i'm sure i'll see you then. in the headlines this hour here in the czech president says his country needs to start using very vaccines and calls for the health minister to be fired for refusing to approve the drug. it's really no way to suspend the use of the astra zeneca vaccine after reports of blood clots and one death among those who receive the shot. for brand new hospitals built at a cost of. boils over a mere one percent pay rise for frontline health workers. around me. and in many.

new yorkers call them governor cuomo to step down. over his handling of the covert crisis we hear from the daughter of one victim who's demanding. most policies. are just after 7 pm here in the russian capital this is the international. welcomes . the president of the czech republic has urged his government to approve the russian made sputnik of a vaccine to ease the ongoing health crisis and it's spiraled into a major feud within the leadership in prague with the president calling for the health minister to be fired for dragging his feet on the issue. czech republic

deeply unhappy with senior figures in the government of that nation. called for both the health ministry on the minister for health to step up to the plate in approve the sputnik vaccine ahead of the european medicines agency giving the green light a similar move was done in countries like hungary that independently approved the sputnik the vaccine for use without. a approval it was still waiting for the difference in the czech republic is those that the president is now calling for senior figures in the cabinet to be sacked i would like to say that the 2 biggest obstacles to delivering sputnik be to the czech republic and the minister of health and also the director of the state institute for drug control if millions of people abroad are already being vaccinated with these jabs whether russian or chinese than the 2 i spoke of are to blame for the fact that our people will continue to die unnecessarily the only solution i see is the retirement of both well he certainly

came but youngblood me the health minister in prague has said he will wait for the maize approval before allowing sputnik v. to be used in check as long as i'm the health minister i will insist that vaccination in the czech republic is not done with a drug that has not been approved by the european medicines agency but if he was to change his mind there are plenty within the government who would be very keen to see the russian vaccine rolled out across the country i would not seek to devalue the results of russian science just because it comes from russia we have a situation where there are not enough vaccine supplies in europe so the e.u. should have negotiated with other manufacturers including manufacturers from russia a long time ago well while the mail while we wait for the m a's approval of the sputnik vaccine there has been some developments with another of the vaccines that is being used across europe the astra zeneca gel. has been suspended for use in

a number of a huge nations italy and denmark becoming the latest out of 7 e.u. member states to suspend their use of the astra zeneca job they joy in norway and iceland among the states putting that on hold for now it follows a number of incidents involving or an investigation into whether there's a link between a number of incidents involving blood clots the vaccination blood clots developing in those who'd recently had the job we saw this in austria a little while ago a batch of the astra zeneca jobs was suspended for use there after one woman died in another took seriously ill with a pulmonary embolism now another person we understand has died in denmark which is what's prompted them to suspend the use of the astra zeneca job the day danish health minister said it was not currently possible to conclude if there is a link between the vaccination at this person it had their death from

a blood clot however there is a full investigation taking place that in austria we know it related to one particular bunch of the vaccine that they were focusing on. the astra zeneca job involved 1000000 doses and was sent to 17 different nations knots of c. quite worrying a full investigation taking place but 7 a you member states saying they're going to put use of the astra zeneca job on hold for now as peter mentioned a number of countries have suspended the use of the astra zeneca vaccine over reports of blood clots and one death and denmark now the european and medicines agency which is heading the investigation and says that those countries should continue using the job. the position of european medicines agency safety committee p.r.a. see is that the vaccines benefits continue to outweigh its risks and the vaccine can continue to be administered while investigation of cases of flu on bone bullock events is ongoing. arlette now across live to us simon clarke associate professor

of so the microbiology at the university of reading thank you for joining us here on our team today a growing list of countries are suspending the astra zeneca job are they right to be cautious or perhaps are they overreact. afternoon well it's always right. national helpful torches keep their eye on what's going on. take careful look at any potential side effects but it has to be remember that monks in general population every day they will people there will be people who will get blood clots who are unfortunately will die now those regulators do need to keep an eye and see if there's any are jus correlation with people who've had the vaccine nightly but you know some of those people would probably have got i would probably have had blood clots and some of them may have died anyway whether they do

vaccinated or not other european medicines agency has said that countries should not be suspending the astra zeneca drug they believe the benefits outweigh the risk what's your assessment. well they may have a point i mean i don't have access to the exact numbers right across europe so we need to look at where the number of people are and you report said that batch of vaccine is gone to. i said how many different countries is there a problem with. globetrotting in other countries as well or is this just a one off for example in denmark writes a really important thing to to find out and really anybody with this sort of oversight multinational oversight like the m a can do that was good i was going to raise that was the question because in the u.k. where you are millions of people have received the astra zeneca shot most of them elderly and it seems to have gone for the most what caught most part quite smoothly

