to protect civilians is of course, also an acceptable or what we need is to stop these rushes circle in which things get escalating one after the other. what he needs earth used to have, as we have been proposing from long ago a ceasefire together with the opening of harbor and the airports. and then the beginning of a studio is dialogue among the parties. these escalation needs to stop heavily in ukraine, say the build up of russian troops at the border means they're living in fair or 3rd or war. the us and russia have been holding talks to try and defuse the situation. i've gone, stands interior minister has given an exclusive interview to al jazeera sarah jude in her carnie says he wants to be removed from the u. s. as most wanted list, and that the taliban has been fulfilling its commitments. more than 300 migrants have been rescued from the mediterranean near the southern italian island of lampa to so italian coast guard says they were on an overcrowded wooden boat ministers from greece. poland and italy have taken part in a border security conference. in lithuania, they say, reinforcing borders and cracking down on people, smugglers will protect you citizens, and those who make dangerous journeys to europe. 250000 liters of drinking water delivered by the new zealand navy is being distributed across target is the largest delivery of fresh water to the islands. 7 days saffron, under water, volcanic eruption, and soon army one use on ounces airline after inside story. february on, i'll just either china host the winter olympics, but will diplomatically costs and the current to vibrate this saturday event. rigorous debate and unflinching questions. up front, cut through the headlights to challenge conventional wisdom. al jazeera, keep you up to date as nation faculty overcome barrier amid continued vaccine inequality. 11 east investigates how breaks the pandemic and changing tapes are causing the great british curry crisis. the african union hold the 35th orderly fashion. the 1st with israel as an observer state, with several nations campaigning against israel status and pressing issues across the continent. there is much to discuss february on a just era living with current a virus. some european countries are calling for a new approach to was code 19. they said shouldn't be dealt as a health emergency, but as an illness, what does that convince anyone? this is inside story. ah. hello and welcome to the program. hash him albert. after 2 years of crippling waves of corona, virus strict locked down and hundreds of thousands of people dead. several european countries are hoping to treat the pandemic as a thing of the past. the latest, armstrong, berry, and wave has broken infection records across the continent. daily infections have so far exceeded the peaks of earlier waves with france alone, reporting nearly half a 1000000 cases on tuesday. but hospital admissions and deaths from amik ron infections are way down compared to previous barriers, especially for those who are fully vaccinated. several european countries see those figures as a sign the disease can be treated as in dominic, another of many in the service that we've learned to live with. spain is one of the hardest hurt economies on the continent, and has led cause for restrictions to soon be dropped. portugal has already east major curves on crowded venues and the u. k. and ireland are set to drop most restrictions over the next week. but the world health organization has warned the world is far from declaring the pandemic over. and the death rate is too high to truth. corona virus, as another endemic disease, now is not the time to give up on the strategy. and you know, we're hearing a lot of people suggest that oma crime is the last variant. and that is that it's over after this. and that is not the case because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world. and so it is not the time to give up on the comprehensive strategy that we have outlined that many countries are using. and as a mike has the, has said, implement them in different ways, but the goals of reducing severe disease and death remain. this funder mc is nowhere near over. and with the incredible girls of all me wrong, globally, new variants are likely to emerge. ah, from all this i'm joined by our guests in singapore. to keep on gusto is visiting professor at the eulu lyn school of medicine at national university of singapore and a former w h o director, specializing in pandemic preparedness and global health governance in oxford. we have dr. lager kamali, annie, a consultant on global health and senior health policy advisor for peebles vaccine alliance in cambridge, we have chris smith, a consultant biologist, and clinical on clinical microbiology. specialist chris is also editor and host of the naked scientist. both cars, warmer cum tool ticky singapore is starting to move away towards twit in cove, in 19 as an illness. what does that mean for the country? well, i think the single government has taken a very pragmatic approach towards i says that, you know, living with a virus and i think it has done so in a very pragmatic manner based on now. so likes, tree likes to is based on governance in the context of having a very, or the need to harmonious and single might of response to deal with the. and i make. the 2nd one is a very robot health care system that is able to deal with. and he said just in the severe cases of 19 and finally perhaps able to me as well is social capital, a population which is but in trusting the government and ready to follow government recommendations and instructions. so as a result, it has very well and i think it's on, on the right to live living sustainably and safely with the wires longer. is it fair for european countries to say it's about time to turn the shop to move forward was more relax, lifestyle. when you have sub saharan africa lagging far behind in terms of vaccinations, well from the beginning on the buyer that we've been hearing, nobody is safe than ever. but if it's just work, it doesn't rain. and i think because what is happening is vaccinate high level initially, you know, and that's why they feel bad, why they feel comfortable to move restrictions while, as you said, you know, buddy lives, what's the nation including africa. so