A virus spread. Why do we parent and when will all this trigger through the topics covered and the weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any information on the clone m r s or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast so you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at. Science. 1000000 deaths a grim milestone for a pandemic thats not even a year old in 10 months more people have died from covert 19 than from hiv malaria the flu and cholera combined a hefty body count for a microscopic pathogen and some experts think its an undercount. The pandemic isnt done yet cases are spiking in india and europe complacency and. Are growing. They dont have any money and they dont have any other options. As the numbers continue to rise how long before the next milestone. This is due to these covert 911 welcome to the show im Stephen Beardsley in berlin 1000000 deaths in 10 months what began as a mysterious respiratory disease and who han china has now spread around the world leaving a significant body count its wake and showing little sign of abating in the near future is a look at how we reached this point. The 1st Death Outside of china was reported in the philippines on february 2nd just 12 days later france confirmed the 1st victim in europe. At the end of february the United States reported its 1st death. On june 28th the global death toll hit half a 1000000 and just 3 months later the millionth victim was confirmed. The u. S. Has the highest death toll so far it also has the highest number of cases followed by india and brazil spain has the most confirmed infections in the European Union with cases surging across the world experts expect the global death toll to climb rapidly in the coming months. Now one of the countrys worst hit by the pandemic wasnt on that last list prue which has topped 800000 infections has had one of the worlds highest mortality rates and its economy has shrunk by a whopping 30 percent but new cases are slowing and thats prompted the government to begin easing restrictions many fear that theyre acting too soon. Finally able to be by her husbands side. This doesnt some metairie in northern peru is the final resting place for local coronavirus victims now that restrictions have been eased relatives are allowed in to visit even though it isnt at the spot ana maria and her husband had planned for when the your message got up and but yes in the fall when i went to town to make burial arrangements they told me i couldnt bury him in the plot we had chosen. I was told that an order had been issued that everyone who died from coated had to be buried in this summit area. Others are still fighting for their lives perus president says the countrys Health Care System is stronger now than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. And the government is expanding testing including in low income areas of the capital lima. So with the rate of new infections on the decline the government is pushing ahead with plans to reopen more of the economy and even start letting in International Flights starting with neighboring countries but some Health Experts are warning against reopening too fast. And eating the nasty reopening gyms bars discos and other forms of entertainment will be terrible say at italy so yes it could bring about a 2nd wave quicker if the window and i think we definitely need to reconsider these steps have nothing. To fear is that peru could repeat the pattern of other countries seeing a rise in cases followed by a new wave of mass burials. Im joined now by alan lopez hes an epidemiologist and professor at the university of melbourne which is where he joins me from professor its good to have you on the show youve said that this death count could actually be a vast undercounts by how much. Those had to say but its probably likely to be somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of an undercount huge number of factors why is that what are those factors oh as for principal factors to even then i think youre driving the numbers down one is that doctors are still learning how to apply the w. H. O. Rules to certify the deaths in this day getting used to that until they get used to it properly theyll be undercounting did secondly good 19. Kills people in ways that were still learning about in other words if they magnifies out the background risks if you go hypertension youre a smoker if youre overweight if youve got chronic lung disease then its likely that code 19 is going to be more serious for you and will kill many of the people with those conditions those comorbidities certainly covered 19 is having a big impact on Health Services so in developing poor countries were seeing programs essential programs like h. O. P. E. Control tell you the whole area are all being affected and so many of the people who need the services are not getting them and are probably dying as a result and even in rich countries we see people not turning up to Cancer Screening when they should be and finally and perhaps most importantly many many deaths in the world one counted about one 3rd of deaths go on registered each year and even many of those that are registered dont get a proper current cause of death so its likely to cover 19 sophos or more was conditions as well you mentioned the comorbidities can we say if theres a profile to the average coronavirus death from what we know about the death count so far. Well the main thing that drives it to find 19 deaths is a blast