the european medicines agency urges countries to keep using the astra zeneca coronavirus vaccine insisting it's safe also launching a probe into dozens of new cases of severe blood clots. is a sick of. this it did. every stage of this epidemic we might say to ourselves that we could have done better but we made mistakes true. a stark admission of failure is in the handling of the crisis by the french president as the country's death toll nears 100008 prong is forced to impose a 3rd national lockdown. also this hour there is fears of a nursing exodus in the u.k. as a poll reveals a one m. 4 and

h s workers is more likely to quit now than in 2020 with many citing exhaustion from the pandemic we speak to one british nurse. with such ease it needs to be increased quite huge the cost of living aid has gone down the wages have increased the east side much trysts on the benefit of the government need to help increase the weight. and a year of restrictions of millions dad and the origin of coronavirus is still a mystery after a long awaited w.h.o. report. leaves many questions answered we ask a russian expert on that mission and why it's taking so long. watching our 2 international coming to live from the russian capital this and every hour of welcome to the program the european medicines agency is throwing its support behind the astra zeneca coated vaccine despite fears over severe blood

clots the regulator is launching yet another investigation but insists countries should keep using the shot. according to the current scientific knowledge there is no evidence that would support restricting the use of the vaccine in any population 2 weeks ago on the 18th of march we gave an interim update of the if. we concluded after the time that the benefit of the after turning back in preventing covert 19 with a. risk of hospitalized patients and their outweigh the risk of side effects and are not changed another i mentioned previously a causal link with the vaccine has not yet been progress but it is possible there are now if this is still ongoing. joining us now in the studio is artie's nicky and with all the details now me there seems to be taking a very different stance from several member states on the safety of the astra

zeneca shot break this down for us hi jackie well this astra zeneca saga continues doesn't it the latest being the head of the european medicines agency insisting there is no evidence to suggest the best mode of action here would be to restrict the use of the astra zeneca vaccine and there is of course coming just days after germany decided to limit distribution of the job citing concerns over blood clots now worldwide there have been $62.00 cases of this rare blood clotting condition which has prompted a number of european countries to temporarily holt's use of the vaccine germany's medical regulator has recorded 31 cases of this rare blood clots condition although in people younger than the age of 63 all but 2 were women and 9 people have died and angela merkel has said this is data that the government just can't ignore. the negative comments through the standing committee for vaccination published new

recombination in the future use of the senate vaccination i quote on the basis of the currently available will be limited evidence and with a view to depend to make situation the standing committee for vaccination recommends the use of the esters any curve in $1000.00 vaccine and those over 60 it's application for under $66.00 still possible a doctor's discretion and individual acceptance of the risks. so how much of a setback is this for the vaccination campaign them when it's just the latest in a number of glitches to the progress here the blocks vaccine rollout has been heavily criticized for being sluggish and this is mainly been due to a lack of vaccine doses just 4 percent of the blocks population has been vaccinated so far and that's even urged the world health organization to tell the block you know to get a move on. vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic however the rollout of these vaccines is an acceptably slow we must speed up the process by

ramping up manufacturing reducing barriers to administering vaccines and using every single vial we have in stock mel so it's things like the perfect timing to introduce a helping hand perhaps in the form of an alternative vaccine but what if that vaccine happens to be russian now we all remember the negative press that sputnik the guard when it was 1st unveiled but now it seems like the most logical solution to these issues the european medicines agency has been evaluating the for several weeks now but a number of countries have already jumped on board started ordering and started using sputnik the including hungary and slovakia with austria being the latest european country to order its doses and a recent poll in germany found that half the population actually wants germany to jump onboard. artie's nikki erin bringing us the latest on the astra zeneca job thank you. and other news the french president admits he made mistakes

throughout the pandemic and a televised address to the nation among all mccrone has announced a 3rd nationwide lockdown as covert cases soar intensive care about are filling up and the country's death toll nears 100000 he said the situation left him with no other choice. the city did i know that every stage of this epidemic we might say to ourselves that we could have done better that we made mistakes this is true we all need to make an additional efforts over the coming months this is what i ask of us collectively tonight the new lockdown measures will be extended from 19 areas to all of mainland france from saturday as means a nationwide curfew beginning at 7 pm will be imposed and travel between regions will be the french president has also said schools will be closed for at least 3 weeks and announce additional policing to ensure no more than 6 people gather at once the measures introduced by the french president come as a complete u.

