Президент України Володимир Зеленський на нараді з протидії поширенню коронавірусу висловився за відкриття непродовольчих ринків в Україні.

«Якщо працюють магазини непродовольчих товарів, то треба відкрити й ринки. На таких самих умовах, що й продовольчі: з усіма заходами безпеки для людей, щоб мінімізувати ризики зараження», – сказав Зеленський.

12 березня влада запровадила карантин через COVID-19, він був продовжений до 22 травня із низкою послаблень.

Наприкінці квітня уряд дозволив відновити роботу продовольчих ринків, але речові залишилися закритими. Представники малого бізнесу, які мають свої торгові точки на таких ринках, також вимагають від уряду скасування обмежень на свою роботу.

 
…

An Australian parliamentary report has debunked a conspiracy theory linking COVID-19 to 5G technology. Anti-lockdown protesters in Australia and beyond have claimed a connection between the new coronavirus and the rollout of the mobile communications standard.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparate groups of conspiracy theorists together. Some believe the disease was deliberately spread around the world to force vaccines on to the population as a form of control. Others assert that a Harvard University professor was arrested for creating and selling the coronavirus to China. Still others insist that 5G technology is the true cause of COVID-19. It was a view that was reportedly first promoted in a social media video in March and has been shared widely on the internet.However, linking the new coronavirus to radio waves simply is not true, according to a report by an Australian parliamentary communications committee. It found that 5G technology was safe. E-communications experts said linking COVID-19 to radio waves “has no basis in science” and is “biologically and physically impossible.” This is a view shared by the World Health Organization and other authorities. They have found that 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate skin.In Australia, New South Wales state health officials have asserted that COVID-19 was not spread through mobile networks or wireless technology but through infected droplets from coughing or sneezing, or by contact with contaminated hands, surfaces or objects.Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has also dismissed a link between 5G networks and the disease.“There is unfortunately a lot of very silly misinformation out there,” Murphy said. “There is absolutely no evidence about 5G doing anything in the coronavirus space. I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus.”Academics say that fake news and misinformation seem to be spreading as fast and as far as the virus itself. Uncertainty and fear breed confusion, and, as one expert said, “conspiracy theories offer an emotionally satisfying narrative” if even they are not true.There have been small protests in Australia by groups angry at lockdown measures, and at the government’s coronavirus mobile phone tracing app. Demonstrators in Melbourne also sought to link an outbreak of the virus at a meat plant to a nearby telephone tower.Efforts are being made to sort the truth from the misinformation. YouTube has said it will do more to remove content linking 5G technology to COVID-19.
…

A U.S. Navy warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.The U.S. Pacific Fleet posted a message on its Facebook page with a picture of the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell navigating through the narrow waterway that separates China from Taiwan.The fleet said the USS McCampbell was sailing through the Strait as “part of ongoing operations in the Indo-Pacific.”Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the destroyer was sailing southward off its western coast during a routine mission but provided no other details.Tensions are simmering between China and Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing considers a breakaway province that belongs under its control.  China has conducted numerous sea and air exercises near Taiwan in recent years and has been angered over U.S. naval exercises near the island and the Trump administration’s strong support for Taipei.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday the nation has now conducted 10 million coronavirus tests, amounting to almost 3 percent of the U.S. population. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives said the administration’s failure to test early had worsened the crisis and called for more resources as most states around the country begin to relax stay-at-home restrictions. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
…