basically, globally, we have a wonderful environment for the buyer to, to some people are bucks and some people are not, but some agents on the minus will just meet. they created new, great and new. but when reach europe and the other countries and then we start screaming. and the other thing is, you know, why and this it more than moving restrictions is happening now. a lot of the doctors in the u. k are saying this is long based on data. so it seems like it's a political decision when the n h at that we have just like thing. we have a fantastic health system in the u. okay. however, it is rarely under huge stress because of the number of people who are because of it and the implication of school, but on the long list of people that have delays tests or 3 other treatments, no 2 took off with 19 chris within grade was moving restricted, okay, chris, when we said that starting from the next of infections, it's about time to treat cove. it not as an emergency, but as an illness that we have to deal with because it's going to stay for longer. it sounds easier on paper than impractical terms. i think it's very important to see the situation through the lens of the here and now and not the lens of last year. because this time last year, taking the u. k. as an example, the number of people who were dying every day was about 1501 point, and the number of people in hospital accounts for nearly half of all of the beds that we have in our national health service. we couldn't be more different now, where although we do have people in hospital, probably half of them are in hospital with corona virus, not because of corona virus, which is completely different from last year. and the number of people who are losing their lives is a fraction of where we were. and the reason that's happened is that we've been able to transform the condition from what was lethal for some into trivial for almost everyone. and that's thanks to vaccines. and we have other weapons to throw this now in the form of are strokes. it's not a given that if we vaccinate everybody, we will no longer face variance because the sobering prospects and the so bring observation is that only chrome which has brought many countries back to the brink of locked downs, or actually physically into locked downs miss emerged in the context of south africa, which was pretty highly vaccinated as african countries go. and they were declaring at the time, i recall emerged just a few 100 cases per day. while the u. k, for example, was having up to 50000. so it's not a given, the vaccines stop variance, but what we can do with vaccines based on the u. k and other countries experience is we can convert severe disease into trivial disease. and that should be our go. yes, we need to i to stop people dying and that means across the entire world. but we shouldn't kid ourselves at this as soon as we achieve that magic vaccination of the world, the coven disaster is over because it isn't. but we will have done is to stop people dying ticket. this is exactly what people are concerned about, which is basically the this false hope that this could be the beginning of the end of an era and the beginning of a post cobit 19 era. because singapore, for example, faltered with a 0 tolerance approach. now he's starting to relax most of the restrictions because he has met somehow 90 percent, the threshold of vaccinations. but we've seen a 3rd of all of infections recently. couldn't this be the concern facing thing up or in the near future? well, i think the searching infection with arrival on the truck is something that the singapore government definitely for saw and you know, very bad for and the way they dealt with this was to re impose restrictions all locked out. not even increasing travel or restrictions from other countries, but continuing with the surveillance continuing improperly with vaccination, providing both 1st and more recently abroad. he ministration to to the young children 5 to 12 and 12 to 70. and once again, ensuring that health care system was ready. and we have seen just in the last few days that even amongst children that have been given the vaccine. there was no issues with any serious side effects that symptoms, as we know in the younger age robot couple hospitalizations, nothing that's required. i see you for example. so i think, you know, the reality is that, you know, the ones is already all kept out of the boss. so as mentioned just now, the real issue is to prevent people from di, finish infection. look, now countries like spain have been battered economically by cove in 1900. they basically think we cannot continue like that. otherwise, with a country will collapse. don't you see that for that particular reason. it's about time for the scientific community to start thinking seriously about shaping our post cobit 19 wealth and debate. some studies about shaping the post coven. i think i'm not advocating for look down, by the way, i think for good measures. and one of the ones that immediate good measure is box and they think that the, well yes you can protect people and they ok from dying fault from that. but the people in other countries that are not protected. so one thing you get data in the u. k, and then south africa. many other countries don't data. so you actually don't know how many people are affected, how many people are dying, because the data is not really good. and therefore, we can't say, oh, it's not killing people in south africa. it's the we just don't know the accurate data. but the important thing is about just like we reached or thing for each 90 percent, other countries need to reach that level. and then i, you know, yes, because one day was just like fluid stay with. i mean, you know, the world managed to get rid of one via the only one big one a fix animal, one effect for him. and that's a lot that we only have small folks out and everything else we live with. whereas vaccination long or the world are vaccinated. i guess measles, but that is me. so we're going to read totally utterly of measles or order or polio. so with the vaccination where we're controlling it now for covey, the vic fans, we have as a speaker from cambridge said, you know, yes, cup mortality and got the high level of morbidity. you know the elements, but it doesn't go transmission. so