The more countries share information the better we can call already made the response we are not diverted me one more so if the patient comes in the emergency room we have to transfer him and through another oath to. Support. My secret when you have only one very unpleasant thing called a thing then you have to choose which one you have to time in the service is wrong we are together. Because we are in the same boat. Also on the day i with just days to go until the u. S. President ial election its not just americans depending on the results well take a look at a Womens Health center in kenya whose funding was cut by President Trump we used to provide pretty. Free information we had on him but provide them. Today because we dont get them anymore for free. These are for their most cases they report when theyre pregnant when theyre not ready for their pregnancies so this forces some of them to deliver or for them to know how absurd proportion. Are welcome to the day well europes coronavirus caseload topped more than 1300000 last week according to the World Health Organization and its hospitals are filling up the e. U. Held a video summit on thursday to discuss closer coordination of the blocks efforts to fight the pandemic among the items agreed were 228000000 euros to fund patient transfers across National Borders and countries with more cases of make it handle to those with spare i. C. U. Capacity also agreed was the need to coordinate a test in trace systems and the pulling of coronavirus data e. U. Commission presenters who were found alive spelled out the situation after the meeting i think it is enough to say that it is very serious numbers of cases are raising numbers of hospitalization are rising number sudden death of death are rising not as fast fortunately because we understand better today how to treat covered patients and how to deal with the disease but the spread of the virus will overwhelm our Health Care Systems if we do not act urgently. So lets take a closer look at this with a fresh metoos an Award Winning science journalist based here in berlin welcome to the w. How bad is it with the war what we heard sort of on the lie and theyre saying its bad but were its almost too bad how bad do you think it is. Well i think it really depends on you know what you what you want to compare us to i mean it is very clear that we are in a situation where the numbers you know cases rising very fast we have a rise in hospitalizations and deaths so from the spring the idea was always to try and people to help system from basically come from overloading and failing that you know some countries may not even manage to do that i think a lot of countries still have the opportunity to turn things around and manage that but even you know even failing that it is a really serious situation if you count not just the best but if you remember you know the long term consequences of this for many many patients also unclear so i think it is high time to act and now 8 months into this pandemic a European Union has. Put together this idea of a coordinated action to deal with a pandemic well what do you make of what youve been hearing of it. What you think the noises that were hearing are the right ones i mean clearly you know more coordination helps. But i also think you know in the end we do have different situations in Different Countries and you know in the end you have to fight the fires locally by the on the ground you know in in the hospitals but also in. Senior care homes and just in the communities so its i think the idea or you know i mean it is important to coordinate it on the european level especially i think it is important to kind of agree on a strategy because theres a danger that you know some countries try to really keep the numbers down in the other countries dont do that and we have Free Movement in Europe Clearly thats going to be a problem so i think the structure needs to be there are a common strategy but then of course in the end the efforts have to be done on the local level not even a national one so while europe is sort of getting itself into a panic we have china saying well were open for business now what can we learn from the chinese handing of the crisis just under 91000 cases they say unless some 5000 deaths compared for instance to the situation in the usa. You know i think in the in the early days of the that we could have learned a lot and i think you know we will have to take a very serious look at some point to understand why we didnt you know early on understand some of the lessons that were emerging from china quite quite early and at this juncture the question is a little bit i think what we can learn you know is there really something we can learn from china that we cant learn from our own experiences in spring and im not so sure about that and the reason is really you know china clearly you know has had a good strategy and i think there are things that are possible in china that just wouldnt be possible in europe so they they managed to act really early and i think that is something that we shouldve realized sooner but i also think europe does need to find its own strategy i think it helps much more to look at south korea or japan and you know that have kind of a more similar structure and have had some of it they had a 2nd wave and things like that but they just managed to take care of the much earlier and with much less stringent measures so i do wish we would talk more about japan and less about sweden to be honest ok looking ahead i wonder if the next set of serious headaches isnt going to be more about who in which countries i get the vaccine when it arrives lets hear from the German Health minister yes on a calling on the soul to play nicely so