19 special next on d w. In the height of climate change. Conference to see. Whats in store. For their future. Come frickin mega city. Center. Sweden opted against a lock down when it came to measures against spreading coke 19 observe us watch the country closely to see whether enough of the population would eventually become immune to the disease. The strategy has arguably led to one of the highest per capita death tolls in europe calling into question the scandinavian. Countrys decision. 6 months into the pandemic its still unclear when those infected with the coronavirus really are immune and how long one recent study shows steep drops in patient antibody levels within months of getting covered 19 so just how long would it take to be reinfected with a coronavirus. Welcome to your cover not in special here in the news im monica jones good to have you with us of course we all want to be in you into sars cove too we could go about our lives without worrying about getting infected or infecting others and the key to our newly won freedom could be an immunity passport thats highly controversial. It could be embedded in a chip card an immunity id that says the bureau has survived covert 19 or been immunized a contentious issue for political leaders. And so when you take it creates a fatally false incentive to get infected deliberately in order to have more freedom afterwards it also divides our society. Has been i think the question of immunity has not yet been settled on a scientific level until it is we cannot introduce Something Like this i dont want to split the population into sick and Healthy People get. But Health Minister doesnt want to let go of the idea even in the face of opposition. There are fundamentally good arguments on both sides of it as it was on the one hand many of our citizens feel a need to know if theyve had covert 19 and there will also be countries that will demand this kind of proof. For done so far no country is seriously considering a compulsory immunity prospered for incoming travelers. But iceland has discussed making a fresh negative covert 19 test a requirement for entry. Instead of a 2 week orenstein one can take a test at reykjavik airport or provide a doctor statement recognized by the Icelandic Health ministry to me at this it is the least as compared to that. A cologne startup is already working on a digital covert 1000 passport that would use Block Chain Technology to store a negative test result for 3 days the length of time before an infected person becomes contagious. Before same views only have to think about it like an inner clean boarding pass that shows a fresh covert 19 test result which indicates that i dont have a virus no then i can always have it ready i keep it in my pocket as far as i can decide myself whether or not to show it and to whom as it were now going to stop people from getting tested at their own expense but we can stop them from using that to their advantage in our society to do things that others cannot under the mist of. People could have their test results and immunity passports stored on their phones but what difference would it make for night club or cinema operators for example if only a small percentage of germanys 80000000. 00 plus population participates. Is that frankly an immunity id or passport would bring us no benefit it would be so few people not a single cinema could open up on that basis. Ethics experts fear that individual health data could become less and less private when my lover is this is usually its my own decision to tell someone about the state of my health thats one of my rights as an individual but now in the time of the pandemic we see that there can be a justified Public Interest in finding out whether someone is sick or not. So far on the magic on to the dentist Health Minister she wants more time for debate its too delicate a matter to be rushed. For more im joined by professor thomas coming hearties the president of the German Society of in the analogy and the director of the institute of immunology in ya good to have you with us well listening to this report just now i guess the big question is are people who recover from coburg 19 in the u. To the disease and does it therefore make sense to introduce and immunity id. Well the short answer to the 1st question is that most people will be immune for some time and perhaps ill elaborate a little bit on that and then we come to the 2nd question so. Millions of people have suffered from covert 19 and until very recently there were no reports on reemergence of the disease until last week when a paper was published in the lancet Infectious Diseases from who han in china where. Hospital workers followed people that had been ill risk or had 19 were cured have been released from the hospital and were followed up and out of 600 such people coalesce and people some were positive again on virus test thats not unexpected but 8 of these. Were sick again and some of these needed hospitalization that is to say that a small percentage in the range of one percent of people who have recovered from the disease may be reinfected very soon after they have recovered so an immunity id doesnt really make sense when i when i listen to that answer before we i elaborate on that 1st lets establish what our immune system is actually doing because its all of their own defense mechanism against intruders so lets take a look what happens when an unwelcome guest in this case a virus into a body. When its infected with a Novel Coronavirus the body mounts an immune response socalled antigen presenting cells in just proteins from the virus and display them on their surface. This activates t. Help ourselves which initiate a host of immune functions they help activate cited toxic t. Cells to kill already infected cells in the body and they stimulate the cells to produce antibodies that bind to the virus preventing it from infecting further cells and tagging it for destruction. The professor come out from the German Society of immunology that the cases where the immune systems reaction actually caused bigger problems than the virus itself what do we know about how could 1000. 