doctor amesh adalja, thank you, that's all we've got time for, but thanks for your insights on the failedrantine efforts on the ship. the uk has been battered by storm dennis, with heavy rainfall and high winds leading to major incidents being declared by emergency services in south wales and in parts of england. in the last hour, authorities have increased the number of regions at severe risk of flooding, which means their is a danger to life in eight areas across the country. in total, there are more than 600 warnings in place. in a moment, we'll hear from our correspondent, jon kay, of a rescue in tenbury wells in worcestershire, but first, tomos morgan reports from pontypridd in the south wales valleys. residents never would have witnessed anything like this. road turned river, cars submerged, as storm dennis poured. carolyn has lived here for yea rs stop poured. carolyn has lived here for years stop she was rescued alongside a 96 year father whose birthday it is today. the only thing i've managed to save is his his medals from the war. ruined, everything, i've lost everything. i've g

nakhon -- amesh adalja, thank you very much.g a pregnant female, have died in uganda after being hit by lightning. a local conservation group says the three adult females and a male infant were found in uganda's m guh hinga national park. the area was hit by a huge storm on monday. one of those caught in the storm in the south—west of the country was journalist jack losh. he's been telling us more about what happened. the storm was intense. i had been trekking to see the famous iconic mountain gorillas of uganda the previous day. we returned and a huge electrical storm struck the place where we were staying and the thunder was dramatic, the downpour of rain was like nothing i had seen before and, tragically, it seems that this gorilla family were caught up in it as well. the bigger picture here is that if we return to the 1980s there were only 250 of these iconic big apes left in the world, centred around central africa and uganda, rwanda and the democratic republic of the congo. through a really phenomenal conservation effort o

dr amesh adalja is a senior scholar at thejohns hopkins university center for health security. quarantine is not the best way to fight the coronavirus. we know that cruise ships are really hotbeds for the spread of viruses, and this was unnecessary and almost a political stunt that endangered people and created more panic than it needed to. if quarantine wasn't the correct thing to do, what do you think should have happened on that ship? they should have let the passengers disembark and medically screen them and allow those who needed medical attention to get it and others to be isolated at home and have proper instructions on what to do if they develop symptoms. this was completely unnecessary. what should have happened in that circumstance then? really what i said, allow the passengers to come off, screen them, medically screen, them and if they're sick they can get medical attention, if not, let them go home and self—isolate and give them instructions for what to do. this is not what we would recommend from a public health standpoint. would you say quarantining is ever the r

earlier i spoke to dr amesh adalja, a senior scholar at thejohns hopkins university center for healthhere was any significance in the number of deaths from this coronovirus surpassing that of the sars epidemic. i wouldn't read anything into it, because we know that they're only testing severe cases, cases that appear in hospital, and they're not testing mild cases. and we know there's more out there, because this disease has a spectrum of illness, and many people just have cold—like symptoms that aren't being tested. so this is a more widespread infection than the numbers would lead you to believe. what kind of measures would you recommend china to take? china should end their quarantine immediately. the quarantine 50 or 60 million has made things worse, and it has made wuhan into a zombie—like town, with a lot of social media misinformation being spread and a lot of public panic. we have shortages and hospitals inundated with people who are worried. a lot has been caused by this quarantine, which really isn't going to cause any real benefit to control this virus, because it was sprea

amesh adalja. good to see you this morning. thanks very much for joining us. tell the difference between the coronavirus and the common flu? >> no, you cannot. you need to do a diagnostic test. that's why the short damage of diagnostic testing kits in the united states is such a problem. clinically you cannot tell the two apart. they're indistinguishable. maria: why are people dying from coronavirus and for the flu you know, you can care for it and survive fine? >> we do think that there is this ability that this coronavirus has to cause severe disease in certain individuals, those who are advanced age, those who have other medical problems. we still don't quite understand who the people are that at most risk for dying and we don't quite understand the disparity we see in the hubei province of china with the death rate being higher than other parts of china around around the world. there is the idea of trying to understand what the true case fatality ratio is. the only way to figure that out is if we can test people, even with mild illness, so we can understan