Covid-19 Emergency Aid
In what the Deutsche Fußball Liga, the association responsible for professional football in Germany, calls an "act of solidarity" Champions League clubs FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig will provide a combined €20 million with the goal to support other Bundesliga clubs that will suffer financially from coronavirus effects. "We have always said that we will show solidarity when clubs, through no fault of their own, get into an imbalance as a result of this absolutely exceptional situation that they can no longer control on their own", Dortmund Chairman of the Board Hans-Joachim Watzke said in a joint statement.
The Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that all rent payments as well as interest payments on capital and loans are going to be suspended until September. In addition to this he guaranteed all workers their wages, which the state will pay for small and mid sized companies. In addition to this lay-offs that are the consequence of the coronavirus have been banned.
Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã and São Paulo's Pacaembu stadiums are being converted into field hospitals to increase the number of available beds to tackle the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
The e-commerce company implemented a fund to support "employees and partners" and contributed $25 million in funds themselves. In addition to this, the company opened up the fund for outside donations stating "While we aren’t expecting anyone to do so, you can make a voluntary donation to the fund if you desire to do so" on their website.
The online platform has announced that it'll donate in total 50,000 surgical masks to different organizations in the state of New York, as well as donating €50,000 to various organizations across Europe including countries like Germany, Italy and Spain. Additionally, the company will donate $25,000 to the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) in order to "to meet immediate requests for support from sex workers impacted by COVID-19".
The wave of responses came within hours of the government's plea for an 'army' of 250,000 volunteers to support paid staff. They will help to deliver important supplies, transport patients and make phone calls to check on those isolated alone.
The foundation has announced that the money will go to different initiatives and groups in order to "to immediately mobilize a broad response working with on-the-ground partners". The goal is to support food banks, the acceleration of testing, to buy protective equipment and other measurements. The foundation is distributing the money to multiple countries including the United States, Haiti and Malawi.
The German government presented a plan to help all kinds of businesses, including small companies, freelancers as well as large businesses. The plan includes credit guaranties as well as direct investments into companies and special financial support for hospitals. Regulations regarding Germanys short-time work and welfare programs as well as bankruptcy rules will be eased, and landlords will no longer be able to evict due to missing rent payments. The German Bundestag and Bundesrat still needs to accept the plans.