Kyiv will introduce a three-week lockdown starting Saturday, March 20. It will run through April 9.
The city authorities introduced the lockdown in response to the rising number of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at a briefing on March 18.
There are currently 230,633 active cases of COVID-19 in Ukraine; 15,053 new cases were registered on March 17, 1,092 of them in Kyiv.
This is the third time Kyiv will go into lockdown. There were two nationwide lockdowns in Ukraine: In March-May 2020, and in January 2021.
What restrictions are introduced in Kyiv:
- theaters, movie theaters, museums, concert halls shut down;
- eateries do only take-out and delivery;
- shopping malls shut down except for pharmacies, grocery stores and pet stores;
- beauty salons and gyms work by appointment; no group fitness classes allowed;
- religious services are only allowed in spaces with at least 10 square meters per person;
- no mass entertainment events are allowed; sports events will take place without an audience;
- public transport will work but only 50% of seats can be filled;
- schools go back to remote learning; kindergartens remain open;
- all public offices and state-owned organizations that aren’t critical infrastructure switch to remote work;
- private companies are recommended to switch to remote work as much as possible.
Kyiv joins several other regions that are currently under lockdown. Most of them are in western Ukraine. Lviv introduced a lockdown a day before Kyiv did.
In early March, the government said Ukraine has entered the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prime minister didn’t rule out the possibility of another nationwide lockdown.
The National Academy of Science believes that the third wave will be the deadliest yet, expecting 40,000 infections and 1,000 deaths each day. This wave is likely to last until mid-May, with the biggest spike in April, scientists believe.
