abandoned its 0 coven policy. authorities say the caseload will keep rising. also coming up,

russian attacks have left many ukrainians without power or much to celebrate this holiday season. but an unexpected gift is brightened christmas for 1 pm family. ah. hello and terry martin, good to have you with us. china is reeling from a wave of code 19 infections. hospitals are overflowing with corona virus cases. now that the countries abandoned the strict 0 covered policies it had upheld for so long medical authority say the current wave will continue rising into next week. for those still healthy, the rule is keep out of each other's way. us be generous practicing their balancing skills on a frozen river in the middle of the city. after 3 years of constant restrictions on freedom, many are still strangers to the new situation of ha,

ha ha. we're afraid of the virus, especially because we have a child. we don't want him to get too close to any one and we really go out. many chinese are struggling with the government's messaging until recently, officials issued regular warnings about the virus. now suddenly, it's not supposed to be so bad to pick one. it's a challenge with the core problem. people are making themselves afraid. in recent years, the government has had good intentions, but exaggerate to the danger of the virus. lockwood. normal life out site seems to be returning. the streets are busier, but saw to are the hospitals. as the rapid spread of the virus makes its mark on the health care system, staff are completely unprepared at this emergency room in b ging it over flowing and overloaded in the corridors, the deceased lie on hospital beds on the floor,

a completely exhausted elderly lady. she has covered according to her relatives outside. some one brought his 8 year old parents here. oh, we've had a check up and were waiting for the results. no. if had a fever for a week, the temperature goes up and down all her. since the end of the 0 corbett policy official death, tolls have been hard to come by. but in front of the crime atoria, there are long lines with houses. we can only briefly take pictures with the smartphone, police or on guard everywhere. employees of the crematorium, tell us they are much busier than usual. the virus is spreading as a rapid pace. you can see that in the big cities, according to one epidemiologist, it may only take a month from the beginning to the end for that to occur on with 6070, even 80 percent of people being infected. so we know the oval timeline and that

this narrow window of opportunity to, to have actions. now that would save people's lives. thanks. officials have played to expand clinical capacities like here at the sports hall and to ramp vaccination rates among the elderly. many of them are still not adequately protected, according to scientists, only 3 injections of the chinese and activated vaccine offer protection against a severe course of the disease or more of this. i'm joy now, by maximilian gap law. he's an epidemiologist at the institute of tropical medicine and international health at the sharp tay hospital here in berlin. thanks for being with us. how concerned are you about the pandemic reports emerging from china? with, as you said, a new record $1500000000.00. vastly underestimated or even for the buyers with the most public health measures to continue with the

holiday season with dozens of hundreds of millions of chinese. going to trevor in the next week this, this is indeed one thing. it should other countries outside of china be worried about possible spill over a fax says the virus rips through the countries. huge population. there would travel bands make sense? what is so concerning this moment is the, the non immunization, low grade vaccination in the time, 84 countries are receiving travelers from china. and they're really depends very much on the level of immunization, new population. and so i would not expect a bill over. so in those countries, you're talking about her immunization there would access to more and different

vaccines make a difference for china's population. at this point we've, we've seen made that is that the best immunization is based on getting the different vaccines are having a head to roger immunization stages. and this is what is lacking in the chinese population. so i've seen the activity for over the past month would have been of course the advantage now. but now time is very, very short to change through new nation maximilian gap blood epidemiologist at berlin's shy hospital. thank you so much. thank you. now let's catch up on small the stories making headlines around the world. a huge

winter storm is moving across the united states, causing havoc ahead of the holiday season. freezing arctic air is bringing blizzards. an icy winds to much of the country forecasters, warren temperatures, could plunge to as low as minus 40 degrees celsius. in some areas, german authorities of arrested an employee of the country's foreign intelligence agency, the bnb on suspicion of treason, the suspect was arrested in berlin on wednesday, and is accused of sharing state secrets with moscow. tensions between germany and russia have escalated since the invasion of ukraine. well, this holiday season is a struggle for ukrainians. rush in air strikes, have cut power, disrupted water supplies, and knocked out heating and the war has broken up. families sending millions abroad and many to the front. c, w is max. it's under met up with family in kia, enjoying an unexpected christmas gift. a bit of