The U.S. Navy said on Thursday it had sailed a guided-missile destroyer through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, a week before Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration for a second term in office amid rising tensions with China. China, which considers Taiwan its territory, has been angered by the Trump administration’s strong support for the island, such as increased arms sales. Beijing-Washington ties have also been buffeted by fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Pacific Fleet, in a statement on its Facebook page, said the USS McCampbell had transited the narrow strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China on Wednesday, showing pictures of the ship under way. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the ship had sailed south on what it termed an “ordinary mission,” adding it was continuing in that direction. Tsai, who will be sworn in for her second and final term next Wednesday, won re-election by a landslide in January, vowing to defend Taiwan’s democracy and stand up to China. Both China and the United States have ramped up military activities near Taiwan in recent months, including regular U.S. sailings through the Taiwan Strait, and regular Chinese air force drills near the island. Last Friday, Taiwan said a Chinese air force Y-8 aircraft had briefly crossed into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, prompting Taiwan jets to warn it to leave. China operates the Y-8 both as a transport and early warning and electronic warfare aircraft. Taiwan has denounced the Chinese drills as attempts at intimidation and has told Beijing it should focus its efforts on fighting the coronavirus rather than menacing the island. China considers Tsai to be a separatist, charges she strongly denies. Late next week, China will open its delayed annual meeting of parliament, where it is expected to release its defense budget for the year, a number closely watched around the region as President Xi Jinping oversees a military modernization plan.  
…

Європейський парламент ухвалив рішення розглянути за прискореною процедурою пропозицію Єврокомісії надати України 1,2 мільярда євро на боротьбу з економічними наслідками пандемії. Рішення було підтримано 603 голосами, повідомляє агентство «Інтерфакс-Україна».

Таким чином питання мають винести на голосування 15 травня, а результати оголосять пізно ввечері того ж дня. Євродепутати голосуватимуть онлайн.

Якщо депутати підтримають ініціативу Єврокомісії, далі це рішення має схвалити Рада ЄС.

Про рішення Європарламенту надати Україні 1,2 мільярда євро для протидії коронавірусу повідомив Офіс президент 22 квітня.

Станом на ранок 13 травня в Україні зафіксували 16 425 випадків COVID-19. Одужали 3 716 людей, 439 померли.
…

The United Nations warned Wednesday that the global financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic could see economic output plummet by $8.5 trillion over the next two years and push more than 34 million people into extreme poverty.“We are now facing the grim reality of a severe recession — one of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression,” said the U.N.’s top economist, Elliott Harris, referencing the global economic depression that began in the United States in 1929 and spread across the globe for several years.In its “World Economic Situation and Prospects” midyear report, the United Nations forecast that the global economy would shrink by 3.2% in 2020 and make only a modest rebound next year. World trade is expected to fall by 15%. Total losses of $8.5 trillion in 2020-21 means nearly all the gains of the past four years will be erased.“The twin health and economic crises present very difficult policy trade-offs,” Harris said. He emphasized that governments needed to contain the spread of the pandemic while simultaneously minimizing its economic impacts.“The balance between saving lives and saving jobs is as difficult as it is necessary to strike,” he added.As of early Wednesday evening EDT, more than 4.3 million people worldwide had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and nearly 300,000 had died, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University.Cars drive past the blank billboards on the 6th of October Bridge, amid concerns over the coronavirus disease, in Cairo, Egypt, May 13, 2020.Poorer nationsWhile the pandemic has halted activity in many developed economies, Harris said poorer countries had yet to feel the full force of the virus but were suffering economically because of their links with developed countries.He noted that commodity and tourism sectors had taken a major hit, along with transportation and manufacturing sectors, turning millions jobless across the planet in a matter of weeks.“In both developed and developing countries, many are at risk of falling into poverty, with our most pessimistic scenario projecting an additional 160 million people living in poverty by 2030,” Harris told reporters.More than 34 million of them will likely fall below the international poverty line by the end of this year. Those are individuals living on less than $1.90 a day. African countries are forecast to be especially hard hit, accounting for more than half that number.“The world will face a ‘new normal’ after the COVID-19 crisis,” said Hamid Rashid, chief of the Global Economic Monitoring Branch and lead author of the report. “Unless there are convincing breakthroughs in a vaccine and treatment of the disease, we will face a new normal of prolonged economic slump — low growth, low global trade flows, low investment and low economic activities.”He said that consumption and production patterns might fundamentally change, and that automation and digitization would accelerate, which could lead to permanent unemployment for some workers.FILE – A man collects his umbrellas on an almost empty beach that’s usually crowed with tourists, amid the global coronavirus disease outbreak, in Pattaya, Thailand, March 27, 2020.Stimulus packagesWhile many countries have implemented fiscal stimulus packages to prop up their economies, it has been uneven. In rich countries, measures have been the equivalent of 10% of GDP, while in poor ones, it is 0.5% to 1%.Many developing countries were already struggling before the pandemic, with deficits and debt financing, which is now affected by falling revenue from exports and tourism and decreasing remittances from expatriates. The report said more international support was needed.While the news was mostly bad, the report’s author said how the world structured its recovery would be crucial.“The current crisis offers an opportunity to build resilience against economic shocks and future pandemics, to strengthen social protection, to reduce inequality and address growing climate risks,” Rashid said.
…

