Head of the parliamentary committee on the health of the nation, medical care, and health insurance Mykhailo Radutsky said on Aug. 2 that Ukraine would have to impose restrictions on unvaccinated citizens soon.
According to him, the restrictions concern transport companies, public catering establishments and commercial or communal structures, whose employees are in direct contact with other people.
“We in Ukraine are not talking about mandatory vaccination, no one has the right to force a person to get vaccinated. But it is fair to demand that work that involves contact with a large number of people be performed by vaccinated staff,” said Radutsky.
Earlier, on July 28, Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced that in case of deterioration of the epidemiological situation, schools and universities would only operate if at least 80% of the staff be fully vaccinated.
The announcement also stated that if the region is in the “green” quarantine zone (safe zone), the schools and universities will be open. If the region is in the “yellow”, “orange” and “red” zones the work of educational institutions will depend on the levels of staff vaccination.
Currently, according to Radutsky, only half of the total number of teachers in Ukraine are vaccinated.
Radutsky also announced new rules of border crossing to Ukraine.
From now on, according to him, Ukrainians and foreigners will have to take a COVID-19 test when entering the country to minimize the risk of spreading the most wide-spread coronavirus Delta variant.
The exceptions are vaccinated Ukrainians and foreigners with COVID-19 vaccine certificates.
Moreover, for unvaccinated travelers (of WHO-approved vaccines) from Russia and India, self-isolation is mandatory if they stayed in either of those countries for more than 7 days.
The measures came after the latest and most transmissible COVID-19 variant yet, Delta, was detected in Ukraine on June 23. Since then Ukraine registered its first death of a patient from Delta on July 28.
Vaccination in Ukraine began on Feb. 24 and by Aug. 1, over 3.59 million people have received the first dose of the vaccine, while over 2 million have received both doses.
The recent largest numbers of new cases have been recorded in the city of Kyiv (62), Odesa Oblast (30), Ternopil Oblast (30), Vinnytsia Oblast (21), and Kharkiv Oblast (17).
Ukraine’s Ministry of Health now allows voluntary COVID-19 vaccination of children over the age of 12 with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, starting July 30.
