And illustrating how to get the message across we need artists highlighting the dangers of covert 19 and one of the worlds most crowded places. China is marking a significant milestone in its fight against covert 19 its reported no new deaths for 10 Straight Days and while that might offer Something College meant for other nations still in the grip of the pandemic that is persist over the accuracy of beijings figures in the 1st reported cases of the virus what in chinas was province in december and since then the Chinese Government has reported nearly 84000. 00 cases after no new deaths in recent days efficient death toll still stands at a little over 4601 province says it has cleared all critically ill patients but a study at the university of hong kong says the number of. Infected in the 1st wave of the outbreak may have been 4 times higher than official figures and researches say the true number could be even higher than those estimates in hong kong sarah clarke reports theres growing skepticism about the data coming out of mainland china. Well certainly its a milestone as far as to the Chinese Governments concern with regards to no new deaths for the 10th day in a row the National Health commission has just confirmed from its Delhi Press Conference there are 12 new cases of 11 of those cases are actually imported cases so those are the chinese nationals returned to china from various areas and in particular the focus is now looking at the north of china and the province knows how long jiang this is a province that borders russia and these are the chinese nationals returning from russia and returning from china from russia as a result theyre put in place and security checkpoints a number of cities in that particular area are also in lockdown and all those new arrivals have been tested theyve got mandatory coronavirus testing for those people returning to china the number of countries who have long been questioning the transparency of the figures because one of the modeling of the numbers that are coming out of china we had a university pipe it was published in the lancet journal that was earlier this week it was written by a hong kong universitys school of Public Health and they questioned chinas numbers they reported in their particular document that more than 232000 people may have been infected with a crowd of us in the 1st wave of the infections in china and thats 4 times more than what china said by the the National Health commission back in back in 5050 this is they reported 55000 so its a very big difference between those particular figures the latest numbers weve got coming out of china 83000. 00 cases of crying a virus and thats also low when you compare them to the likes of europe and parts of europe and north america and now a number of countries are also questioning or looking for an investigation into the outbreak of the origin of this particular outbreak in china and weve got the likes of the United Kingdom has even dropped chinas numbers in the international compare comparisons simply because they say they say they cant trust the figures being released by the National Health commission out of china on a daily basis because thomas is an associate professor of Political Science and International Relations at City University of hong kong and he specializes in Health Security in there hes joining us on skype from hong kong thank you very. Much indeed for being with us in terms of interpret ing the figures that have been coming out of china how much of this do you think is done in china trying to control the narrative with regard to the virus and how much of it is simply down to the paucity of information that every country seems to have seen when the virus initially strikes. I think its a bit of both to be honest i think the taking the 2nd part of the question 1st you have to remember that china was the 1st country to be hit so they got and they got overloaded. And that created major reporting problems for the chinese authorities to actually identify covert cases and to know what the true extent of the virus was such china has always been playing catch up with this so to a certain extent the numbers that you just change in the numbers out of beijing was always going to be expected were seeing something similar out of European Countries as well. I think that the other point there is that there is an issue for china in trying to control the narrative but were not seeing the hospitals being overwhelmed in any of the provinces apart from as your reporter said a moment ago up inhalant young where theres been a cluster of chinese returning from russia so in that respect were not seeing the physical evidence that its still an ongoing issue for china and yet we are hearing that there are these reports that are being produced which are suggesting that the figures are significantly higher why do you think then there is a disparity between what china has been reporting and what these these latest studies seem to suggest. The homecoming you study is a very good one its very robust i think that the key point to remember is that 85 percent of all covert cases present with mild flu symptoms and so you could well have had a massive wave of infections in the 1st period of the outbreak and you probably did because you had people moving around no social distancing no use of mosques and so on but if they were just presenting with cold symptoms at a time of winter in china then they simply would have got infected so they had the cold maybe being diagnosed with having the cold or pneumonia like symptoms and then gotten better 85 percent of cases now they could absolutely if i toted but they werent in the severe and critical range so i think that the issue were now seeing with perhaps we see it something similar with