a holiday spirit. and the break you will, you brought her kids keeta and daddy to keeps only christmas. it's her 5 year olds, 1st time on the ice, and brings back memories of her own childhood. whenever. so when i lived in russia, in barsh court huston, very often the entire street was frozen. and we used to escape very often that the payment with did you like it was? yes, it was scary. the that ah, the 3 then pay a visit to santa's village, a recreation of the magic that takes place in the north pole with candles presence . ah. and use a

santa is always on his great throne. listening to the children's wishes. keeta and daddy's are different this year shorter and truth be told, impossible for santa to fulfill that in law whole great victory for ukraine and a robot. okay. me on that victory to ukraine. i will not ask for anything else. christmas is different this year. for jojo christmas usually means spending time with family visiting her parents and in los celebrating and unwinding this year, millions are flipped. the country are displaced or living under russian occupation . tens of thousands of families have lost their loved ones with soldiers and civilians will just those cuz it is impossible to relax completely on your printer . but it is good for the kids to see that there is not only evil in this world, but also good law. yet there are things to live for. was it that there is

a desire to make this a holiday. listen, we put up the christmas tree and we are going to celebrate. anyway, she tries to comfort them as best she can, but she doesn't hide any thing. the children know what war means and what their father does on the frontline, yahoo, i am really worried. he is a medic, i think he knows how to deal with bleeding. so, but if he has a bigger wound, as well as another person who is injured, he will try to rescue the other person and not himself boys inserted in the end. there was an incident in on this event, it's time to go home in the dark. there's no power and time to see dad exceptionally back from the front for a routine medical checkup the elevators out. so it's walk up 16 floors to see him to be through was just back from the hospital. there's been a small christmas miracle. he's found out he won't have to return to the front line

right away. given the quota on that is the last 4 moves because let's say a for me, every christmas, especially because the children are growing each year am a man thaws with their changing and it's the moment you can see the changes in life how the year passed by us, but as the christmas and new years are a kind of summary of the year, that is one that you can see what kind of father you were kids highly and what kind of situation your family was in the emotional up with the, with the son that they can to provide them moves only a jak long of stalin level dania. right now, it's a family reunited by surprise for a war time christmas. one, they are determined to make as memorable and meaningful as they can. let's bring in keira roodick here she is

a member of the ukrainian parliament and his head of the opposition holiday party. she joins us from cube. welcome to the program. tell us how is your country holding up after 10 months of war? hello, thank you so much for having me. as you see, no matter how hard it is right now, without electricity, without the heating, without the running water and wisconsin to iraq, the tax out we are holding up. we are pushing, put his 1st is back and we are doing things that nobody believed we would do at the very beginning of the full scale invasion. this 10 months have been incredibly hard on our people. however, there were so many things that sought to be impossible and became possible starting from key if standing out for more than 23 days, and put in a set it up to be conquered at 2nd with us having their candidacy to european union . something that we're critic said didn't ugly would happen. of course,

nobody believed that we were capable of pushing russia back and taking cities like hare san to. 9 ah, to be back to ukraine. and right now, are there the year is ending was president speech to congress, and you're talking to the president biden. so no matter how hard we are motivated and plan to win the war next year, winning the war of course, depends on getting support from other countries or the u. s. has taken the lead in providing ada weaponry for ukraine. that was underlined by your presence tripped washington this week. but what about europe? are you convinced that the e u, including germany is doing all it can to help you crime? though we are extremely grateful for everything that is being done for us, starting from humanitarian aid, financial aid, sanctions, and weapons. there is a lot of things that could be done. additionally,

especially it can, it is concerning that there are so many requests on the weapons that are not being fulfilled. and we do hope that while the us is taking lead on providing ukraine with the most sophisticated weapons, defense weapons, and their miss heil systems that we need to protect ourselves from their missile attacks from russia. we also would hope that european countries will follow this lead and give us their necessary means to protect our self. to make sure that once they're rushing miss house i being launched, we know definitely that we are able to intercept them and we are able to protect not only our critical infrastructure, but also people who struggle every single day. ukrainian parliament carrot roodick there. thank you very much for talking with us. thank you and glory to king.

you're watching dw news up next. we've got business for you with stephen beardsley . of course, don't forget you can always get all the latest news and information any time you want on our website. that's d w dot com. i'm terry martin for me and all of us here at the w. thanks for watching. ah, thing for every journey is full of surprises. we've gone all out to give you some test one day in the, in the foot of the rigby home.