Transcripts For ALJAZ News 20240712

Raises great concern. The w. H. R. Warns kevin 19 deaths in europe could be 5 times higher by january as a continent struggles with a 2nd way. Yemens largest prisoner swap finally takes place its being described as a milestone in efforts to end the 5 year old. U. S. President donald trump and his white house challenger joe biden have been quizzed by the public during rival televised town hall style events they were also about issues ranging from the coronavirus to conspiracy theories the Supreme Court and trumps finances they were supposed to face each other in a 2nd president ial debate the trump withdrew from that when its format was changed to virtual rather than in person. Shortly well speak to heidi castor in philadelphia about joe bidens event. Lets go to heidi and heidi what was the update for joe biden. Well it was a relatively muted event here in philadelphia a return to as you would say normal politics prior to the trump era and a sense with biden drawing a stark distinction particularly on the way that he plans to handle the coronavirus pandemic versus the criticism that he lashed at the president on almost every front with the handling of the virus of the pandemic on the issue of masks biden took the opportunity to clarify some of his policies he had in the past been quoted as saying he supported a nationwide mandate for all americans to wear masks but today on this stage answering a question posed by a voter selected from the audience biden said instead that he would lead by example contrast in himself to what President Trump has said about masks and not wearing one in many instances. And i know and i think you do too as well the words of the president matter absolutely no matter whether theyre good bad or indifferent they matter and when a president doesnt wear masks or make fun of folks like me when i was wearing a mask for a long time then you know people say well it must be that important. And bided very much ahead in the polls he was in a very good position going into this debate was me. Thats right the National Polls show somewhere between 10 and 11 per cent advantage that biden has over trump across the nation course you always have to take that with a grain of salt in 2016 polls showed that clinton was overtaking trump and of course those were wrong but certainly biden was heading into tonights event as the leader among the poles with less to lose than trump who certainly was more on the defensive and we saw biden taking a comfortable seat in that chair with what his campaign has said is his forte talking one on one with those voters who pose the questions he at multiple times referenced them was trying to make a personal connection at the end of his answers he tried to ask whether or not he had fulfilled their question but it was its also worth of pointing out that many of these questions were skeptical biden had to defend or rather he even admitted that it was a mistake on his votes in support of the 1984 crime bill that really drove a wedge between his candidacy and the Africanamerican Community who otherwise has widespread enthusiasm for bidens campaign and the when asked about his plans for the u. S. Supreme court that has been a key issue of course with the nomination hearings to fill a Supreme Court vacancy happening on capitol hill simultaneous to this election to the campaigns of biden said that prior to election day he would finally tell voters whether or not he plans to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court a very controversial idea that though not illegal certainly has the potential to divide and possibly cost him some votes so asked directly whether or not he would staff. The courts were he to win tonight he once again refused to answer that question but did say that he will speak to voters directly on that topic prior to election day. Moving forward the biden team have now with so been affected by coronavirus what does this mean for the come painting in the remaining weeks thats right this really just shows the tightening of the vice grip of this pandemic that serious certainly there is no escape from it and now within the circle of the Harris Biden Campaign we know of 3 people who have tested positive in the last 24 hours they include Vice President ial nominee harriss communication director they include a member of her flight staff and also on bidens flight. Aviation Company Representative who flew at least 2 times on the same airplane as joe biden himself now the campaign has been very clear that both candidates have tested negative for the virus in that within the last 24 hours but Campbell Harris canceled the remainder of her in Person Campaign events for this week out of an abundance of caution we saw joe biden of course still keep show up here at the stage tonight but certainly the harris the Biden Harris Campaign trying to draw a distinction in the way that theyve handled this pandemic much more cautiously in their campaigning as opposed to the the visions weve had a President Trump just fresh off of his old battle with kobe at his 3 day hospitalisation and already holding in person rallies where hes not massed and many of his supporters are not massed either. Hadid joe castro the 1st in philadelphia many thanks. Well in miami President Donald Trump was grails among other things about his finances he acknowledged possibly earning 400000000. 