other countries spain france the u. K. In turkey. Theres been good theres been a good report out of the u. S. This week showing there is a discrepancy in dest data in those countries and none of those countries are intentionally try to bring up i think its part of the nature of the virus that were seeing this under reporting as well we heard yesterday. On friday that the w. H. O. Is pulling together our global efforts to try to find a vaccine for covert 19 and to do it as quickly as possible one would imagine that given that china is said to be the source of this its going to have valuable information but how trustworthy is that information going to be is that going to slow down the whole process. I think the vax the whole debate over the vaccine is perhaps. Very immature very immature premature they were not looking at anywhere for a year or more before something really comes out i would suspect and that would be a fast estimate certainly chinese scientists initially shared the data the gion the genome data on the virus and that allowed other countries such as astray if for example to very quickly sequence it and to get tests out there what we have to do now is see how fast these fires is mutating and whether were going to start to see distinct strains emerging and thats an area where china trend play quite a Critical Role in assisting the International Community on the technical side of things really good to get your thoughts on this Nicholas Thomas thanks very much indeed for joining us analogies there thank you vietnam as a nation neighboring china and it too is getting back to business shops cafes and restaurants are reopening as a country eases restrictions on movements vietnam has been praised for successfully containing the outbreak its reported 300 cases with no deaths and no new cases for a week yet acted quickly by putting tens of thousands of people in quarantine using Contact Tracing and testing them given them to. Vietnam strategy in the fight against kobe had 19 was remote and it focused on early prevention before the pandemic vietnam quickly contained a virus and stopped it from spreading to other communities on top of that the government and the ministry of health employed measures including isolation and medical treatment. Indias easing restrictions for its 1300000000 people in lockdown shops selling nonessential goods cannot open but only at 50 percent capacity areas considered infection hotspots such as Larger Stores and malls are going to stay shocked Health Officials have reported nearly 25000 cases and 775 deaths on friday they recorded the highest one the increase in infections it has with for on is joining us live now from new delhi so some shops are being allowed to open although we are seeing this jump in numbers what are you seeing. Well as you said robs shops are reopening in places that are considered no one hotspot science and we are seeing people heading out the statement by the Home Ministry didnt come as something of a surprise it was very late on friday night when they announced that all shops independent shops in which in shopping malls all markets will be allowed to open around the country with specific conditions like everyone has to wear face masks and gloves the gloves pot is new and observe social distancing and are in the hot the what forces allowed to be present they also said that all shops even in markets in rural areas will be allowed to open but were not seeing this everywhere in the country because again as you mentioned this doesnt apply to hotspots and so were not seeing it or anywhere in delhi the National Capital region and were actually seeing more restrictions in some places like the Southern State of tamil nadu were actually seeing theyre going into 3 days of even strict restrictions indias most populous state of thing for they should have said that there is a ban on all public gatherings that theyre extending that until the end of june so india being as large as it is the situation really depends on where you are in the country but certainly the latest easing of restrictions is a huge relief to the millions of people in india who all own small independent shops. It is with those who say this is just the latest easing of restrictions what else has been happening this week. So monday the 20th we saw all agriculture the entire Agricultural Sector was allowed to reopen and function and along with that all of the businesses which support it and also an easing of restrictions and banking and i t and construction in the Public Public works the social sector all would industry specific conditions and there was a really big focus on agriculture because it employs more than 50 percent of indias workforce and in so with went to crops just harvested its really important to make sure that food can get from the villages to the cities to avoid shortages all self employed people like how often does electricians plumbers i t. V. Repair were allowed to go back to work as well again all of this only applies in non hotspot areas we heard from the Health Ministry on friday that the rise in the number of cases in india has been linea and not exponential and so the Indian Government like many others says they just trying to balance saving lives and livelihoods and thats why we are seeing the latest easing of restrictions here it is worth around him giving us the latest from india elizabeth thanks very much indeed a countrywide curfews being reimposed in sri lanka until monday at the earliest because of another surge in cases there restrictions have been relaxed and what were considered low risk areas outside the capital colombo the government now says travelling between districts is prohibited unless a citizen is deemed a part of an essential service or for agricultural activities that are 420. 