our back to lawrence lee now lawrence to the sort of coming in of angela merkel there but talking about some pretty high infection rates potentially. yeah i mean the background generally 8080000000 inhabitants aging population she said before and she repeated that you know 6070 percent of people who get it that that's a 5050000000 people it's i mean it's really a loss even for a country as well organized as as germany and so what what she in the health minister been trying to do is say to people in germany which is a very well organized society you know even though this is coming it's up so all of us to to recondition our behavior to try to to try to limit the damage and so and so they're saying to young people do you really need to go to nightclubs have people football fans you really need to go to that football match you know what do you watch it at home instead and do something for the for the public good because you might be all right you might get over it but if you pass it on to your granddad then you know he might die and so it's that sense of reconditioning behavior that countri

al jazeera as lawrence lee joins us live from london so lawrence 19 doris if you'll significant yes extraordinary development really isn't it it was announced last night's though she's been. placing and apparently is getting over the worst of it now she started to feel ill she said when she went really properly ill on saturday in her constituency north of london. and so by that stage she was clearly carrying the virus in the days previous to that when for example she was in parliament voting in the lobbies in very tightly packed spaces with hundreds of other members of parliament on the 1st day just 2 days before she started to feel very ill she was with the prime minister an event for international women's day and clearly she's a junior minister in the government department that's at the heart of the attempts in this country to get on on top of all these things and so it raises all sorts of questions about whether people including the prime minister are going to have to get tested downing street won't say at the moment all the other m.p.'s there's lots of questions about among employees of them

as lawrence lee reporting live from london lawrence many thanks financial markets tumbled again in asia in response to the continued economic impact posed by the virus let's go live now to so how serious rock mcbride is the european markets rob are just beginning their trading day what sort of lead are they taking from asian markets. there has been frenzied selling across the board across asian markets throughout thursday if anything the selling probably intensified donald trump was speaking from the white house the real shock here about this announcement of a ban on travel from europe to the united states and what this would mean even the later clarification that it would not supposedly involve trade or cargo traffic it didn't seem to ease nerves here people are still convinced that this is going to have a big impact on the global economy which was already struggling under the weight of this coronavirus and its impact so all of the selling has been basically in one direction soon after the markets opened japan's nikkei and the kaspi which is south korean index they plummeted by more th

let's talk more about europe and join lawrence lee joins me also from the british capital and lawrence really concerns continue as nadine touched upon it the numbers rising across europe everybody really equating their own situation to what's happening or what has happened in italy. in italy and spain obviously is whole in the hills for all of the worst reasons really just released from madrid another leap of life nearly 5000 cases in spain 460 new deaths in the last 24 hours so that's starting to track exactly the pattern that we saw last week in basically whether figures went from sort of monday or tuesday from my recollection 400 full 5475 and then let up to 750 or so the end of the day before falling back to 600 or so in the last in the last day so there is this really grim fear that spain is now on the on the same trajectory and with exactly the same problems in trying to cope with the numbers the some extra pictures emerged of beds being laid out in a huge convention center in the spanish capital just atrocity all within the army inevitably going to have to get involved i think i

of workers and provisions for the very latest developments from europe or we're joined now by lawrence lee joins me from our broadcast center in london lawrence has just begin with the new border restrictions involved in germany. yes as you said it's closed now 5 of its 7 borders the only 2 still remaining open of the borders with belgium and the netherlands and as you said they're closed to everybody apart from freights and commuters that's obviously partly to try to stop the spread of the disease by lands and also according to german major says top people crossing borders to panic buy things in supermarkets as well but is going to germany in the hub last half hour hungary said it was closing all those borders bowden's already done so in the czech republic as well. and altogether now you have a 100000000 europeans in lockdown spain is now going through the same trajectory as it's a lead just reported the big spike in fresh case in the last 24 hours a friend of mine who lives in southern spain tells me that someone who went out for a jog. got fined $500.00 euros by the police for being out

might and by extension other countries might actually be in full of zeros lawrence lee reporting live from london many thanks dude lawrence standing by in washington for us is mike hanna might give us an update on the situation these measures that have been introduced in in california and what's happening elsewhere in the u.s. well it's very significant indeed what has happened in california because for the 1st time in the united states a mandate 3 order has been issued it's not a recommendation from the governor of the state government newsome it is in fact an official order for people to lock down basically to stay at home to only leave their homes for emergencies or to get food or perhaps to take a short work but certainly this is a massive impact on a state of 40000000 people a state in which the governor says half of the population could be infected within the next 2 months he has already warned as well that the health services will be overwhelmed in coming weeks certainly the state very clearly one of the epicenters of the virus within the united states itself but very interesti

