As COVID-19 spreads like wildfire through Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv will soon move into the red quarantine zone, its mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced on Oct. 21.
The decision may be announced by the City Emergency Commission after it meets on Oct. 22. Once Kyiv enters into the red quarantine zone, cinemas, theaters, shopping malls, non-food markets, gyms, swimming pools, cultural institutions and mass events will be shuttered unless all the participants and staff are fully vaccinated.
“Over the past 24 hours, there have been almost 1,200 new patients and 39 deaths in Kyiv,” Klitschko said. “In recent days, half a thousand patients have been hospitalized in the capital’s hospitals. And most of them are in serious condition.”
Kyiv’s situation mirrors that of the entire country. Oct. 21 saw a new daily record both in the number of new cases in the country (22,415) and the number of deaths from the disease (546).
Ukraine color-codes its regions green, yellow, orange or red, depending on the severity of the outbreak there. Currently, five oblasts are already in the red, while 14 are orange and five are yellow. On Oct. 23, Sumy Oblast will also join the red zone.
Zhytomyr, Luhansk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi and Chernihiv oblasts are also on the brink of turning red, according to Oleksiy Chernyshov, the Minister of Community and Territorial Development.
He called for increasing the number of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, providing more testing for the disease, and monitoring compliance with hospitalization requirements.
On Oct. 21, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced new rules for transporting passengers during quarantine. People can travel between regions only if they have been vaccinated or if they have a negative test result received no earlier than three days before the trip. Children under the age of 18 do not need to have vaccination or testing documents.
Ukrzaliznytsia, the state railway operator, will provide testing and vaccination stations at its largest rail terminals.