important to me to make clear from the beginning that all 27 Member States no matter our big they are small they are the g. P. S. And all the participants and get. Those just from the very beginning of course new to the commission size so much i find most important by the way it is made clear from the be in bed we will wait for it it will try its triumphs face 3 results before there will be an approval so cal Cooper Schmidt this is massive focus everybodys waiting for i vaccine to be developed but we actually seem to be making a lot of progress on treating covert patients as well. I think there is the size here also that a vaccine is just going to take care of things and the truth is until we get the results from the vaccine we dont really know that and of course itll take a long time to to produce enough doses to really fascinated enough people and then the vaccine has to have a certain effect is the. To even have an effect on you know on the on the on the societal level now with treatment i think thats kind of been talked about less but of course when we can really treat serious cases and maybe even you know try to prevent serious infections in people who have mild infections that is a big that is a big change for us the biggest breakthrough in a way that weve had was realizing that thats the methadone thats the recovery trial in the u. K. That found out that extra methods on you know can reduce deaths in the last less patients and severe this across those patients by more than a 3rd so that is one reason that we see a slightly you know slow up tick in the in the deaths now than we did in spring is that we have learned better how to treat this disease and the the other thing that is around the corner i redid the monoclonal antibodies now that is the drug that most experts from the beginning were kind of you dont pin the highest hopes on you have to remember that in the 1st phase of the pandemic people said ok lets take whatevers on the shelf thats trends we purposed this drug lets take things like hydrochloric weight and other drugs looking of the return of here that are not meant to treat the disease but maybe you know were lucky and we find something that works but were now getting into the 2nd phase where drugs that were developed especially to stop this particular virus are going through the Clinical Phase especially the phase 3 trials and hopefully early next year we will have some that actually work and that could make a big difference as a glimmer of hope out that thank you for joining us i cant cook fish much science journalist affectionate and. Thank you. Belgium is the basis European Countries to announce that new restrictions are nonessential shops will close as the country battles a surgeon covered 19 infections hospitals all struggling to cope the number of patients in hospitals with 19 has outstripped the 1st wave in april doctors and is under enormous pressure to keep the caste system running. This used to be the Recovery Room for patients whove had surgery now it serves as a makeshift intensive care unit for Corporate Banking patients on life support hospitals of the belgian province of lea is are now the epicenter of europes 2nd wave and struggling to keep up we are not able to admit one new patient anymore so if a patient comes in the emergency room with a 3 we have to run through. Both of them will be old for 4th devo tells us his team is not only short of beds but also personnel one in 5 nurses in the region have tested positive for the virus themselves but the pressure is so high that those who dont have symptoms continue to work under strict safety precautions doctors and nurses here are working tirelessly to take care of covert 900 patients some of them are even infected themselves but despite all efforts the Health Care System here in belgium has reached its breaking point as the overall number of infections continues to rise the actual number of infections is likely to be higher than the official figures across town at least as University Hospital testing is ongoing. I cant smell or taste any more and i have a headache. Because after the medics here can conduct 280 tests every day but these tests are strictly for those who have a doctors prescription family members friends or coworkers who have been in close contact with them but dont show any symptoms. Cannot get a test for a moment as a moment we have so many positive cases the problem is there are far too many contact persons given the huge number of people who have symptoms wed be unable to test them as well as all the people theyve been in contact with at least not with the amount of tests we have currently if we had more tests we probably could back in the covert ward doctor duvall fears the lax handling of the crisis in summer will put him and his colleagues in a very difficult position very soon when you have only one birth and then people think that you have to choose between the team but which one you would have. No doctor want to do thats one thing its like you know we are not doctors who do that kind of thing we are doctor to treat patients with which patient treating germany has started to take patients from belgian hospitals with infections expected to continue to rise here in the coming weeks the medical staff already at their limit who need all the help they can get. To kenya where Health Care Workers providing Family Planning services and keeping a close eye on the u. S. President ial election and donald trump the United States reinstated a ban on foreign aid for abortions and says the mass if the duction in service is offered by these clinics struggling to stay open. Records from nairobi for freedom kenzie getting pregnant was a disaster she was studying at a Secretarial College the Bright