Well life ever returned to normal after a lockdown. But. What are the risks. Still. Welcome to the program. Its now more than 4 months since the corona virus started spreading from wu han in china and its not stopped but some countries are beginning to see a decline in new infections so governments a slowly easing lockdown restrictions small shops and restaurants are reopening in a dozen countries across asia europe and africa some schoolchildren are returning to class a few more domestic flights are taking off and Train Services are increasing frequency but with all out come instructions to wear masks and keep social distancing our correspondents foreign zulu in malaysia and 1st scott hide in thailand tell us how itll work where they are its a slow and steady process according to the government you know its going to be every 2 weeks where they reevaluate how things are going and then well decide if a move forward in lifting some of these restrictions right now some more shops are allowed to open up restaurants are allowed to have people dine in but theyll be this so still distancing very strict social distancing measurements within those restaurants that weve always had a and encourage work from home directive from the government here never really fully enforced that remains in place also when you look at the Public Transportation here in bangkok very critical for this very very crowded city people riding a Public Transportation still have to wear a mask. Most businesses are now allowed to reopen including retailers like this one and shopping malls but theyre going to have to implement certain Safety Measures including temperature screening and making sure theres enough space within the premises for people to maintain a practice physical distance thing now employ its however have been advised to allow people to work from home as far as possible schools and colleges remain closed malaysia hasnt reopened its border and interstate is still not allowed Malaysian HealthOfficials Say the country has not asked to flatten that and thats very much a sense that what the government is trying to do is strike a balance between protecting lives and preserving jobs some of the countries are gradually lifting balog downs to in italy manufacturing construction some wholesale companies all back in business europes longest nationwide lockdown was imposed on march the 9th thats 8 weeks ago spaniards can enjoy outdoor exercise after 7 weeks of only being allowed out for food and medicines. Belgium has the worlds highest per capita mortality rate shops theyre reopening after 32. 00 days of lockdown in greece small stores and hair salons are reopening after 6 weeks and africas largest economy is taking its 1st steps in a 6 week plan to reopen for business nigerians are allowed to travel to work and exercise outdoors for the 1st time in 5 weeks but some people aware of the relaxed rules and i think its still a bit and save the virus is invisible im just out here to get a bit of banking done and then im going to head home as soon as possible before i go well im scared of contracting the virus but if the fear makes you lose your job then its not good i have to differentiate fear from making a living which is what keeps you alive there will be again we hope that the situation will end soon but i dont think it will be dead easy. Lets introduce our panel in hong kong weve got john nichols hes a clinical professor in pathology at the university of hong kong in london donna dawson a psychologist specializing in personality and behavior and in the a tally in city of Florence David alexander a professor of risk and disaster reduction at University College london welcome to you all david in florence ill start with you many people especially in europe are tired of this lockdown but is it too early to ease off. Well yes and no its too early to do a complete. Removal of a lockdown but it can i think be relaxed slowly added stages with providing the testing monitoring tracing and above for. A great deal of of care about how the process goes forward and what he said facts out for example in beitar italian cities commuting has begun again today and we wait with interest to see whether this is a front will bring people too close to each other because there are problems with distance in physical distance and on public transport and they will have to be dealt with and they may well carry problems of too much traffic if people resort to cars instead of having the train or bus. John in hong kong there you didnt have quite the ruthless lockdown that they had in some other parts of europe as it worked there are the europeans and the americans and the africans going to have to do a bit of what hong kong is dumb i think is very important to realize that what may work in hong kong may not work in other parts wont because in hong kong we had the bitter experience of going 3 sars in as in 2003 and so when this and you virus erupted and there was even the use of the masks the hong kong people were very compliant they realized theres a stop transmission so the use of that massive social distancing and the closure of the border and i think weve been able to be quite effective as is indicated what may work for hong kong may not necessarily work for if they end with going to you know. Public transport system and it runs ref actively and with just people just wear musts on the public transport and weve had no cases of transmission through this public transport donna theres been a lot of pressure to ease the lockdown restrictions particularly in europe are people a people just had enough are they ready for it to be eased yes i really do think people have had enough ive notice now there are more people out there more cars on the road but at the same time theres still a lot of fear and paranoia amongst people about whether they are ready emotionally and psychologically to get back to normal theres a lot of unfounded fear because i think