Were looking at this next 30 days is an opportunity for the entire country to really understand if we do the right things then we can flatten our curved like the curve flatten curve flatten the curve with social distancing to be clear we should still stay at home we are really convinced that mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us so when i keep pushing for High Compliance on social distancing its because High Compliance and social distancing will reduce the number but the most important thing to know is that if you are aggressive about medication you can get through to the other side. Also coming up nato is the mightiest military alliance in history it was not created to fight and put down the pathogen but it is a virus that now presents a clear and present danger. Transatlantic family house not see in and out of the service like this one before but im convinced that we will prevail to gether in unity with his soul of solidified it for each other. And to our viewers on p. B. S. In the United States and all around the world welcome we begin the day studying statistics that we would normally. We expect to find in history books a 1000000 people infected with a new virus a pathogen so powerful that in just 2 weeks it shook the worlds biggest economy and the race to 10000000 jobs now this doesnt describe a plague or a crumbling dynasty this is a snapshot of our world tonight today 3 grim thresholds in the corona virus pandemic were reached in crossed the global death toll from the virus is now more than 50000 the number of people infected has hit 1000000 and in the United States jobless claims this week and last week have hit 10000000 and europe and north america they still have weeks before the expected apex infections and deaths april will bring human tragedy on an epic scale and yet there is evidence that we have the ability to prevent a worst case ending world that in just a moment our 1st report tonight takes us to spain. Stretched to breaking point the wards are philippas hospital the now the county so coronavirus patients lie in the corridors just north of barcelona medics have turned the Hospital Library into an intensive care unit spain is one of the worst hit countries the number of coronavirus deaths has no jumped to more than 10000 after a record 950 deaths in the space of a day. The Health Workers on the frontline say they are being put in an unthinkable position. Were lacking the staff at the moment and the few staff that we have available are in a dangerous situation themselves and at risk of becoming transmitters. Or as i got infected because of the lack of protective measures as we dont have enough resources there are fewer and fewer suitable protective masks. These ideas of an office when somebody is doing things really badly and we need them to rectify this because if they dont do so to morrow we will double the number of infected Health Workers if we continue like this there would be enough professionals to take 8 of our patients. But there are glimmers of hope the rate of new infections in spain appears to be slowing and people are recovering here at a hospital the northeast of the country doctors discharged a 93 year old man who is made to feel recovery after 5 days in isolation. Spain has been in a nationwide locked day and since the middle of march and the standstill is hitting the economy hard 100000 people have lost their jobs and spains recorded its highest ever monthly rise in unemployment the government says it will have to work on relaunching the economy once the epidemic is under control Health Officials say data shows the curve is stabilizing but despite the slowdown in the race of infections the fight to contain the virus. Its far from over. The glimmers of hope in spain and across europe are the result of what we have been doing or maybe i should say what we have not been doing a new study by Imperial College in london finds that interventions in the love in European Countries such as social distancing have limited the spread of the corona virus and saved tens of thousands of lives alex scandi is a professor and chair of the Statistics Department at Imperial College london he worked on this new study professor again its good to have you on the day tell us how were you able to determine that social distancing has prevented infections in the us saved lives when we put together 2 pieces of information one of the observed death with copd 19 in 11 European Countries and the other is what we know about the progression of the disease caused by the virus for example we have some rough guesses of what the tentative rate would be on long incubation periods are and for example how long people stay in texas using that information we can back a bit from the observed death to the number of infections that must have been they are to cause these novels of death and then from these number of infections that we have we can see how these infections of changed in fla how the interventions of change the rate of infections are you able to see in these numbers professor countries where intervention has worked better than in others i mean i assume spain and italy are on the bottom of the list because theyve had so many deaths us hot. Is not that not an easy picture there because so far the countryside are not equally advanced and hip and eriks spain and italy and im very much involved now wolf assume to nala study here is that the interventions in all of the countries have a very similar effect. So basically would be used information from the more advanced countries to say what these interventions what do in the countries with the less advanced techniques so it wasnt specifically a study of how well these countries these interventions work in the country but more how overall they work ok in your study you say that interventions should remain in place until the transmission levels drop very low how do you define low levels and can we predict today when those levels will be