Future she was working for suddenly seemed threatened. And i had no. Was thinking great. Im not going. To and he used. A lucky break she was referred to the no my clinic she underwent an abortion and now feels she has control thanks to contraceptive implants. Plus the dignity to distract me indication its. Not bad in sticking out of the hole is a good of a lot of things in my future. But the clinic is and the threat decisions made a world away from here slashed its funding us President Donald Trump reinstated the mexico city policy restricting funding for going to his ations which provide abortions or anything related to them it made life in many towns like here in melinda on the kenyan caused more dangerous for women and girls were used to provide free for me planning free information we had on it would provide for me to live in really today because we dont get them in the mall for free these are for the most goes as they have a point when theyre pregnant when theyre not ready for their pregnancies so this forces some of them to deliver or for them to. A safe abortion. Runs the been all my clinic that helped frieda the cuts forced her to cancel an Outreach Program helping 15000. 00 other girls and women in rural areas that have had included cancer screenings and age i. V. Treatment she dips into her own personal finances so that what is left can keep running a priority is to protect girls and women from unsafe abortions. If i dont do the im afraid the next liberal the next possible to do it the wrong way that close in that store and the young man in. The threat of financial punishment for having anything to do with abortions is affecting Kenyas NationalHealth Policies says county Reproductive Health coordinator Kenneth Miller reading in maine that our constitution gives it to be president s to secure the productive we have resorted to to not falling or constitution because of fear. The choice of the u. S. President not only decide whether kenya can follow its constitution kiffin says the man who ends up sitting in the white house could mean life or death for patients who would wish the somebody else sits on that seat somebody would understand is a human being in need of that flu and that is a human being simply because theres no information given to her why is this possible deaths of that share didnt reassure of a god is going to have the information and theyre going to be gripped lawyers great doctors great mothers in the future because they will have information to prolong their life lets get more on this from doubly washington correspondents and recent misconduct welcome sir mix tell us more about this mexico city policy that we heard about in the report. I fell yet so the mexico city policy this was essentially the brainchild of president reagan in 1984 and what this policy did is it said that if youre an ngo and you want to access federal funding youll have to agree to neither performant nor actively promote abortion as a method of Family Planning in other nations and was actually named after a u. N. Population conference that took place that same year in mexico city and its actually been revoked and reinstated a few times since then most recently in 2017 by President Trump and his administration has actually expanded this policy to include groups that dont perform abortions themselves but support ones that do and critics say this is essentially a gag order it prevents Many Organizations from providing key services in the Reproductive Health sphere in Family Planning and feel thats precisely what we saw in that report of that ngo and kenya hit by the wide ranging implications of this policy so clearly a difference in approach between democrats and republicans on this. Absolutely i mean i said you know its been revoked and reinstated if you times that actually happen every time theres been someone new in the white house since 1904 so president clinton revoked it president george w. Bush reinstated or president obama revoked it and now a republican president President Trump reinstated it and what that tells us is one n. G. O. S really have to live with a good deal of uncertainty in terms of planning their services they have to look at whats happening politically and too it really underscores the fact that abortion is an issue that has remained a bedrock of conservative politics for many years and the access to abortion has been really an important issue for democrats also for many years regardless of who is in the white house so we have here instance where the decisions made by the American People directly affect the lives of women sauza is of miles away not getting much mention in the campaign. No its not at all phil and you know you have to say that this election season really has centered exclusively around domestic issues in a covert 1000 here the economy a Racial Justice issues but i do have to say that abortion is an important issue for Many American voters there was a survey here conducted by the Polling Institute gallup over the summer that showed that nearly half of all americans think abortion is an important issue for this election and we cant forget that this is an issue thats been thrust back into the spotlight after the passing of the Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsberg who was an advocate of the constitutional right to abortion well she has been replaced as we know by a very conservative Catholic Justice any county barrett and there are fears that there might be an effort to overturn roe v wade this is the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in america so it certainly is an issue in this county in this election season filled but entirely in a domestic context so we brought a Foreign Policy to as we know with President Trump