Im. Sick of coronavirus rules tens of thousands defined social gathering bans in europe to protest against measures designed to control the pandemic cooler weather on the way how should we balance personal rights cloud with choosing new infections this is inside story. Below that welcome to the program im hala my hed seen restrictions meant to help stop the spread of covert 19 theyre not going away anytime soon as governments ease locked ins theyve imposed Safety Measures like mandatory face coverings and social distancing but people are growing increasingly frustrated with those rules in europe tens of thousands of protesters have defied bans on Mass Gatherings the socalled anti corona rallies attracted conspiracy theorists and vaccine campaigners as well as far left and far right groups who say the measures violate personal freedoms but government leaders insist the restrictions must stay in place especially as cooler months approach in the Northern Hemisphere will bring in our guests in just a moment spit 1st this report from domenic cain in berlin where the biggest march took place on saturday. The weeks the daily number of new Coronavirus Infections and. Many has been rising yet for these people in berlin what matters most is their right not to observe any restrictions not to wear masks not to follow social distancing and to show their anger at the politicians who have imposed them because of the youngest illegal ill this is illegal the whole government is illegal everything is illegal and corona is just a medium to heavy flu a pandemic that is being used to enslave us humans. That view is not shared by the police who tried and failed twice on friday to persuade the courts to ban the demonstration saying the protestors posed a serious risk mentioning d. M. Of and of me was going on and thats these are people that we can assume as coronavirus skeptics have taken no precautions in recent months in a time when infection numbers are increasing we dont believe these gatherings to be responsible. The protesters are made up of many different groups some from the political fallout of society some from the far right what unites them is a sense of injustice and rights being lost demonstrations like these pose this countrys politicians a serious ethical dilemma forcing them to balance on the one hand the rights of individuals to protest against government measures with which they disagree and on the other hand the rights of the Wider Community to be protected as far as possible from the risk of coronavirus infection. Its a risk ministers say is growing but glimmers is just some. The problem is the numbers are too high too early given that winter is coming and we dont currently know what effect it will have and hell the flu and other illnesses will affected the numbers are too high at this early stage. Thats why the or fortys have tried so hard to prevent seems like the us and why they are so fearful of what effect so many people might have when theyre in such close proximity to each other without masks dominic kane aljazeera berlin. Well for more on this im joined by our guests all of them are in the u. K. Today in london we have heidi larsen director of the Vaccine Confidence project and professor at the London School of hygiene and tropical medicine in boss dr baratz punk and they are hes a senior clinical lecturer at the university of Exeter Medical school and a specialist on American City preparedness for i pricks and pandemics and also in london we have donna dawson a psychologist specializing in personality and behavior one welcome to all 3 of you lets start with you professor larson given the scenes that weve seen in germany can you blame people for for taking to the streets and for being sick of these restrictions because this pandemic has been going or knife for months and there doesnt appear to be an end in sight. Well i certainly empathize with the frustration by many people in the public about this extenuated lockdowns and mass squaring and social distancing the korean teens are coming back. But thats partly big because people have let their guard down as it were a sinking thanks for getting better. The story of the i mean this has been embraced its interesting that its both the extreme left in the extreme right in our Confidence Research weve seen a trend over the last 510 years of the the vaccine sentiments which is another dimension of the current protests these anti back seen. That theyre becoming increasingly polarized and this has become highly politicized and there has been from the beginning with vaccines certainly you know its relevant here a tension between my individual right and a Public Health right so i am precise with the frustration its difficult though when the behavior of a group like this really has it and i absolutely serious risk to the rest of the public doesnt i see you know that along there dont. You specialize in pandemics of course you must be concerned when you see crowds of 800000 people who are protesting against these restrictions but again a someone who was in a lockdown for around 5 months i mean i got pretty sick of it you cant blame these people i mean how long are people supposed to be locked down in their homes and unable to travel to work for that doesnt appear to be an end in sight at this point. Thank you. Im very disappointed i feel very sad germany has had a examiners record in managing it coronavirus kohli 19 these and them and they have done a wonderful job in europe and therefore i feel even more sad