The Taliban on Wednesday said they were prepared to battle Afghan forces after the president told troops to resume offensive operations following grisly attacks that have further unraveled a fragile peace process.New details have emerged on Tuesday’s assault on a Kabul maternity hospital, where at least 24 people including infants, mothers and nurses were killed. The daylight attack was followed by a blast at a funeral in the country’s east that killed 32 mourners.According to international humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, which runs the maternity wing at the Barchi Hospital in west Kabul, one woman gave birth during the lengthy attack.”While pregnant women and babies were seeking health care in one of the most vulnerable states in life … attackers stormed the maternity (unit) through a series of explosions and gunfire lasting for hours,” MSF said in a statement.FILE – An Afghan security personnel carries a newborn baby from a hospital, at the site of an attack in Kabul, May 12, 2020.The group said at least one Afghan colleague appeared to have been among those killed in the “revolting” attack.President Ashraf Ghani blamed both that assault and the funeral bombing on the Taliban and the Islamic State group, ordering Afghan troops to “resume their operations against the enemy.”For weeks Afghan forces had been on a “defensive” posture to ease peace talks with the Taliban.But the insurgents, who denied involvement in Tuesday’s attacks, warned they were “fully prepared” to counter any strikes by Afghan forces.”From now onwards the responsibility of further escalation of violence and its ramifications shall fall squarely on the shoulders of the Kabul administration,” the Taliban said in a statement.The aggression threatens the fraying peace process just as Afghanistan grapples with a public health crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attacks.””Deliberately targeting infants, children, mothers and health workers as such is especially abhorrent,” a Council statement read, emphasising that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable.”MSF tragediesMSF has experienced several tragedies in Afghanistan, including the shooting of five staff in 2004 in Badghis province, prompting the group to pull out of the war-torn nation after 24 years.Mourners carry a covered dead body during a burial ceremony following a suicide attack in a maternity hospital, at a cemetery in Kabul, May 13, 2020.MSF returned in 2009. But in 2015, after the Taliban had seized the northern city of Kunduz, U.S. airstrikes destroyed an MSF trauma hospital, killing 42 people.MSF said it opened the 55-bed maternity unit in Kabul in 2014, and has delivered more than 5,000 babies there since January 1.Images of dead mothers and babies wrapped in blood-soaked blankets sparked international outrage.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said he was “shocked and appalled” by the maternity hospital attack, and held a minute of silence in memory of the victims during a virtual press conference in Geneva.The Taliban have not claimed any major attacks in Kabul and other cities since signing a deal with the United States in February for foreign forces to leave Afghanistan.They have, however, regularly targeted Afghan forces.Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said Wednesday that since the U.S.-Taliban deal the insurgents have carried out 3,712 terrorist attacks that have killed almost 500 civilians.FILE – Afghan presidential election opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah, left, and Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani are seen after a press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Feb. 29, 2020.A political deadlock between Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah is also seen as a sign of weakness by the Taliban.Abdullah had previously served as Afghanistan’s “chief executive” under an earlier power-sharing deal with Ghani, but lost that post after he was defeated by Ghani in a presidential election.Instead of accepting defeat, Abdullah declared himself president, holding his own swearing-in ceremony on the same day Ghani was inaugurated.U.S. pushes for peaceThe Taliban blamed the Islamic State group and elements of the government’s intelligence units for the latest attacks.IS have claimed the funeral bombing, but no group has admitted responsibility for the hospital attack.Top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who noted the Taliban’s denial of responsibility, urged the Afghan government and the militant group to cooperate to ensure a peace process succeeds.”Failure to do so leaves Afghanistan vulnerable to terrorism, perpetual instability and economic hardship,” Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy who negotiated the deal with the Taliban, said on Twitter.
 