turn to his previous decision not to lock down in january he was criticised at that time by scientists and hospital bosses. i say to the government do it now do it now or do it for a shorter time but do it to concede their right not to implement a lockdown in france at the end of january because we didn't have the explosion of cases that every model predicted france's president is without a doubt an educated man emmanuel macro and through through the country's top institutions before making a mark in both the private or public sector he then repaying france's youngest ever president i mean it's a pretty impressive resume and people traded in selfless and learned he knew when to take advice i mean it and it is important at this time by following the advice of scientists as we've just done to ensure the continuity of on democratic life and our institutions but now it seems being top dog isn't quite enough not grown his

throwing himself into an entirely new discipline the president has acquired real expertise in health issues it is not an inaccessible subject for an intelligent person like him considering the important time he has dedicated to it for several months not cause aids if he wouldn't be declared that he has become an epidemiologist despite not having a scientific background in these claims over. seas on health issues have also rubbed the wrong way. because you don't let mr president of the republic and in the framework of the pandemic just like all heads of states he has become interested in epidemiological data yes to put his nose to the grindstone he's obliged to take notice of trends but that doesn't make him an epidemiologist of course for all those that talk about epidemiology and among them we can find heads

of states like president micron who talks about epidemiology just like we talk about politics when we talk about sculpture or bots music but they're not necessarily sculpture artists. well musicians. in britain there are fears of a nursing exodus after a survey revealed that and they chest staff are now more likely to quit their jobs citing exhaustion from the pen demick according to the poll one in 4 n.h.s. workers are more inclined to leave than last year almost 30 percent of them are nurses and midwives to occupations facing major shortages and 70 percent say a pay rise is the decisive factor meanwhile those working for free student nurses are struggling to make ends meet one of them gave us her reaction to the service findings but it doesn't surprise me it's what we've had. increased but. not the cost of living has gone up the wages have increased so much stress on the nurses midwives everyone involved in the question and i think to be honest with the

carpet condemn it i think everyone has now had enough and they need help and i feel the government nature help and increase the way. to get a good environment for everyone but his health authorities in turn have promised to provide the n.h.s. with an extra 29000000000 pounds but the nurse we spoke to says that money isn't making any real difference when it comes to student medics. we get the 5000 pound girl and some people get a 2000 pound grant dependent children or what feels like i mean cherry but in reality is a chill in the ocean for the increase in childcare costs you know the increasing council tax increase in fuel into placement my fish derives its state of freight back twice. and that should aid in the states that were actually for tightness stays at the rate bank they could have played to say should i go into this position because i have 2 children and that's why my move by requiring little one was quite

a full time childcare and the other one it just started sco the funds come for you all to we've already signed up for the cool so that for you the potential if she leaves the coals and it does add to the mental the that. you know all the u.k. sports minister is being lampooned online after he suggested people should avoid hugging not to save lives people took issue with the way he described hugs as off behavior. despite the temptation pleased. by actually hunting one and risk the spread of disease to see somebody. like this and maybe call him out on that in a respectful way.

nigel how will stand where can i report you because if you think you're promoting normal behavior you need to check out from the neck up what script are you reading from no same individuals would put this out there as normal. behaving in a slightly old way strange choice of words to describe family members holding one another. in other words if you see someone behaving like a human being then call them out on it. can he call his many call eeks who have been found guilty of various actions. 'd 'd a long awaited world health organization report on the origins of covert 19 sharp

criticism worldwide with some country saying the investigation wasn't extensive enough as many questions still remain unanswered w.h.o. director general himself called for further studies after the report was published we got a firsthand account of the w.h.o. mission to will hunt from a russian member of the team. which will cause our mission started off under phase one why was it called that it was clear from the beginning nobody expected us to find answers to all the questions right away in fact it was prepared to rework aimed at analyzing the data we had accumulated and establishing hypotheses in general it's hard to predict how long this investigation will take and how it will end but it should be done that's for sure. or we've managed to find out that the virus supposedly emerged in the period between the middle of november and the beginning of december however we don't know

the exact location of the outbreak in my view it was in china but it's not clear yet it's unlikely though that the outbreak occurred in a wet market most probably it was some market visitor who had already been infected and spread the virus this suggestion derives from the fact that there were quite a large number of patients who had nothing to do with the markets we don't know who the 1st patient was neither do we know the natural origin of covert 19 based on our common knowledge of various coronaviruses we suggest it's a but might have been a source. the issue is very much politicized everyone is trying to find someone to blame i've never considered the oblique hypothesis a theory there's so much talk about this in the media though but people don't really have an idea there is no scientific evidence or facts proving a leak as of today based on what we saw i can say that the suspect in a laboratory is run properly by well trained staff there is total compliance with all the rules regarding work with viruses of this has

