Ukraine won’t survive another lockdown.
That is the fundamental premise of the country’s health ministry as it attempts to slow the spread of COVID‑19, which has increased dramatically since the beginning of September.
Ukraine now regularly registers over 5,000 new cases and 100 or more deaths a day. In total, more than 5,300 Ukrainians have died from this virus. Often, over 700 people are hospitalized a day, and hospital beds are filling up quickly. Something has to be done to save the lives of Ukrainians before the health care system collapses. The threat is extreme.
“We will propose strict measures in the country,” Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said on Oct. 13.
The first measure would be a ban on mass events. Since Kyiv has moved from the “yellow” quarantine zone to the more severe “orange” one, mass events will now be banned, gyms and cultural establishments will be required to close and restaurants will have to cease operations at 10 p. m. Most other oblast capitals are also in the orange zone.
Additionally, the country sent its schoolchildren on an early vacation and announced that universities would switch to remote learning.
Hospitals are filling up, so the authorities are planning to add more beds.
It sounds like a plan, but it isn’t one; it’s a pantomime.
Rather than actually making the difficult and unpopular decisions required to save lives, the government would prefer to imitate an anti-coronavirus strategy to save face, including with these measures, which won’t help much, because Ukraine has failed at the fundamentals. It doesn’t enforce mask-wearing, so most people go around unmasked. In absence of firm leadership, conspiracy theories about COVID‑19 are spreading, and many don’t believe in the virus.
We at the Kyiv Post don’t want another lockdown. We are a business and we know this will destroy our bottom line. But unless the government gets serious about COVID‑19, it will face one of two choices: a new lockdown or mass deaths.
Ukrainians have an understandable resistance to authoritarianism. But enforcing basic rules — requiring masks, placing public health over the whims of politicians — is not dictatorship. It is leadership.
Zelensky and his government better get serious about coronavirus soon. Otherwise, it won’t just be new graves in Ukraine’s cemeteries and damage to his political career. It will be angry Ukrainians dancing on the grave of Zelensky’s political career and his reputation as a person.