majority of people who die from code 19 above the age of 70 and 6 ratio from the countries where we can count it reliably suggests that about for every female who dies is about 3 miles so we got a fairly clear idea of the age and 6 composition of mortality are we slowing down the death rate since weve been going at this for about 10 months now have we learned enough to slow it down the answer is no we have not slowed it down i dont know whether weve learned enough to do that but we certainly havent applied it death rates are rising were seeing 2nd wave in several countries in europe weve seen those in my country and australia deaths are rising theyre rising steadily and theyre going to rise a lot further. When should we expect the next milestone say 2w3w do you have a prediction so difficult to predict but my prediction is that by the end of this year by december 31st with probably see at least 2000000 possibly as high as 2 and a half 1000000 kevin 19 deaths worldwide a professor are deaths the best way to understand the impact of this disease and the pandemic. I dont think so i think the actual numbers of this is frightening as they arent as troubling as they are going to be dont tell the full story covered 19 kills people primarily at older ages and in terms of Preventive Priorities that Public Health need to be concerned about we talk about the number of years of life lost on average from primary did in terms of good 19 most of those who died i dont ranges and so they tend to lose much less years of life than for example a comparable number of deaths road traffic accidents for example kills 1200000 people every year the us majority of those are a lot younger than the code did some say you could argue that road traffic accidents or to be getting at least as much Public Health attention or prevention as cotinine tame all right lopez professor and epidemiologist from the university of melbourne thank you very much thank you. Well our science correspondent Eric Williams has been busy looking into your questions about the pandemic over now to derek. Many of the social controls put in place are passed on its symptomatic transmission what evidence is there for such a phenomenon. Do people who are asymptomatic transmit source code to to others and if so then how infectious are they this is been one of those issues thats proven theyre a difficult to come to grips with in the course of this pandemic for for a couple of reasons 1st of all because we only really recently began to detect asymptomatic people on a wide scale 2nd because todays asymptomatic patient can turn out to be only present and not and start showing symptoms tomorrow and were pretty sure that priest symptomatic carriers can be highly infectious 3rd because the viral load and asymptomatic patient carries is usually very similar to that of someone showing symptoms so so what evidence is there that people who test positive for cope at 19 but dont ever develop symptoms how likely is it that they can infect others. A preprint paper set for publication soon shows how tricky it can be to prove but but the researchers think they did it on a flight from italy to south korea carrying nearly 300 passengers who at the time displayed no 19 symptoms before boarding all of them were given and 95 masks and most more than throughout the flight except at meal times and when they went to the bathroom when the passengers arrived in seoul they were quarantined straight away for 2 weeks and all of them were tested on the 1st day and the last day of that quarantine 6 people tested positive for covert 19 that 1st day of quarantine but they never developed symptoms they were confirmed asymptomatic carriers but one woman who tested negative on the 1st day of quarantine developed symptoms on day 8 of it she had set a few rows away from an asymptomatic patient and used the same bathroom as them because of the timing and what we know about the viruses in cube ation period the researchers concluded that she was very likely infected by one of the asymptomatic passengers on board the plane. Sounds kind of like a Sherlock Holmes mystery doesnt it it just goes to show you though how difficult it is to acquire and interpret this kind of evidence many studies have tried but so far none of them has been clear cut enough really for big Health Authorities like the w. H. O. Or the c. D. C. To take a stand on the issue. Our science expert Eric Williams there and that is it for this edition of covert 1000 special you can find more coverage of the pandemic on our website dot com to check us out on facebook and twitter as well im stephen bears in berlin as always thanks for watching. The. Confrontation between china and taiwan the superpower is threatening to invade its neighbor. How serious is it how is china justifying its claims. He doesnt use Richard Walker analyzes the causes and dangers of the conflict in taiwan chinas next target khrushchev. Next on d. W. India. The b. B. Taji true Western Ghats mountains. To protect them from deforestation project helps religious groups for use in hospital medicine. Its good for people and good for nature. In 60 minutes on d w. It was the 1st International Tribunal in history. The number of trials. 