How Much Are Countries Spending On Fighting COVID-19?

The UK, Italy, and Australia are some of the latest countries to be heavily affected by COVID-19. The pandemic is not only taking lives but also damaging the economy in these countries.

Governments have been taking measures to fight the coronavirus and that requires a lot of money. In total, governments across the globe either have promised to or are considering to spend around $130 billion. In some countries, governments have allocated new money to hand out cash and medical care to people while others are planning measures like loan support and tax breaks.

We record new confirmed cases and new deaths every day, and along with that is the increase in fiscal response. So the following are how much money some governments are spending to fight COVID-19.

China hasn’t had a large-scale spending plan or monetary easing announcement. But its upcoming measures will likely include increasing local-governments special-bond quota, phased tax cuts, as well as more fiscal transfers from the central government to local COVID-19 regions.

In terms of Japan, the total money allocated to fight the pandemic since February has reached $19.6 billion. The country’s upcoming measures will likely include nearly $4 billion allocated to aid medical professionals as well as people affected by school closures.

Meanwhile, South Korea allocated $9.7 billion in a special budget for aiding medical response, households, and businesses. The country also applied rent subsidies and tax breaks.

Australia has allocated $11.4 billion to fight COVID-19, including an amount to help safeguard jobs for 120,000 people and small firms.

In Indonesia, the government has launched a second support package that includes relaxed import rules on several goods, delayed income tax and corporate tax payments. Also, the country unveiled in February a $712 million package including fiscal incentives, along with grants to local governments as well as boosting social security funds.

On the other hand, Thailand will spend about $12.7 billion to help deal with counter virus effects.

The Italian government is ready to spend up to $28.3 billion on measures against COVID-19 to aid companies and individuals.

The UK announced a $15.3 billion package, about half of it will come to an emergency response fund of the National Health Service, sick pay for self-quarantined people, as well as aid for businesses.

The US is the latest to announce its measures to fight COVID-19, which will likely result in a total of $200 billion.

As per India, we don't know how much the government has spent on coping with the pandemic yet, but with new cases every day, COVID-19 will surely cost a lot.

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