00 in his business dealings but didnt say to whom he was also asked about conspiracy theories pushed by some supporters like here on and. I know nothing about it i just try to do a very little you told me but what you tell me doesnt necessarily make it checked i hate to say that i know nothing about it and i do know they are very much against it pedophilia and they should fight it very hard but i knew nothing of a believe it if you like me run by she ideations ill tell you what i do know about i know about him and i know about the radical left and i know how violent they are and how vicious they are and i know how theyre doing down in cities run by democrats a spring in Barbara Perry shes professor of ethics and institutions at the university of virginia joining us from charlottesville in virginia many thanks for speaking to us on new sound this of course not a platform trump is used to how do you think he did. I think if you compare and contrast how he was sitting with how joe biden was city very comfortably in philadelphia in a nice easy chair and a trump was sort of precariously perched on a high stool our bar stool if you will he looked a little uncomfortable on the other hand i should say for someone who is recovering we presume from coke and i thought he looked really good he did perspire somewhat probably because he was in miami which tends to be very humid even at this time of year in the autumn and i thought he seemed a little bit overly energized i dont know whether hes still taking the steroids but he seemed to sit manic but he certainly turned in the performance that i think he would have wanted to and his campaign would have wanted to and im sure will get a good buzz from his supporters he definitely struck a competent note he may have won the ratings ways we know is very important to him but not necessarily any move into his. No i think youre right and this is been the problem for him and ive should he come up a loser in this campaign it will be because he has not expanded his base so he continues to bring up the issues just as you have reported most recently as we lead into this segment about anti for the burning down of cities by the radical left and those cities are run by democrats are not that he claimed he didnt know anything about except for the pedophilia issues the way he talked about that he said for people who wear masks 85 percent of them get the disease thats just wrong but thats what his base wants to hear so he needs to have all of the members of his base continue to vote for him not desert him here in the last few weeks and they really need to turn out and even at that it would still be hard for him to win in these very difficult states but you probably also noted he kept mentioning those important swing states the one you could once he continues to visit now do you think trump missed an opportunity here to when he declined to actually debate with biden because it was going to be a virtual debate because he missed out on a percentage of undecided voters who may have ended up watching biden instead. Well i think in the end though he probably didnt it probably didnt hurt to have in the sense that the polling for him went down after the 1st debate because of his antics because of his constant interruptions of biden and refusal to follow the rules i actually thought that for both men tonight biden being able to speak and trump not interrupting biden because they were separated obviously in these 2 different have town halls i thought that both men came out looking better in terms of their personalities and the messages they wanted to get across and now to think it did well by american democracy certainly the 1st debate did nothing to increase the prestige of american democracy around the world so i actually think i benefited from this format rather than the kind of debate that he put on in the antics he portrayed in the 1st debate and that is actually quite interesting what about biden you touched on his performance that he went into that town who session very confident ahead in the polls if he had to believe the polls. That concept has him. You know. What could hurt him now again if you say we cant believe the polls and everyone has is gun shy about that from 2016 although i would point out that the National Polls were absolutely correct that they had Hillary Clinton ahead at this time that 4 years ago by 2 Percentage Points and thats exactly how much she won the popular vote it was just some of those swing states 3 suing states that 77 and 78000 votes made the difference in the Electoral College but i think for biden the the worst thing that could happen to him now short of and we hope you certainly doesnt come down with a virus that could obviously have an impact but that aside i think if you just had a terrible stumble if he misspoke terribly york seemed to be too weak or seemed to suffer from some sort of mental lapse because busy that would be the sort of thing that could hurt him that it happened tonight bob a really interesting to get your thoughts Barbara Perry professor of ethics and institutions at the university of virginia. Plenty more ahead on the news hour including china has tested an anti city of 11000000 people for coronavirus in just 5 days. Was a living and caseworker existence until now how fighting is affecting minority groups and i dont. Recorded Coronavirus Infections have reached a new daily higher of more than 380000 well and wide numbers had taken a high in europe. As silly says a one day record for infections on its highest death toll in months germany also saw an unprecedented strike with 6600 new cases in france 12000 police have been deployed to enforce curfews in paris and other large cities where infections are now rampant and from sas way more than half of englands population will again be subjected to strict rules on where they can go and who they can charlie endless report from london. This city of 9000000 is moving into high gear to have a 3 tier system meaning no one can meet indoors with anyone outside their household is the governments latest attempt to rein in a runaway infection rate which is doubling every 10 days we must act now delayed action means more deaths from covert it means more. Deaths and it means more economic pain later because the virus comes down slower than it goes up but there are questions over whether this goes far enough with the opposition and many scientists instead advocating a short sharp nationwide lockdown not just regional restrictions here in london the new measures will impact 3000 jobs and 7000 restaurants decision will be reviewed every 2 weeks but most of these businesses have already made their orders for the months ahead and this stopping and starting wage critical that many in europe find theyre in a similar situation france has declared a Public Health state of emergency and impose an 8 pm curfew in paris and 8 