senate) released a joint statement indicating the suspension of their activities from 15 march to 5 april due to the pandemic. the government itself has also been greatly affected by the coronavirus. during a special meeting of the council of ministers on 17 march, the minister of the national economy acacia bandubola mbongo began to present symptoms. she and her husband subsequently tested positive for covid-19, having been contaminated by her brother and cabinet minister dédié bandubola upon his return from a trip to france. the latter died a few days later, marking the first death of a congolese citizen from the virus. several other government ministers were tested for covid-19 after having attended the same meeting, but only minister of justice célestin tunda ya kasende made his "negative" test result public. several other people close to president félix tshisekedi tested positive, with some even dying, including his uncle and leader of the civil cabinet gérard mulumba kalemba and jean-joseph mukendi wa mulumba, bâtonnier and former political advisor to étienne tshisekedi. on 3 april, former health minister and member of the common front for congo félix kabange numbi mukwampa criticized the government's decision to only confine the gombe municipality instead of confining all of kinshasa. he also stated his belief that the government has not been capable of helping the country's poorest populations, saying that he fears their reactions if the number of deaths increases. a political crisis began to simmer in the heart of the ruling coalition; the president of the national assembly jeannine mabunda and senate president alexis thambwe mwamba, both close to former president joseph kabila, accused felix tshisekedi of having declared a state of emergency without prior parliamentary authorization and attempted to organize a congress to "correct this irregularity." the presidential camp refused, and the constitutional court eventually ruled in favor of the chief of state. a vote to extend the state of emergency by two weeks passed on 23 april, putting an end to the political crisis. by 28 may 2021, 32 members of the drc parliament, making up 5% of the mps, died due to covid. economic on 22 april, the international monetary fund (imf) announced its decision to release 363.27 million dollars in order to help the drc as a part of its rapid credit facility plan. 27 april, prime minister sylvestre ilunga announced that the eleven billion-dollar budget planned for 2020 would not be able to be implemented due to the pandemic. the economic context has indeed been greatly impacted; the drc, having an outward-oriented economy, is very dependent on its commerce with the rest of the world. this budget, approved in late 2019, was at the time criticized by the imf, who found it to be "unrealistic." in addition, lockdown measures are difficult to implement and enforce economically, especially in kinshasa, where a large portion of the population lives in precarious conditions. the movement lutte pour le changement said it feared a "humanitarian catastrophe or riots" when authorities announced the lockdown towards the end of march 2020. the lockdown risks to deprive many residents of their income, even exposing some to the risk of starvation, since preventing people from leaving their home effectively prevents them from being able to earn money to feed themselves. social distancing and confinement endanger the informal economy that employs more than 77% of the congolese population and allows many households to survive from day to day. social an explosion in cases of domestic violence against women was observed during the lockdown, with victims being forced to remain shut away with their abusers. an increase in divorces in kinshasa was also observed. the rise in the unemployment rate, already underway in kinshasa before the pandemic, intensified, and a resurgence of banditry (most notably armed robbery) also occurred. following school closures, 27 million congolese children were deprived of education according to unicef. a television channel created in 2019 by the minister of education called "educ-tv" provided educational programs to try to solve this problem. on 26 april 2020, a radio-based learning program was launched by the government. radio-télévision nationale congolaise and radio okapi also provided educational programs with the support of unicef. a distribution of education kits was also planned for 25 million children.