that in the summer months where people have got frustrated and they are deciding that there will not be a god our case numbers have gone down therefore the pandemic has gone and that they can do as they wish this is a failure of communication i feel really disappointed because what we ought to have continued is our visual return what use message is continuously not propaganda pure science to show people that the virus is still here it is still so labeling it is causing illness and people if they dont regard it like we see in these pictures they will get infected and some of them will die i mean this is a failure of communication its a great pity. In terms of perhaps this is a failure of communication but again i point to the longevity of this donna dawson you specialize in it in personality behavior and certainly from the u. K. Governments response they were very very reluctant to impose food locks on measures because they were worried about how long people would be able to keep up the. To live under these sorts of restrictions see think the u. K. Government might have been vindicated in some way given the scenes where 56 months down the track now people are sick of it and the virus still hasnt gone away. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic when they were doing daily briefings from number 10 there was one scientist that said this is going to go on for a very long time he was rather muted and kept in the background but it rang a bell with me and in hindsight it looks as though pure fear can motivate people for about 2 months but about after 6 months peoples behavior begins to resort back to self interest theres a very fine line between self preservation and community. Thoughtfulness or Community Survival and were at a Tipping Point now it seems to me that more and more of those under 40 and particularly those under 30 are deciding that they are no longer vulnerable because there has been a gradual easing of some restrictions and with the typical immortality that you think they have theyve theyve gone about their business in a kind of almost or a tele tory way to make up for lost time so youve got a split now youve got younger people who think theyre fine theyre ok their rights should no longer be impinged on and youve got older people and those who are more anxious and with Mental Health issues who are getting many more and more paranoid and that the 2 sets of people are getting more polarized so you know this is this is quite problematic and as we sail into winter i do wonder whats going to happen particularly when unemployment figures start to go up and the money the government is paying out for those who are out of work dries up i think were going to see more rebellion and more individuals taking further action but other groups of people who have been shielding will become more paranoid and more isolated so this is what im expecting to see its a fairly grim picture of all 3 of you present here and that kind of run counter to a lot of the measures the a lot of the communications we get from governments theres a lot of emphasis in europe of trying to open up restore tourism and certainly put some weight behind the economy. Those economic concerns they also have Public Health implications as well in terms of the Mental Health impacts of people who arent working not to mention the children who live in abusive households the vulnerable people. Who need to get out of their house to a safe space. Do you think there has let me turn to you dr frank. Carney i beg your pardon do you think that weve been focused too much on covance and less on the secondary impacts which can be every bit as dangerous if not more dangerous in the way that governments have tackled this pandemic. Yes i think both issues are very important and they have to be tackled at the same time im very concerned just as our psychology colleague has just said that with poverty with loss of employment we expect a storm of disquiet and destruction to follow when people lose their jobs and livelihoods and got very little to lose you find that they dont wish to be part of our behavior community that is asking them to behave in a certain way therefore i feel you do not plan in september for september you need to be planning ahead and be aware what is coming and put in control measures now even now its not too late because in about 2 to 3 months time when all the benefits and all the support systems are gone and people have lost their livelihoods i expect a winter of discontent therefore it would be better to get the communications right now and communicate it and and really this is a completely new way of living and weve got to change weve got to sort of say were going to be poor as a result of economic decline and shut down with guns and wires that associating now weve got to have solutions and were going to have a consistent solution all members of society it has to be done but this is a very depressing message to bring people whove already had a fairly depressing 2020 on the whole professor larsen and i hope you see. D. C. Theres any hope on the horizon certainly people are investing a lot of stock in the possibility that vaccine is a vaccine the way i see of this crisis. Well i think i think weve got a few different measures then the vaccine is the one intervention that will has the potential together out of the Current Situation of lockdown and masking but i think what the reality is one we dont have a vaccine yet but we do need a mix of interventions and and i think that