The COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of pressure on health care services and elderly care. Staff have had an extremely heavy and often stressful workload and have worked very hard. The risk of mental ill health may have increased. This is why the Government proposes funds to support staff in regional and municipal health care and elderly care in its autumn amending budget for 2020. This will make money available for crisis support, counselling and trauma support. The proposal is based on an agreement between the government parties, the Centre Party and the Liberal Party.

EU Reporter (27.08.2020) German coalition parties agreed on Tuesday (25 August) to extend measures to cushion the effects of the coronavirus crisis on Europe’s biggest economy at a cost of up to €10 billion, including prolonging a short-time work scheme and freezing insolvency rules, write Andreas Rinke, Holger Hansen and Madeline Chambers and Joseph Nasr in Berlin. 

The BG BAU (Berufsgenossenschaft der Bauwirtschaft/construction industry) provides various information material for protection against corona. Please find attached the links to the different materials. (Attention: Most of them only exist in German).

The scientific community's understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spreads is evolving. This COVID-19 Clearinghouse was established as a central resource for construction employers and workers to find the latest research, guidance documents, training and other resources to help prevent the spread of the disease as construction work continues in some markets and starts up in others.

This website  of the  Special Commission on Prevention presents international examples in 5 languages for small and medium sized enterprises in almost all areas of occupational safety and health. A new topical cluster on Corona has now been set up to support small and medium-sized companies on how to adress the COVID-19 at the workplace.

The International Section on Prevention in Transportation, together with its member BG Verkehr, has produced five fact sheets on Covid-19 protective measures for various transportation sectors in six languages.

The Special Commission on Prevention  has set up a Corona information portal for small and medium-sized enterprises, which features a range of international views and examples: https://safety-work.org/en/topics/corona.html.

The website is available in 5 languages

In wake of the COVID-19 crisis and nationwide lockdown, India has been grappling with unprecedented challenges that range from maintaining law and order, access to medical facilities, food, social security to availability of medical facilities. The newest hurdle to have joined this bandwagon has been a systematic increase in incidents of attacks and harassment of its nurses, doctors and other medical personnel. Fueled by paranoia and fear in an increasingly trying time, these ill-informed attacks seem to target medical professional who are feared to be carrying and spreading the diseases.

„Corona-Spezial“ nennt sich ein neues Lern- und Unterweisungsmodul der BGHW. Die Beschäftigten lernen, wie sie sich richtig verhalten, um eine mögliche Ansteckung mit dem Coronavirus zu vermeiden. Das Modul ist Teil des Online-Lernprogramms (WBT) „Sicher arbeiten – Gesundheit schützen“ der BGHW.

„Corona-Spezial“ kann zur betrieblichen Unterweisung eingesetzt werden. In Videosequenzen sowie durch spielerische und interaktive Elemente werden wichtige organisatorische Maßnahmen und Verhaltensregeln erklärt, um Infektionen zu vermeiden.

The New York Times (22.05.2020) More than a third of America’s Covid-19 deaths can be traced back to these facilities. Experts suggest several ways to make them safer.