75 years ago high ranking officers of the nazi regime of war you judging by the allied forces. Were the 1st war criminals to be held accountable for their crimes for. Combat that are now i am im. Going through dont care. Frazier. Our 2 part series the 3rd reich the dog starts nov 12th on d w. The. Last time on taiwan chinas next target taiwans military forces training for a scenario they hope will never have a chinese invasion from across the sea. And. China sees the selfgoverning democratic island off its southeastern coast as a province of its own place that must be brought under its control and heres the thing china. He says that it reserves the right to take taiwan by force under president Xi Jinping China has become more open than ever about that threat and as well see its far from certain puts taiwan get any help if china deals with matters and sadly even 5 years ago. The United States to come to taiwans defense was greater than it is today so what might china actually do lets turn now to 2 or 3 scenarios each one more dangerous than the last were going to start by projecting whats happening right now into the future with china trying to chip away at taiwans defenses and were going to ask how far could it go. For every 2020 taiwans air force releases this image to the media it shows a time going east jet fighter intercepting a chinese. Flying near its airspace. Glimpse of the dangerous tension in the skies the photograph might be rare but what it shows happens a lot especially this year taiwanese military expert you only chairing explains a common flight path that chinese planes follow made. The. One. Return back to china. They will need. In the. Air. So we are spending our skies defending our water so it is more. In the last few decades is constant pressuring from the chinese side its like a stress test on ma. Suppose a level isnt taught being demoralizing the taiwanese public but its also simply wearing down time was plain everything i want has to scramble fighter jets that not only get the airframe because every fighter jet. Made has a limited number of hours a can fly and so by having them constantly on strip alert. With their wings fully loaded with heavy munitions and with external fuel tanks that weakens the wings as well. And it also takes the d pilots away from other activities that wouldnt prove theyre ready but. Perhaps most importantly all of these probing generates hugely valuable insights for the Chinese Military james final who made us Naval Intelligence in the pacific explains you have to know your rabbit sherrys defense a structure and its network its air defense radar system where the weaknesses were the strengths how long does it take a fighter a 16 fighter taiwan to get off the ground to respond to a dream 7 coming from this air base or on the trail levin coming from that base or you know. The cage a 5000 or 2000 coming from this base of only one of their craft so theyre testing all of these are the new ones things that we cant see we dont know about were not getting the raw intelligence but i guarantee you china is looking at every facet of that down to minute detail of minutes seconds how long things take to respond who doesnt respond which base comes 1st telephone calls Text Messages between different government leaders and defense officials there mapping all of that out in the cyber realm to china continues to president chip away you want to chunk explains just by really read that in the. I once had. The Government Agency has been hacked i. Could. Happen very. Unassuming building in shanghai reportedly houses the military hacking 61398 the time one suspects of launching many attacks all this belongs to whats called the crazier. Activities that stop sure out right military action there constantly getting taiwan with Cyber Attacks with disapprobation misinformation. And of course espionage if theyre constantly working. Through propaganda channels and other channels to weaken to demoralize the taiwanese military and isolate. These government. And with its open Society Taiwan is highly vulnerable to disinform ation campaigns so says expert channing sue these efforts i think they are more and more sophisticated the enemy to interfere with taiwans internal social and political lives i think the ultimate purpose most of the time is to create confusion in a society to create distrust in the government to create division among peoples and when there is confusion when there is distrust in democracy then there is an opportunity for the idea of a solitary unism being a step dad and i think thats the purpose of this information it adds up to a multifaceted information war and china has long pursued a united front policy and tactics against taiwan and so try to build support with in taiwan for unification and that includes buying media in taiwan and buying off some people in taiwan or maybe even trying to buy votes and inserting people in taiwan and trying to shape the narrative so could this scenario of chipping away its happening right now eventually succeed. Will eventually just crumble but the society can crumble and that ultimately over the next 5 to 10 years we can subvert ones government ready to. Crumble democracy from with. But if taiwan doesnt crumble it could push back becoming more determined to stand alone and that could ultimately trigger a crisis perhaps one like our next an aria. And cast your mind back to early 2014 you might remember scenes like this. Seemingly out of nowhere heavily armed troops began showing up at key installations in the ukrainian peninsula of crimea. Adding to their sense of confusion the troops bore no insignia they wouldnt say who they were or who had sent them people started calling them little green men but it soon became