once you get out you realise its not as bad as you thought it might be even in the local Grocery Store supermarket but so weve got 2 things happening at the same time conic conflict where you want to defy the ban but any other hand a lot of people are just afraid to do so to go straight back to normal david part you touched on as an on your 1st answer but what do we really have to watch out. Or as a lockdown izzys apart from that the psychological effects as donna has mentioned well we have to watch out all the asli for the resurgence of the disease there in mind for example that the pandemic or 1802920 influenza the 2nd wave was more lethal than the 1st wave so it could be that at a certain point we have to go back into lockdown however at present i think its reasonable in many countries to start the process gradually or easy restrictions for example whereas before you could go into shops to buy essential food a medicine perhaps you can never go into shops to buy things the not sort of central because in fact the risks can be managed and theyre not so great social distancing is possible it is also in offices it is theoretically possible on public transport as well so i dont think that necessarily relaxing the restrictions means that we are pretty also for extreme risk john that is the great fair isnt its a a 2nd wave hong kong had a bit of a an increase as more people came back to hong kong is what theyre doing theyre enough to stop the 2nd wave the thing. I think sesay you know we have the ability and one major route bench reaches for a yet court and so basically what happens at all the arrivals who screamed at the airport and that if theyre fantastic they went straight to hospital otherwise they had the time current chain with monitoring bracelets for 14 days so united has words with only the very very few numbers of cases which are at about 56 days of cases and then he wants which have which have been ripped out reaction flights and hes in picked up the airport on screening and then come straight to the hospital says in very very little chance of moving into the community of i think what im gonna talk to his crime porton is that is it i think in hong kong we realize is that the we have this will be a new normal is that we cant really go back to expecting what life was like at least this year what it was like in 2009 teams and i think really the hong kong people realize that dont the scientists and governments are worried about a 2nd a 2nd wave are we worried enough about a 2nd wave ordinary people or do we just want to get out there and get up back home to our normal lives. Yes this is interesting i dont know whether people fully appreciate a 2nd wave i think people that havent been affected by it been self isolating or dont know anybody whos had it. The reality of it hasnt really hit home and i think the feeling is well we only did the initial lockdown to keep the n. H. S. From crashing prove that theyre the n. H. S. Is ok that they never reached full capacity therefore if the 2nd wave happens well you know itll be ok if the n. H. S. Can cope its almost like the thinking is theyll be a few more cases it will probably affect me and i think the economic worries have now kind of surfaced uppermost people are more worried about their incomes their livelihoods their bills their mortgages than they are about their the risk to themselves which which could show a kind of dangerous turning point really in the way people are thinking so i dont think do you think were more bothered about earning than we are about catching the virus than or is there just an eagerness to get out there and get parts of normal yes i think so we still have the fear we still have the anxiety and thats bordering on paranoia in a lot of us but you know the lockdown here will be gradual it will be in stages which i think will help us mentally because mentally we need to adjust in stages to the changes that are going to happen it is like a broken Relationship Building up trust again in the world that we thought we knew and now we have to readjust to its going to take time and were going to have to develop that trust gradually but for some of us you know there is a kind of brazen frog that we can kind of just push our way through this somehow so for those that feel like that that that may be the number of people that bring the whole thing down so it is a very delicate balancing act between the economy and our own health as everyone knows and david how long are we going to have to wait before we find out if if we can get away with easing these restrictions i would when were talking days and weeks or months whats the process in finding out which one get away with it. That is very difficult to where in the midst of a gigantic sensual and economic look oratory we had some really good scenarios for the earliest stages and theyve existed for about 50 is so if i really knew what was going to happen we knew how it was going to happen but the scenario sort of peters out when we get to the recovery we know that the recovery from the 198920 pandemic which incidentally lasted about 24 months in total and in europe it lasted for 40 months the Recovery Process that took about 5 years on the other hand conditions are very different the world was recovering from the 1st world war the recovery actually led into the great depression. Which we hope will not be the case this time around i think youre an engineer and he will get the better of this virus and there will be a proper recovery but exactly how long it will take is very hard to tell and some of the factors in that include the medical side to the performance of the virus itself which is dependent on a variety of factors will it new tell you not a viral it is but i imagine that it possibly could perhaps more important by the the condition of the weather when it disappear in the summer and come back in Colder Weather least in the Northern Hemisphere as the autumn. Trends