With so much uncertainty over the future financial safety of so many people in the world today, governments are scrambling into action to try and solve the situation.
With the present economic forecast making 2008 look like a walk in the park, governments are doing everything they can to find a solution as soon as they can.
One such solution stems from the United States, where US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has announced that U.S. taxpayers will have a three-month extension for income tax payment.
This is part of a $1tn economic stimulus system that is hoped to help stem some of the flow in the COVID-19 outbreak. The federal government is now expected to offer a 90-day business filing and individual filing deferral.
This will mean that you can defer income tax payments and corporation tax payments of $1m and $10m respectively. This will mean that anyone who has not paid up before the April 15th deadline does not have to worry quite so much as they did today.
However, Mnuchin also said that Americans who can file their taxes should do so as they will still receive their tax refunds.
Speaking about the situation in his address, Mnuchin also said that a mega-stimulus plan is being designed to help further improve the economic situation for many Americans.
This could include small business payments, loan guarantees in some industries, and payment in the form of around $1,000 for US citizens who meet certain criteria. Speaking about this, Mnuchin said:
"You can think of this as something like business interruption payments for the American workers. I think it's clear we don't need to send people who make a million dollars a year checks, but [check payments are] one of the ideas we like. We're going to preview that today and we'll be talking about details afterward."
"If we do this right, our country and the world... can be rolling again"
The aim is for stimulus payments to be sorted and arranged in around two weeks. With many Americans needing help now, though, that might not be quick enough.
Still, it’s heartening to see governments moving in some kind of speed to come up with solutions to help improve the situation for the many working Americans who are now in a precarious situation.
Mnuchin continued, saying: "This is critical to American workers, it's critical to American business, and it's critical to American savers who have a lot of that money in money market funds. We heard loud and clear there were liquidity issues, this is very significant."
"If we do this right, our country and the world, frankly ... can be rolling again pretty quickly. We have to fight that invisible enemy that I guess is unknown, but we're getting to know it a lot better."
This is a deeply challenging situation for everyone, but it looks like the US Government might have a clear plan of action to at least try and find a solution.
It might not work, but the global response to this already seems a lot more empathetic and helpful than the 2008 response to the economic collapse worldwide.