sciencemag.org (06.11.2020) Telemedicine comes in many shapes and sizes and offers many advantages over the traditional healthcare visit, but until recently, it was largely underutilized. The COVID-19 pandemic quickly changed that—only time will tell if telemedicine’s new popularity will last.  On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, radically changing the way medicine is practiced.

Immediately before the pandemic, 300 enterprise Mayo Clinic physicians and advanced practice providers had performed a minimum of one video telemedicine consult in the preceding year. By July 15, 2020, the number of Mayo Clinic providers performing video telemedicine consults had risen to >6,500, reflecting a 2,000% increase. Through this pandemic, we have witnessed unprecedented growth in telemedicine utilization. The existing telemedicine system has proven to be scalable.

dw.com (10.05.2021) Heads of the bloc's 27 member states hope to reduce social and economic inequalities that have widened during the coronavirus pandemic.

politico.eu (06.05.2021) Leaders are facing social-welfare policy questions for a changed world. Their answers could alter the EU’s relationship with member states.

institutdelors.eu (03.05.2021) Three and a half years after the Gothenburg Summit, which resulted in the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), heads of State and government will meet once again on 7 and 8 May 2021 for the Porto Social Summit.

Euronews (05.05.2021) What happens when job retention schemes come to an end in Europe? Job retention schemes have kept millions of people in work during the pandemic and lockdowns. As these emergency measures are gradually phased out, how does Europe ensure there are enough jobs and that people have the right skills for the jobs of the future?

oecd.org (29.04.2021) Active labour market policies (ALMPs) that connect people to jobs will help to ensure an equitable and sustained recovery from the COVID‑19 crisis. Already in 2020, many governments reacted swiftly to the crisis by increasing funding for their public employment services (PES), training programmes and measures to increase labour demand. This has allowed the PES to hire additional staff and expand remote and digital accessibility to ensure service continuity.

EURACTIV.com (12.03.2021) Spain’s government announced a deal that will recognise riders working for delivery firms such as Deliveroo and UberEats as salaried staff following complaints about their working conditions — a first in the EU. The move came six months after Spain’s leftwing government pledged to clarify the legal status of couriers working for online delivery firms, saying they should be considered employees rather than “gig” workers.

reuters.com (02.05.2021) Australia's conservative government will increase childcare subsidies, officials said on Sunday, in a pre-budget announcement that pledges A$1.7 billion ($1.31 billion) to boost female participation in the workplace. The spending targets families with more than one child in daycare, boosting subsidies for those with two or more children aged up to five years-old to a maximum 95% subsidy for their second and subsequent children.

moroccoworldnews.com (28.04.2021) On April 14, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI presided over the signing of three framework agreements to generalize obligatory health insurance for a wide range of social categories, including professionals, self-employed workers, and non-salaried individuals exercising a private activity. The historic reform will cost MAD 51 billion ($5.71 billion) annually, of which MAD 23 billion ($2.57 billion) will come from the state budget. The reform includes several objectives.

ipcig.org  (09.04.2021) The fourth and last section of the Policy in Focus1 magazine analyses the social protection responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Asian countries

Bloomberg (28.04.2021) President Joe Biden will unveil on Wednesday a sweeping $1.8 trillion plan to expand educational opportunities and child care for families, funded in part by the largest tax increases on wealthy Americans in decades -- the centerpiece of his first address to a joint session of Congress. Called the American Families Plan, Biden’s third major legislative proposal combines $1 trillion in spending with $800 billion in tax cuts and credits for middle- and lower-income families.

blogs.worldbank.org (26.04.2021) In the months after the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), countries across the region acted quickly to limit the spread of the virus. Lockdowns, curfews, and social distancing undoubtedly saved lives, but these necessary actions also constrained businesses and economies. Communities suffered from the loss of jobs and livelihoods, the closure of schools and markets, and the damage to businesses, many of which may never recover.

A bill seeking to distribute financial and production support amounting to P15,000 to at least one million small fisherfolks in the country has been filed in Congress. This, as the income of small fishermen already went down to as low as P150 per fishing trip more than a year into the pandemic. In a statement, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) backed the said bill, which aims to “pump-prime the wheels of production” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Estonian Medical Certificate Every person needs to have a valid medical certificate for the duration of their driving license. When a medical certificate expires, a new medical certificate must be submitted to the Road Administration. Once issued, the certificate is automatically transmitted to the motor registry.

How has Estonia applied Blockchain technology to the e-Government system? Lina Network | September 7, 2020 Blockchain is considered as the key technology in e-Government development thanks to its undeniable advantages and potential. From a technical point of view, Blockchain technology increases efficiency, provides data protection and transparency. However, many countries still face certain obstacles when applying Blockchain to e-Government.

Estonia may perhaps be the earliest adopter of distributed ledger technology at a governmental level. As early as 2007, even before the publication of the Bitcoin white paper, the Estonian government was already testing blockchain applications as part of a resolution to be resilient to outsider cyberattacks. e-Estonia, a government policy to facilitate citizen interactions with the state through the use of electronic solutions, has been testing and implementing blockchain in relation to public services for many years.

Digital transformation in the health sector is not a simple matter of technical change, but requires adaptive change in human attitudes and skills as well as of legal frameworks and  the organisation of work. 

Description

This report follows the meeting, Rehabilitation 2030: A Call for Action, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO would like to express its sincere thanks to those who participated in the meeting: representatives from Member States, UN agencies, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, editors of journals, academia, institutions and WHO collaborating centres.

socialeurope.eu (20.04.2021) The labour status of people working in the online platform economy is key to their socio-economic protection. But it has proven a difficult issue for courts and regulators. The European Union is considering introducing a ‘rebuttable presumption of employment’ to help address this problem. What could this entail exactly? 

Le Maroc a annoncé avoir lancé auprès de 9 millions de bénéficiaires son plan de généralisation de la couverture sociale destiné à terme à couvrir 22 millions de personnes actuellement dépourvues d'assurance maladie. Les agriculteurs, les artisans, les commerçants, les professionnels indépendants et leurs familles seront les premiers inclus dans le régime de l'assurance maladie obligatoire (AMO) en 2021 et 2022.

The World Bank (March 2021) The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the largest economic downturns since the Great Depression. Beyond its devastating effect on health, morbidity, and mortality, the pandemic shook economies and labor markets around the globe, leaving no firm, worker, and household untouched. Governments responded to the crisis with a series of public health and containment measures that deeply affected societies and economies, including the supply and demand for goods, capital, and labor.

dol.gov (06.03.2121)

The U.S. Senate approved a Republican measure setting federal unemployment benefits for those made jobless by the coronavirus pandemic at $300 per week, as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.