on whats and also peoples behavior will will there be. Social associations that lead to particular forms of transmission of the virus i dont think that we can shut down International Travel for very long because credit bit of the economy does depend on that and well have to be rather careful about how we treat people reports and airports and how we ensure that were not passing the virus again from country to country weve already seen that with Migrant Workers in singapore for example and what we have 3. Very particular is trying to protect those groups of paper where the virus could in fact transmit more easily Migrant Workers the case important we need them to harvest crops and in the Construction Industry and so on but very often they live in straitened circumstances which are very conducive to the transmission of the fighters dont know what indicators would you be looking out to see if we are getting away with easing these lockdown restrictions. Well i think that what has been mentioned before. But in hong kong is basically been dividing up the imported cases versus love to cases and so you know the imported cases hes easy to manage. With the isolation the airport and no local cases the session days and most people say that too hot to sort of the life cycles of the pasta 28 days should be sufficient but even right now to make so people are a bit more happy we have revealed stuff we know we didnt close down the restaurants it was just basically had to have 1. 5 metres of pot but probably next week were going to be easing some restrictions some people told matt lang mold this is the cinema as and yet and things like that but he said but as everybodys mentioned its just a gradual process realising that we may see a few cases in cases but its wont be as bad as the 1st wave john out of just how difficult is it to balance what the scientists want in terms of trying to wipe out the krona virus a more Society Needs in terms of function and our wellbeing and our economy how difficult is that balance to strike yeah thats an extremely important point im so so the government had scientists on its Advisory Panel but also you know it does take into account what the businesses have to say and but i think whats been since happened in germany is that we have a leader. Who is very sort of self is a is a scientist and basically who is willing to accept the the scientific facts i think that is the population must population right now looking for mok from wolf the science rather than than politics and in the senate cases and it begins regions of the us where the the sciences far more. Conducive. To what should be happening runs and expects as you mention is a very tricky situation about how to balance that out adama from just from what john says there how much are people relying on the politicians versus the the scientists who are we looking to for reliance reassurance thats a difficult one in the u. K. Because i think were all beginning to suspect that the politicians who kept saying they were taking the best scientific advice were maybe trusting scientific advisors that were didnt act fast enough and who didnt get us in the loop quickly enough i think there was a feeling that we could have done this lockdown much more quickly that we should have been ready with testing that we should have had a stockpile of p p e so its great for the politicians to blame the scientists and say well we made all our decisions based on what they told us but now people are trying to looking at the scientists and going well maybe your advice wasnt so good so fortunately theyve been twined themselves together over here and i think theyre like the unit that we most people are starting to get a bit suspicious and fed up with and honest people ease into into some loosening of lockdown restrictions one of the risks of complacency are we more are we likely to be remain alert or do we slip into old habits. Well you know i think most of us most of us are feeling some degree of fear anxiety trepidation paranoia whatever you want to call that i think most of us will be thinking about how we can push ourselves back into taking those baby steps and bigger steps to make the routine that we normally experience daily much more normal so you know with any kind of behavior you have to push yourself over that ridge to experience the new and its only by repetition that it becomes ingrained it becomes habit the new habit becomes the basic habit that you dont need to think about it anymore but the main problem is staying at home and listening to your fears all the time what weve got to do is push ourselves a little bit to get out there i think and realize the world is never going to be as bad as our imagination makes it out theyll always be some who will decide for themselves when the lockdown is eased and that may be well now and continue to go about their business but i think most of us because weve been isolated for so long are going to have to conquer our own personal fears about getting back out there david help us understand as we try and avoid a 2nd wave how how important contact tracking and tracing is to all of this and whether some countries are introducing new apps as well to help speed up that tracking and tracing process. Well despite the consensus about privacy and individual liberties associated with the apps i think they are possibly going to be key to this because i believe that Contact Tracing is very very important as a cosas testing but you know theres one thing thats missing from this a craze in or at least it seems to be we have the politicians making the decisions and they are not actually counted by science and scientists its obvious that the epidemiology and the viral richest are essential components of this but Emergency Planning and management has not been good what we actually need among the advisors are Emergency Planning and management types but its who have been conspicuous by the absence of the result