clear what was going on the little green men belong to russia and their mission was. Nothing less than crimea in hindsight russias motivations for taking control of the Crimean Peninsula seem quite obvious it housed important Russian Naval base which moscow leased from ukraine. After weeks of unrest in the capital kiev that culminated in the fall of the central Ukrainian Government russia made its move leaders here in the west were aghast at what hussein had done but they were helpless they impose sanctions but 6 years later nothing has changed so could this is a blueprint for a similar chinese move against parts of taiwan lets take a look at the map and taiwan has a large number of outlying islands that could be vulnerable to being plucked away like crimea from the tiny reefs of the 2 are been practiced down in the South China Sea through the pingu islands just off the taiwanese coast right up to much too well to the north. Were going to focus in here on the gin man islands they are just 2 kilometers from the chinese mainland port of shopmen you could swim it. These islands have history back in the 1950 s. They were the focus of 2 major postwar crises between taiwan and china neither side has forgotten but despite that History Today jim man has close ties to charmaine just across the harbor but now pipes in much of its Drinking Water from the mainland and beyond dag it has important intelligence and Strategic Value according to experts in east and human control. The largest port facility by far. In southeastern. Fortress it is honeycomb. There are tanks there. Are heavy artillery mortar systems and of course the major. Focal point for intelligence collection so how my to crimea style scenario play out as. Well a possible trigger it could be political a time when the statement for example china might interpret it as breaking its and he says. In eastern explains how things might begin well the most likely course of action i think for that would be condemned to conduct a massive sabotage operation against him and so everything from cyberattacks to electronic jamming to having commandos and intelligence agents and assets on the ground and start potentially assassinating military commanders blowing things up knocking the power of. Chinas Maritime Militia could be brought into play here if you could compare them to russias little green men pay being involved in International Confrontations and the fishing rights in the South China Sea something that taiwan has been watching closely russian use the program and then people call in. The because they. Very likely that china mobilized those murray time money. To iraq. To go around the surrounding countries and certainly youre going to see jim and that surrounded by and flooded with Maritime Militia so these are sensibly members of the p l a but they look like civilian fishermen oftentimes and so it creates a very serious dilemma. For the marines and the army troops that are on jima and that the garrison there do they shoot or not and when do they shoot and at what point are they safe for today is it when theyre closing in when theyve already landed and now theyre swarming the island and taking over facilities and of course they would be mixed in with Undercover Special forces. From the p. L. O. As well the aim would likely be to move to establish facts on the ground quickly like putin did in crimea and it would pose a huge style emma for the Government Back in taipei taipei is not necessarily going to know how to react and theres not necessarily going to be a consensus in taipei on the value of g. M. And the value of escalating to a potentially an all out war with the p. R. C. Over gene there are going to be some in taiwan that would say well gee been historically was part of fujian province. Its not actually part of high wall and its not worth. Over in washington it would also presented by lemma but it seems likely there would be Little American appetite to intervene militarily its very difficult to judge how the United States would react to or limited use of force against taiwan it would likely come with very little warning and it might be over very quickly and there might be an effort to Court Sanctions on china but i doubt that there would be a use of force by the United States to punish china for one it has done so could this be a relatively painless scenario for china one with diplomatic costs that it could accept like Vladimir Putins experience with crimea well its not necessarily so clear cut. It would most likely trigger anti china protests in taiwan much more intense than some flour movement that we heard about earlier rallying Public Opinion against closer ties with china. And even if the u. S. Decided not to intervene in the takeover could prompt washington to increase its commitment to defending taiwan. For china even this relatively limited pushback might not be worth it but i think its the risk there is that upsets the overall strategic. You know the great rejuvenation the great restoration my opinion as once china pulls the when your dad says were going after taiwan theyre going to go after taiwan well if theyre going to go with the military theyre going to go all the way and theyre not going to go away so now lets turn to our final and most dangerous scenario china going all the way and invading taiwan. Its a decade or so in the future but beneath the surface in the Chinese Communist party there are growing signs of dissent. Chinas economy has been underperforming