why is it then that these other problems are being reported on the continent but not in the u.k. . well they will be appearing in the u.k. but regulator will look and see whether it's within the normal parameters of what you'd expect to see but what for people getting blood clots are not quite sure why anybody would think that it was the situation with any worse or better in the u.k. i mean the it might be the case that if there is a problem it's a biggish that it's with a particular batch but again we need to get better oversight and better understanding of what's going on now that i've seen some commentary on the on the social spheres and social websites that's what some people like to call some of these vaccines they call them experimental vaccines obviously i don't think these people are doctors or scientists but are there concerns that the european medicines agency is possibly approving shots faster than they should. i don't think

that really be stood up i mean the year of medal medicines agency has to take the sort of questions and concerns of each member state into account when either when it gives gives or thorough t. i don't think one can say the a.m.a. is big slipshod or careless you know that there are questions that they are simply slightly different from regulators in the u.k. or in other countries so overall one gets quite a broad picture of the safety of this drug what it is. in many different countries i guess but possibly quite sad to say that there is some competition between 5 maddalena astra zeneca they're all in the in the same line of work and they're now also brussels is potentially pushing forward with these are so-called nedda coal passports and one point that's been raised here is that already it seems that the russian a vaccine sputnik vini is already being politicized by some political players out

there what's your position on the possible mandate of medical possible it's. oh i think. they have that place for travel there are ethical issues around a lot insisting on them for people to participate in normal society i do think that governments route takes a very long hard look at that but of course any member state is within its rights to insist that it's country have certain vaccines and i suspect that's what will happen son in clock associate professor of sutherland microbiology at the university of reading a great pleasure having you with us on r.t. today thank you you're welcome. in the meantime italy is set to become the 1st state to make russia's sputnik the vaccine with production due to start in july the european medicines agency is considering whether to approve the shot and its developers are demanding an apology after the agency's chair described the

authorization process as russian roulette nevertheless italy expects to manufacture $10000000.00 doses by the years and as the bloc suffers huge shortages from western alternatives the president of the italian russian chamber of commerce told us the deal is about people not politics. and as for public opinion leaving aside political views everyone is very much looking forward to the vaccine people are waiting for doses not for statements though a great number were coming from fires and astra zeneca according to the promises all italians were to be vaccinated by june but unfortunately we can see that it won't be the case therefore there are great hopes for sputnik v. i wouldn't say that the reason it's widely anticipated is because it's a russian vaccine people want to get any vaccine and certainly one with a reasonable price and these religious sticks and sputnik the meets those expectations i believe that's been in the perfectly fits into the logic of the made with russia label let me give you a specific example the russian direct investment fund was looking for european

pharmaceutical company incorporation with which you could produce a vaccine in europe as the russian italian chamber of commerce we couldn't sit idle we examined all the information concerning the vaccine i personally was one of the 1st foreigners inoculated with sputnik v. we understand there is no life for development without a vaccine and geopolitics shouldn't be a priority all the focus should be put on people's health and business and the job innovation is not the only russian anti covert breakthrough for example the russian institute of immunology is to is testing a drug now that could stop infected people from spreading the disease the head of the institute told us about the trials. with the clinical trials of mere 19 kicked off at the beginning of this year at the moment the 1st phase concerning its safety is coming to a close and we expect it to be completed by the middle of march and then as part of the 2nd phase we will proceed to the examination of its efficacy on patients the

medicine is designed to stop a virus from replicating itself it's clear already that this drug will be administered in an inhaled form as for the period of effectiveness it's hard to say right now certainly the earlier an infected person takes the medicine the better it will work however given its immediate focus on blocking the replication of the virus we believe it can be effective at any stage of illness anyway let's wait until we get the results of the 2nd face. italy has launched the world's 1st covert hospital train as it struggles with overflowing wards it is a quip to treat the most critically ill the patients. you know this is a medical train that has been equipped to transport and treat critically ill patients and dose intensive care 1st everybody is organized as if it's in the intensive care unit obviously with simply equipment with the label to do the job

7 patients can be transported in each carry each so in total $21.00 patients in intensive care covert cases in the country have again been on the rise this month force north already has to put more regions into the so-called red zone with the tightest restrictions the health minister says the train will head to wherever it's needed most. hospital train was made available to reinforce the territory where there is a difficulty it's approximately service and national health service that goes where there is a problem money down the drain that's how the u.k.'s shoot for temporary covert hospitals are being described after it was revealed most of the men are being closed down having treated only a tiny handful of patients it has led to questions over the government's approach to the pandemic as could partridge reports. 4 of england's nightingale hospitals are being closed down they've been built at a cost of 500000000 pounds to preempt a surge in the pandemic but the east london venue treated only 54 patients in the

