Olga Opekan lost two relatives on the same day in mid-October.
Both her 52-year-old uncle and 74-year-old grandmother died after a weeks-long battle against COVID‑19 in a clinic in Myrnohrad, a city in Donetsk Oblast.
Opekan says she witnessed a nightmare in an understaffed clinic, full of patients in critical condition. Its therapy unit had to be transformed into an infectious disease ward when all nearby clinics ran out of places to put their coronavirus patients.
“It was extremely difficult,” Opekan told the Kyiv Post. “I saw lines in front of the morgue, I saw stretchers carrying black bags with the dead being transported from the clinic — all of that is true.”
Deaths have become a familiar occurrence during the latest coronavirus wave in Ukraine, as the Delta variant, the most transmissible strain associated with increased mortality, has become dominant across Ukraine.
On Oct. 26, a record 734 patients died in a single day. Authorities predict that the peak is yet to come.
As the crisis intensifies, Ukrainian oblasts are “turning red” one by one, strengthening quarantine restrictions to halt the spread of the disease.
Experts agree that any limitations on public life are temporary solutions, while mass vaccination is an effective tool to battle the pandemic.
Only 17% of Ukraine’s population has been officially fully vaccinated. But the actual numbers of coronavirus-immune citizens might be even smaller, as the country continues to battle the production of fraudulent vaccination certificates that sometimes end up in the state database.
Mounting deaths
Ukraine detected its first cases of the Delta strain in late June. In about a month, the first death from the variant was recorded in Kyiv.
The number of those affected by Delta has been growing ever since, leading to the sweeping outbreak this fall. On Oct. 27, the country registered a record daily number of new cases, with more than 26,000 people getting infected in the span of 24 hours.
A recent study by the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal shows that people who contract the Delta variant are more likely to be hospitalized than those who catch other variants.
Over the past week, more than 5,000 people have been hospitalized throughout Ukraine nearly every day. This is double the amount of daily hospitalizations in late September.
Olga Kobevko, an infectious disease doctor at the Regional Clinical Hospital in Chernivtsi, a city of 250,000 people some 530 kilometers west of Kyiv, says that the current wave is the toughest one Ukraine has seen since the start of the pandemic.
“Intensive care and (infectious disease) units are overcrowded now,” Kobevko told the Kyiv Post.
Kobevko says there are currently over 180 coronavirus patients at her clinic and at least 20 more are being admitted every day.
Since the Delta strain is associated with an increased death rate, the country has seen a spike in the number of fatalities, with hundreds dying every day.
Kobevko says she was terrified a year ago when nine people died in Chernivtsi Oblast in one day. Today, twice as many deaths each day are frequent.
“Each doctor sees at least one fatal case per shift,” Kobevko says. “It’s horrible.”
More young people now die from the disease as well, according to Viktor Mishchanchuk, the infectious-intensive care unit doctor of the Central City Hospital in Chortkiv, a city of 28,000 people in Ternopil Oblast some 420 kilometers west from Kyiv.
“(Last year) People aged 70 and older were among the common COVID‑19 victims,” Mishchanchuk told the Kyiv Post. Now it starts at 50, he says.
Mishchanchuk also sees more younger people being hospitalized in worse condition than before. He says complications now develop faster for all patients.
Besides severe lung inflammation and other complications, hypoxia, which is among the main symptoms of COVID‑19, can affect nerve cells, causing encephalopathy, a condition that alters brain function leading to hallucinations and delusion.
“They can see hallucinations, call their mothers, try to take off oxygen masks, screaming that they don’t want to live anymore,” Mishchanchuk says.
A medical worker wearing protective gear escorts a man to the infectious disease ward of Kyiv’s Oleksandrivska Clinical Hospital on Oct. 25, 2021. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Chernivtsi doctor Kobevko says the hospital now reminds her of “hell filled with oxygen and prayers.”
“The sound of moans and cries of both relatives and patients is mixed with the sound of lung ventilators,” Kobevko says.
But nothing compares to losing a patient, Kobevko says.
“The last looks of dying people remain in the memory forever.”
According to Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, the number of daily deaths from COVID‑19 might reach more than 1,000 in the weeks to come. The only way to alter the forecast is to increase the vaccination rate, Danilov said.