we still need more assess for better vaccines. the should not be here in the vaccines. we have them, that's it, which are really in for better vaccines. but meantime, we have effective vaccines, very good vaccines around and they should be available to other countries. so that they don't have mutation and you can look at the, mutate the serious variance. so the variance also came up in the u. k. one does not look season started and spread in india when the level vaccination in india was usually low, very low. it was under 5 percent, and then on the south africa was again, low vaccination. so it's yes. south africa compared to let's say there are fewer brody, of course, that has higher max in asia. gone by south africa so that you can all right, know, it has low nation. so very point how it works in asians in all low middle income country. all right. then we can be course the problem with trying to transition to was in your area. it's basically some people might think this could be an indication we're going back to before the 2020. the problem here is you have the concern that you, how the risk people, you have the patients with complications. and you have to bear in mind that you need to maintain a massive vaccination campaign to be able to tell. confident to your own people, you know what we could live with cove with the way it is in the near future. are we talking about decisions that are likely to have huge economical financial, but if occasions of many countries in europe, if they want to succeed that path? well, i actually don't agree because we've always had that vulnerable population. and so is every other country we have just told them they're more vulnerable this year. so more people are worried previously they were blissfully unaware. but that's why we've had a flu vaccination campaign. this room for decades. very, very successful about 6070 percent vaccine effectiveness. every single year, and that's based on the whole world talking to each other, sharing flu data, working out what to put into the vaccines and then orchestrating because the, the flu season is so predictable, orchestrating a vaccination campaign which is well understood. we understand how to deploy it, how best to use it, and we know it works and it protects the most vulnerable. this isn't really any different. i strongly suspect that this will settle down to become a seasonally surging infection. current of ours is to circulate all the time, but they're much more common in winter time. and the common human current of ours is there are 4 of them that cause colds there around about 510 percent of the coast that we get in winter. so we can probably predict that in the future, what's currently causing cov installs covey to is going to circulate more often. in the winter. we can anticipate that we can give people a vaccine top up if they are in a particularly vulnerable group. but most people are not vulnerable to this far, as most people actually will be absolutely fine. and half the time they went to any symptoms whatsoever. so really, that's not that much different than the flu. so i think this is something that we can use prior learning prior knowledge, and prior practice, and put it into practice to protect those people who need protecting, kicking. why is the w health organization concerned about an immediate shift towards a post cove in 19 reality? well, i think the concern, ah, about a braylan sure. sort of acceptance that a, you know, it is already going to become and demi that we have less to worry about adding a has to do with what has been mentioned before. that as long as they are pockets in honor bottles, whoa, where vaccination coverage is a less than what is needed. the virus is still going to continue to circulate to be transmitted and new areas are going to appear. so you know, it's a cliched tab. no, any, save until everyone is saved by that you know that that's the reality. so i think not. mitchell is concerned that some countries have taken the path towards a more relaxed attitude. ah, and plus the fact that will be drawn ah, david is, is that it's causing sort of a milder disease or it has? well, i think what they concern about is a sort of false sense of security or had just to remind the world that there are pockets off and lexington people and as long as they're those exist, it poses a continuity risk. ready moga, the w h o is also saying that for that, for an for, for, for covered 19 to become an endemic disease, we have to have more data to be able to say, we know we can predict how the virus is going to move forward in the near future, so for the time being was on how that data and therefore we want the country to become more cautious in the near future deciding to move forward towards any new approach to was tackling of in 19 well, i mean, day day though busy is critical for, for decisions, for health, vision, health decisions for each country, but also globally, i think, investing in, in daytime surveillance and left over is critical in countries. and that means, i mean, data don't come from sky or they don't come from just having, you know, lots of epic. it's going from having reliable, trusted, trying to when communicate elsewhere. these are the people in the community that have the community to trust that can actually collect proper data and send it to be on allies and collected together at the country level. and based on that countries can make their own decisions and globally w john other international agency can give if you like that the global guidelines on how to, how to respond. but again, you know, until we have high level of bucks in the what each, at least would each, the target of 70 percent of people in each country are on each community. our bucks in a did a well, it will be knocked down a day and not really having a clear vision of what's next. that should be the priority here for the pro to for you. the benchmark is 65 to 70 percent vaccination throughout the community for, for, for, for, for those countries to move forward. chris, now the premise of this whole lock down rush not in the past, was basically well lead is we're pretty much concerned about the health system being overwhelmed by the number of patients needing. i see is the could just be in the health system would collapse and this