Belgium could let workers ask for four-day work weeks

Feb 16 2022

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced on Tuesday that the country plans on giving employees the right to ask for a four-day workweek due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking to journalists, De Croo said that ‘the COVID period has forced us to work more flexibly – the labour market needs to adapt that.’

This would allow employees to work up to 38 hours of work over four days instead of five. This would come with no reduction of salary, but would also require workers to operate at a 100% capacity.

Any requests will need to be approved by the boss. In practice, therefore, the flexibility would only be an option for those working in big companies where the workload can be more easily distributed.

Unions are expected have their say on a draft bill before amendments are made. The legislation will then be scrutinised by the Council of State advising the government, before the parliament votes. It is expected to come into effect by the middle of this year.

According to OECD, the average workweek in Belgium is 35.5 hours. This compares with 36.5 weekly Horus in France or 38.7 hours in the US. Belgium would follow countries such as Iceland and Japan who tested four-day workweeks.

Malta is still not yet planning on implementing or testing a four-day work week. When asked, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said that the government would be willing to discuss the prospect once worker productivity and skillsets improved.

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Two glasses of wine could reach the daily sugar intake limit

Feb 16 2022

New research from the United Kingdom shows that with just two glasses of wine, a person could reach the limit of sugar that is suggested for a single day.

Alcohol Health Alliance UK analysed more than 30 bottles of wine and found that some had up to 59grams of sugar. The wine bottles analysed consisted of red, white, rose’, fruity and frizzy wines of brands popular in the UK.

No wine bottle possessed a nutritional information table due to this not being required by law. Only one bottle out of every five had information about the amount of calories. Calls are being issued to change this law in order to provide consumers with more information about sugar intake.

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Vaccinated mothers during pregnancy could protect babies from COVID-19

Feb 16 2022

A US government study released Tuesday has suggested that COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy could protect babies after they are born, leading to fewer hospitalised infants. This study is the first to show potential benefits to infants born to people who received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna jabs during pregnancy.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said during a briefing that it was already known that antibodies developed by the vaccine transfer to the foetus through the umbilical cord. How that might affect infants after birth was uncertain.

Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman, an obstetrician and CDC researcher, said that until this study, ‘we have not yet had data to demonstrate whether these antibodies might provide protection for the baby against COVID-19.’ During surges of Delta and Omicron, infants in the study were treated at 20 hospitals in 17 states between July 2021 and mid January. Researchers did not examine infection rates in infants.

They instead looked at data on 176 children under 6 months who were hospitalised with COVID-19 and 203 in the hospital for some other condition. The vaccination status of all the babies’ mothers were also taken into account. Vaccination rates were much lower among mothers of the COVID-19 infants than among those whose infants were hospitalised with some other disease – 16% compared with 32%. The researchers said that the results offer yet another reason for pregnant people to get vaccinated.

Around two-thirds of pregnant people in the US are fully vaccinated, with most getting the shot before pregnancy. Other shots such as for flu and whooping cough given in pregnancy are known to protect mothers and infants.

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29 new vehicles issued onto Malta’s roads everyday

Feb 16 2022

According to latest data by the National Statistics Office (NSO), Malta has seen 29 new vehicles issued onto its roads on a daily basis last year.At the end of 2021, there were more than 413,000 licensed vehicles on Maltese roads, with 75% of these being passenger vehicles.

Almost 14% of these cars were commercial vehicles whereas motorcycles and scooters made up around 9% of the vehicles. Less than 1% were buses, coaches and/or mini buses. Statistics also revealed that six out of every ten vehicles are powered by petrol and almost 38% by diesel. Only 1.6% are electrically powered or hybrid vehicles, despite the emphasising of incentives towards a sustainability switch for Malta’s transport.

Traffic has always been deemed a problem for Malta’s roads, with new projects seeking to address this issue. However, road works have also been pointed at for jamming car queues in several localities. Back in November, Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia revealed that the government aims to have up to 65,000 electric cars on the road by 2030. This is also part of Malta’s plan to reduce carbon emissions to 19% by 2030, which is set to cost €2 billion to achieve.

The turn to a greener approach when it comes to transport has seen many new charging points installed in several localities. Public transport was also made free of charge as of October 2022 to push for more usage.

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