immunity that's after scientific modeling found the death toll could be as high as 250 sales and lawrence lee is our correspondent following events for us while london new center the government certainly changing its tune lawrence. you know gradually though everything it's it is really a contrast listening to what what what i want to tasha was saying there in southern france well obviously it's now the level of enforcement you know you're not allowed to do this the state is on top of everything here it's still advisory so the government is a vising people not to go to pubs and restaurants or not you know if they're not saying if you try to go to a pub we were going to find you 500 pounds that just saying please can you not and so it's left up to people to make their minds up in just the same way yesterday in germany the government's closed mosques and churches and synagogues over here just announced the archbishop of canterbury hos suspended public worship in church of england institutions not the government doing it it's a voluntary adoption by by the local church and it's that sense of vagu

people must accept that their actions can help save lives treasure butler al-jazeera western france lawrence lee here's our correspondent joining me for london brought in all of the broadcast center i thought you were lawrence like a lot of the broadcast central you could have you with us again that's what the view was like. let's just talk about sort of obviously grave situation across europe it continues to be grave on a serious note knows those numbers continue to rise. yeah let's just just walk through the numbers to start with spain as we've been saying he's another record high yesterday whether it was 6000 new cases 514 deaths from 496 the previous day so completely going the wrong direction i mean terrible things as we as we know coming out of spain nice ring to the small producer. was telling us america there are still people breaching the lockdown so very much of the same tricks of it silly and everyone is looking to the figures coming out of a city not to see if they're going to go down from its peak of 796 on saturday for the 3rd day in a row the world health organization was saying t

in a couple of months time which of which of them proves to be the more efficacious thank you lawrence lee in london with a bit of update from your fare we're going to talk united states now and again using the tracker to have a look at things you can see infections right across the united states i just draw your attention to this side of the graph where we see 1000 there is 1323 infections in the united states and as we mentioned earlier u.s. president donald trump wants to keep the numbers down he announced on wednesday a ban on flights from europe here's mike hanna to take us through some of this at the white house for us hi mike. clarity i think is what we need 1st of all we always need clarity but particularly over what this ban on flights really means. well many spent much of the morning and the hours after president trump speech last night trying to understand exactly what he was saying a number of facts had to be corrected post the speech for example president trump insisted that all travel was stopped including cargo aircraft to go to pier he himself walked that back in a tweet sa

in new york state has now risen above 1000 so we have a couple of correspondents live for you lawrence lee is in london the tell us about the mobilization effort there to get people to help 1st is going to mark the herero she is in madrid for the latest on these numbers march i know we talk a lot about how the health care workers are really on the front line but these numbers about how this is also affecting them there are staggering. yes we've seen how all these health care workers of 14 percent of the total amount of people have that have tested positive from coronavirus in spain $85000.00 in total $12300.00 are health care workers the thought of growing up from coronavirus house has reached 7800. 2 up to date we've seen how the health care workers have been struggling have been claiming because they are lacking they're running out of protective measures they don't have lost they don't have google's they don't have masks they don't have been delayed or so they're coping they're dealing with the battling with a coronavirus in the front line and they are not prepared for it they are there

single day its death toll is now past 1800 let's go live to london 0 as long as al-jazeera is lawrence lee can tell us more border about these latest border controls across the continent. yes sage and obviously the greatest prize the european union ever achieved thus of the move between countries. is now under severe strain because of the virus and as of 8 o'clock central europeans on this morning the germans announced that their borders because they'd there go 5 countries that border all stress whistlin france luxembourg and denmark so the north apos hamburg. if you're freights or you or your commute. crossing borders and you can prove that the police with the appropriate documentation you can still pass but if you do travelling between countries you can't you know to get turned around and there are pains to say on this that that's actually done in conjunction with all those other countries so it's the same both ways that's that's implication of it and obviously for all the accusations that states about acting in isolation and have been doing this for the joined up thinking it is now star

there are as many thanks natives there is lawrence lee there live in london. we're going to weather update next here on al-jazeera then we'll tell you why protesters are blocking a major highway in syria's province as russian and turkish troops begin joint patrols and israel's president turns to the opposition to form the next government and end the year of political uncertainty. hello spain seems to forgotten which months it is we're going backwards in time although the weather still coming in from the atlantic there has recently been quite development in the bay of biscay and that area of low pressure now the northerly means the temperature at its height on monday will be 11 in madrid with snow on the hills all right this is coldest on the obviously and in contrast is at least warm elsewhere in europe almost all of you the sun's out in sarajevo for example at 14 degrees and in moscow will be plus 6 with an moscow's had a warm winter still potentially some snow in the baltic states but by no means is extreme now in turkey's different story back down to 4 anch

