The World Health Organization (WHO) launched on Monday an urgent $7.7 billion appeal for the ACT-Accelerator initiative to curb the spread of new COVID-19 variants.
To address the spread of the Delta variant, the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response has been created, which is now in need of funding within the next four months.
"US$7.7 billion is needed urgently to fund the ACT-Accelerator’s work to address the Delta surge and put the world on track to ending the pandemic. This investment is a tiny portion of the amount governments are spending to deal with COVID-19 and makes ethical, economic and epidemiological sense. If these funds aren’t made available now to stop the transmission of Delta in the most vulnerable countries, we will undoubtedly all pay the consequences later in the year," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, stated on Monday.
The funding is planned to increase testing in poorer countries, enhance COVID-19 research and development, tackle the issue of oxygen shortage for the seriously ill, provide health workers with protective equipment, and tackle the lack of COVID-19 tools.
The ACT-Accelerator has been designed to facilitate the development and distribution of COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
Interpol issued on Monday a global alert to governments in connection with the growing number of cases of COVID-19 vaccine supply fraud.
"NTERPOL has issued a global alert for organized crime groups attempting to defraud governments with fake offers to sell COVID-19 vaccines," the agency said in a statement.
The alert came after about 60 cases in 40 countries where fraudsters, claiming to be representatives of vaccine manufacturers or vaccine distribution agencies, had approached health ministry officials and hospital employees about potential supply contracts, Interpol said.
The warning was reportedly sent to all 194 member countries, detailing the modus operandi used in the attempted scams based on the data received from real vaccine manufacturers. The information can be used by national law enforcement agencies to prevent criminal activities and ensure safe vaccine rollout, according to the statement.
This became the most recent in a series of warnings issued in relation to COVID-related crime threats, Interpol added.
The European Commission on Monday approved an aid program to support small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 22 EU member states.
"This new product will contribute significantly to the European Guarantee Fund's overall target to mobilise up to €200 billion [$235.6 billion] for the European economy, by helping to originate at least €13 billion of new lending by financial intermediaries to SMEs, which have been severely hit by the coronavirus outbreak," Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said.
The program is based on synthetic securitization. A financial entity, including banks and others, creates tranches against its pool of assets and buys protection on a specific tranche from a protection seller to transfer a part of the risk.
In this case, the European Investment Bank Group, which administers the European Guarantee Fund created for the EU response to the pandemic, will act as the protection seller, providing guarantees on a specific tranche for a portfolio of existing assets under certain conditions.
The product aims to provide lending capacities for financial intermediaries and encourage them to give loans to SMEs instead of focusing only on lower-risk assets.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has stepped down after 17 months in office. He had to leave office after the coalition collapsed, as several MPs withdrew their support citing a financial scandal and poor COVID-19 response. But the PM claimed that they were leaving because he refused to stifle corruption cases against them.
"I could have taken the easy way out by casting aside my principles to remain as prime minister -- but that is not my choice", he said in a televised address. "I will never work with kleptocrats".
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A COVID-19 shift to working from home has led to an "epidemic of hidden overtime" where workers never quite switch off, the UK report out Monday revealed.
The expectation that remote workers should be on 24 hours a day, seven days a week leads to burnout, a study by Autonomy think-tank found.
"By the end of 2020, the prevalence of mental distress among workers was 49% higher compared to 2017-19, and had increased across all major sectors", the research said.
It revealed that women were 43% more likely to have increased their hours beyond a standard working week than men, and for those with children this was even more clearly associated with mental distress.
"An astonishing 86% of women who undertake a standard working week alongside childcare, greater than or equal to the UK average, experienced mental distress during April 2020", it read.
The British think-tank proposed codifying the "right to disconnect" to protect workers from being penalized for refusing to perform their tasks outside of normal working hours.
TOKYO (Sputnik) - The Japanese government decided to impose the coronavirus-related state of emergency in seven more prefectures, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Monday.
The state of emergency will be imposed in Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyoko and Fukuoka prefectures starting from August 20.
"At a ministerial meeting, we made a decision tomorrow at an expert council to discuss the introduction of an emergency regime in these prefectures and a regime of enhanced measures to combat coronavirus. It is especially important to ensure the work of health centres", Suga said, as quoted by the NHK broadcaster.
At the same time, the state of emergency in several other prefectures, including Tokyo, Okinawa, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Osaka, will be extended to 12 September.
The Japanese capital registers approximately 5,000 COVID-19 cases daily in mid-August, while the number of daily detected new cases in the whole country topped 20,000 for the first time last week.
TOKYO (Sputnik) - Japanese government will prolong the state of emergency in Tokyo and five more prefectures, expanding it to cover three more prefectures, in a bid to halt a recent flare-up in COVID-19 cases, the Asahi newspaper reported on Monday.
In prefectures of Tokyo, Okinawa, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Osaka the state of emergency, which was due to expire on August 31, will be extended until mid-September. Apart from that, the state of emergency will be declared in Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, where milder restrictions are currently in force.
The government is expected to hold a meeting later on Monday, and on Tuesday the decision will be officially taken at the meeting of a governmental anti-coronavirus body following consultations with the experts’ council.
Tokyo registers some 5,000 infections daily, which is record high since the pandemic outbreak. Last week, the number of new COVID-19 cases throughout the country exceeded 20,000 for the first time. The situation is estimated by experts as critical. In Okinawa there are no free hospital beds for those with severe symptoms. On Monday, the number of patients in critical condition topped 1,600 for the first time.