Wave of unvaccinated
Besides the coronavirus itself, Ukraine has been swept by yet another pandemic — COVID‑19 vaccine skepticism.
The country’s vaccination campaign started in Ukraine in February. Since late July, the entire adult population could get a jab for free throughout Ukraine. Yet the country’s vaccination rate remains among the lowest in Europe: As of Oct. 28, only 7.2 million out of 42 million citizens are fully vaccinated.
The low numbers are mainly the result of Ukrainians’ low trust in the authorities and the vaccines’ efficacy. The country has seen multiple misinformation campaigns discouraging people from getting a shot.
According to the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Foundation and the Center of Political Sociology, Ukrainians’ opposition to vaccination is among the strongest in the world. One survey conducted by the center showed that 56% of adult Ukrainians do not plan to get vaccinated.
According to Ukraine’s Health Ministry, 94.2% of Ukrainians hospitalized with COVID‑19 last week were not vaccinated.
Kobevko says that in her unit, out of every 200 patients, no more than five are those that have been vaccinated. The unvaccinated had various reasons why they haven’t gotten a jab.
“Some base it on religious beliefs, others simply don’t believe that the vaccine is helpful,” Kobevko says. “Some of the explanations are completely unreasonable.”
Forged vaccination certificates are also a major issue undermining the vaccination campaign. Both Kobevko and Mishchanchuk say they treated patients with fake COVID‑19 vaccination certificates.
The deadliest surge could have been avoided if only more people had been vaccinated, the doctor says.
“I look at them and realize that they could have saved themselves,” Kobevko says.
Both of Opekan’s relatives who died of COVID‑19 had no pre-existing conditions that could have increased the severity of the disease, she says. The clinic provided them with oxygen masks, while Opekan and other relatives purchased expensive medication, which cost nearly $60 per day. But it didn’t save them.
Both were unvaccinated. Opekan’s grandmother didn’t mind getting a jab but at her age, any trip takes extra effort, so she kept postponing. Opekan’s uncle wasn’t a believer in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories either, but he didn’t realize the urgency of getting a shot, she says.
Opekan encouraged her relatives to get vaccinated but she wishes she was more insistent.
“I regret it deeply,” she says.
Burden on healthcare
The new wave is taking a toll on the healthcare system, which is facing its most intense burden since the start of the pandemic.
Doctors from all across Ukraine have been sounding the alarm about the medical system being pushed to the brink of collapse.
A medical worker wearing protective gear is reflected in the window of an ambulance near the infectious disease ward of Kyiv’s Oleksandrivska Clinical Hospital on Oct. 25, 2021. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Kobevko says that in her clinic’s infection unit, one doctor is forced to provide medical assistance to 60 patients, most of whom are in critical condition, throughout one shift. That same doctor is also expected to take care of the newly admitted patients.
The whole staff is burned out both mentally and physically, Kobevko says, since everyone works overtime.
“We treat patients from morning till night and even if we are at home in the evening, we are still providing consultations on the phone,” the doctor says.
“I have been working for 15 years and last week, I thought I had my hardest shift in life,” Kobevko adds. “Unfortunately, they keep getting harder and harder.”
Kyiv ambulance doctor Iryna Kalyta says her job has never been easy. The pandemic significantly increased the intensity of her shifts but the workload now is incomparable, she says.
During a 24-hour shift, her crew might respond to up to 17 calls. Earlier, 12 calls a shift was considered a high number, Kalyta says. The crew doesn’t return to the base between the calls and barely gets time to eat.
“It turns out, we used to have rest (on duty),” Kalyta told the Kyiv Post.
The doctor says that during different stages of the pandemic, about half of the calls were connected to COVID‑19. Now the absolute majority, about 4 out of 5, are coronavirus patients.
This increase affects other patients, too. Those who call an ambulance without an extremely urgent need might be forced to wait for as many as 10 hours, Kalyta says.
“Although we are exhausted, we have no right to not get our job done,” the doctor says.
But as the numbers are expected to continue going up, Kalyta fears it simply soon won’t be possible to provide medical assistance to everyone who needs it.
“We are at the peak of our abilities,” she says.
