Ukraine has registered 4,489 new cases of COVID-19 as of 9 a.m. on Feb. 21, bringing the total number of cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to over 1.3 million.
In the past 24 hours, 1,557 COVID-19 patients have recovered and 58 have died.
Over 1.1 million people have recovered from COVID-19 and 25,103 have died since the pandemic hit Ukraine.
There are currently 133,280 active cases in Ukraine.
In the past 24 hours, Ukrainian laboratories have carried out 19,616 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and 13,086 antibody tests. Over 6.6 million PCR tests have been conducted since the start of the pandemic.
The largest numbers of new cases have been recorded in Ivano-Frankivsk (618), Vinnytsia (482), Zhytomyr (365), Chernivtsi (320) and Zakarpattia (281) oblasts.
On Jan. 25, Ukraine reopened after the lockdown that has been in place since Jan. 8. The work of all non-essential businesses has now resumed.
Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said that the ministry had no plans to impose a new country-wide lockdown in March or April because the January lockdown yielded good results and stabilized the situation.
Still, on Feb. 17, Stepanov said that Ukraine will extend its COVID-19 quarantine restrictions until April 30.
Starting Feb. 24, the country returned to a so-called “adaptive quarantine” where each oblast is assigned one of four epidemiological levels, depending on the COVID-19 situation there. There are green, yellow, orange and red levels. A red status means that a lockdown will be imposed locally.
Initially, all of Ukraine was designated yellow, meaning most of the current restrictions will stay in force.
Three Ukrainian oblasts, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia, will have their entertainment businesses and restaurants shut down for a week starting Feb. 22 because of the spikes in the number of cases, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko said on Feb. 19.
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast has also imposed the level “red” quarantine shutting down all the non-essential businesses and banning mass events on Feb. 22-28.
According to Liashko, the surge in Western Ukraine was caused by winter tourism. All three oblasts have numerous resorts in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, a popular winter destination in the country.
Read more: Ukraine extends quarantine until April 30, updates restrictions
According to the law passed by the government on Jan. 13, businesses have to refuse to service any customer who’s not wearing a mask and call the police if the person refuses to put it on. A mask has to cover both the nose and mouth.
While numerous countries started vaccinating their citizens in mid-December, Ukraine still hasn’t vaccinated a single citizen.
The vaccination was expected to start on Feb. 15. However, the Health Ministry has postponed it due to “logistical and bureaucratic issues,” according to Stepanov. Still, he said, it will start “within days.”
As part of the global COVAX initiative, Ukraine will receive 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in February, followed by up to 3.7 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine within six months. Medical workers who treat COVID-19 and front-line troops in eastern Ukraine will be the first in line for free vaccination.
Read also: Everything to know about COVID vaccination in Ukraine
According to a survey by Rating sociological group, 52% of Ukrainians would not take the coronavirus vaccine, even if it was free.