1st wave while others so not all n.h.s. officials say they served as the nation's safety net since the very early days of the been there make the nightingale hospitals have been on hand as the ultimate insurance policy in case existing hospital capacity was overwhelmed but many permanent hospitals were already short staffed and are able to release frontline workers to the nightingales the government felt the need to show some some. peace that they could share what. we have created here. noting it was rules and. china managed to create a hospital and once we even more so i mean there was an element of the showing of those who are trying to reassure that they were doing that and when the government starts to do things right is ensure you're going to get the waste of money there's

no one asked the question well do we need to really do we need to as it turned out . it also turned out we start them because the main issue is that we start with not the actual number of bits that were available so the whole thing was just. to go well as i can see why that new year medics in covert hotspots were days away from having to choose who would be treated and who wouldn't as record coronavirus admissions forced ambulances to wait outside a indi and amid the surge n.h.s. workers had to resort to wearing bin bags due to a lack of personal protective equipment some doctors even received p.p.a. which had gone beyond its expiry date over 2 years the u.k. government has also set aside cash for its much criticised covert 19 track and trace system 37 1000000000 pounds of taxpayers' money prompting a scathing report from a westminster spending watchdog despite the unimaginable resources throwing at this

project testing trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic british experience cannot be treated by the government like an a.t.m. machine we need to see a clear plan and costs better controlled in his budget chancellery she soon x. said the government had spent over 280000000000 pounds during the pandemic over 700000 jobs have been lost and the economy has suffered its biggest drop in 300 years but tough questions are now being asked about how chunks of that 280000000000 pounds have been spent and the impact that they've had. i think a group is a collaboration or it's very cool pre-planning and very cool execution or planning. numbers of mistakes i own but of course i've printed money and beings parents on the. non-secure all hospitals most of which were not properly

speedier complete waste of resources. that the governments have been criticized for not looking at hats the issue of the stall for small sticks because there's no point in happy these extra hospital facilities if you haven't got the start to get into. the hospital closures come at the same time the government has said it cannot afford more than a one percent pay rise for n.h.s. workers now says have launched a petition calling for a 15 percent salary hike i mean time more than half a 1000000 have already signed the document one nurse explained to us what a one percent pay rise equates to. to be honest one percent is quite frankly an insult to the profession and to the n.h.s. it's a home for most nurses that equates to around 3 counts of sea week and in many hostile sites across the u.k. it costs more than that to park your car to go to a compact a cop and we are acutely aware of this financial strain that's the brits on u.k.

by the pandemic. we're not saying that we deserve any more than anyone else we're just saying that we are also decent they will say they see what we do and the public sector workers have seen some sadly well deserved raises recently and we've been left out to sas again as an n.h.s. and i think when we talk about money and what's affordable we've just seen 67000000000 being used on it and it's actually tracking systems that would pay for an n.h.s. to how 60 percent pay rise and it would still be money left in the pot after we see nearly qualified mrs and student nurses already thinking gosh you know if i come into the right korea here we have a little 100000 nurses baking season the way i'm not really because it's patient safety issues across all that what we really need is to fill those vacancies and to have a committed and enthusiastic and educated group and we're not going treaties are unnecessary paying our staff the freight. pressure is continuing to

mount against new york's governor of his handling of the covert health crisis a protest outside andrew cuomo his office which block the streets so police move in and make a number of arrests higher greek yogurt are you hearing ok yeah god here protesters had been charging to the governor had failed new yorkers and they condemned him for undercounting the number of deaths and missing homes cuomo has since admitted he made a mistake in withholding the data. and we didn't provide information. it'll. press people soon the politician to fill the void i just want to be sure people know these are the facts these are the facts. everything that could have been done was done the state's health department had reported around 8000 fatalities in care homes but that number excluded those who were transferred to hospitals where

they died it was later acknowledged there had been a $15000.00 deaths in total. or many people lost loved ones in the pandemic teresa sorry's mother died in one new york she's been demanding answers about most policies which saw nursing homes taking in covert positive patients i spoke with her just a bit earlier. everyone can make it like it was just. walking away she. could have been aborted i think it would be. the next we're not under you know clipper basis or have. played of a lot of people responsible specially american woman actually that. are going or. coming. from the top you know in the end carry a little you know whatever in place you know the nursing home or like a bull are you know. calling out and. come to or any do

you want to do your job and you know. i'm going to do a thing here the people who are in there think. if i can be on the beach and like to take my special ringback you then but not going to relieve. pressure on them and you know hold of this very you know ringback basically. i mean this is going on my i mean they're almost a year that are strong and are claiming that you know if you can remember how many people ringback die from the interstate while you know there aren't you know how badly she. actually comes out. when they came. back you should be more outraged again number 'd back nursing home my mother. the word normal this being dropped from all skin care products made by the consumer goods dry and unilever the u.k.