other cities hospital admissions are at their highest level since june likely by peer pressure the curve has nearly taking a vertical shape and thats why we knew we needed to act because this reality would have an impact on hospitals 10 days later the very strong impact on intensive care unit. Infection rates also rising in spain the region of. Closing or bars and restaurants for 15 days and limiting the number of people allowed in shops in its attempt to curb the surge germany Czech Republic italy and poland are all looking at a Record Number of daily cases since the pandemic began and from the World Health Organization a bleak warning that governments mustnt shy away from nationwide lockdowns projections from reliable. Models or optimistic these models indicate that launched relaxing policies propelled by generally 2021 daily mortality at levels 4 to 5 times higher than what we recorded in april covered 19 is now killing a 1000 people a day in europe with winter fast approaching this exponential increase is everyones concern aljazeera london authorities in the eastern chinese city of wind hour say theyre finished testing the citys 11000000 people for corona virus that was sparked by the discovery of a handful of cases only about a dozen people were found to be infected to you has this report. Chinas coastal city of qingdao is known for its beaches and beer but this week it made headlines for a corona virus cluster the 1st local transmissions discovered in months authorities responded by testing the citys entire population of 11000000 over a period of 5 days. There are enough people to protect themselves and social distance people are sticking to the rules the testing aims to reassure residents thousands of medical workers worked 16 hours a day to complete the mass testing a few cases have been confirmed the patients relate to the qingdao Chest Hospital where overseas arrivals with carven 1000 were being treated the head of the hospital and the citys Health Commissioner have been fired several neighborhoods locked down and close contacts traced and quarantined officials have played down concerns of a large scale outbreak. Qingdao have many appeared in hospital and we have concluded that the scale of the damage its a likely to be as large as that happened in beijing and according to official figures china is coronavirus cases have fallen drastically but the country remains on high alert up to criticism of its mishandling of the outbreak and we have to see if the Chinese Government is under pressure to respond with a new lower case its authorities have put cities into what theyve told us i might follow the discovery of previous clusters elsewhere in the country i think. There was clearly some missed opportunities at the local government level at this point its a National Government level they have a very clear chain of responsibility in command and they moved very very quickly in may officials tested 11000000 people in the city of one the original epicenter of the outbreak following the discovery of new cases. Chinese state media has contrast to chinas recent coverage 1000 response to that of the us and european countries. Democrats directions across china have largely eased during chinas golden we call it a last week more than 600000000 trips nationwide those who visited qingdao have also been ordered to take coronavirus test katrina you aljazeera beijing the top u. S. Infectious diseases expert is criticizing a declaration by a group of scientists that supports the concept of herd immunity dr anthony felt she says back in the idea is ridiculous if you just let things rip and let the infection go no masks crowd it doesnt make any difference there quite frankly george is ridiculous because what that will do is that there will be so many people in the community that you cant shelter that you cant protect who are going to get sick and get serious consequences so this idea that we have the power to protect the vulnerable is total nonsense because history has shown that thats not the case well lets look a little closer at that concept of herd immunity its the idea that a population can be protected from a virus if enough people in the community develop immunity either through vaccination or exposure to the virus members of the herd protect those who have not yet been exposed or promote proponents augie that because most people who are infected by the corona virus often no symptoms let alone become ill or die they believe the virus should be allowed to run through unchecked while Vulnerable People are protected well critics including the World Health Organization argue that with a death rate of about 0. 6 percent encouraging the virus to spread would lead to an enormous number of deaths. Now theres also divided opinions on effective treatment for cave 19 w. H. Study has found that. A drug widely used has no substantial effect on a patients chances of survival the results of the tall will say sure that the treatment had little effect on how long patients stayed in hospital well any of this month the Biopharmaceutical Company julie absences said when does appear cuts cave at 19 Recovery Time by 5 days the treatment was also one of a series of drugs used to treat us President Donald Trump to he tested positive for coded 19 lets bring in julie fish he is associate professor of marker biology immunology at Georgetown University speaking to us from washington d. C. Many thanks for joining us on the news out here and aljazeera what is your reaction to this report by w. H. O. Does appear that it has no substantial effect on a patients chances of survival. I dont really have forces why it is so important to have these large randomized controlled trials in those those are trials in which patients are randomized to receive a treatment in this case comparing a treatment like rem does of the against just the best standard of care without rem does appear with large trials of this of this nature there were more than. 2500 patients that received them desert their treatment and they were compared to controls that had not in 30 hospital sorry and in hospital and 30 countries so this kind of large study