Virus vaccine be free of charge for everyone caught between a pandemic and civil war between tragedies increase the suffering in yemen and the coronavirus is the take that in a bangladesh camp home to more than a 1000000 refugees. A whistleblower has issued a stark warning over the coronavirus pandemic in testimony before the u. S. House of representatives rick bright is the former head of the u. S. Agency responsible for developing a vaccine for the virus he says he was sacked for raising concerns over the u. S. Colona virus response he told the house that unless urgent action was taken the country would be facing its darkest winter in modern history there have been more than 82000 coronavirus related deaths in the u. S. So far well our White House Correspondent kimberly how kid joins us live tell us a little bit more about what dr rick bright told the house. Sharply critical of the administrations response to the corona virus pandemic inside the United States dr rick wright repeatedly said that when he was head of a Vaccine Agency within the u. S. Government that he warned some top officials including the health and Human Services secretary alex aids are that there were insufficient stockpiles in terms of personal protective equipment ventilators he was told that his urgings were causing a commotion and he was removed from those meetings still he said he pressed because he was concerned that lives were being lost or could be lost and hes also issuing a stark warning about the future that there if there isnt a coordinated central and scientific base play on more lives could be lost with the next wave of coronavirus that hit in the fall heres what he had to say our window of opportunity is closing if we fail to improve our response now based on science i fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged there will be likely a resurgence of code 19 this fall and be greatly compound that by the challenges of seasonal influenza without better planning 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history 1st and foremost we need to be truthful with the American People americans deserve the truth the truth must be based on science we have the worlds greatest scientist let us lead let us speak without fear of retribution. Now the u. S. President spoke alongside the health and Human Services secretary shortly before he departed for pennsylvania is in fact just arrived but when they spoke earlier alex aides are the head of that agency that dr bright reported to said that in fact dr bright really didnt have an issue because everything that was brought up was a ventilator addressed in terms of personal protective equipment terms of ventilators and the u. S. President for his part really tried to downplay and even discredit the integrity of dr bright take a listen. I dont know ive never met him i dont want to meet him but i watch him and he looks like a good run for the boy right boarding some people to do a very good job. So can really the president there sounding in pretty typical combative mood but hes got other issues as well on his plate the unemployment numbers still coming in still increasing tell us what the latest is but also that i suppose theyre likely to get even more so. Yes so the numbers now climbing into the mid 30000000 mark in terms of the number of americans who have managed to get in and filed their unemployment claims and well the numbers from this week to last week went down somewhat theyre still climbing and theyre expected to continue to climb somewhere into the 40000000 mark or higher thats because were seeing a 2nd wave of people filing jobless claims initially it was the Retail Sector it was the Restaurant Industry those jobs disappeared overnight but now as businesses realize that they are going to be close for a prolonged period of time that the reopening of the economy is going to be faced they too are laying off their workers and thats whats adding to the numbers still the white house and economic advisors speaking here earlier today said they are somewhat encouraged that the numbers from week to week are going down even if the overall number is climbing because this indicates to them that the economy is really activating although much slower now there are a lot of economies a sort of in with the state level that are looking for someone to blame the u. S. President as well who is trying to win reelection in november he has said that he will make an announcement on the World Health Organization one of the organizations or global bodies hes pointed to that he says didnt give enough warning hes threatening to pull that funding and they are the United States one of the biggest donors but then another notable fact that the u. S. President said in just the last hour or so when he was speaking at a factory in pennsylvania is also pretty significant because of course in order to reopen the economies bring back all these jobs youve got to do widespread testing thats one of the key factors of the his own task force for reopening these economies but the us president in just the last hour or so saying that he feels testing is in his view over rated and again this is astonishing given the fact this is what his own Top Public Health officials are recommending. Kimberly halkett with the latest from the white house kimberly thank you. And staying in the u. S. The head of the Senate Intelligence committee is stepping down as chairman because of an Insider Trading investigation richard burr allegedly saw sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stocks