Ukraine has registered another record-breaking 5,804 new COVID-19 cases as of 9 a.m. on Oct. 9, bringing the national total to 250,538.
There are currently 135,109 active cases in the country.
In the past 24 hours, 89 people have died and 2,417 have recovered. A total of 110,650 patients have recovered and 4,779 have died since the beginning of the pandemic.
Hospitals are running out of beds
As the number of COVID-19 patients keeps growing, Ukraine’s hospitals become overcrowded and the government is to open temporary health facilities to cure the infected.
According to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, the number of patients with COVID-19 in the country’s hospitals is more than 20,000 people as of Oct. 8. Officially, the maximum number of patients with COVID-19 that can be treated in Ukraine’s hospitals is 37,000.
In the past 24 hours, 852 coronavirus patients have been admitted to local health facilities.
Ukraine’s daily new COVID-19 cases and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the most accurate way of diagnosing the novel coronavirus, between Sept. 1 and Oct. 8, 2020. (Kyiv Post)
Testing capacity grows
Ukrainian laboratories have carried out 32,658 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and 23,747 antibody tests in the past 24 hours.
According to Stepanov, it is a significant boost from only 200 tests that Ukrainian laboratories conducted back in April.
It is expected that Ukraine will be doing at least 50,000 PCR tests a day by the beginning of December, Stepanov said.
However, he admits that problems with testing in the Ukrainian oblasts exist. For example, many test samples remain in laboratories unprocessed and people do not receive their results immediately. To resolve this, the Ministry transports unprocessed samples to the laboratories in other regions where testing capacity is higher.
During the briefing on Oct. 9, Stepanov said that Ukraine is soon to introduce new COVID-19 antigen tests that, in some cases, can be used instead of PCR tests.
Ukraine’s daily new COVID-19 cases and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the most accurate way of diagnosing the novel coronavirus, between Sept. 1 and Oct. 8, 2020. (Kyiv Post)
The virus hits eastern Ukraine
The pandemic is rapidly expanding to eastern Ukraine, while in western Ukraine, the number of coronavirus cases is decreasing.
In the past 24 hours, the largest numbers of new cases have been recorded in Kharkiv Oblast (630), the city of Kyiv (567), Odesa Oblast (403), Sumy Oblast (330), Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (307).