really helps us understand and make sense of whether these treatments given under extraordinary conditions are actually benefiting patients in a way that can be measured in a way that it could be extrapolated to benefit populations of patients worldwide there were a. Stunning is a lot of people relying on this drug working so how much of a blow is it that it doesnt work at least according to this trial. Well its certainly disappointing what all of us would like to see is what frequently is called a magic bullet a drug that is already in existence that is safe and that works effectively in patients in a reliable way we would like to see that unfortunately in this case this trial at least which is a fairly large trial suggests that the benefits of undoes of the may be. They werent seen in the study at all in terms of survival or in terms of shortening the duration of symptoms in people who are already severely ill which is something that had been suggested in previous trials so clearly we need to understand why these outcomes were different from previous studies but we would all like to see something that was effective in in the majority of patients and right now this the data are not are not strongly supportive of that lets talk about herd immunity because it is a term that is being bandied about quite a bit at the moment why are we getting these conflicting reports by scientists about the concept of herd in it. I think one of the reasons were hearing these conflicting statements is that theres again just as we wish to see a magic bullet to treat in 1000. 00 disease we would also like to be reassured that even in the absence of the vaccine that populations that are exposed could could. Become immune to the point that it no longer allowed the spread of disease so that we could relax some of the more stringent measures such as physical distance in quarantine and isolation question for those who are potentially exposed to isolation for those who are ill measures that are profoundly disruptive to households and disruptive to economies and so its i think even scientists would. Fall prey to that need for an optimistic outlook that shows us a way out that doesnt require us to maintain that discipline until we can have an effective vaccine but the statistics that you just alluded to the to achieve herd immunity as as dr fauci was explaining requires that every person who is infected be essentially surrounded by if you think about is a protective barrier of people who are already immune and because of the way this virus is transmitted from person to person it would require a really high level of herd immunity some have estimated 60 to 70 percent of the population would have to be immune and that would mean in most of our populations exposing a great number of people who are at risk for the most severe disease in order to achieve those levels which is something that i think is is. Its an issue that is very difficult to contemplate putting that many people at risk in the hopes of achieving. Herd immunity but the other question is just to sticks it would take a long time in most populations to get to that level of exposure putting us well into 2021 well put people at risk many thanks that jellyfish from Georgetown University thank you for. Moving on there have been scuffles between thai police and antigovernment protesters who have defied a ban on public gatherings. With. With demonstrations in central bangkok come a day after thailands government announced the ban for an emergency decree failed to quell that growing protest movement which is calling for the Prime Ministers resignation and reforms to the monarchy. As bring in peter pan and she is a political commentator and a professor at Business School joining me from bangkok many thanks for speaking to us on aljazeera a you surprised that despite this emergency decree weve seen the people back on the streets. Not really because i think that has been boiling fundament or not the situation have been handled foiling the protests have shown that the death of the anger and frustration of people in bangkok particularly the protests who are not even. The fear the of it elevated state of emergency decree why do you think were seeing the bubbling of these protests now because this has been going on for some time but there seems to be real anger real. You sentiment coming out now. The youth center mens have been going on since before the court it struck back in early this year. And the reason that its growing more i think partly reflects the frustration that the Economic Impact of corbett has also or affected their the economic well being of these students and also the chose the frustration that the government has and try to accommodate it of their demand so i think to get there and also mind you that october is quite a politically sensitive one for tyler and particularly this year and you know october is of Strong Political unrest in the past back from 1970 s. When students were also leaving protest against the tater ship and also october. Is the 4th anniversary of the passing of king rum either 9 so a lot of october has always been quite sensitive and deuce year is even more so because of the impact of corbett and the previous Political Development that the particular Political Party that was seen as a representative of the youth this banned it so all of this added to the increasing anger at the moment i believe. And im on speaking to us from bangkok many thanks thank you. A state of emergency has been declared and the sudanese stay off to days of fighting people are reported to been killed. The local governor was dismissed arseholes are held in saddam where captains and. Still ahead on aljazeera. President resigns and the Prime Minister is now in charge well look at what comes next sound to ricks list. And the political toll deepens inside her soft alexanders investigation into a russian citizen still. Hello weve got some wet weather rain clouds gathering across central parts of china because of cloud down towards the southwest of course thats where we had our Tropical Storm recently moving across northern parts of vietnam last into central china