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New budget. The Seimas adopted the state budget for 2021. The deficit of the public administrations, the difference between expenses and income, will be 7% next year. Gross domestic product, mainly due to the additional costs of managing the coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė affirms that the tight budget project more transparently reflects the real situation, the increase in the budget hole is short-lived and inevitable. The opposition says the deficit is growing unreasonably, rapid debt growth could make long-term government loans more expensive, and plans to revise the stimulus plan could hamper access to the EU investment fund. During the approval of the budget, the decision of the parliamentarians to increase the budget of the Seimas Chancellery by one and a half million euros was met with contradictory evaluations.
Photo by Žygimantas Gedvila / 15min / Ingrida Šimonytė and Mykolas Majauskas
Coronavirus situation:
* In 1871 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed per day, 54 people died, the highest number of deaths per day since the beginning of the pandemic. 2,451 COVID-19 patients are treated in hospitals, 186 of them in resuscitation.
* Due to the closure of most UK roads due to a new strain of coronavirus, the Lithuanian Embassy is registering people who need assistance to return to Lithuania. Their transportation is organized together with Latvians and Estonians. Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė emphasizes that the aim will be to help the return of people who have been stranded in the UK due to business or other important reasons, and not those who want to return for holidays.
* The chair says that the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be available to several thousand doctors and people at risk each week. I.Šimonytė says that the knowledge about the exact number of doses that will come with the first batch and the subsequent vaccine delivery schedule changes several times a day. The COVID-19 vaccination of medical personnel will be coordinated by five hospitals in the country that treat the disease.
* According to the Council of Health Experts of the Presidency, a stricter quarantine has reduced the mobility of people and the number of visits to stores has been reduced by approximately 60 percent, similar to the first quarantine. This is expected to have a positive effect in stopping the spread of the virus.
* BioNTech says that a vaccine developed by Pfizer is likely to protect against a strain of coronavirus found in Britain. If necessary, the company says it is ready to tailor the vaccine if necessary within six weeks.
123RF.com nuotr./Vakcina
* Joe Biden, the 78-year-old president-elect of the United States, has been vaccinated live with COVID-19. In this way, he sought to strengthen American confidence in vaccines. Outgoing President Donald Trump has fallen ill with COVID-19, so he has not been vaccinated, but his Vice President, Mike Pence, has.
* After the detection of COVID-19 at the O’Higgins Scientific Station in Chile, 36 Antarctica ceased to be the only continent free of coronavirus. Despite the lack of permanent residents in Antarctica, thousands of researchers and other guests visited there during the winter.
* A massive coronavirus testing program has been launched in Slovenia. It is expected to control a quarter of the country’s two million people.
Retaliation. Moscow has issued retaliatory sanctions against various representatives of the European Union in response to the Community’s travel ban on various Russian officials for the poisoning of Russian opponent Alexei Navaln. Earlier Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned senior diplomats from Germany, France and Sweden to express dissatisfaction with their reaction to the Navaln poisoning.
Loan to Belarus. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a government resolution on one billion. Granting a loan in USD to Belarus. Half of this amount will be paid to the borrower at the end of this year and the other part, next year. This loan is for 1.5 billion pledged by Russian President Vladimir Putin three months ago. Part of financial assistance in US dollars to Belarus.
US package The United States Congress approved $ 900 billion. An economic stimulus package for the entire United States to support citizens and businesses facing the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
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