one we do have time before we get a vaccine proven safe and effective a number of them look quite prom promising we need to use that time to build their confidence in that too and i think that for some people who might not who might have their otherwise hesitations about sexy when it comes to a situation where getting a vaccine can let you go back to work let you go back to school let you travel again their decision factors are going to be different so i think that there is hope i think that that is you know the light on the horizon as it were but in the meanwhile. There are ways had kind of extreme measures of either total masking distancing lock down and no work or or the or opening things up to help the economy along and psychology frankly. But we have to do a better job of bringing it back in the middle ironically these extremists who you know want to say stop all this masking stop all the social distancing are also say are also interfering with actually what could be you know a better approach to getting things back on track which is to do it safely and i think that we need to shift our our lens there and do that in the meanwhile preparing for a vaccine and there we will get through this but. Where does this come from because we say it cigs trimmest syria against my skin here against vaccines but the the say separate images in sweden is against masks in public so and from the laymans perspective when you have so many experts saying might stroke good for you and then another one says masks are not good for you people listen see. Well its a good point and ive perhaps i should say some who have extreme views i mean in the in the protests that weve been seeing some of the sentiments that are coming out are more extreme but there are a number of levels of peoples. Both what they are there calculated decision they dont think its worth they dont think they need to use a mask of certain settings so they dont think you know the distancing as any less confusing one place since 2 majors one place world or Health Organization says you know one thing the government says another you go into another a certain country and that gives another 18 you know instead of its like one and a half meters. So it is confusing and i think people have to also use their common sense i mean these are not i mean ironically things like masking social distancing people can own some of the resistance to vaccines as they may feel like its coming from an elite science or not clear you know they dont feel like they know enough about the process somebody elses injecting them but we have an opportunity with d these interventions to be publicly ok ed let me turn to you donna dawson i want to get your take on this why do you think we are seeing a lot more pushback from people about wearing masks. Because there are a lot of scientists who say look this helps so why are we so much pushback from people it doesnt make sense. Because theres too much inconsistency even within one government the u. K. Government itself has made many u. Turns has given rules without clarity has an added to them hasnt explained things clearly enough and people start then reading between the lines and saying well if they dont know what theyre doing or they appear not to know what theyre doing i will use my common sense and make my own decisions we need more clarity and when we talk about unification thats communication from the top down the government being very clear i mean a lot of people will laugh and joke about were not allowed to integrate with more than 2 family bubbles and yet we consider it an airplane next to somebody or we can go to the pub but we cant socially distance very effectively in a theatre so theres too many in consistencies and people are saying well this doesnt make any sense the other thing that i think is happening is the virus has become slightly unreal to most of us if you dont know somebody whos been very ill or died from it it doesnt seem real you cant see it you cant put your finger on it and what i would like to see is maybe some more testimonials from people of all age groups saying what their experience has been with the virus because this idea that its just a small flu bug that you know you can you can get over there are too many people that have suffered a long time with it and there seem to be some long lasting effects afterwards id like to see more of that on the news and maybe a little healthy dose of fear we would go a long way because people have lost that now they seem to think that with the easing down of some restrictions everythings ok and because they dont have this virus around them is somehow has disappeared and of course this is human nature again if it doesnt affect you directly and its not in your way then youre going to ignore or step over it dr parker on is this something youre grieved that we need more fear in the middle of this deadly Global Pandemic where weve all been terrified. And im at consistent we dont want people but earlier. If you dont see 8000000 people person and you dont see a damaged person following the infection then you think this is all made up stuff and what is really coming up and clear to me is the level of education and the ability of people to work it out for themselves what to say what will infection how to protect my star how to prevent myself getting infected there is such a lot of people being able to work it out for themselves weve got to do it for themselves but then weve got to do it consistently and properly and and repeat it