a class or even the class above the laboratory is regularly audited and is in the constant scrutiny of competent international organizations building from that we therefore can't say that a lab leak might have been the cause. we didn't feel any pressure coming from our chinese colleagues actually it wouldn't even be the case i can think of how they could have put pressure on us we are in no way affiliated with china people from various countries were part of our team who went to carry out this investigation on behalf of the w h o m what would have been the points of pressurising as we hardly liaise with officials we were largely in touch with scientists. so i had in the program back seen passports and mask mandates are the latest bones of contention between democrats and republicans in the us a story in full after the break. all

of the information in the world when you put it together and simultaneously it adds

up to 0 it adds up to nothing all deal losing the differentiation will be obliterated the illusion of making a profit will be obliterated because we're entering into a period of the singularity. welcome back russia is pushing ahead with the global rollout of the sputnik the vaccine the russian direct investment fund has struck a deal to make 100000000 doses of the job in china cooperation will help increase production capacities of sputnik v. in china to provide the necessary amounts and help partners in the country and globally to fight the pandemic china is one of the major production hopes for sputnik v. and we are ready for increasing the scope of partnership with local producers to meet the rising demand for the russian vaccine those upcoming stocks will be enough

to vaccinate 50000000 people with each new thing 2 doses the russian job has not yet been approved for use in china but assuming that happens the chinese manufacture will distribute it domestically as well as abroad so far splitting b. has been license in almost 60 countries. we can now bring and live victor gao director of the china national association of international studies could this deal be the start of a broader cooperation a effort between russia and china on the 2 countries global back seen roll out. absolutely i was in china of the soviet china and russia have very close cooperation with each other in many areas including in the fight against covert 19 and and i think for china to help russia to produce the a vaccine sputnik the as we call it and to introduce that to the chinese consumers as well as markets outside of china would be

a very odd thing why because china has one of the largest the manufacturing capacity is in back seat and so if we use the formula produced by the russians sites for the production of a vaccine physically in china it will be a win win situation and i hope the china russia corporation in the vaccine area as well as the fight against the meat will be further brought to many other areas including international cooperation with a chore for the kovacs program as well as many other areas in this regard this is a very important international joint effort by 2 very important and large countries in the world in a joint fight against the pandemic considering the amount of vaccine china has produced at this point domestically as has been fairly modest the latest data shows less than 4 percent of the population has been vaccinated why do you think that is

. first of izing the main reason is because the infection rate in china for the had to make has being controlled to a very very low if not a nonexistent the cases reported recently have all being imported from abroad so in china there is a sense of security a mom the population at large that the now make is very much controlled and china now spends a lot of time to introduce its version of the vaccines to many foreign countries to help the international fight against the and emic on the other hand there is also a danger that if the chinese population remains our backs are made it's to a very large extent then china will be faced with an island much in terms of open enough china for a foreign visitors some of call me be infected may bring the virus back to china or

in terms of chinese nationals abroad because if they are not vaccinate it's they may actually get the infection abroad to when they are physically in those countries therefore i think the chinese government more recently has been spending a lot of time to promote the domestic vaccination program and i think it's picking up speed because the chinese population at 1400000000 is the largest in the world and any increase percentage wise will result in a very large absolute number so we're getting there and we want to promote the vaccination rates all the way up to 70 percent if not you know how you. think china is likely to approve the russian job for us in the country. i thought the rush him about seeing the big we as we call it has been reported to be very

successful and it has been approved by. about 60 cultures in the world so i do not see any reason why this vaccine should not be approved of out of the chalice rowland's are authorities and i hope the chinese people will have a choice if they want to use one or 2 or 3 chinese vaccines they will be able to do that if they preferred the sputnik back seeing or the pfizer vaccine for example they were have a choice to be made by themselves we've been speaking with victor gao director of the china national association of international studies thank you for finding the time to join us on the program thank you for having me. the pandemic has laid bare a host of political divisions in the u.s. especially over how to respond to the crisis and how democrats and republicans are slugging it out over mask mandates and vaccine passports are just come up in looks at the latest clashes. joe biden says america is going to start getting back to

