Welcome to Naked News, I’m Eila Adams. The coronavirus pandemic is definitely dominating the headlines these days. And anyone who thought it would magically go away when it got warm outside is not having a very good time right now! There are still a number of hotspots around the world, including the U.S., which hit an unfortunate milestone this week. Laura’s in the naked newsroom with an update.
Eila, it’s official: America has now passed THREE MILLION coronavirus cases. Which is particularly upsetting when you consider it passed the TWO million cases milestone less than a month ago! And with infections rising in the vast majority of states and daily records being set for new cases, four million might not be too far off.
If you needed reminding this is a GLOBAL pandemic, Melbourne has had to go back into lockdown. The roughly five million inhabitants of Australia’s second-largest city will spend six weeks confined to their homes, only allowed to leave for essential reasons. And the borders between Melbourne’s state of Victoria and its neighboring states have been closed.
And because we can’t ignore the economics of the pandemic, here’s one that hits close to home: Canada’s government is spending at levels not seen since World War II. Its deficit is projected to be roughly 343 BILLION dollars, which is about a quarter of a TRILLION in American money! That’s a thousand percent increase over last year and roughly TEN times what it was projected to be pre-pandemic. A third of the country is unemployed and their GDP is projected to shrink this year by 7 percent, the worst since the Great Depression. Some pretty sobering economic news for us Canadians, Eila.
I know governments are supposed to spend when times are bad, and save when they’re good… but it’s still scary stuff.
And Canada’s not alone. There are countless countries who are in the same or similar economic shape because of this pandemic.
That just means higher taxes for everyone, so get ready for it! We’ll see you in a bit, Laura. All right, now, we’re used to politicians saying some crazy things, but a Florida congressional candidate has taken “saying crazy things” NEXT-LEVEL, and of all people, BEYONCE is his target! Here’s Marina Valmont with the bizarre details.