…

They carry high-powered rifles and wear tactical gear, but their Hawaiian shirts and leis are what stand out in the crowds that have formed at state capital buildings to protest COVID-19 lockdown orders. The signature look for the “boogaloo” anti-government movement is designed to get attention.The group, which uses an ’80s movie sequel as a code word for a second civil war, is among the extremists using the armed protests against state-at-home orders as a platform. Like other movements that once largely inhabited corners of the internet, it has seized on the social unrest and economic calamity caused by the pandemic to publicize its violent messages.  In April, armed demonstrators passed out “Liberty or Boogaloo” fliers at a statehouse protest in Concord, New Hampshire. A leader of the Three Percenters militia movement who organized a rally in Olympia, Washington, last month encouraged rally participants to wear Hawaiian shirts, according to the Anti-Defamation League. On Saturday, a demonstration in Raleigh, North Carolina, promoted by a Facebook group called “Blue Igloo” — a derivation of the term — led to a police investigation of a confrontation between an armed protester and a couple pushing a stroller.  Another anti-lockdown rally is planned for Thursday at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, site of an angry protest last month that included armed members of the Michigan Liberty Militia. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has been the target of violent threats on Facebook forums, including a private one called “The Rhett E. Boogie Group.”One user said Whitmer should be “guillotined” after another suggested another governor should be hanged from a noose, according to a screenshot captured by the Tech Transparency Project research initiative.  The coronavirus pandemic has become a catalyst for the “boogaloo” movement because the stay-at-home orders have “put a stressor on a lot of very unhappy people,” said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. MacNab said their rhetoric goes beyond discussions about fighting virus restrictions — which many protesters brand as “tyranny” — to talking about killing FBI agents or police officers “to get the war going.””They are far more graphic and far more specific in their threats than I’ve seen in a long time,” she said.The violent rhetoric is dramatic escalation for a online phenomenon with its roots in meme culture and steeped in dark humor. Its name comes from the panned 1984 movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” which has become slang for any bad sequel. Another derivation of “boogaloo” is “big luau” — hence the Hawaiian garb.Far-right gun activists and militia groups first embraced the term before white supremacist groups adopted it last year. And while some “boogaloo” followers maintain they aren’t genuinely advocating for violence, law-enforcement officials say they have foiled bombing and shooting plots by people who have connections to the movement or at least used its terminology.A 36-year-old Arkansas man whose Facebook page included “boogaloo” references was arrested on April 11 by police in Texarkana, Texas, on a charge he threatened to ambush and kill a police officer on a Facebook Live video.”I feel like hunting the hunters,” Aaron Swenson wrote on Facebook under an alias, police say.  An April 22 report by the Tech Transparency Project,  which tracks technology companies, found 125 Facebook “boogaloo”-related groups that had attracted tens of thousands of members in the previous 30 days. The project pointed to coronavirus crisis as a driving factor.”Some boogaloo supporters see the public health lockdowns and other directives by states and cities across the country as a violation of their rights, and they’re aiming to harness public frustration at such measures to rally and attract new followers to their cause,” the project’s report says.Facebook has since updated its policies to prohibit use of “boogaloo” and related terms “when accompanied by statements and images depicting armed violence,” the company said in a statement.  In March, a Missouri man with ties to neo-Nazis was shot and killed when FBI agents tried to arrest him. Timothy Wilson, 36, was planning to bomb a hospital in the Kansas City area on the day that a COVID-19 stay-at-home order was scheduled to take effect, authorities said. Wilson told an undercover FBI agent that his goal was “to kick start a revolution” and referred to his plans as “operation boogaloo,” according to an agent’s affidavit.Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert that said a white supremacist group was inciting followers to shoot through their doors at FBI agents and police officers, federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing. The warning related to “associates” of Bradley Bunn, a 53-year-old U.S. Army veteran who was arrested on May 1 after FBI agents allegedly found four pipe bombs at his house in Loveland, Colorado, the filing said.Authorities haven’t publicly linked Bunn to any group or movement, but a federal prosecutor said agents intercepted Bunn on his way to an armed protest at the state Capitol against COVID-19 restrictions.  Bunn told investigators that he would be willing to “take out a few” officers to “wake everyone up,” the prosecutor said during a court hearing.While the anti-lockdown protests have provided the spotlight on the “boogaloo” movement, a police shooting in Maryland has galvanized its supporters.Duncan Lemp, 21, was shot and killed by police on March 12 as officers served a search warrant at his family’s home. An eyewitness said Lemp was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, according to an attorney for his family. Police said he was armed with a rifle and ignored commands.On his Instagram account, Lemp had posted a photograph that depicts two people holding up rifles and includes the term “boogaloo.” His death spawned a hashtag campaign within the movement.  “A lot of individuals are very upset at the way this country is being run and the laws that are getting passed that criminalize law-abiding citizens,” said Mike Harts, a U.S. Army infantry veteran who befriended Lemp through social media.Harts, 27, says “boogaloo” started as a funny meme but has evolved into a deeper symbol for the “liberty movement.”Lemp’s family appreciates the outpouring of support but doesn’t want “any violence or unlawful actions to be taken in his name,” family attorney Rene Sandler said in a statement. 
…