furthermore we were talking about vaccines a minute ago i do not think the vaccine is the answer because even if we sent sensibly find a vaccine what we should be really doing is prevention how it needs novel learners is our arms we need to spend millions in preventing the emergence of new viruses if we dont and weve been 20 years from here we will be back again discussing a new pandemic which we could have prevented so we really need we need to plan and prepare and work on the Group Venture not new viruses emerging in the meantime how we got consistent messages and got repeat them because people say i dont know where it is not there but its a lot of this also depends of where you get your consistent messages from and this tiny sense of the debates around vaccines because lets face it there is a debate about vaccines and certainly with the vaccine being talked up before the u. S. President ial election or a vaccine being released and russia a lot of people are going to be quite skeptical of this so perhaps a vaccine may not be a solution but a lot of countries are pending their hopes on one so professor larson given the the skepticism in the last. Trusts right no a right in vaccines which is being amplified during these marches that were seeing in places like germany theres also marches in the u. K. How do we how do you win back the trust of people that vaccines and treatments are effective well i agree on the point that we need to. Build much more awareness about the scope and scale of of this disease so that people actually believe that covert exists and what theyre at risk because if they dont have that theyre not going to be interested in a vaccine but in terms of the safety and effectiveness of the back seeing one of the big anxieties now is that people keep hearing its fast you know its everything from warp speed to the 1st one there and then to scientists perhaps and certainly to politicians fast is good to the public fast means theyre taking short cuts its not going to be safe its too risky so i think we need to use this time to build much more awareness about the fact that theyre not faster because were short cutting an old process these are new technologies there are new opportunities we havent really explained why things are faster we have a new Financing Mechanism we didnt have for instance for a bola and it was set up because of a ball so there was money there to fund ok so i think that we have time lets use it ok where in the dying minutes of the survey some going to put the same question to all 3 of you and if you could answer as briefly as possible. Are you hopeful that 2021 will be better because lets face it 2020 hasnt been anything to write home about its let me start with you donna dawson. I think we have to have some hope that weve learned some lessons from this year we know we may not like what we have to do and we may find it boring in tedious and a bit scary were going to have to make major long term Behavioral Changes were going to have to get into some habits that persist and that is about not just looking after ourselves and our immediate family but thinking of the person next to us our neighbors our communities were going to have to think about protecting them as well were going to have to use our common sense were going to have to think about trying to return slowly to what we used to know as our lifestyle with some measures of protection thank you very much dr khan can hear your thoughts what if we can do a lot of pain properly in 20202021 maybe better and i want people to look at you know if we endure the pain of 20202021 will be better trained to do that will quote 2021 all right got thought ok lets work hard work hard none for tomorrow a better tomorrow thank you very much in the final 20 seconds are yours professor larson. Yes so i am hopeful for 2021 there may be a vaccine which will certainly change the picture i think we will be at a different stage you have the damage it will be a difficult time economically as we recover but i am really hopeful that will be an a and a better place in 2021 ok so difficult times ahead but hope prevails thank you very much indeed to all my guests professor heidi larsen. And donna dawson and thank you for watching at home remember you can see the program again any time visiting our website al jazeera dot com and for further discussion head to our social media we have Facebook Page shift facebook dot com forward slash inside story join the conversation on twitter at 80 inside story or tweet me directly at a lot more. For me in the entire team here in doha is by fanatics thank. Talk to old jews there are we as is the government not taking the necessary action to really address some of the structural issues we listen i still think that air travel is the safest mode of travel and to spend that we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on the old a 0 singapore is being accused of expanding its costar and illegally dredged sat and some of the islands off the coast of indonesia literally vanish its a big business well go and serve one that will take the system there in the sand is it fair to say this beautiful beach behind it is something thats not so pleasant tragedy is that people just know the word and ecological investigation into a global emergency sound at this time on aljazeera. When the news breaks and the story builds me up and says content there arrived at this is a big explosion when people who need to be helped. 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