not following the lead of other european nations when it comes to the containing the virus zeros lawrence lee has more on that from london. there's obviously a big difference between enforcing closures of things in the way that european countries and china did and urging people strongly to change their behavior which is what which was as is obviously what's happened in this country there's a lot of anger now and a lot of fear too that the government's advice to people to change their behavior rather than actually enforcing it might really badly affect the numbers of cases but if you just listen to for example soup this going to play now from boris johnson from his news conference last night urging people to change their behavior but it's it's not having the right sort of impact as i listen to let's be absolutely no doubt that these are very very important choices that we're now making in our daily lives and the more closely in the more strictly more ruthlessly we can in force upon ourselves our families the advice that we're getting about avoiding unnecessary gatherings about staying at home

some ways but in the concepts it's obviously what passes for good news at the moment are serious lawrence lee live in london lawrence many thanks indeed the u.s. government is proposing a trillion dollar package for businesses struggling to survive the effects of the coronavirus the emergency aid includes immediate cash payments for individual citizens 100 american deaths are linked to the disease with nearly 6000 infections a white house correspondent kimberly hellcat reports. as ordinary americans cope with the economic impacts of coronavirus the white house announced it was pushing congress to make a media cash payments to struggling americans what we've heard from hardworking americans many companies have now shut down whether it's bars or restaurants american state cash now and the president wants to get cash now and i mean now in the next few weeks congress has already put forward a bill to provide sickly as well as food assistance to children and the elderly it still needs to pass the republican controlled senate before us president donald trump can sign it into law. but the new propos

on to serious lawrence lee reporting live from london lawrence many thanks indeed china has reported its lowest number of new infections but the pandemic is having a major impact on the country's economy the world's 2nd largest figures just out show that production in its factories fell by a record 13 other half percent in february economists warn that recovery may be slow as the outbreak is likely to hinder a rebound in imports one point brought a study by for us in the south korea's capital where infection rates are dropping but 1st let's go to beijing. katrina you can tell us more about the economic situation there no surprise perhaps that coronaviruses had a huge impact on china's economy. that's right unprecedented we've seen some abysmal figures out today on monday as you mentioned factory output down by 13.5 percent that's an unprecedented drop the biggest we've seen since records began 6 assett investment down 24.5 it didn't even drop that much during the global financial crisis and that's very significant we tell consumption taking it another big hit 20.5 percent and unemplo

themselves by creating borders instead of actually thinking about the bigger picture let's bring in lawrence lee our correspondent in london who's also been listening in to this very much a rallying cry but also encouraged and from the european commission president about how things are progressing in terms of the medical aid going around europe. well yes but i mean also she told strips off from really it was really critical and surprising actually because the call accusation the house of what she said was that some european union countries effectively betrayed italy by stockpiling ventilators and protective equipment for doctors and nurses rather than. being here of being you know good europeans about it and killing its wittily and so in that sense it is really really damning indictment of what she said was a betrayal of all the principles of a united europe and she also suggested it was only because of the direct intervention of the european commission that she's the head of that they're now starting to try to loosen up the borders to allow the movements of things like ventilators and crucial m

speak and we'll be hearing from italy's prime minister as well let's go over to london because lawrence lee is monitoring those events for us from the u.k. i mean obviously with the e.u. involved in 2 very high profile meetings on thursday lawrence what do you think can be tangibly agreed on. well the the center of the discussions at the moment on the european level are about money primarily. there's a euro zone meeting later on today there's been a lot of talk we were told about this yesterday well be about about these things that people are calling corona bones and the idea that the european central bank might go to the financial markets and say please can you lend us a vast amounts of money which would be which they would then give to countries basically in southern europe which is still the big debts anyway. they don't bankrupt and the point about these bombs would be that they would have very very long term repayments attached to them and so countries wouldn't really feel the pain so that's one of the things is a whole group of countries in the european union in the euro zone in partic

reporting live from washington many thanks mike that's go across the atlantic then al-jazeera is lawrence lee is in london the e.u. as warders of economic disruption due to this this flight suspension lawrence what sort of impact is it going to have. well they're trying to work it out in all honesty i mean across the european union in the schengen zone they're absolutely furious they didn't know anything about this in advance they they think that the his statement was was. stupid frankly because and even the u.k. . which would which is apparently exempted from the travel ban everybody is pointing out the travel bans don't stop the virus and they take the view in europe that he says a completely cynical economic and political maneuver to try to blame europe and the european union and that's he's been going about this not on scientific advice it's all but from some sort of preconceived. ideas he has about about europe and trying to blame them for it and so not only other trends work out what the impact might be on trade because as mike hanna said that was another place in which in which he had

lawrence lee akhara spondon 2 is in london for us and lawrence so the government must be rather pleased with itself getting this this massive hospital almost ready to roll in a record time. well that is partly because the army have got involved as well. but yes they they they have to some extent. manage to do things quite quickly to get around the lack of intensive care beds in the existing hospitals and there are going to be other convention centers around the country used to use like this in the same way at the moment though they're still in there still saying that the actual hospitals in london which is obviously the center of the epidemic here aren't at capacity so they're not completely stretched what there is though is a much bigger issue to do with the lack of protective equipment for doctors and nurses a quarter of all medical staff have gone off into self isolation which is really really bad news and those of very fast growing raúl about the lack of testing equipment there's a ongoing circular argument martin of the moment in this country about how long the lockdowns going to l

