Eunice Yung Calls For Relief For Stressed Parents

New People's Party legislator Eunice Yung is calling for more support for parents working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking on RTHK's "Letter to Hong Kong", Yung, a mother of two, said parents were stressed because they also had to help their children with online classes. Schools have been closed since the Chinese New Year holidays in January due to the pandemic.

"To reduce any unwanted friction among family members, the government should also instigate a contingent assistance scheme for those families with special needs, including strengthening caregiver relief support and 24-hour online counselling services," she said. "In fact, NGOs and social workers are more than welcome to play an active role in assisting parents dealing with stress."

Yung also called for more help for people, who hadn't been able to benefit from government relief packages.

"Despite the Government announcing two economic stimulus packages - to the amount of HK$30 billion and HK$167.5 billion respectively..., the relief packages fail to cover casual workers, freelancers and the recently unemployed," she said.

Quoting the government's own figures, Yung said the unemployment rate here could rise to 5 percent from 3.4 percent because of the Covid-19 outbreak, an increase of nearly 50 percent.