Singapore to provide financial aid to would-be parents during COVID-19 pandemic

While addressing parliament on Monday, October 5 Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat stated that the government would be providing would-be parents with a one-time payment in an effort to help them during the COVID-19 pandemic. As per feedback that Singapore’s government has received from the people, some couples that were planning to have kids had been forced to hold off on their plans to the negative impacts of the virus and therefore this one-time payment is to provide them with support.

Financial aid for Singapore's would-be parents

During his address, the Deputy Prime Minister did not divulge any details of the plan such as how much cash incentive will be provided or when but stated that the relevant details will be announced at a later date. This proposed support will be in addition to the financial support of $7,000 in benefits already provided to eligible parents. As per government data, Singapore has one of the lowest birthrates in the world and the negative economic repercussions of COVID-19 like pay cuts and lay-off will only further hurt its fertility rate.

Child Mortality rates in developing countries to Increase

The World Bank has projected that due to the COVID-19 pandemic child mortality can go up by nearly 45 per cent in developing countries. World Bank President David Malpass has stated that “Our early estimates suggest a potential increase of up to 45 per cent in child mortality because of health service shortfalls and reduction in access to food”.

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The ongoing pandemic is also likely to negatively impact the education sector because due to COVID restrictions almost 2 billion children across the globe have been out of school and these could potentially amount to a loss of $10 trillion in lifetime earnings.

The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 35 million people worldwide with the global death toll crossing 1,000,000. The US has reported more than 7.5 million positive COVID-19 cases and a death toll of over 210,000.

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