government are starting to get really on the nerves particularly the medical community out of there as lawrence lee reporting live from london lawrence many thanks europe grapples then with the pandemic the world health organization has stressed the testing must be in the foundation of the global response serious laura burton manley reports. as the number of recorded coronavirus cases to sponsor 200000 the world health organization announced the 1st trial of that seems underway the stone of the long battle this virus is presenting as we president a target but it's also an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one against a common enemy an enemy against humanity as they still relate to whom some countries own stewing enough testing to stem the virus italy has reported the highest one day death toll in any nation so far 475 who killed by the bars they have 1st the bar for the army to join in in the area a bit early where the outbreak has been. at its worse so the army has set up a hospital camp. and that was not seen before there is great worry china officials because of 8.3 percent of how ca

equipment to help its 27 member bloc fight one of the world's worst breaks let's cross over to lawrence lee he's in london was obviously monitoring that speech in a real wrap across the knuckles for some e.u. states. yeah it's a she's talking about a time a few weeks ago if you cast your mind back say to the 26th of february exactly a month ago spain and italy there were no coronavirus cases at all now. exactly a month later $700000.00 deaths in italy a full 10 percent mortality rate of the confirmed cases spain gangs up to the same direction at the start of march when the cases of the pick up that was when european countries were starting to close the borders and the only people if you remember who were allowed to go across for commuters or or goods but clearly there were countries of on the land during the time who were stockpiling and weren't handing over medical equipment to these countries which were starting to see the spike in cases the countries which were donating equipment at that time were countries like china and russia and even puberty sent doctors to italy now obviously symbol

parliament more broadly and government officials follow the same thing thank you for those updates lawrence lee in london. mentioned this earlier the concern over a new cluster of cases in south korea's capital seoul bribe has more on that. people started to detect a trends that some call center workers were falling sick they started to do widespread testing and have discovered a $93.00 cases now at this one call center either workers or their immediate family or acquaintances and friends and the concern is that this is the biggest cluster that we have had in the soul area and the soul greater soul metropolitan area which includes the capitol but also surrounding cities such as interior and is an area that comprises 25000000 people this call center was in a part of the city that is served extremely well by subway systems by trains so there is a real concern and there you had for a time at least hundreds of calls center workers coming to and from work using all of these means of public transport so we can expect to see more cases it's feared on the positive side this is happened fairly recently

pace really in many major european countries in capitals lawrence lee with the word from europe from our london news and thank you lawrence let's go further afield again our india correspondent elizabeth purana says the government there is hoping this emergency measures will contain the spread among one and a quarter 1000000000 people. as of 12 g.m.t. on friday and on to april the 15th no foreign nationals can enter india apart from diplomats work for the united nations or have. employment visas the indian government has also said that all incoming travelers including incoming travelers indians haven't been to any destination coming from any destination but haven't been to china it's in the south korea france germany and spain will be quarantined for a minimum of 14 days and all indians whether they hear or board to avoid. essential travel and saying that they might be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days upon their return to india now india has $68.00 confirmed cases so far 14 of them italian tourists and as well as the latest precautions that are being taken by the government

absolutely no one there that's the picture certainly in france lawrence lee joins me now from our london broadcast center interesting to see those pictures lawrence because those pictures are reflected not just in france but also now in parts of spain and definitely large parts of italy the french prime minister for example very clear about following europe's model of confinement because if you don't you'll be kept away and are sort of a veiled warning to the u.k. . yes i mean france like like italy and spain are obviously taking it very very seriously now the police the amount of money the french police now are able to find people on the spot if you go out without the right piece of paper in the end and explanation as to why you've gone outside they can now find people $375.00 euros which is sort of $4.00 or so on the spot and so it's it is sort of being enforced and put and sort of volunteered that bit at the same time but the french health minister said that they hope that within $8.00 to $12.00 days of this then the numbers of cases in france will start to fall and so the method as a

