In response to a growing number of COVID-19 infections, the government in early August adopted new quarantine rules that divide communities into green, yellow, orange and red zones, with corresponding restrictions.
As of the first week that this policy has been in place, all the yellow, orange and red zones were in Western Ukraine. The biggest restrictions apply to the cities of Lutsk, Ternopil and the Kitsmansky district of Chernivtsi Oblast. The city of Lviv got an orange rating.
This has caused some outrage among local officials, who felt unfairly singled out based on confusing criteria. They also fear that harsh quarantine will destroy both their economies and their budgets. Some mayors said they would not comply, given that the government has to first impose a state of emergency before it can institute the planned restrictions.
“We do not know what calculations guided the (special commission for technogenic and environmental safety),” Lutsk mayoral adviser Ihor Polischuk told the media. “We cannot halt our city based on the commission’s wrong decision.”
Some experts criticized the formula for determining an area’s zone while others said that the government has done a poor job of explaining it.
Rising infections
Ukraine identified a record 1,318 new cases on Aug. 6 for the second day in a row. There are 32,465 active cases in the country and 5,280 people are hospitalized with COVID-19; 1,819 have died of the disease.
Several doctors and epidemiologists who spoke to the Kyiv Post believe that detection is partly on the rise because of more testing. But this is not the only reason, and it’s likely that the disease itself is also spreading faster.
Since the start of the epidemic, with the first recorded case in Ukraine on March 3, many virus cases have slipped through the cracks, either because of a poorly designed testing system and inconsistent recordkeeping by physicians or asymptomatic carriers.
“I think the main reason is that they are testing more,” said epidemiologist Alla Petrivna.
Still, she added that the number of patients has increased, with more, younger people now experiencing the illness with fewer symptoms and long-term consequences than the older population. A huge volume of cases is asymptomatic, she said.
Vladyslav Denysenko, a doctor specializing in respiratory diseases, agreed that more testing is likely revealing the truer figures, but added that the lifting of quarantine earlier has created the opportunity for more people to get sick. Additionally, many people do not follow safety precautions like wearing masks.
Pavlo Kovtonyuk, a former deputy health minister, said that the infection rate has shown a consistent pattern of spikes and leveling off since spring. Ukraine has not yet had a period in which the COVID-19 infection rate decreased significantly.
Kirill Mikhailov, a conflict analyst who has closely followed Ukraine’s COVID-19 response, said that the “growth in cases is exponential at this point.”
“The horror of exponential growth is that it shows new records every day, and we’ve seen it for two days in a row now,” he said. “I am not sure where this stops, although there is some hope when you look at places like Lviv (Oblast) where new cases haven’t gone much over 200 (per day) and have now migrated from the city into towns and rural areas.”
According to Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko, the percentage of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests coming back positive has slightly increased since July 28, from 7% to 8%.
Color-coded quarantine
The new system launched at the start of the month divides localities by one of four colors based on the severity of the virus’ spread.
Four primary variables guide this process. Yellow, orange or red regions have one of the following: more than 50% hospital bed occupancy; less than 24 PCR and antibody tests per 100,000 people; a detection rate of new infections above 11% or an infection growth rate of over 10%.
If a region lands on the commission’s radar, an itemized analysis of its various locales is performed to see who is having the worst problems before the color code is applied.
Several experts criticized this approach. Kovtonyuk said that adaptive quarantine remains necessary and the math behind the algorithm is sound. However, the policymakers’ interpretation of that math raises many questions.
In other words, it’s not clear how the commission decides which of the at-risk areas will get a yellow, orange or red rating.
Petrivna went farther, saying that she finds the classification system foolish, especially for considering the detection rate without taking into account the population size.
“I suspect it has a fatal flaw,” said Mikhailov. “So what it does is first it analyzes a region, and if any of the criteria is over the established norm, they single out the level of contribution into that criterion by district and then assign colors to those districts/cities.”
“So if a minor spike in new cases in a regional capital puts the entire region over the edge, it can easily put the regional capital in the red even though it’s just barely over the norm.”
Heavy burden
Per the new rules, Lutsk, Ternopil and the Kitsmansky district had to close businesses like cafes and shopping centers and halt public transport. Lutsk officials came out against the decision, but Volyn authorities said the quarantine would apply regardless.
Lutsk, a city of 217,000 people in Volyn Oblast, had registered 918 coronavirus cases since the beginning of the outbreak. Volyn Oblast had 956 active cases as of Aug. 1. And it tests more than many other regions.
The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, on the other hand, is a leader in new infections. At the start of the month, it had the second-highest number of active cases after Lviv Oblast. Yet, Kyiv is green on the threat map. Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko said it’s because “the indicators in Kyiv didn’t exceed the limits for five consecutive days.”
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadoviy told Novoye Vremya that by restricting what businesses can open and not making up the loss in revenue through aid, the government is dooming both the local economies and city budgets. He expects that the city will have a Hr 1 billion ($36.1 million) shortfall and 10% of enterprises will not reopen.
“On the one hand, I understand the feelings of government officials. But, on the other hand, such decisions are incomprehensible. What am I talking about? Throughout the world, when restrictions are imposed, a compensatory mechanism is provided by the state. Nobody provided assistance to Lviv, so the entire burden fell on the city budgets.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Bermet Talant contributed reporting.