is why them went for drastic approach. no countries. i think it's about time to change that and relax the code. one of the questions that many people are asking, what if to model the day after we have a new aggressive variant, could that could that bring us back to square one? well, you never say never medicine. and i think the way to think about this is that in the u. k. in the 1940s we had a world war and people periodically was subject to being bombed by foreign flame. it doesn't mean that they spent their entire lives life living in an air raid shelter. what they did was to build a bomb shelter and they had sirens. and when the warning signals went off, people reacted accordingly. and i think we've got to think about, we've got to live our lives knowing that there is this potential threat, but it's not going to be ever present at the same degree of severity. so we therefore have a population who are aware of that and can react accordingly. we sort of seen that begin to happen over christmas because prompted christmas, various measures were put in place. but people, as far as we can tell, went further than those measures required in order to keep themselves safe, which shows that people can judge the risk and they can be trusted to do so. so i think it's not unreasonable for us to plan for a future where we can alert people to threats that are coming. we knew that chrome was coming. we had several weeks of lead time on that thanks to south africa, sporting it, and then people acting accordingly. in this instance, perhaps there was some overreaction, but it was a cautious over reaction. we can do this. so i think in the future we have no reason to doubt that some that the, the missions why work because they, they do work. we just want to minimize the, the home because otherwise is a risk that the pill is worse than neil. briefly tick, if you don't mind, do you think that the 1st booster 2nd boost the 3rd 4th, 5th a 2nd 6 is going to be the norm in the near future for us to be able to seal the community's gas cove in 19. well, i think that this issue we will have to be made by individual countries, you know, from, from my own personal you, i think the 3rd booster is to you very well justify, especially for, you know, those wires, laundry. well, all the people with underlying mobility, et cetera, et cetera. as to the value of the heart of tuesday, the 6th i must have been b. i certainly mean ologist. there is a concept called in on the immunological energy. where if you keep repeating ad doses, you may actually get a lower reaction. but that's my personal view. mortgage for you were for the at the same time for the people's vaccine alliance, which says that it's about time for the international community to come together, ensure that those his are manufactured globally, that the a pro, intellectual property issue is dealt with so that vaccines are manufactured by any company that wishes to do so, and that we have to provide people with vaccines and treatment free of charge in the near future. do you see that implemented in the near future? well, we're working hard to get that implemented. it's about, it's not just intellectual property, but it's about sharing knowledge of the vaccines. so for example, the union was the south african government on the w 2 and a hub in south africa. now if a company like with the knowledge of that scene with which is told them to be funded by taxpayer american, if they share that knowledge, then the hub can enable case on one companies is not any company to produce enough for people in developing countries. rather than now, totally relying on the chinese firm, forced to stay in the c a point. unfortunately we're running out of time on the commodity any to keep on you. so and chris smith, i really appreciate your site and looking forward to talking to you in the near future. thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website. i'll just the dot com for further discussion goes all facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha. inside folder. you can also join of the conversation on twitter. how 100 is out? ha, in size 40 from the house, and the entire team here in, ha, ah, on counting the cost one year on the 5 and administration, how has the u. s. economy fed unemployment done, but inflations, pop, americans aren't happy about it. and also turkey's unconventional approach to inflation, could it actually boost economic growth? counting the cost on al jazeera, charged with crimes against humanity, $4000.00 pounds of torture, and $58.00 cases of murder, rape, and sexual violence. people in power trucks, the 1st ever war crimes trial of a syrian high ranking officer. i am taking part of this trial because he did something bad to me and to others as they're from i don't, i focus about job as part of that. he's in the trial on one or 2 on a just either for did romito syndrome molina families, the pain is unbearable for their relatives were killed last week. doing a military operation ordered by the venezuelan government, security forces accused him of being part of a colombian rebel group and said they died in combat. when neighbors and family members insist they were innocent, taken from their homes and executed under pressure venezuela's defense minister by the mean. by the said, the armed forces were applied to the friends that come to family, regular groups that added that human rights needed to be respected and that the events at the border would be investigated. ah, global al trade shelter, at least 70 people are killed in saudi coalition as strikes that had a prison and yet ah, other can bell. this is elena, is there a line from dough also coming up? ukrainians worry about the future while the us and russia failed to break a deadlock on the military build up on the border. i.

Related Keywords

United States , United Kingdom , China , Portugal , South Africa , Colombia , Syria , Russia , Ukraine , Santiago , Regióetropolitana , Chile , India , Israel , Singapore , Italy , Saudi Arabia , Cambridge , Cambridgeshire , Peru , Ireland , Poland , Lithuania , France , Spain , Greece , Turkey , Venezuela , Colombian , Italian , Americans , Venezuelan , Saudi , Chinese , South African , British , Syrian , Russian , American , Al Jazeera Sarah , Asa Mike , Chris Smith ,