$1000.00 total recovered $84000.00 ok let's put together the global picture for you let's talk 1st to lawrence lee our correspondent monitoring europe for us out of bureau in london so a significant 24 hours 1st off lawrence in italy. yes really alarming 475 new deaths there in the 24 hour period the world health organization suggests at this it seems to be a combination of a very large number of cases already in the health care system coupled with obviously an aging population that it's got the bully old populations in europe but it just shows you how long these countries are going to have to go into lockdown for us he's already been in lockdown for a fortnight's as you said has had to come to the prime minister now says going to have extended equally frons was only a lot over a couple of days so a 16 percent rise in cases yesterday and the interior minister said this morning that they might have to extend 2 and if you if you take in china as any sort of model it went into lockdown in the middle of january didn't it and it's now the middle of march so everybody is presumably looking at least 2 mo

nations have already imposed their own controls on fronts in spain and also considering the shutdown lawrence lee joins me now from london i'm sure that's also another issue that's going to be discussed in this g. 7 meeting lawrence germany of course take you on board the border controls. well yes clearly europe is the epicenter of the outbreak of going to the world health organization and free movements of people it's most of the europeans most most prized again historically may well have been part of the reason why europe is the epicenter because obviously is one thing some people flying but if all the borders are open for people to drive across then the concern is that cases can be transmitted from country to country very easily in that way and so yes germany which borders 7 countries is now shut its border or is monitoring able to 5 of them only freights and commuters can get through one of the borders this is still open with the netherlands that may have to go as well because netherlands has just increased announced a very big increase of its own in case as well but across the european union

that that may have to be a price extraordinary lawrence thank you for that we'll talk again to lawrence lee later on on friday wide not for vo and look at asia we spoke to him in the a little bit early a c.e.o. of charts pundit which is an indian capital markets analyst firm he explained how the economic impact will likely be felt in india i mean on the ground when he people because night from abilene lady shindle anybody any little back. left content is going impact on a lower class malt simply because these will be covered. and so it indexes like cutting interest rates is not going to create good on demand but genes which in dramatically especially if emblem of investments if we've had it cut but they haven't been passed on completely and even if they work fast i'm not sure and i don't know if you're going to demand audience to. demand from the barn if you saw 1901 with it for the love of some sort of book your order or tool the got or not made instrument to give the effects but i think the bank simply want to delete but what i feel is china did a good step there bangash are telling 800 n

in this outbreak so here's the team at this hour lawrence lee in london keeping an eye on developments across europe also kristen salumi of the new york stock exchange starting there with kimberly in washington d.c. kimberly the story coming out of the u.s. seems to be the issue of who is being tested or rather who isn't being tested. yeah absolutely even some members of congress saying they can't get a test despite the fact that they have been meeting with their constituents this raises the question for many in the united states about why there are such strict parameters and whether or not this is something that is keeping the numbers perhaps deliberately and artificially low now the numbers as they stack right now 1700 have been diagnosed in the united states across 45 states 41 dead but those numbers are expected to rise because right now there is this very strict testing parameter or criteria that some place but that is expected to change we are watching very carefully to see that that testing is broadened out and that could really spike up the numbers for now for his part of the u

disgraceful thing until then the rohingya will remain one of the world's most persecuted minorities lawrence lee al-jazeera mom daughter how cheap rakhine state. a siege of the philippines shopping center has ended after hours of negotiations. police tackle the gunman shortly after he released 30 hostages then walked out of the von bulow was in the way he says throughout the negotiations pleas for actually meeting his demands. for most of his demands was to talk to members of the press and so all this time all the 10 hours of this ordeal he was on video chat with both the police and members of the press he was asking questions from journalists he was showing that the hostages were safe and were alive he was also showing that he was carrying a hand grenade so there was a real possibility or real danger of things turning bad but i think the turning point was when his bosses held a news conference also one of his demands and they apologized to him and then they said that they were willing to resign from their posts and i think that was a turning point because a couple of hours after that and after

countries an ice rink in madrid has been converted as a temporary mortuary for covert 19 victims lawrence lee correspondent joins us now via skype from london let's just begin with the situation becoming a lot graver especially in spain well yes and you can see in a can the country has as relatively wealthy and advanced as spain just how impossible it is for traditional health kassam manage a situation as we were saying yesterday a very large convention center. has not been set up as a temporary hospital string has a mortuary it's really grim stuff. and on top of that as you were saying it was announced last night when when when the military what went into care to try to see what was going on they found no people dead in their parents and apparently abandoned on the supposition can only be that they were what was supposed to be in charge they have simply. left. slightly unbelievable and the defense minister was very clear when he said that they are going to take very serious action against these people. frankly mr my duty and i know the majority are fulfilling their duty and they are paying a

protect their community and their way of life they'll have to be prepared to take on corporations to lawrence lee al-jazeera. lebanon's prime minister says his government will make a debt payment of more than a $1000000000.00 on monday says lebanon's currency reserves are dangerously low and people's basic needs must be prioritized has more from the. businesses are closing unemployment is rising inflation is soaring and the local currency depreciated by at least 50 percent and now for the 1st time in its history lebanon is defaulting on paying its debt 1200000000 dollars is due on monday the country is facing its worst economic crisis in decades prime minister has sandia who took office in january after massive protests toppled the previous government told the nation his administration will work on restructuring the debt which has become too much for the country to bear. on and on without the sour hard currency reserves are at a critical record low as a result the republic of lebanon is forced to default the coming march 9th obligation on the euro bond these funds must be channeled toward securin