The U.S. Democratic Party, fearful of the coronavirus pandemic, is moving closer to holding a virtual convention in August to nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as its presidential candidate in the November national election rather than stage a traditional jammed-to-the-rafters event.The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee agreed on Tuesday to give convention organizers broad leeway in setting plans for the convention that has been scheduled to start Aug. 17 in a basketball arena in the midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Normally, the quadrennial presidential nominating conventions for both the Democratic and Republican parties draw about 50,000 people to the host cities, including 5,000 convention delegates and perhaps 20,000 members of the news media.With barbed speeches attacking the opposition candidates, the conventions for decades have been spectacles on the American political scene designed to promote their party’s candidate about 10 weeks ahead of the early November votes. The four-day events typically culminate with massive red, white and blue balloon drops from the rafters of the convention halls.The Democratic concern over the coronavirus pandemic could drastically change its party convention this year. President Donald Trump, however, is still planning to stage a traditional in-person Republican convention in the mid-Atlantic city of Charlotte, North Carolina, a week after the Democratic event.Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez speaks before the start of the Democratic presidential primary debate at the Gaillard Center, Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, South Carolina.Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez said the convention planning resolution approved by the rules committee in a conference call “will give the convention the tools necessary to ensure that every delegate is able to conduct their official business without putting their health at risk, whether by participating in person or by other means to allow for social distancing.”The measure now goes to the full Democratic National Committee for approval in a vote by mail in the coming weeks.The Democratic convention could be entirely a virtual event — with delegates, party officials, reporters and others scattered across the country and connected by Zoom-like video technology — or scaled back in some fashion.Perez said, “Our No. 1 proposal is for the health and safety of the American people,” but added that final decisions have not been made. Biden has regularly launched televised campaign attacks from his home in the eastern state of Delaware, but otherwise abandoned massive traditional public political rallies during the pandemic, as has the president.Biden said Wednesday he “can hardly wait to get onto the stage” with Trump at the traditional face-to-face campaign debates in the month before the Nov. 3 election.In the meantime, Biden said, “What I’m trying to do is play by the rules — the rules set by the governors and others that I not be out, that we be socially keeping ourselves back right now. But I’m looking forward to the time, as this begins to loosen up, to be able to go out and campaign and hold rallies and do the rest.”Biden said, “I hope I’m going to be able to go to Milwaukee. I hope we’re going to have it beyond virtual. But look, we have to follow the science.”FILE – Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel throws hats to the audience at a rally for President Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, March 28, 2019.Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has left open the possibility of changes at the Republican convention, but Trump has often voiced his wish for a traditional event filled with cheering delegates and speeches attacking the Democrats.“The president wants to go full steam ahead,” McDaniel said. “We are full steam ahead for in-person, in Charlotte.”Democrats say they do not know what the coronavirus dangers may look like by August. Perez said Trump and McDaniel have downplayed the coronavirus threat even as they have asked the federal government for help in securing personal protective equipment, or PPE, for delegates attending the Republican convention.Perez said Democrats would not ignore the health threat of a massive, in-person convention, but also have not ruled out asking the government for personal protective equipment for convention-goers.“Unlike our Republican counterparts, we will not have our public health heads in the sand,” Perez said.Another top Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has suggested that the party’s convention be moved from Milwaukee but still be held in Wisconsin. She has in mind holding it outdoors at a huge football stadium with appropriate social distancing between convention delegates to limit the crowd size.Two such venues exist in Wisconsin: the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium in the state capital of Madison, and the Green Bay Packers’ professional football Lambeau Field stadium.”My suggestion to Mr. Perez was get a gigantic stadium and put people six feet apart,” Pelosi said last week. “So maybe…instead of having 80,000 people there, you would have 16,000 people there and just do it all in one day.”Pelosi said she had confidence that Perez would “make the right decision based on health and science, but also with the opportunity to do something new.” 
…