of this is which cities and dr hunter and failures of Emergency Management of my fear is that we will see more of them one of those was failure to tackle the problem of care homes in the u. K. In italy in sweden in a variety of other countries as well and that in many respects was not so much an epidemy a logical or a virological problem or a political problem it was a simple failure of the process of Emergency Planning your management and this is what we really need to tackle at present john how important is the contact tracking and tracing bean in hong kong to keeping infections low you havent got a map that i know but there has been ruthless tracking and tracing i think. Oh yeah i said that we as we dont have nat like a stray or or other countries but basically its a its the Human Resources and so basically what happens is that each day there will be a notification and we actually know which buildings the. Patients have come from and so you know and people know just exactly you know that its not building and that thats been good it hasnt been sort of as dedicated as you know or sort of a high tech as i mentioned then gray or straight but i think that the Contact Tracing is one of the crucial elements of all keeping these of these these cases dam just going back well so what donna said is that one thing which was at home on days is every day and we did this during sobs is that there was a daily presentational number of cases it was given by. Basically a a doctor who works for you know i Health Health department wasnt even by politician and so it was someone who you know the people could really trust and i think its seen that face who is who not and rather than you know nameless you know sort of Advisory Group which i think made it really trust what the government sank down or will we be prepared to take the in intrusiveness of apps that may force us to give up where we are and where weve been a particular time to help trace the outbreak of this are we worried about our personal security or information being lost i think most people realize their personal liberties at this point in time have to be sacrificed a little bit for the communal well being for everybodys health i think we thought what south korea has done and how well they got on it quickly tracking in tracing and we even seen on the news how the app is worked over there and no i think the ad will be very much accepted technology is very much a part of our lives now itll slot in quite easily i think of me as civil rights activists that will wonder whether this. Isnt a big intrusion into a crevasse and make a little bit of a fuss but i wonder whether you know we can actually do make any progress without the at some point in the future it may have to disappear but right now i think we need this were not going to be able to make any progress without it and i certainly agree with the link that there needing to be a link between politicians and scientists some kind of management link that weve certainly been lacking in this country to organize things i think what happened when we had the sars epidemic we overprepared at that point and i think the u. K. Never wanted to do that again and so therefore they werent prepared for this even though they knew it was inevitably coming so no i think the act will be a welcome addition to our lives and i think we quickly get used to it david were taking baby steps in reducing restrictions but what about the places that bring us together the bars the restaurants the cafes the stadiums when can we start using numbers again as we used to. One i should imagine the sensible approach might be for example to play sports matches without an audience and transmit them to television on other means. Here in italy we have bars a boat to provide breakfasts and so on coffees and takes and so on. To customers outside or sending them to customers homes we have restaurants that act as take away places and are open for that what we dont yet have our restaurants are fully open so again this is a gradual process and one reason why its a gradual process is to be able to monetize how it works doesnt lead to some kind of resurgence so in this sense at the time your logical monetary is absolutely crucial to see how the changes actually affect the progress of the disease if they have virtually no effect there are right we can continue with this progress of gradually reopening things however we find that certain measures not working in controlling the disease then well just have to go backwards and freight well fingers crossed we can keep moving forward spot the for the time being thanks to all of our guests to john nichols to donna dawson and to David Alexander and thank you to watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com and for further debate go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter we are apt a. J. Inside story and. Which is there than it from me Bernard Smith and the whole team here in doha by foot. They say to really know someone you must walk a mile in their shoes. Follow in their footsteps the state forge their way in the one. These personal journey. Inspiring stories of people perseverance on their chosen. News documentaries on aljazeera. On counting the cost famines of biblical proportions the coronavirus is at the end of the Global Economy so what does that mean for Food Supplies plus grants or loans as italy and spain used to walk down to me even. On a trillion rescue. Cutting the cost on aljazeera. Are all mothers and in doha the top stories on. The search for corona virus vaccine has received a significant funding boost dozens of countries applies to 8000000000. 00 to speed up research the u. S. China and russia did not take part weve made it today is a defining moment for the Global Community at a time when we are sitting for a large part than usual the well tests show and it is standing closer together than ever before and in the space of just a few hours we have