COVID-19 | News

The global health wearables market, already big, is expanding fast, as 320 million health and wellness devices dedicated to consumer market will be sold worldwide in 2022 and that figure could reach 440 million units by 2024, according to Deloitte 2022 TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) Predictions. Smartwatches are seeing rapid consumer adoption, as people use them not only to monitor steps by day (59%), workouts/athletic performance (42%) and heart health (37%), but also possible COVID-19 symptoms (11%), through functionalities such as alerts in case of low peripheral oxygen saturation - a life-threatening symptom that is hard for people to detect unassisted.

Goed nieuws: de coronapandemie in Europa kan wel eens beëindigd worden dankzij de omikronvariant. Directeur Hans Kluge van de Europese tak van de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie (WHO) spreekt over een ‘pandemisch eindspel’, waarna Covid-19 als een seizoensgriep wordt.

The Covid-19 outbreak has increased the importance of tracking mobility of individuals. A global research network has showcased how tracking and documenting movement of people can be of significant help to the government agencies during the pandemic. Maintaining such a database can help contain the spread of Covid-19 by offering clues to the potential hotspots, […]

More than half of companies worldwide (58%) expect an increase in taxation in their organization’s country of residence, as a result of the effects produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and 90% estimate more tax disputes due to the growing government deficits recorded in this context, according to the Deloitte 2021 Global Tax Survey: Beyond BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). Almost half (45%) of respondents expect more rigorous tax controls in their parent’s jurisdiction as a result of the pandemic, and 65% say that the tax authorities of those countries are increasing the use of data gathering and data analytics tools.

TeleDoc, one of the largest telemedicine providers in Eastern Europe, aims to get involved in the struggle against COVID-19 and provides 5.000 subscriptions, each valid for one week, so that Romanian patients can easily get in touch with a doctor. In case of need, the doctors from myTeleDoc app can address most of the common […]

Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2021. 12:00 PM. Location: Zoom Webinar - RSVP Required On Tuesday, November 2, the Stanford King Center on Global Development will host a Speaker Series with Penny Goldberg, Elihu Professor of Economics, Yale University. Goldberg will discuss supply chain disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, including issues related to vaccine distribution. The discussion will be moderated by Pete Klenow, Landau Professor in Economic Policy, Stanford University.  The Series features talks by distinguished scholars and policymakers with the goal of fostering discussions about successes and challenges in the field of poverty alleviation.

Date: Thursday, October 14, 2021. 4:00 PM. Location: Via Zoom Webinar Register: https://bit.ly/3ulFdLi Professor Mobarak will discuss his research on COVID-19 response in Bangladesh and beyond, including masking, vaccine equity, and appropriate pandemic response policies in low and middle income countries. He will provide an overview of the coauthored MaskNorm study, a randomized-trial of community-level mask promotion in rural Bangladesh during COVID-19 that demonstrates a scalable and effective method to promote mask adoption and reduce symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. He will also discuss efficient last-mile vaccine delivery in low-income countries and related research on the lower epidemiological and welfare value of social distancing in lower-income countries.

Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2021. 6:00 PM. Location: Zoom Description: This evening will be a special LASER, a fireside chat with Stanford virologist Catherine Blish on Covid-19 and the Virusphere. Register here:  https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4mh9Hg4pSkO_hho6XM0pBA Catherine Blish is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine and an Assistant Director of the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program. Her clinical focus is on infectious diseases. She received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Washington School of Medicine, where she then pursued a fellowship in Infectious Disease, with a research focus on immune correlates of HIV-1 infection. Her current research aims to understand the successes and failures of the immune system in order to better harness it to prevent infections. Her lab is perhaps best known for redefining our understanding of the diversity of human natural killer cells, a critical first line of defense against vi...

Despite the turmoil brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, family-owned enterprises have managed to stay resilient. The world’s largest 500 family businesses generated US$7.28t in revenues, employing 24.1m people across 45 jurisdictions. These and other findings were published today in the 2021 EY and University of St. Gallen Family Business Index which reveals how the […]

Some 70% of Romanian technology startups were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the average revenues of this type of business reach EUR150,000 countrywide, with a seniority below four years, per the survey “Impact of COVID19 on Tech Startups in Romania” initiated by the Romanian Tech Startups Association (ROTSA), in partnership with over 130 players in the national startup ecosystem.

FREE NOW, European leader in multimodal mobility services, expands the unique vaccination support initiative in Romania and continues to offer free rides to all passengers traveling in March through the FREE NOW taxi and ridesharing app to get immunized against Covid-19. The initiative launched by the FREE NOW group in February, with a total investment […]

COVID-19 has increased labour market inequalities between women and men, with more women losing or giving up their jobs during the pandemic, according to the PwC Women in Work Index  report, which measures female economic empowerment across Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.   Progress for women in work could be back at […]

REGINA MARIA Healthcare Network initiates the first study to evaluate the body’s immune response to vaccination against COVID-19. At the beginning of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved vaccines that have proven their efficacy and safety against COVID-19. The vaccination campaign has started successfully in Romania as well. The next step is to […]

Europeans' concerns regarding their financial and employment problems diminished in the first four months since the first COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the authorities have eased, according to Deloitte State of Consumer Tracker survey, with two-thirds of respondents being more open to the idea of making large purchases and more relaxed about the stability of their job. Nevertheless, Europeans are still as concerned about their physical well-being as they were during the lockdown (47% at the end of August, compared to 48% in May). European trends are in line with the global ones. The survey was conducted on 18,000 respondents from 18 countries, including nine European states - Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) said Thursday it was granting EUR190 million support to Romanian companies in manufacturing, commerce, agriculture and tourism, sectors that were hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Central Europe chief financial officers have reached a pessimism peak as their confidence about the economic outlook and the wider business environment continues to fall amid the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest Deloitte CE CFO Survey, conducted on more than 300 leading finance professionals in six countries - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Almost three quarters of the respondents (72%) stated they were less optimistic about their companies’ financial prospects than before the new coronavirus outbreak, with Polish leading the top of the pessimistic (79%), followed by Romanians (75%). The study also shows significant shifts in the perceived levels of uncertainty facing respondents’ businesses, considering that an average of 36% respondents felt a high level of external financial and economic uncertainty in the pre- outbreak edition of the survey, compared to almost 70%, in the latest edition.