based firm claims the word normal makes customers feel. excluded. we know that removing normal from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone but it's an important step forward the company polled customers and found more than 2 in 3 people thought using their word normal had a negative impact unilever also says it's ending the excessive airbrushing of models in its advertising but there has already been a backlash. so sick of woken us taken to p.c. extremes normal means not only and not dry do we have to turn every term on the planet into enclose it itty i've never been able to use normal shampoo but at least i know that it isn't suitable for my dry and or lohan thank god i have always felt marginalized with my dry scalp every time in the shampoo aisle i would have to seek out a safe space because of the pain and anguish caused by seeing the word normal and

my inability to ever have normal hair you know leverage just saved my life your liver will drop the word normal from buttes of products years of to decades of cell in fairness creams in india as not the 1st time unilever's quarter controversy last year it faced huge flak over its marketing of skin whitening products in asia so we put the issue about banning the word normal up for debate. there's no way ordinary people think this in those kinds of numbers when it comes to the word normal the other thing about using models and changing the shots oh i agree with but the normal thing this is purely them overreacting to the trouble they landed themselves in i think it's important that they are talking about this and they are going to do this because. it's needed we need to keep pushing change in the industry i mean you know body land and we have probably one of the most inclusive agencies and i don't

think enough times are doing enough to how that can haynes inclusive and stay away from normal this is marketed this is a bit like we're going to change tomato sauce so it's going to be green we're going to turn salad cream into a different color we're going to start making solid cream this is just a pathetic attempt to grab more market share and also so i can i disagree i don't think that's that's and i think original simply reading the article had read all is not it doesn't i disagree so i die i have to agree and then i mean we we've recently hired a model who went through an accident he has to be scarring she has you know i think . she is doing very well now a few years ago this would be shocking to see but this is imposed and this is what we should be seeing and i think removing normal is important for a lot of people out there so i had great. there's the idea of normal i would agree

with you there if somebody has got a disability or whatever could do not understand what they call the motos or take on board completely what is the word normal when it comes to things like shampoo so a normal hair well is are the normal greasy or dry or cracked or damaged and i think doing what they're doing what they're talking about removing almost stopping editing and editing especially on social media this is you know there is a definite trend against that. and i think what they are doing is a step in the right direction it is not the be all and end all but it is moving forward so i think it's a good indication i don't think they're necessarily doing it to ground press i think it's needed doing this purely to get market share and they're doing it purely because of their offensive products that they had before 10000 people i'd love to see the steps of let's see the demographic of the 10000 people that they asked them whether they confuse the question ability or being confused or not my friend where

you think it's about normal imagery would your grandmother would normal i don't object to any of the rest of it but the word normal it's work nonsense it's all done for marketing and you shouldn't be falling for it because they're making a mug of you. concerns over the u.s. president's mental state have deepened after he appeared her forgotten even the name of his own defense secretary it does add to a raft of strange recent incidents involving joe biden including his vice president now calling foreign leaders an auction usually reserved well primarily for the head of state 3 true power reports. well wouldn't you know it turns out sleepy joe biden is well still sleepy and it's becoming increasingly hard to ignore which is probably why half of americans don't think he is mentally fit to be president according to a recent rasmussen poll and it's not exactly surprising it's been 7 weeks since is inauguration and it's hard to shake the feeling that he's being hidden from the

world in a basement and when he is released into the public chaos ensues he forgets the names of people he himself appointed like defense secretary lloyd austin there who he recently referred to as that guy running that outfit over there and i want to thank the. former general i keep calling him general my mind you know the guy who runs out of town for you know his handlers panic any time anybody might god forbid ask him a question and he constantly loses his train of thought while reading from a teleprompter it's been 2 months and he has yet to give a news conference or answer any meaningful question but one time he did agree to some live questions the white house instantly interrupted the feed and it's not like the media is even giving him a hard time with the questions it's not like with trump or they were doing their journalistic duty by constantly grilling him about his mental health the russian

conspiracy theories and other frankly absurd allegations and criticisms no joe biden gets questions like one will there be a 1st white house feline how are the dogs doing how is it living in the white house and even some of these questions get delegated to his press secretary jen circle back saki the question is who the hell is running the white house while apparently it's kemal harris you know the one that barely got any votes during her presidential run got completely demolished during the democratic debates. and was later tacked on to biden's bill despite nobody liking her apparently while biden is taking his daytime nap kemal is the one who's talking to foreign leaders the liberating middle east responses and sanctions some are even suspecting a secret transition period has already started so americans are in kind of a rough spot on who to be following on the one hand you have

a president lots up in a basement and on the other hand you have a woman who really nobody likes who was in the white house really on a technicality gotta love democracy your program or times and hoffa no. one else seems wrong. we just don't. get to shape our disdain become educated and indeed equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. one of the worst ever mass shootings in america was unless a very good.