just before markets plunged on fears of an economic crisis from the coronavirus the f. B. I. Seized the burrs phone on wednesday well mike hanna joins us live now from washington d. C. Emiko what else do we know about this. Well on february the 13th richard burr traded in some 3 dozen stocks why and this is exactly if we can to set on the 12th of february the senator was briefed had a confidential briefing on the coronavirus issue so certainly even at that stage when the news of those trades approach out there was deep suspicion about the timing of those particular trades but now the f. B. I. Has been investigating for a period of time and it is now formally served in a warrant to get his phone now the issue here is that this requires a thorough thorough t. Being given from the highest levels of the Justice Department its obvious that a judge would have looked over the werent as well so most observers saying that once a warrant is handed on a sitting congressperson like this then hes in a lot of trouble so certainly this investigation now being pressed forward by the f. B. I. Its important to note too that a number of other members of congress were accused of Insider Trading there were trades noted by a number of members of both the house and of the senate however richard byrds the only one who we know has been investigated by the f. B. I. At this particular stage its also important to note that berg headed the Senate Intelligence committee through the 3 years of its russia investigation they release a report on april the 21st in which the Intelligence Committee found that yes russia did indeed interfere in the u. S. Election in 2016 this report was greeted by the president with absolute fury his relationship with senator byrd has been deeply impacted by the news of that the Senate Intelligence report so now weve got a situation f. B. I. Continuing to investigate we will hear more in the days and weeks ahead i can with the latest on that from washington d. C. Thank you. Public Health England has confirmed a new coronavirus Antibody Test these nearly 100 percent accurate Prime MinisterBoris Johnson spokesman has hailed the finding as a potential game changer the u. K. Is in talks with the swiss manufacturer of hosh which says it can produce hundreds of thousands of the tests per week for britain governments worldwide are considering mass Antibody Testing as a way to ease coronavirus restrictions that tests show whether a person has had covert 19 but its not yet clear whether the antibodies confer permanent immunity the hall has more on this from london. Well the government has hailed this development as an important one the fact that there is now and 2 body tests that Public Health england has verified is nearly 100 percent accurate in determining whether a person has had the corona virus in the past by the level of antibodies in that persons blood its something that Boris Johnson the Prime Minister previously had said might be a game changer in in terms of lifting the lockdown further in terms of deciding who in Society Might be immune in future to the corona virus and therefore could go back to normal life in this talk of buying large quantities of this Antibody Test from the swiss manufacturer the Pharmaceutical Company russia and beginning by giving it to Frontline Health care workers scientists are already pushing back somewhat at the underlying assumptions here because its not definitively proven in fact that you do get immunity having had coronavirus its not proven how long you get immunity and also there are questions about whether different people get different types of immunity if you were asymptomatic and had only a very slight infection with coronavirus you might have only a very low level of antibodies in the blood not conferring any sort of significant immunity and the government seems to accept that more needs to be known about immunity above all of course as everyone reaches for ways to lift lockdowns across the world the issue really is about a vaccine is it is only a vaccine that will definitively bring this pandemic to a close and to that end as the race towards a vaccine goes on an open letter has been written by a pretty illustrious group of signatories more than 140. 00 public figures around the world including 50 World Leaders former and current the headline figure is Cyril Ramaphosa the South African president and the century what is better is doing is its the developing world urging the developed world where a vaccine is more likely to be discovered to ensure that it is made available. They are all paid free specifically produced at scale very quickly to be provided to the billions around the world who will need it most as a gesture of Global Public good so the letter goes. John hall there will meanwhile the c. E. O. Of a french Pharmaceutical Company has pledged that if his Team Develops a corona virus vaccine it will be available to all paul hudson who heads up the scent of it has said the u. S. Government would be supplied 1st because it had funded the research said a fee which is based in france has issued an apology after the french Prime MinisterEdward Filipe responded that equal access was nonnegotiable theres no guarantee any of the research being carried out around the world will actually be turned into a usable vaccine that there has more from paris. Well the backstory to this is that the boss all of the french pharmaceutical companies santa fe said that if his company were able to produce a Coronavirus Vaccine that vaccine would be