reached let me try to explain a bit how this works so if you half in any epidemic an important number is the number of new infections you half per actually infected case with people that have been in the virus how many do they infect if that number is above one then the epidemics continue to grow if its below dividend it was slowly die out now what we have seen more slowly will depend on how far is the one that where much below it will drop will and quickly when we see no study we can see that this rate has already dropped down to values around one we know its somewhere sitting on one but we dont quite know whether its a buffer or below and if b. Know how far below that would become clearer in the coming days and weeks its more data becomes available ok so youre of looking at the rate very the big you know gets close to war in your book below war and as this pandemic is still taking place talk to me about the caviar of your study what variables are you most worried about here. I think is all of these studies need to be very careful and they are will they still loves assumptions and alice of course is no exception to this one we try to be particularly careful of not using or using reliable information such could be based on the number of observed death we dont observe it on the number of reported cases its varies quite a lot a quite a lot to country because some countries do more testing the not less. But of course in our study some assumptions that are put in there as the properties of how the court 90 disease progresses for example how many people die of the amongst infected with the certain assumptions we put into the model or how long 2 people stand factious so theres these assumptions that are in there that can change the entire picture and the other something was the same effect of interventions across the countries in again the only dont have enough data to determine effects per country that will change over the coming weeks and months but at the moment basically we the only thing we can say for certain is interventions having a fact they bring the rate their own its not quite clear whether theres enough yet it could be enough but time will tell what can we say that if there had been any you wide walk down with social distancing the death toll today would be considerably lower can we say that its very hard to say these kind of things and this is a quote i fully understand why would want to know whether we could have done things better i think thats maybe something for the coming years to figure out how we should have reactive the epidemic and how we can react to a future that any anything we can say for certain is that we can say there are interventions that have place at the moment theyre saving lives so what our study looked at for example is how many lives have already been saved until the end of march so that is basically saying how many people would have died to the end of march without the interventions that are already in place and that nonetheless its all in the 10s of thousands as youve said yes your study professor its its a cautionary tale to political leaders who ignore the data that is before them would you agree with their. I think the entire law and to demis the question every taser to the entire world that we need to prepare better for these imagine it is now it but its quite clear that. I think the petitions are listening now to science trying to understand what is going on but the truth of the matter is we dont have all the answers yet we simply dont know fully how the virus behaved we dont know what kind of measures we will have to place in the future whether at some point well be able to what testing we can be doing whether we have some vaccination in the future of this everything is not quite clear yet that well let me let me end because then maybe it will be on the positive that maybe theres a Silver Lining here keeping the distancing in place for now will save lives and it will hasten the pandemics in can we say that with certainty tonight we can certainly say had not keeping these intentional place will reduce the number off infections for the time being until eva the epidemic dies out on its own when we have other things in place for example a vaccine coming on stream exactly well professor alex we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us your insights are valuable especially now when so many lives are being lost thank you. Egypts media was leads in taking the corona Virus Outbreak seriously the country has expelled foreign journalists for not reporting the official outbreak numbers in the country has so far escaped the brunt of the pandemic less than a 1000 infections just over 50 deaths if official figures are to be believed in march an article in the Lancet Medical Journal as debated that egypt has thousands of unreported cases. A familiar scenario in egypt to appoint the army to the rescue in a crisis as a fighting an enemy the governments polished message is everythings under control. The country looks scoured museums mosques and schools are closed so is the airport a nightly curfew takes effect at 7 in the evening tourism has collapsed president Abdel Fattah Elsisi has promised billions in aid to egypt sions and ordered them to stay home only it was a different story back in february a t. V. Station closely aligned with the government was joking about the coronavirus this spoof was an interview with a friendly contagion tourism along the nile and in looks or were still in high gear until mid march cases of infection including those among German Tourists were considered outliers no one thought egypt was at risk. Until now the streets have been as packed as ever many buses too despite the rising infection rate shops have been open busy as usual with barely a trace of physical distance and for many the risk doesnt seem to have sunk in here yet. Egypt is safe this man says people are taking precautions everythings fine. We have to eat what else are we going to do how else will we feed our wives and children. Or that. The government rejected a criticism of its Crisis Management despite a shortage of hospital beds doctors and ventilators instead flashy light effect detract from the real situation whoever reports on the staggering statistics of coronavirus cases risks imprisonment or deportation thats what happened to a reporter for the british newspaper the guardian. It up journalist lena a tele is undiluted in november she was placed under temporary arrest there is no legitimacy in controlling any flow of information in my open. And in a moment like this. Part of the Citizens Rights as much as it is to have access to good basic Services Like health but also to have access to a free flow of information. Pressure is also rising behind egypts prison walls where an estimated 60000. 