13 травня уряд вирішив змінити свою постанову, якою забороняв експорт етилового спирту до 1 червня. Про це повідомили у Міністерстві розвитку економіки, торгівлі та сільського господарства.

Експорт спирту відновлять 15 травня.

«Таке рішення прийняте на основі того, що підприємства спиртової галузі спроможні забезпечити виробництво спирту в необхідних для України обсягах. Також прийняті зміни дають можливість ДП «Укрспирт» виробляти дезінфекційні засоби зі спирту етилового за спрощеною процедурою, тимчасово встановленою Податковим кодексом України на період дії карантину», – мовиться у повідомленні.

Обмеження на експорт спирту ввели 23 березня з метою запобігання поширенню COVID-19 в Україні.

За даними Держстату за січень-лютий 2020 року експорт спирту етилового склав 1,1 млн літрів.
…

The World Food Program warns the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to boost the number of hungry people in the Middle East and North African region to more than 47 million, an increase of more than 6.7 million from current figures.This region has been mired in conflict, political instability and economic problems for years. COVID-19 is compounding these difficulties. U.N. agencies warn fragile and dysfunctional governments in the Middle East and North Africa are ill-equipped to deal with the pandemic and its impact.The Children wearing protective masks look from behind a window during a 24-hour curfew amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sana’a, Yemen, May 6, 2020.WFP spokeswoman, Elisabeth Byrs said the report predicts the pandemic will increase extreme hunger and that many more people in the region will struggle to feed themselves as their means of livelihood disappear.“With little to no savings, no unemployment insurance, and reduced food subsidies, people who engage in subsistence or informal work to support their families cannot endure sustained lockdowns. Many of the people receiving food assistance rely on it for their survival,” she said.The World Food Program currently provides food to 23 million people in the region.  More than two thirds of this assistance is being channeled to people in Yemen and Syria who have been wracked by war, illness and hunger for years.WFP reports nearly 3.8 million children in 11 countries are no longer receiving school meals following school closures across the region, depriving most of the children of their only nutritious meal of the day.The U.N food agency says it is finding alternative ways to make up for these missed meals in nine of the 11 countries.  These include the provision of take-home rations and home delivery of food.  In some cases, WFP provides families with cash or vouchers they can use to buy food in local markets. 
…