available as a matter of priority to the United States because the u. S. Has invested so much in Research Well those comments caused quite a controversy here in france firstly because of his benefitted from tens of millions of dollars worth of research credits from the french state and also because the french presence in mt omar kong has repeatedly said whichever country does come up with a vaccine for that vaccine must be available to all countries equally because this is a Global Pandemic while a French Health minister olivia all says that he has spoken to the boss of santa fe the boss of santa fe has since retracted those comments and the Health Minister says that he now feels assured that that vaccine would be available to all the french Prime Minister felipe has also been speaking today hes been talking about tourism about how to rescue from his tourist industry has been battered by the current virus pandemic by the knock down because people of course have not been able to travel Hotels Restaurants museums cafes of all been shot millions of jobs of course are at stake the french Prime Minister says that 18000000000 euros will be put forward by the french government to help try and revive the industry. A team of engineers and physicians in the u. S. Has developed 2 devices that could help in dealing with the coronavirus staff at the university of michigan designed a portable helmet and what they called a negative pressure tent both devices essentially prevent infected air from escaping into the wider environment hospitals usually treat severely ill covert 900 patients in negative pressure rooms to prevent further infections but such specially equipped rooms are not widely avail. All in developing countries well dr Paula Fujiwara is the scientific director of the International Union against a brick yellow sis and lung disease she joins us from San Francisco via skype dr fujiwara thank you for joining us explain to us briefly how these 2 devices would help in the fight against covert 90 well is just mentioned no the usual thing for a respiratory infection like this is to have a diff depression room however of those are large and the air exchange there it is 1212. 00 exchanges per hour which is very loud so what were doing is basically making environment smaller environments 11. 00 of the devices is an actual helmet it goes around the patients head and the patient is able to talk you can use you can do various procedures on it on the on the on the patient and the tent is even larger so you can do other less invasive procedures rather than actually mechanically ventilating the person so these these will have the ability to. To have to have a place where its not is not as large but more controlled more controlled environment. As well as size i am guessing that these 2 devices are a lot cheaper than there are then there are alternatives so presumably these could be used in parts of the world where there isnt as much medical assistance as youd find in some parts of the developed world. Absolutely when when you develop a negative pressure room it costs about 120000. 00 u. S. Dollars and you have to retrofit rooms and obviously the takes time but when you have a device such as these its estimated the cost of just the parts parts are readily available if you see the machine but the its a 1. 00 off you see you can change those about 100. 00 now the price on the market that will depend on the economies of scale though obviously the more we make the more the cheaper the pro the price will be so this is and we have to understand that in my work and i work in africa for example i have never seen in any hospital in uganda zimbabwe the democratic republic of congo a negative pressure room at all in a hospital so having a device like this where you can control the environment make an environment smaller but actually useful to the patient and to the Health Care Workers is going to be very very important and dr for you are earlier in the program weve been talking a lot about a vaccine in the search for a vaccine that then would be available worldwide but do you think that theres also huge importance to be placed on the different way to treat the different ways of treating cope at 19 both for price like were seeing here but also the fact techniques different devices like these ones. Heres what i mean objects seen as ultimately what we need and thats absolutely true but where we get there we need to treat the actual person who has the. Disease and also we have to make sure that we have the Health Care Workers that are kept safe so you know using devices like this this is one of many i think the what the pandemic has done is to increase innovation and it makes it it means that we were able to use dip very different techniques and in options in a while we wait for a vaccine Paula Fujiwara scientific director of the International Union against a particular us and lung disease madame thank you so much for having shared your expertise with us thank you. Coming up in this news hour from london u. S. Health officials warn that children are being affected by a condition related to the coronavirus. From the highway to working from home a Swedish Company keen to get remote trucking on the move. The u. N. Envoy to yemen says the country is facing a perfect storm of color on malaria and the coronavirus confirmed infections have surged to 72. 00 in recent days but the charity save the children says that actually 385 patients have died over the past 7 days showing coronavirus like symptoms are diplomatic edito