Ukraine has registered 7,517 new COVID-19 cases as of 9 a.m. on Oct. 23, bringing the total number of cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to 330,396.
In the past 24 hours, 121 people have died, 2,680 have recovered and 1,032 were hospitalized. A total of 137,578 patients have recovered and 6,164 have died since the beginning of the pandemic.
There are currently 186,654 active cases of COVID-19 across Ukraine.
In the past 24 hours, Ukrainian laboratories have carried out 36,357 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and 26,674 antibody tests.
Ukraine expects to be conducting at least 50,000 PCR tests a day by the beginning of December, according to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov.
In the past 24 hours, the largest numbers of new cases have been recorded in Kharkiv Oblast (693), the city of Kyiv (635), Odesa oblast (571), Khmelnytskyi Oblast (471) and Zhytomyr Oblast (426).
The Cabinet of Ministers has extended the country’s quarantine restrictions until Dec. 31 due to an upsurge of new coronavirus cases.
According to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov during a briefing on Oct. 13, hospitals for COVID-19 patients are running out of beds. There are a total of 52,000 beds for COVID-19 patients and Ukrainian hospitals cannot accept any more patients because people with other diseases also need treatment.
During a briefing on Oct. 20, Serhiy Dubrov, president of the Association of Anesthesiologists of Ukraine and an expert at the Ministry of Health, said that Ukrainian hospitals are equipped with over 4,600 ventilators. In total, 613 of them are now in use.
Starting on Oct. 19, 68 Ukrainian cities and regions entered the “red” quarantine zone, including oblast centers like Chernivtsi, Khmelnytsky, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Severodonetsk, Poltava, Sumy, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil.
Additionally, on Oct. 12, Kyiv moved from the “yellow” to the “orange” quarantine zone due to the growing COVID-19 infection rate and crowding of hospitals. However, the measures in place are stricter than required by the orange zone to prevent the spread of the virus.
In Kyiv, gyms and cultural establishments are required to close, while restaurants are not allowed to work past 10 p.m. Mass events will be canceled until the epidemiological situation improves.
It is now forbidden to hold mass events of over 50 people in “green zone” regions, over 30 people in “yellow zone” regions and over 20 people in the “orange zone.” In all these zones, participants must be at least 1.5 meters apart.