Cameroon’s traditional healers say they are being overwhelmed by the number of people seeking herbal medicine for prevention or treatment of the coronavirus.  The rush for traditional healing comes as the central African nation confirms more than 2,500 cases of COVID-19 and 121 deaths.  But medical doctors caution the use of herbal medicine for the coronavirus.Traditional healer Dewah, who only uses a first name, says his chain of herbal medicine clinics across Cameroon have been flooded with patients since the March outbreak of the coronavirus.He spoke via a messaging application from the southwestern town of Kumba.Dewah said in the last two months he has received at least 800 people from Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Chad who say they are rushing for African herbal medicine because they have been told there is no modern cure for COVID-19.The demand for herbal medicine is so high, said Dewah, that he could not treat some patients because he ran short of the potions made from plants he harvests from the forest.Despite a lack of scientific evidence, he claims the potions can treat all the symptoms of COVID-19 and even save the infected from death.Dianne Sop, a traditional healer in Yaounde, said in the last month she too has received about 200 patients seeking treatment for the coronavirus.Sop said on Tuesday morning alone she received 10 patients but had to send four away because she is still waiting for more herbal medicines.Medical researchers, doctors, and the Cameroon government have urged patients not to rely on traditional medicine for COVID-19 and to instead seek treatment at hospitals.Douala city pharmacist Merilyne Peyou notes many Cameroonians do not live near hospitals but have easy access to traditional medicine.  She said many drugs sold in hospitals and pharmacies in Africa originate from herbs and tree leaves that were effectively used to treat Africans before the arrival of modern medicine. The only challenges of African herbal medicine, said Peyou, are that it is difficult to preserve, may become toxic, and healers don’t always know what dosage to prescribe.Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health released a statement Thursday warning of quacks claiming they can treat COVID-19 to financially exploit people suffering from or worried about the virus.Gidiun Peliegho, a researcher on African traditional medicine, said authorities should work to identify which herbs can treat COVID-19 and help to develop a cure.”We need both financial and moral assistance.  This is not the time for us to keep on doubting what African traditional medicine can do. What interests us now the most is getting to rescue the world population that is suffering.”The World Health Organization notes the use of products to treat COVID-19 that have not been robustly investigated can put people in danger.In a May 4 statement, the WHO said untested and unproven medicines give a false sense of security and distract from proven measures such as hand washing and physical distancing. 
…

Криза, пов’язана з поширенням коронавірусної інфекції, негативно вплинула на ринок праці, визнав під час засідання уряду 13 травня прем’єр-міністр України Денис Шмигаль. 

«Тільки з початку дії карантину майже 200 тисяч осіб отримали статус безробітного. Тому наша мета – не тільки збереження існуючих робочих місць завдяки програмам з підтримки бізнесу, а й створення нових», ¬– сказав Шмигаль.

За його словами, у сфері будівництва та дорожньої інфраструктури пропонується створення 154 тисяч робочих місць, 150 тисяч – у сфері благоустрою, 85 тисяч місць – у сільському господарстві.

На кінець 2020 року рівень безробіття в Україні перевищуватиме 9%, що вище за показник минулого року. Про це на засіданні уряду заявив міністр розвитку економіки, торгівлі та сільського господарства України Ігор Петрашко. За словами Петрашка, на кінець 2020 року рівень безробіття в Україні складе 9,4% (показник безробіття за 2019 рік склав 8,2%).
…