not long before some felt the consequences of their own uncoordinated action let's say now from lawrence lee who has more in that speech from london. individual countries have their own health care systems and you know i don't suppose occur to any individual country to think about what they might have to do for anybody else in the in the event of a pandemic because it's never happened before but clearly philosophically the point of the european project is that individual countries oppose without help each other and that's where wonderland set a completely fall in the past in the decisions that countries took in the last few weeks she's really talking about a period in march when cases in italy started to rise exponentially and countries started to close the borders because that meant that countries which were stopped to stockpile things like mechanical ventilators and protective equipment for doctors and nurses started to hold them and inform the lens view what they should have been doing at that point was to actually give them to italy but they but they are the refuse because they wanted to

lawrence lee joins me now from london a lower insists a war of words than actions is in the offing between france and the united kingdom over covert 19. yes to to a degree that's right because and clearly the longer the lockdown goes on in parts of the shangri. the more and more glaring the gap is between that and what's happening in the u.k. france as you said and germany in these countries are now closer airports or people from outside the european union in france a military plane has been taking severely ill people from milhouse in the east of the country too long in the south the police to be given extra powers to fine people even more for being outside the right talk human station and the health minister there says that people. were based things very seriously accepting all these sacrifices and he thinks that france might start to see a dip in numbers of cases between 8 and 12 days from now so it's a really big contrast with the united kingdom where the schools are still open people are being advised not to go out to things like pubs and restaurants but they most certainly still are b

you can follow that via their website of course lawrence lee joins us live now from london so laurence bit of a contradiction going on here between how the u.k. government is handling handling all this and how other european governments are handling it. yes peter i mean is when it is one of those days i think i think today after all the chaos of yesterday were a thing there's a new reality basically down the sink in here in the u.k. and or in the continent as well as you mentioned but yes you can see the difference in in of in a country for example i garland where there the irish government in dublin and yesterday was shutting schools and universities and so on for 2 weeks yet in northern islands which obviously is under the u.k. jurisdiction everything stay open and there is a completely different interpretation of the science now going on between european union countries that are trying to follow italy's leads and get ahead of where italy was a few weeks ago by containing everything is as much as possible in the u.k. which is saying exactly the opposite of the argument here where sch

calling on iranians to stay united to tackle the crisis in just a few moments we'll cross live to lawrence lee in london for more on the developments out of europe 1st let's speak to. who joins us live from tehran so how are these numbers stacking up. well there the trend is certainly continuing we're continuing to see the deaths continue to be reported at pace the number of overall infections continue really seemingly unimpeded so the government struggling still weeks into this outbreak to contain the virus and the spread of covert 19 in iran now the speeches for the celebration of the persian new year come at a very somber time both the supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei and president hassan rouhani recognize this in their speech saying that there has been hardship but they hope things will get better now these speeches come the day after the united states imposed yet more sanctions on iran related sanctions this time on 5 entities helping allegedly to helping iran trade oil a few years ago based out of the united arab emirates and both of the leaders addressed the issue of sanctions the

single day its death toll is now past 1800 let's go live to london zoo as long as al-jazeera is lawrence lee can tell us more border about these these latest border controls across the continent. yes age and obviously the greatest prize the european union ever achieved us of the move between countries.

it was not long before some felt the consequences of their own uncooled the need to take action lawrence lee has moved from london if you cast your mind back say to the 26th of february exactly a month ago spain and italy there were no coronavirus cases at all now. exactly a month later $700000.00 deaths in italy a full 10 percent mortality rate of the confirmed cases spain going back to the same direction at the start of march when the cases of the pick up that was when european countries were starting to close the borders and the only people if you remember who were allowed to go across with commuters. or or goods but clearly there were countries accordance on the land during the time who were stockpiling and weren't handing over medical equipment to these countries which are starting to see the spike in cases now a 2 trillion dollar coronavirus rescue package has passed its 1st total in the united states after getting the unanimous approval of both republican and democratic senators the house of representatives still needs to profess a month long state of emergency is now in effect in tha

size of its neighbors and most travelers banned the goods and commuters are still able to cross lawrence lee has more from london it is now starting to look given that europe is now the epicenter of the virus that they are taking the most draconian measures you can possibly think of to stop its transmission by people moving from country to country you mentioned france and spain ireland i'm given understand them too and some are going to a similar sort of lockdown at some point in the next. day or 2 and of course the problem with all this is that one thing is one thing trying to contain the virus is another thing trying to insist everyone stays at home well and while moving sure they spend money and keep the economy going spain is also considering closing its borders of the worsening outbreak the country's recorded yet another spike in cases rising by almost 1000 in 24 hours troops are policing the nation with passion lockdown which has been in place since saturday nights and 129 more people have died in iran over the past 24 hours taking the death toll there to 853 iran is one of the worst a

