Vladimir Putin held a meeting, via videoconference, with heads of Russian regions on combating the spread of the novel coronavirus infection in the country, presidential web page reports.
Listing various measures by the authorities in response to the current situation, he suggested “to introduce, for three months starting in April, a special federal payment for specialists working directly with coronavirus patients who risk their health every moment”, ranging from RUR 25K ($335) to RUR 80K ($1,080).
Other proposals are “additional payments to families eligible for maternity capital in the amount of RUR 5K ($65) per month for each child up to three years of age, in April, as well as in May and June; unemployment benefits in April, March and June at the upper limit of RUR 12,130 ($160); for families with children where parents are temporarily unemployed, in addition to unemployment benefits and payments for families with children, additional RUR 3K ($40) a month for each minor child over the next three months.”
The President noted that in the national economy “demand is dropping, orders are being scaled back, many companies are facing hard times, especially in the services sector, many of them are closed.” Yet “the economy should not be stopped. We should not close down transport, freight or passenger traffic between the regions and massively restrict the work of enterprises. It is important to minimize crisis developments and cushion the blow for businesses whose losses are quite serious and can be even heavier.” He therefore suggested “allowing all the hard hit small and medium-sized businesses to postpone insurance payments to the social funds for six months.”
As for the general public, the government is “to work out a mechanism to automatically renew passports, driver’s licenses and other IDs for at least three months.”
“Russia has suffered through many ordeals,” he said in conclusion, “and got through it all. We will also defeat this infection.”