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#229 2020-04-29 17:01:08
Re: Corona virus
I don’t know enough about elsewhere to compare whether Germany is particularly supportive or not. I would have thought the Scandinavian countries would have featured high on the list.
In Germany, a lot of schemes are being set up to support different sectors of working society without the customary long bureaucratic hurdles. Employees who are sent home or work reduced hours receive 60% pay (increasing to 80% if it continues for a prolonged period, like 4/7+ months) which means fewer people are made redundant. By all accounts, the authorities dealt with applications at speeds otherwise unheard-of. Firms can get emergency assistance or low-interest credits while small businesses down to one-person companies can get a lump sum emergency assistance of 5000€ (that does not have to be repaid). You have to demonstrate that the coronavirus has caused an appreciable cancellation of work or made working impossible, and it has to be plausible that you would have earned that. As always cheats immediately come out of the woodwork claiming losses of 15k in three months when they earned less than that in the entire year before :-/. The system’s also gone down repeatedly, partly because fake sites have been collecting legitimate applicants’ data, then submitting that and pocketing the money for themselves :-////// But where it works that’s certainly a considerable help for covering costs in the immediate future, and from acquaintances I hear that the applications staff have worked weekends to deal with the huge numbers of applications.
I’m fortunate that I’ve had no cancellations as yet, however my project timelines have gone haywire and earnings with it, so the immediate impact is practically the same. My wife on the other hand can neither teach nor perform on stage, and perhaps not for many months to come.
Germany’s federal system has shown its strengths and weaknesses at the same time. As each Land (= region / large county) has its own local government, things like hospital provisions and emergency services have been reasonably robust and haven’t reached tipping point, even taking in cases from France and Italy when they had surplus capacity. It also makes it possible for different states to respond according to the levels of infection, which vary considerably across the country. At the same time, because each Land can decide for itself, it’s proved hard for the country to agree on a common relaxation patterns or common rules, creating problems in inter-state border areas where one state is in lockdown while the neighbour is already open for business. The relaxations up to now have resulted in a renewed upturn in infections so one could say it’s too soon. Then again, in our town of 75,000, the number of remaining reported infections (‘official statistics’ of course) versus the number of those who have recovered or died is now less than ten and if there were no inter-regional travel, one could argue that people locally could go back to business with minimum risk.
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#230 2020-04-30 07:44:19
Re: Corona virus
I wonder how many countries have been sold or are converting to the privatised healthcare model of the world’s leading nation
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#231 2020-04-30 08:11:56
Re: Corona virus
colak wrote #322747:
I’m not sure what the cost of living is in JP but I’m sure that it varies depending on where you live. €900 is just under 3x more to what the cy gov will be giving me. Basic rents for studio flats in Cy cities is €500/month.
As a lump sum – paid once (!) – it is grosso mode the equivalent as the lowest pensions. Luckily it is per individual, not per household. Average rent for a family of 4 easily runs into ~¥75.000 – ~¥100.000 in the main cities. The problem for free lancers and all kind of abused workers on more or less temp. contracts is the extra chargers: health insurance and pension contributions. And those are all people who see quite a bit of job losses.
Personally, my workload has diminished enormously (many of the websites I deal with are in the travel sector, which is obviously on hiatus). Luckily my wife works for a semi-public company, in the care business, and that covers all those extra chargers.
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#232 2020-04-30 10:01:36
Re: Corona virus
Hi
Here in Algeria there is no help for private sector and daily workers are let alone, hopefully people helps each others heres, people that have confortable earnings give money to poorest people, but it s not covering all the areas!
During this Ramadhan the gov let opening a lot of stores and people are not distancing or putting mask, i am afraid the curfew will spread a lot more in the nexte week!
Cheers.
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#233 2020-04-30 15:44:02
Re: Corona virus
Dragondz wrote #322753:
Hi
Here in Algeria there is no help for private sector and daily workers are let alone, hopefully people helps each others heres, people that have confortable earnings give money to poorest people, but it s not covering all the areas!
During this Ramadhan the gov let opening a lot of stores and people are not distancing or putting mask, i am afraid the curfew will spread a lot more in the nexte week!
Cheers.
yes many are opening up in the following days. hopefully there won’t be any spikes in new cases/deaths…. but my gut tells me it will.
…. texted postive
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#234 2020-05-03 11:11:12
Re: Corona virus
There are many many examples of ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things to help their communities, all around the world. It’s very heart-warming to see the best qualities of human beings shown during this pandemic. Hope for the future… That generosity of spirit has caused our leaders to respond better than I expected (in UK) but always a bit late and always never giving full facts but just informing us with enough of what they think they can get away with. But people are not stupid and know a positive spin has been put on everything and are wondering what is really going on.