00 accelerates the immune system. Kohut 19 cohen 1000 as. To the virus. Is an alarm signal to the immune system and in some cases the immune system overreacts and then some of the cells that you just mentioned in in your future produce cytokines transmitters and communicate with other cells and set a very very high as for a. State of alarm and that then contributes to lung failure similar to what has happened in some cases of influenza and other risk for a tour of irises like sars so the reaction to the virus can contribute to the severe form of the disease that we see in some of the patients right now is mentioned its that there are studies out now that say that it is possible that once youve had 19 you can get it again and they said in the scenes of us studies that show that antibody levels drop rather quickly how big a role do t. Cells play then for al immunity. We know very little about the souce in the defense a good coby and and against cope with 19 but we do know that there are extremely important father respiratory viruses so we can assume that they are also important for sauce cove 2 and we know from sars the earlier variant off the sauce so far as this that t. Cells said. Are detectable in the new kozel in the respiratory tract a much more long lived and probably more important in the n. T. Body responses in these patients so the t. Cells are extremely important to protect us against respiratory viruses like sauce of 2 and just very briefly yes or no if unity ideally yes or no. No ok professor i am a president of the German Society for immunology thank you so much for your time thank you. And outlets here more of your questions correspondents Derek William stands ready to give some on since. Whats being done to establish the actual origin of the virus. Chasing a novel pathogen back to its original source is an extremely complex but also a very important task because it provides invaluable information about about how to prevent similar events in the future the current mantra is still that sars cove to jumped from animals to humans sometime towards the end of last year in china but we still dont know much about where or how we know that genetically it looks quite similar to other coronaviruses found in bats but but we cant yet say whether it jumped directly to us from them or if there were other intermediate host animals china has come in for criticism worldwide and in the course of this crisis not least for its perceived lack of transparency and cooperation in and looking into the origins of sars cove to but but finally last week the w. H. O. Announced it was sending and advance team there to help coordinate the search into how the covert 1000. 00 crisis began its made up of just 2 of the organizations experts but i mean i guess you have to start somewhere a larger International Mission is supposed to follow but there doesnt appear to be a concrete timeline yet for for when. Has anyone tested the fertility of those who have recovered from cobbett 19. Lots of researchers are looking into this topic a quick search for the term. Arms covert 19 and fertility in 2020 Academic Publications threw up 4000 hits i looked at several of those that had been most cited and and they all had one thing in common they said we dont really know yet quite recent study though from researchers in oxford that among other things looked closely at preceptors associated with the virus in reproductive system tissue from both men and women it came to the cautious conclusion that at the Cellular Level at least prove it 19 doesnt appear to do any lasting damage or be associated with increased risk of complications that might affect fertility but the discussion of course included the that we still dont have enough data to say anything for certain. Amounts all for this edition of in 1000 special from wall just got to about a section on our website at e. W. Dot com for me in the team thanks for watching. Enter the conflict zone with sarah kelly my guest this week is involved boyce minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade cboe sees old boy as a former army chief he was also the face of the military coup that propelled and number of bytes of power. Zimbabwe ever be able to see a genuine political and economic reform. Because all. This story about stubborn rice farmer from thailand. His problem its. His credo no chemicals. His wife for freezing. And i bought ducks. Turn. Still. Stand a chance. The racists lines the fingers free. The finest egg production to top it off. Training successful. Joke which. Starts in terms of. The we believe that we. Should probably even fears of your probability to higher levels of government or not just investigate. Further. We have both the ted painful decisions to the left to side b. Quite nothing more than 2 years ago zimbabwe and its long time rulings and p. F. Party appear to be turning a corner when emerson and mangala what took office and promised a break from nearly 4 decades of Robert Mugabes brutal authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement