The economic measures come as the country enters its seventh day of national lockdown.
Mérida, March 23, 2020 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government announced a series of measures on Sunday in attempts to protect the population from the economic effects of the coronavirus crisis. Speaking on a live televised address, President Nicolas Maduro instructed that all commercial and residential rent, as well as all capital and loan interest payments, are to be suspended for six months.
Public- and private- sector workers will receive a special government bonus, and wages of small and midsize companies will be paid by the state until September. A pre-existing workplace stability decree has also been extended until the end of the year, outlawing job dismissals as a result of the quarantine.
Loan appeals by small and medium businesses are to be fast-tracked, and a special agricultural investment plan will look to guarantee the contents of the subsidised Local Food Production and Provision Committees (CLAP) food boxes for a reported seven million families. Telecommunications companies have also been barred from cutting off customers for six months.
Upon unveiling the measures, Maduro promised to use “all his power and consciousness to protect jobs” and the most vulnerable in society during the quarantine lockdown.
While grassroots organisations such as the Tenants’ Movement applauded the measures, business leaders such as Alan Celis, president of the Venezuelan Industry Confederation, claimed they “fall short”. Celis also highlighted the need to end the acute fuel shortages in the country in order to restart the economy.
Also in response to the government measures, economic analyst Francisco Rodriguez explained on Monday that US-led sanctions limit the Maduro administration’s ability to inject public funds into the economy. According to Rodriguez, the response to the virus could be improved if the country could access US $7 billion he alleged are currently blocked in international accounts.
“When international financing is blocked, [countries applying sanctions] aren’t just refusing funds to the government. Society also pays a high price, and the amount which all of the Venezuelans have to pay to confront the pandemic increases” he explained.
Last week, Venezuela had a US $5 billion loan appeal to help fight the coronavirus rejected by the International Monetary Fund. The Washington-based organisation justified the move by stating that it does not have “clarity on recognition” of the Maduro administration.
trump calling the Coronavirus the “Chinese virus” is so fucking disgusting. if that doesn’t prove to you how alive and prevalent racism is today, I don’t know what will. (not that the people who need to understand the severity of it are capable of caring, otherwise they’d already admit that it still exists.) viruses do not have races!!!! why do you think everyone is capable of getting it!?
Zika virus. Ebola. Spanish flu. It’s not a new thing for viruses to be named after location or people. If you keep reaching that hard you’re going to strain something.
Calling it the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” is racist. It already has a name, so there is no point in attaching it to Chinese people. It’s ignorant and offensive stigma.
That would be like calling Ebola (which was named after a river, not an entire ethnicity) or Zika (which was named after a forest, also not an entire ethnicity) the “African virus.”
Why is this so complicated for you to understand? How are you not recognizing the difference?
(As a side note, the Spanish flu is called such because the pandemic received more press in Spain than anywhere else. Spain was one of the few major European countries to stay neutral during World War I, so they did not have wartime censors to suppress news about the flu to avoid affecting morale like the Allied and Central Powers did. The Spanish flu didn’t originate in Spain, they just brought the most attention to it. If that’s your argument, then maybe COVID-19 should be called the “American flu” since our media has blown it up so much more?)
It should also be noted that, ethically, you’re not supposed to name diseases after places! It’s genuinely not helpful. It’s more helpful to refer to diseases by their causes (like COVID-19, being a coronavirus infectious disease) or their symptoms (like scarlet fever, which has the primary symptoms of fever and body rash).
It’s not just COVID-19, either. There’s been a push to rename Lyme disease, which is named after the American town of Lyme, something like bullseye borreliosis (can’t recall the name off the top of my head). The bacteria is in the Borrelia family, and the bullseye rash is the signature symptom- much more helpful to someone who doesn’t know what’s going on!
And suddenly the world is realising that there’s a reason all these supposedly ‘shitty’ jobs exist, and that’s because it’s bloody hard for society to function without them.
[ID: Britney and dancers performing ‘Gimme More’. Right before Britney can begin, a guy screams ‘WHO IS IT?’. Britney laughs and says ‘It’s Britney, bitch’, resuming the routine.]
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