was very interesting a move rare meeting for the politburo standing committee happened on the 1st day of lunar new year that is very rare the 7 most powerful people in the government here in china met and what they decided is that they're going to form a special group led by one of those 7 people to oversee the current virus action if you will we know that they're going to have a special group that's going to go down to wall han the epicenter of this so it's really elevated to the very highest levels of the government here overseeing this coronavirus situation white house lawyers have begun defending president paul trombetta senate impeachment trial they say he has done nothing wrong in his dealings with ukraine and that the charges are politically motivated they're asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but as i've said before they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately 9 months they're asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative take that decision away

he said with the coronavirus no it was very interesting a move a rare meeting for the politburo standing committee happened on the 1st day of lunar new year that is very rare the 7 most powerful people in the government here in china met and what they decided is that they're going to form a special group led by one of those 7 people to oversee the corner virus action if you will and we know that they're going to have a special group that's going to go down to will haunt the epicenter of this so it's really elevated to the very highest levels of the government here overseeing this coronavirus situation. has raised its threat level in an effort to contain this outbreak at least 5 cases have been confirmed on the territory and one of its major attractions disneyland has been closed popolo and yet the. response has reached imagine sea level person a chav into department to meetings and we have a command center so we can get the views from the experts and come up with strategies and initiatives when we deal with this public health event i think you'll understand that we need to be quick in making decis

president xi jinping held a gathering of the politburo standing committee on saturday. this is the highest leadership body in china. withremier has been tasked being essentially the first responder, leading a group that will report to the top leadership body. ,e is down there in wuhan ground zero today, taking a look at the situation. on the ground, reports indicate that essentially the infrastructure has been overwhelmed. with feverseople who have been turned away from health care facilities because there is just not enough beds. there were reports that as many as 5 million people might have ont wuhan for the city went lockdown last week. the situation clearly seems to be far from ideal, far from contained. chinese health officials have been saying the past couple of days that they have yet to see a peak in the numbers. every indication is that, from the leadership on down, they understand the gravity of the situation and they are moving quickly to address it. keep in mind, this is not a democracy. lower-level officials in china do not take initiative. everything goes

to the very highest levels over the weekend and that's when there was a very rare standing committee standing politburo committee meeting on the 1st day of lunar new year which makes it even rarer and then we knew that at that stage one of the 7 standing members was going to front the efforts by the chinese government when it comes to cracking down to controlling this corona virus and we know now that is a prime minister they could chang we've seen those images and yes that's something that it's a very obviously a very strong message that they're sending internally but also extremely to the outside world is just how seriously this government is taking the situation there was a lot of criticism about the local government and how they handled the situation 5000000 people got out before they closed down or locked down the transportation from holland so obviously that's a very very large number so then soon after that we saw it kind of go up the chain of command and that's what we saw today visually the prime minister down there in rouhani and interesting one of the places he visited was the construction s

to the very highest levels over the weekend and that's when there was a very rare standing committee standing the politburo committee meeting on the 1st day of lunar new year which makes it even rarer and then we knew that at that stage one of the 7 standing members was going to to front the efforts by the chinese government when it comes to cracking down to controlling this corona virus and we know now that is a prime minister that could chang we've seen those images and yes that's something that it's a very obviously a very strong message that they're sending internally but also extremely to the outside world is just how seriously this government is taking the situation and it's also interesting because i'd say maybe 3 or 4 days before this part of your meeting there was there was a lot of criticism on social media here in china about how the local government and will handle the situation as we saw that the details of just how far reach has through its airport and its central location within china there was a lot of criticism about the local government and how they handled the situation 5000000 people go

and it is remarkable that the standing committee of the politburo of the communist party had a specialng on what is the equivalent of their christmas, chinese new year, that is an indication of how serious the situation is in china at the moment. and from what you are saying, it sounds like we still don't know that much about this virus. it is true that we are at the very early stages, let's not forget that it was isolated only a few weeks ago, and it is very new, but we can't take any risk. what is clear is that the virus is spreading much faster than we anticipated in the beginning, all over china. we have got now cases in a growing number of countries, although no secondary cases have been documented in countries like thailand or france or singapore, and that is a big unknown as well. but we can't take any risks, and we need to make some really serious contingency planning in case there is a major spread of this new coronavirus. what kind of contingency planning do you mean? well, first of all, there is a hierarchy of risks, someone who has been to china, certainly to hubei province