for years held back by a shop still in global trade that lingered after the coronavirus of time to make. Tensions with the u. S. Have turned into a chronic cold war. Beijing has kept pouring money into its military but debt is soaring and chinas population is beginning to shrink. The Party Chairman is under growing pressure to break out of this sense of national decline or face being forced out of office by party rivals. This makes taiwan look like an increasingly tempting target its economy is strong but its military disadvantage is deeper than ever and its people are appalled by what happened to hong kong because even less likely to join china voluntarily. The law of the United States who breakouts around to wait in key swing states after a bitter election ended with razor tight results both sides are claiming victory and accusing the other of having foreign powers. As the legal challenges fly back and forth the u. S. Faces months of political uncertainty. So a power vacuum in the United States a push for National Pride in a stagnating china and taiwan as exposed as its ever been these are the sorts of circumstances that could encourage china to make a move so if it came to that how might an invasion play out she would have burst initially a joint Strike Campaign which would want all these missiles it would just be one missile or one installation in taiwan they would use 45 maybe tend to want to make sure that every defensive position in taiwan had been attacked every airfield or been greater relabel port stable and then they would then come in and help with their airports order to top the stablished air superiority so that any taiwan aircraft tried to get off the ground it would be decimated and wall back is going on inside looking at the the previous forces would be coming across and those heroes who come up worst and launch their land forces into key points that they wanted to clear. And then you come in there with much larger crowd that would be you know within their civilian fleet that would have literally scores and scores 1000 and thousands of the ole soldiers and guard that could just walk right up here and of course taiwan would be to. Trying to defend itself only chang explains how it would have to be smart in how it uses its much smaller military. All of the assets including even the land forces to peg their shares that both these over the aircraft have to be used effectively that could be divided into with basically the 1st phase is to is to protect the forces in sell the use of. Deception have not brought building those kind of a tactical match it will need to be contacted so that we are happy we will still keep our capability. To respond then the 2nd place and the profile away from the coast of taiwan so that that means the height of the country and the people will be away. Or the cash or the emmys minimum then the 3rd way is to. Annihilate or destroy a lot of the horses at the peak that means attack helicopters and land based. Missile. To attack the Chinese Navy Ship but ultimately the best of time want to do is buy time hoping that the United States will intervene James Purnell talks about the assets that the americans could mobilize in the pacific or u. S. Navy in the u. S. 7th fleet resources that could disrupt the invasion so. Our submarine forces. They would be used to try to disrupt the attorneys in beijing the ships that would come across. The u. S. Air forces that are operating from japanese bases and our aircraft carriers for decoy region. Would be. Destroyed beijing so the u. S. Would have options but intervention would still be a mentis decision. American forces would immediately become chinese targets with its pacific bases like a canal in japan and the tiny island of guam open to attack and so even if the United States manage to defend taiwan its intervention could set off a terrifying chain of escalation between 2 superpowers that may just be the 1st battle in what becomes a series of battles that. Go on over a number of years in a protracted great war. And of course all of that is nucular to turn the whole. Government. Washington or miscalculate and panic and nor does anything with Nuclear Weapons if they do then were talking about potential nuclear war. And that would be truly horrific and so theres also you know everything that happened in this in already happened under the shadow of a potential nuclear war because thats what that could lead to its extremely dangerous and extremely serious and weve been talking about all this happening perhaps a decade in the future but some of the circumstances that could trigger this scenario could emerge much sooner than that and if you look at the internal situation in china at this moment the economy says being affected by calls that night and under this kind of. The chinese leaders the authoritarian leaders may find taiwan as a convenient scapegoat and therefore taiwan needs to be concerned about the chinese possible use of force against us so the world. Might not have 10 years to think about these risks so what can it do to minimize them. As weve just seen a conflict over taiwan has the potential to spark a war between superpowers even the most benign scenario weve just examined is fraught with risk so what should the world be doing about this well lets start with the United States some of the experts that weve been hearing from in the us say washington has to make a much clearer commitment to taiwans defense our policy towards taiwan. Doesnt