for more on this i'm joined now by professor veronica graham she's a member of the council of economic experts which has been advising the german government on how to handle the pandemic professor groome welcome to the program did maxwell take the advice of you and your colleagues. yes the decision point. by various experts groups say all state basically that under certain conditions social and economic activity should be allowed to be soon step by step and always with the highest priority on protection and it also has to be clear that opening up certain sectors we quite good preparation this concerns availability of protective measures test capacity absent for infection pricing and the establishment of general hygiene standards and all of this has been emphasized by the chancellor and it's also possible that it has been recommended to proceed step by step and to evaluate the progression of the uncertain time into the. models to just some measure was taken. from my point of view is very important to leverage not concepts how to open up for example school spouse economic activities this

or veronica graham is a member of the german government's a council of economic experts welcome to d w so what would be your recommendation in terms of easing restrictions and ending the current law. i think it is in the current situation very important to focus on the stepwise revival of social and economic happening and in particular you should use the locked and periods to make those preparations i think this is obviously happening and 1st important step is to announce timelines this is announced this is laos the public is fusions and the companies to make plain plans on how to comply with certain requirements they have to keep in the course of reopening ok so nothing sudden give people a chance to plan how long can the job and european economy with starting the current lockdown do you think. i think the shorter the complete lockdown is the better but on the other hand we have to prepare of course now the infection rates are slowing down and i think that vice of the various experts groups has already been taken out and they have stated that under certain conditions social and econ

i'll tell senator graham what you said when he comes up and i'll push back on that with that line of thinking, richard. let me get veronicar in here. >> richard, what kind of protective gear and protective measures are you hoping companies or the government takes going forward to get this reopened happening, are you seeing masks? are you seeing temperature testing? and then for all the gear, who is going -- who are you hoping is going to pay for that? is that going to be very specific to each company or what's your vision for that? >> well, originally the obama administration had a contagious disease standard of osha. the trump administration scrapped that. so employers don't know what's required of them. disease standard would require them to have a plan, to train their employees and provide protective equipment. it will vary with each one of the industries and quite frankly, it could vary by employers. but that standard is important so that everybody knows what's there. it would be all kinds of protective equipment. it might be masks in some instances. it might be shields in other instances. it may be a protective shiel