Ukraine has registered 8,641 new COVID-19 cases as of 10 a.m. on Dec. 7, bringing the total number of cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to 821,947.
In the past 24 hours, 145 people have died of COVID-19 and 1,037 were hospitalized, while 5,123 have recovered.
A total of 423,704 patients have recovered and 13,733 have died in Ukraine since the beginning of the pandemic.
In the past 24 hours, the largest numbers of new cases have been recorded in the city of Kyiv (1,526), Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (960), Odesa Oblast (662), Kyiv Oblast (635) and Sumy Oblast (477).
Ukraine’s daily COVID-19 cases, deaths and recoveries from Nov. 1 to Dec. 6, 2020. All data were released by the Ministry of Health.
In the past 24 hours, Ukrainian laboratories have carried out 27,881 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and 5,621 antibody tests. Over 4.8 million PCR tests have been conducted since the start of the pandemic.
During a briefing on Dec. 5, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said that weekend lockdown, which was imposed for three weekends from Nov. 14 until Nov. 30, had yielded a positive result. According to Stepanov, the numbers of new COVID-19 cases in Ukraine are currently lower than two weeks ago. On Nov. 28, Ukraine registered a record-breaking 16,294 new COVID-19 cases.
Responding to criticism that the number of cases had fallen due to laboratories conducting a smaller number of tests, Stepanov argued at a Dec. 7 briefing that the number of tests had remained at the same level and the number of hospitalized patients had dropped.
Despite this possible improvement, over the past two months, the daily case numbers and the death rate have increased sharply. For this reason, the Ukrainian government is considering imposing a strict lockdown. So far, however, there has been no official decision.
The Ministry of Health wants to impose a three-week lockdown at the beginning of January when it expects the burden on the country’s hospitals to increase due to COVID-19 and flu cases, Stepanov said during a morning briefing on Dec. 4.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has also said that the country needs to impose a lockdown in January. In a statement on Dec. 6, he said that the government would announce the measures it plans to impose on Dec. 9.
During the Dec. 7 briefing, Stepanov also said that Ukraine faces an exodus of medical workers due to the high demand for them in Europe during the pandemic and the low wages offered at home. He urged the government to increase their salaries.
Ukraine’s daily new COVID-19 cases and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the most accurate way of diagnosing the novel coronavirus, between Nov. 1 and Dec. 6, 2020.