00 cases in sri lanka and 7 people have died monella fernandezs joining us from the capital colombo minnow. Just looking at the pictures behind you there it looks pretty quiet on the streets how is this playing out in sri lanka the moment very much so the scene you see behind me a deserted columbus suburb that of new gear go to all you can see in terms of activity is the Police Checkpoint the barricade just over in the background and its barely kids and checkpoints like this that you see dotted around the country there are more than 55000 Police Personnel on the field conducting random checks along with the 3 armed forces to enforce this lockdown this curfew which has been tightened throughout the weekend after we saw over 60 cases detected just yesterday and the government says that the measures will be very stringent over the next 2 days this after they had looked at easing curfew earlier on in the week around the country in districts except for 4 heidrick districts which included the capital colombo but given the numbers that have been detected over the last 48 hours the authorities have decided they cant take that risk and were seeing this tightening out of the curfew the Police Spokesman told told me a short while ago that officials are in consultation there are decisions that need to be taken with regards to a way forward as well minolta as i mentioned earlier the numbers in sri lanka are comparatively low is that a reflection of the level of testing or does that mean that the spread is being controlled. At best its a come a combination of those things in terms of the numbers of that 420 what we do have to realize is that more than 100 people have recovered and been discharged from hospital so youre talking of just over 300 in terms of active patients as they call them that currently have the the virus now within that there is also a school of thought that says more aggressive testing must be conducted that the numbers that have been detected north necessarily the only people who are carrying the virus so particularly Health Professionals that are some of them who have basically called for more active testing not just of areas where people are found confirmed but more aggressive and more widespread testing i did speak to a couple of senior Health Professionals that are involved in the Health Sector who decided who asked not to be named but basically we have 54 p. C. R. Testing machines in this country but im hearing that not all of them have been pressed into service even in some of the primary testing institutions there are certain places that have 7 machines but there are only 4 machines that are being used because they just havent got the samples to actually put the rest of the machines into operation so obviously you know different approaches different opinions lots of people putting their Heads Together the government as you know here in sri lanka has brought in the armed forces and the police the city Intelligence Service is very much involved in doing the Contact Tracing obviously this country 10 years since we finished our sort of bloody civil war but the intelligence of mechanism is functioning in terms of 2 full throttle right now and we have been hearing how they have got involved in the Contact Tracing this has been sort of used to try and locate those that be. Well infected have obviously spread the virus too but beyond that theyre all cause for more widespread testing but thankfully for the moment in terms of the numbers of infected the fatalities weve seen so far things seem to be relatively low enough or not as in colombo when else thanks very much indeed but more ahead on the news hour including im just a mere common citizen who doesnt want to see my mother die. Relatives appealed for more testing in Nursing Homes as concern mounts about vulnerable patients and left on their own. More Asylum Seekers in greece tested positive for the coronavirus. And in sports the stars of the ultimate fighting championship are set for a return all the details coming up. All across Europe Countries that are at odds over lifting locked on summer sending children back to school and reopening Small Businesses but most industries include the hospitality sector remains shot with no end in sight lawrence lee reports. There is one corner of europe where you can see a reminder of what life used to be like a few short weeks ago in the spring sunshine people in the swedish capital stockholm were carrying on as if the pandemic had never and sweden has gone against the grain in not closing down restaurants or limiting peoples movements much but with over 2000 dead as a worse outcome so full that scandinavian neighbors the government is starting to sound a bit worried about its own guidance you talked me out will in a coma from so as the spring sun appears we seem to be seeing worrying reports about full outdoor terraces in restaurants people in crowded places and we have to take this seriously let me be extremely clear i dont want to see any crowded outdoor restaurant terraces in stockholm or anywhere else and everyone has to take this on his or her responsibility. Germany has the opposite problem under the iconic Brandenburg Gate in berlin restaurants staged a protest by learning of hundreds of empty chairs because the authorities across the country have refused yet to countenance the reopening despite a far lower death rates than countries like sweden. And unlike sweden germany is continuing this testing opening drive through facilities to trace more and more people ministers insist life cant go back to anything like normal until the infection rates drop to the hundreds every day in terms of health care it makes perfect sense but the tension with the demands of business is growing Restaura