00 egyptians are Political Prisoners their relatives and lawyers are forbidden from visiting from a stand simply because of the risk of infection. Under cairos dark clowns human rights as well as human beings are endangered in the pandemic and this and north africas most populous country. Well that report contained images of the Egyptian Army spring public spaces with disinfectant we spoke to del fisher the chair of the World Health Organizations global outbreak and Research Network in singapore and we asked him what he thinks of spraying disinfected against the. I dont know its certainly not in a thing that we recommend we dont believe people are catching up from the ground. And and you know its it makes no sense that its quite wrong just right people with chlorine are still images of refugees things right you know that thats wrong i think it needs to be to be stopped id rather see images of. People you know washing their hands and distancing and things like that that thats the Community Response not not spraying chlorine everywhere. Any crisis will hit the most defenseless hardest and the coronavirus pandemic is no exception to the situation in war torn region such as syria is in the province well its already dog in the medical infrastructure almost nonexistent a coronavirus there would be devastating. Disinfecting tents at a refugee camp in adelaide province a prevention effort being carried out by the volunteer rescue group white helmets. Almost a half a 1000000 people are packed in here at times up to 10 people share a tent under catastrophic hygenic conditions many of them have fled civil war only to be threatened by the coronavirus pandemic. Children are taught the most essential prevention methods their parents often desperate. Yes ive heard about the coronavirus im scared for my children there is no prevention happening hardly any disinfectant nobody takes care of it. Syria is ill prepared to deal with the corona Virus Outbreak so far authorities claim to have only 10 cases but the actual number is likely much higher. Math would show him as a doctor at one of the few hospitals in england he alone tells us about 50 suspected cases though this old man has trouble breathing. Them or another has a high fever and is feeling sick. The entire province of it live has roughly 100 intensive care beds and 47 ventilators for a population of over 3000000. Mom and i dont know if we are doing the best we can to prepare for the coronavirus and we have installed a quarantine ward. But we would be out of our league to confront a virus like this should it break out here may god prevent this. But also. Here in the capital damascus a curfew is in place from 6 in the evening till 6 in the morning just like the rest of syria but during the day life still moves at its normal pace and even in it live the shops are still open nobody is under quarantine abu ahmed owns a small street shop like you do and a virus is dangerous for all of us but we need to work in order to survive how can we stay at home i do what the World Health Organization has so far sent only 300 corona test kits to add limp according to local Health Officials who have a stern warning we. Are is. If you want to hear all the. If the corona virus spreads an ad lib it will hit those who are defenseless and have nothing to counter it. It is another example of how the coronavirus pandemic has turned our world on its head nato the worlds mightiest military alliance is confronting a new enemy that it was never meant to battle a virus nato has already been involved in delivering supplies to hard hit member countries such as italy and spain nato Foreign Ministers met today in a Video Conference heres native secretarygeneral ban today we decided to direct our Top Commander general walters to coordinate the necessary military support to combat the crisis to speed up and step up assistance for instance speil identifying the airlift capacity to ensure that medical supplies are there leave it are lets take the story now to brussels our correspondent teri schultz is on the story for us this evening good evening to you terry talked to me about what natives role is in the pandemic has it become an arm of the European Union in a way. Well nato is looking for its role in the crisis brants knowing that it it has resources to to really play a positive and effective role it is not it is not exactly chord meeting with the European Union but it it does have the chance to sort of out shine the e. U. You know on on one side of brussels youve got ministers debating how much economic aid should be sent to the countries that are hardest hit how much debt should be neutralized and nato side theyd like well weve got these big planes and we could fly supplies around to so its its sort of a you know a. Much easier decision to make when youre talking about just basic capacities with a lot of the politics sure in a way so nato really does have the opportunity to to shine here and thats what its done its got some shared capabilities in strategic airlift for example that countries can request and have requested so they can buy some plot supplies as for example ro