Seoul to up aid; Israel gets stricter
SEOUL — The South Korean government plans to prepare a third supplementary budget and sharply increase subsidies to keep more citizens in jobs through the course of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday that a 40 trillion won ($32.4 billion) fund would be created to help businesses keep jobs, while those who had recently lost jobs from temporary positions or freelance work would be eligible for a 500,000 won subsidy for three months.
The aid package announced previously would also rise to 135 trillion won from 100 trillion won to give more liquidity to companies hit by the pandemic, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.
South Korea had reported 10,694 infections as of Wednesday.
In Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office announced the tightening of measures to fight the virus ahead of the state’s Independence Day on April 29, including a full lockdown that will last from next Tuesday afternoon until Thursday morning.
Total infections in the country were 13,942, after 229 cases were confirmed on Tuesday. The death toll surged to 184.
In Africa, more Chinese medical supplies, including medical masks, testing kits, ventilators and other medical equipment, arrived in Algeria on Tuesday night to help the North African country contain the spread of the virus, which has infected 2,811 and killed 392.
In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday said that 500 billion rand ($26.3 billion) would be devoted to relief and economic stimulus measures.
The government is also working on additional support measures for vulnerable and affected sectors like the taxi industry, and aid would be made available to other vulnerable groups, Ramaphosa said.
The virus has killed 58 people and infected 3,465 in South Africa.
In Nigeria, the authorities confirmed 117 new cases in the latest 24-hour period which ended on Tuesday night, the biggest singleday increase since the most populous African country reported its first case on Feb 27.
Meanwhile, all airports in the country will remain closed for two more weeks from Thursday as a result of the extension of the lockdown, Nigerian Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said on Monday.
So far, the pandemic has hit the capital city of Abuja and 24 states.
In Sierra Leone, President Julius Bio became the second African leader to go into quarantine on Monday after one of his bodyguards tested positive for the virus.
Bio is currently under 14 days of self-isolation and will be working from home, the president’s spokesperson said.
Separately, Foday Mansaray, Sierra Leone Ambassador and representative to the International Human Rights Commission died in the United States on Monday due to the coronavirus.
In a separate study, Cambridge engineers hope to ease shortages of ventilators in low- and middleincome countries with a machine that can be constructed using readily available parts for a fraction of the cost of conventional designs.
Ventilators are essential to hospitals dealing with COVID-19 patients. This is because severe cases of the disease can cause damage to the lungs, making it hard for patients to breathe without the assistance of a machine.
Many developing countries, including several in Africa, have a severe shortage of ventilators. An example is Mali, a nation of 19 million people with just 56 ventilators across all public and private hospitals.
Cambridge has partnered on the Open Ventilator System Initiative, or OVSI, with a consortium of academics, engineers, intensive care medics, and industry partners in the UK and Africa.
The OVSI ventilator can be assembled using components that are readily available to manufacturers in most nations, meaning that machines can be repaired easily if parts from the initial assembly kit need to be replaced.
The engineers also made sure to use inexpensive parts when designing the machine. The Cambridge team estimates that the OVSI design can be assembled at around one-tenth the cost of a conventional ventilator.
“It’s often the case that those living on less than $4 per day are excluded from the innovation process,” said Lara Allen, chief executive of the Centre for Global Equality, an international development network that partnered on the project.
“As a result, many well-meaning innovations are not what is needed or wanted by the intended beneficiaries and end up not being used.”