make a lot of. That we dont work there so what. Is right for miscalculation by providing a credible guarantee news. To taiwan security and messaging to beijing. That the United States in a serious about i want security. That that increases the risk we would never do this with south korea with japan continue can be used and doesnt work we know its destabilizing. And yet were doing that with taiwan. A new bill in congress aims to make big changes committing future president s to defending taiwan in the event of an attack its also congressman ted yoho republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee explained the other time one invasion prevention act does several things one it delineates if there were an attack on taiwan by china that it would authorize an a u m l of the United States congress to allow the president it go in and defend taiwan militarily and a u. N. Math thats an authorization for. The use of military force and i think the biggest thing it does as it gets rid of the strategic or political or diplomatic ambiguity thats lasted since the seventys its been a just. A lot of ambiguity or taiwan stance but critics say this could backfire either by provoking china or by encouraging risky behavior by taiwans leaders so if the United States has a position that says it will come to taiwans defense if attacked are trying under all circumstances then that could the argument goes into blank check to wage a taiwan president to engage in more dangerous and destabilizing behaviors so u. S. Policy currently is to oppose any changes in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait made by either side that our american experts do agree on one think the us needs at least to be able to defend taiwan and right now that its not certain but i think the United States has been in bed complacent in recent years and my hope is that the u. S. Will follow through on some of the plans that it currently has to modernize and update u. S. Forces with an eye to being able to intervene on taiwans behalf chinas message to the u. S. Is Pretty Simple though back off i think you have. A country. Chinas affairs a publisher maybe you know people in this i mean china saw the problem so what about attitudes here in europe. As the Czech Republic has found out where europeans express solidarity with taiwan. China responds with threats but that may make europeans more determined to take a stand at least that was hinted at by germanys foreign minister at a meeting with his chinese counterpart. Its. Winds of the viet are also have. Their all sentiments. Were you and i and its where i live its visual. Images on the wall narrative. But experts say europe still hasnt figured out how to back up that commitment. What we lack of the european conversation about what kind of player europe in the future would like to be in these kinds of scenarios and whether we would like to stay at the sidelines of or whether the mission the important for europe to not only defend economic interests but also with Interest Income safeguarding vital democracies in a region that is of crucial importance for the future of our Economic Prosperity and finally lets turn to taiwan itself from minister joseph says theres one thing hed like to mock who seeks to do now to support taiwan back its bid to become more integrated in the International Community that taiwanese people should not be excluded from the International Organizations its not fair to the ponys people and its also stopping taiwan from making contributions to the International Community so i would ask the International Community i would ask the members of the International Organizations to look at taiwans role as a positive one and 2 in cool taiwan even that would provoke a furious pushback from beijing and democracies know it but joseph who insists that the whole world has a stake in taiwans future if you look at china us expansionism in the last several years. I think its not only about chinas expansion they are trying to export the authoritarian International Order while the democracy you saw following the rule based International Order and china succeeded in taking taiwan over i think the rest of the walt especially for democracies is going to feel the heat china is expanding award taiwan happens to be on the front line. For those of us watching from the outside we owe it to the people of the region to sit up and pay attention. To a flashpoint that could blow up into a devastating conference. In. The b. B. Duckie treaties of the Western Ghats mountains. To protect them from deforestation project helps villages pick through g. P. S. For use in harlem medicine. Its good for people and good for nature. In 30 minutes on d w. Emergency plan for cleaning. Geo easy new. Climate system intervention. Researchers around the world im working on a radical new idea. To bring. Fine tuning the clock to. The seventys. What secrets lie behind us will. Discover new adventures in the 360 degree. And explore the mating world parents are starting to. See double your World Heritage 360 getting up now. This is deja news and these our top stories u. S. President donald trump has held his 1st rally since being diagnosed with covert 98 in florida he praised the United States progress in the pen demick early outranks medical team said he had tested negative and was no longer contagious. Violence and better roads has intensified for he is deployed astray against elderly demonstrators during a march of several so i wasnt return