al-jazeera is lawrence lee reporting live from london lawrence many thanks indeed let's take a closer look at how italy became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in europe the 1st 2 cases that were reported at the end of january and involved a chinese couple who were visiting from han the government immediately if you cleared a 6 month state of emergency and banned all direct flights to and from china more than 2 weeks further on on february 18th the 1st italian national went to a hospital in the lone body region showing symptoms but an alarm wasn't raised because he hadn't been to china 36 hours later the provincial government said that he tested positive for the virus but by then he'd infected 5 health workers one patient and his pregnant wife among others days later the italian government imposed restrictions in parts of the lone body and bodies were regions 50000 people were cut off and in the same week 900 people were detected as having the virus 21 people died that on march 8th flown the day the business heartland of italy was placed under quarantine 2 days later on march

map that we've got there we go off to the rights of our map would be the china hot spots as well lawrence lee joins us live from london lawrence an appalling day across europe let's just start with italy. yes let's 475 deaths as you say in a single day. presumably only a matter of time before italy overtakes china as the country with the biggest number of deaths in total and those clearly whatever measures italy has taken it's not working is it they there are different sorts of lockdown it probably is worth explaining in italy he can still go to work and you can go for emergencies but everybody else would be encouraged to stay at home nobody the schools are closed they're talking about going the schools after april the 3rd which is when the supposed to be reopened at the moment the law doesn't have to continue but in just a few days the italian police press criminal charges against tens of thousands of italians for breaching the terms of the lockdown including occasionally it's been reported people who had tested positive for the virus and then went shopping. and clearly there's you know that

214000 the germans are being urged to keep their distance from others to the pandemic of zeros lawrence lee has more from london on the situation across europe. it's the exponential rate of rise that's really alarming 2 days in a row now where there's been well over $400.00 deaths each day if you if you extrapolate it clearly and it stays at that level you're looking at the best part of 3000 deaths a week and that's really terrifying stuff big rise 2 in spain the problem in italy seems to have been brought about because they reacted see late because the hospitals and fall people are getting sufficiently ill while still at home that it's too late to do anything for them when the by the time they got to hospital and so it's the countries that are behind the curve where italy is now the supposed to be looking at this and thinking well perhaps we should be reacting differently to the way that it's a lead ins when it mismanaged this at the start so germany for example is now suggesting that at the weekend if people are refusing still to abide by the measures it's already brought in they might. e

correspondents in tehran washington and london let's begin with the worsening crisis in europe and joined lawrence lee in the u.k. lawrence other european nations are beginning to follow italy's lead of bringing in more stringent measures to contain the spread of the virus tell us more. yeah that's exactly right italy has now closed down to all intents and purposes with the exception of food stores and pharmacies. and that's now become the example for for other countries to to begin to follow spain as you said has now seen the call to its health ministry arise the last 24 hours from 47 to 84 deaths leader that the football league's now been suspended they're talking potentially about putting madrid on lockdown big gathering schools are all are all bound and closed and other countries are now sunder for the same thing. and denmark poland malta all european union countries which donald trump said and been doing enough of all now said that they're closing their schools and colleges with more or less immediate effects and of course there are enormous economic and social consequences to all of this people

national lockdown people are only permitted to go to walk grocery shopping or for health reasons why lawrence lee is live for us now in london laurence given the trajectory that we've been seeing in europe and across the continent clearly countries the in it for the long haul and they're having to also try to address the economic concerns going forward as well. yes i mean clearly there are 2 things in parallel at the same time as they does the public health emergency and there's what do you do to rescue entire economies of countries when when governments are asking people literally not so we're told also work and insofar as they can at home when there's very little productivity going on. both of those obviously are enormously difficult on the health care front the thing that's becoming increasingly clear is that european countries completely underestimated exactly how much protective equipment they would need for doctors and nurses and exactly how many medical mechanical ventilators they would need as well once the virus starts spreading into europe from from china to reuters news agency islam th

well let's talk a little more about europe lawrence lee joins me now from london lawrence that it does seem that continental europe is a little ahead of the u.k. when it comes to spread and grim news continuing to come out of both if he and spain. yes and it's the trajectory the exponential growth in italy in spain that live if you look at the graphs is absolutely identical stars will run in the bottom goes up was very slightly and then lifts off. somewhere towards vertical rise and you saw that and it's only of the last week when at the start of last week there were 4 or 5 who spent between 4 or $500.00 deaths a day being reported by the end of the week it was closer to $891.00 downside to $600.00 so what we've been seeing it's really is if it started to peak out of the pound that level as desperate as it is but. is now exactly on the same trajectory it's really announced is going to assist is teddy teddy mortality rates and the race of rise later on spain already announced than another $5000.00 cases or so in spain and 460 new deaths so spain now is exactly where it's really was last