Through all the info, misinfo and disinfo here’s a view that is hard to fault if the dates and content of those deals are true. American economist blames WHO and China
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#235 2020-05-03 17:50:47
Re: Corona virus
As from tomorrow, our government is opening schools for final year pupils, and also lifts a number of other restrictions. Our Minister of Education admitted that some restrictions will be lifted because of the economy not public health. In my view it is too early, and Cyprus will experience another spike in 2 weeks or so.
Yiannis
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#236 2020-05-03 18:29:46
Re: Corona virus
colak wrote #322831:
As from tomorrow, our government is opening schools for final year pupils, and also lifts a number of other restrictions. Our Minister of Education admitted that some restrictions will be lifted because of the economy not public health. In my view it is too early, and Cyprus will experience another spike in 2 weeks or so.
Interesting that a minister has admitted to something. Our UK ministers admit to nothing. I am hopeful that with our PM having been close to death with covid19, he will keep the lockdown till it is safe to relax it. Other politicians and most journalists seem anxious to open some schools now that we are just past the peak.
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#237 2020-05-04 09:49:00
Re: Corona virus
I’ve been looking for a correlation between virus deaths and prevalence of obesity and diabetes in some countries, after reading that insulin resistance is the real pandemic. I also read that Sweden has won the lockdown policy debate so wondered if Swedes were generally healthier than other countries. They are not. The numbers in these stats are truly shocking by themselves but it’s too early to draw any conclusions wrt the virus. However, Germany, Cyprus, Spain, Sweden and Belarus (no lockdown) may have a lot more to come if they are not careful. And God Bless America :-(
Here are some stats I got from the IDF Diabetes Resource and the World Population Review
| Country | % obese | % diabetic | Number of diabetics |
| Algeria | 27.4 | 7.2 | 1904k |
| Belarus | 24.5 | 6.6 | 0463k |
| Belgium | 22.1 | 6.8 | 0561k |
| Canada | 29.4 | 10.1 | 2793k |
| Cyprus | 21.8 | 10.4 | 0092k |
| Denmark | 19.1 | 8.8 | 0372k |
| France | 21.6 | 7.6 | 3480k |
| Germany | 22.3 | 15.3 | 9510k |
| Italy | 19.9 | 8.3 | 3669k |
| Japan | 04.3 | 7.9 | 7390k |
| Netherlands | 20.4 | 8.1 | 1019k |
| Spain | 23.8 | 10.8 | 3619k |
| Sweden | 20.6 | 7.2 | 0521k |
| UK | 27.8 | 5.6 | 2680k |
| USA | 36.2 | 13.3 | 30988k |
You can compare these with coronavirus stats
Edited to add Canada and Japan (note very low obesity rate in jp)
Last edited by zero (2020-05-04 10:55:45)
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#238 2020-05-04 14:48:54
Re: Corona virus
zero wrote #322832:
Interesting that a minister has admitted to something. Our UK ministers admit to nothing. I am hopeful that with our PM having been close to death with covid19, he will keep the lockdown till it is safe to relax it. Other politicians and most journalists seem anxious to open some schools now that we are just past the peak.
The problem is that the public does not see that as an admission, so he will not be held accountable when the next spike comes. They have managed to build a sort of an ethos here where the economy is the divine worth sacrificing to.
Yiannis
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#239 2020-05-04 15:02:05
Re: Corona virus
colak wrote #322842:
The problem is that the public does not see that as an admission, so he will not be held accountable when the next spike comes. They have managed to build a sort of an ethos here where the economy is the divine worth sacrificing to.
IF they’ve studied the stats and science like Sweden has done (see my post above) and come to similar conclusions, then I can understand why they are seeming to put the economy first. I believe the lockdown way, but the Swedish case is well presented too, so I’m now leaning towards — let’s not worry too much, keep the distancing and hygiene, protect the vulnerable and approach the return to work with great care. Are Cypriots responsible people? There’s quite a percentage in the UK who are not, so how does the government get through to them?
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#240 2020-05-04 17:49:55
Re: Corona virus
zero wrote #322843:
IF they’ve studied the stats and science like Sweden has done (see my post above) and come to similar conclusions, then I can understand why they are seeming to put the economy first. I believe the lockdown way, but the Swedish case is well presented too, so I’m now leaning towards — let’s not worry too much, keep the distancing and hygiene, protect the vulnerable and approach the return to work with great care. Are Cypriots responsible people? There’s quite a percentage in the UK who are not, so how does the government get through to them?
I understand that Sweden has one of the best health care systems, and the society is, in some way very contained. (Please feel free to correct me on this). The cy society is very much influenced by the Mediterranean macho culture and our health care is not as well funded. I am also worried as the 20-40 year old group started walking around today, without any protection, basically thinking that they are invincible.
Yiannis
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