normal in the coming summer months but what is that going to look like will normal only be for vaccinated folks while everyone else stays home such talk is being met with fury from republicans who are set against it especially when it comes from democrats who oppose aidid checks considering that democrats want to require vaccine i.d.'s for people to conduct their basic daily activities they now have 0 grounds to objects to voter id laws he funded democrat logic you should need a $9020.00 even a grocery stool surely there wouldn't be an objection to showing an id to legally vote vaccine credentials would be a complete government over step individuals in america have a personal responsibility for their health the governor of florida is now promising a state wide ban it's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to

just simply be able to participate in normal society you want the fox to guard the hen house i mean give me a break i think this is something that has huge privacy implications it is not necessary to do democrats are standing their ground now the 1st leader to propose the idea of vaccine passports was andrew cuomo the governor of new york state back at the beginning of the pandemic he was a glowing hero in mainstream media but sense that his image has significantly faded but his idea of vaccine passports with q.r. codes that will be scanned by businesses for admission is catching on madison square gardens is already saying it will be a requirement and republicans now face mainstream media ridicule for their opposition to the proposal and irresponsibly they're being stupid right which is very rich coming from the party that wants 9 forms of identification before you can vote the right would have you believe that a vaccine paul spoke is

a fair. to believe big brother coming for you and your family now the white house has confirmed it is working with the private sector to develop vaccine passports however they insist they are not keeping a database of who is and who is not vaccinated at the federal level so let the political games begin it's just like the mask man day now at this point 16 states have either lifted their mask mandate or never had one to begin with and now joe biden is urging them to reinstate it as there's a surge of cases i'm reiterating my call for every governor mare and local leader to maintain and reduce state to mass mandy at least this is not politics republican governors do not seem to appreciate joe biden's plea in fact the governor of arkansas has moved up the lifting of the mast mandate by an entire day he says the case numbers are showing a downward trend and now we have the mainstream media pressing the white house about whether or not joe biden is just being ignored by the.

norm you oh i don't think we see it that way jeff but i would say that one of the ways we can impact people across the country is by of knowledge ing this is hard the shenanigans are starting to sound a little bit less like they're motivated by concerns about public health and more like some classic american political squabbling the kind that's been around long before covert 19 and i'm going to reflect on them and arranged feeling i have you know we have so much to look forward to so much promise of potential of where we are and so much reason for how all right now i'm scared the war continue vaccine passports mask mandates every new proposed measure seems to present a new opportunity for us society to further polarize ideally i mean would be great if politicians focused on something other than creating political division and advancing special interests and the like but they don't. with corona virus what

we're seeing is that politicians are using the panic to funnel money to their corporate allies you see this through the plans to create required vaccinations which of course by necessity bring a huge amount of money to the pharmaceutical companies that are producing those vaccinations and so we're seeing a lot of things that look a lot more like corruption and a lot less like trying to actually provide guides for the american people as far as i know there is no meaningful plan in place to go back to complete normalcy to you know pretty coronavirus type behavior i don't see there is bet that a vaccine passport to go to normal places could possibly be seen as something constitutional the united states presidency has lost the trust of the people and they did they didn't do this all and once this didn't happen because a crowbar is they've just been lying to the american people about a lot that's been a wrap up of the things top news for now but don't forget you can always find us on many of your favorite social media platforms like twitter and facebook optimism or

parts. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy foundation let it be an arms race off and spearing dramatic development only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical of time to sit down and talk. problem drugs don't always come from unscrupulous dealers but from pharmacies to in every state in the united states we've seen very sharp increase in the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to prescription opioids and invited to

america under the banner of medicine persisted with the pain but instead of trying to wean him off though she just goes after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer soon is to blame patients doctors manufacturers all the governments of. humanity has never seen such strange natural phenomena befall giant coming to this appearing in the peninsula. one off or another. but it's never dull to pick up a good news if you wish to get your book you know whom does love with those of it that he would have. this one appeared in 2020. how often and where will new creases appear. at how dangerous own they are human the small moment you. know that in 2021 russian scientists came quite close to working

out what's going on. they built a full scale 3 d. model of the black hole. this is boom bust though one business show you can't afford to miss friendship or in washington coming up following 2 years of turbulence from the united states and other nations huawei has bounced back with a rise in profit straight ahead we bring in a panel to discuss what this means for the chinese telecom giant plus the fight for infrastructure is shaping up to be the by the administration's next major move later on we analyze the latest proposal and what it means for the u.s. economy and.