in the past 24 hours taking the death toll there to 853 let's begin with the latest in europe lawrence lee joins us from london let's start with those border control measures that have been introduced in what's supposed to be an area of free movement. yes and i mean clearly you know the w.h.o. says that europe is the epicenter of the of the global health crisis now and it may very well be that part of the reason for that is because of the european union's prizes. at its process of free movements. and is what is the one thing shutting down people's ability to fly in that countries but clearly when you can drive across borders all over the shang in zone in europe then you can transmit the disease very easily and so consequently country out of country is now taking steps to shut down those those free that the ability of people to move freely across the borders germany as you mentioned the latest closing its borders with 5 of its neighbors only the borders with belgium the netherlands now open along with a list exhaustedly because it's a bit different every country but hungary's are closed pol

support we can have a vaccine on the market perhaps before autumn let's go live to london and sarah lawrence leecan talk to us a little bit more about what's going on in europe right now this bizarre scenes we we saw europe of a near deserted paris. you know up absolute extraordinary isn't it just to see a lie that. this place really is what's underwriting the frustration from the french prime minister in that sound bite you heard about what's happening in the u.k. . and then as far as lou is saying in her report earlier on the success of countries like china and south korea and getting on top of it have either been through the enforced long sounds of societies. ideally coupled with mass testing as south korea did and clearly the french people are now willingly or otherwise at hearing to these demands from the government as of the populations of spain and italy and and so on with the with all the contingent difficulties of that presents for people here in the u.k. it's still a different picture in the house of commons they have provinces questions a short time ago every wednesday and it was a ve

conversation there by telling us that she had been talking to the relevant italian authorities lawrence lee is our correspondent following that story for us out of our. bureau in the shard in london so lawrence i mean you know the u.k. is what a week or 10 days behind italy do we know where in the scale of how bad it's going to get germany is sitting at the moment. about the same actually i think with the people seem to think the u.k. france and germany are all more or less in the same bracket as each other just to fill in the blanks i mean i agree with you completely i don't think that anything new and we need to check the translation actually of that the thing about a 1000 people whether she means more than a 1000 people fewer than a 1000 people because some german ministers in the last few days i've been actually saying to people if you really need to go to this football match you know actually do to do you you know and might you for example what want to think about cycling somewhere or walking as they can public transport they're trying to align this really about personal choices and co

people coming from south korea it's got hotter al-jazeera bangkok well that's a picture in asia lawrence lee is following the market plunge in london i spoke to him earlier and he says investors a blaming saudi arabia. it's carnage nick on the markets at the moments and everybody is blaming the saudis for a lot of hostility towards their actions over the saudis worried that people aren't flying people out that people aren't buying enough oil so they said we're going to increase production that collapses the price as you said and traders who have bet on the price of oil going up and are losing loads of money on that innes and bought a massive sell off of shares to try to cover their losses and it just shows you how these domino effects work because the coronavirus as i said you know the consent of the oil markets is that people aren't getting on planes. and that's why i think that they want to increase supply on top the price but more broadly i think it's fair to say given the scale of the selves in the financial markets are not talking about comparisons with 2008 anymore when the banks went

ations have already imposed controls all fronts in spain and now also considering that shutdowns lawrence lee joins me now from our london broadcast center and you might say the jewel in the crown of the e.u. is to have open borders allow free movement of people what germany has done a really sort of strikes at the core of what the e.u. is about. yes exactly because it won't be shutting down airports it's something else stopping people from traveling by road. from country to country in the free movement of the schengen area of the european union and not only has germany now announced today it's shutting its butt or at least mostly shutting its borders except to commuters and freight transport with 5 of its neighbors in the last 5 or 6 minutes or so the german government and balance and has come to an agreement with all the regions because it's federal in germany that all the bars and restaurants in the country are going to close as well and so it's this sort of gradual grinding shutdown that our correspondents in the states have been talking about exhibit being being mirrored exactly in the e

has been speaking about the efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic we'll be speaking to lawrence lee in just a moment about what underlayer had to say but 1st let's go to francesco jumper tony who is in milan for more on what italy as prime minister has been telling lawmakers just moments ago about the virus francesco we've literally just been hearing from the prime minister i see his approval rating is at a record high theban t one percent how is he being received by politicians. well lessee he went this morning to speak in front of the senate for the 1st time in many weeks he had to do because the tippity of of the parliament had been suspended due to the emergency and all the decrees for the corona virus outbreak were never been debated so it was necessary for him to talk to the other parties today. to explain the reasons that brought the government to take the hardest decisions in many years that's what he said to try to fight the virus he said the situation forced the government to reduce. temporarily the personal freedoms of people for the 1st time since the 2nd world war so it