Restaurants, cafes and entertainment venues in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia Oblasts will be closed for a week starting on Feb. 22.
Viktor Liashko, deputy health minister and chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine, announced the new restrictions on Feb. 19.
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast will also shut down other non-essential businesses and ban mass events, as it enters a level “red” quarantine.
The numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the three Western Ukrainian oblasts have been growing rapidly over the last week. The reason for the increase is mass winter tourism, according to Liashko. All three oblasts have many ski and thermal water resorts in the Carpathian Mountains, a popular winter destination in Ukraine.
After Ukraine’s January lockdown ended on Jan. 25, the country went back to an “adaptive quarantine,” meaning that each oblast is categorized into one of four epidemiological levels with corresponding restrictions, depending on the COVID-19 situation there. Most of Ukraine’s oblasts are now in level “yellow” with non-essential businesses operating and mass events held under certain limitations.
With the highest number of new COVID-19 cases detected daily over the last week in the country, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast’s regional commission for technogenic and ecological safety and emergencies has imposed a level “red” quarantine in the oblast on Feb. 22-28.
Under level “red” quarantine restrictions, dine-in service at restaurants, mass cultural and sporting events are banned, and cinemas, theaters, nightclubs and other entertainment venues are forced to close.
The local government in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast has also introduced quarantine checkpoints and special measures for entering and leaving the oblast.
It has set up 16 checkpoints, 5 of which will operate around the clock. There, officers will monitor the health of travelers by contactless temperature measurement and if signs of illness are detected, they will be sent to a health care institution.
According to Liashko, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast is running out of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients. The health ministry is working to set up new hospital beds and reorient some hospitals to start treating coronavirus patients.
The state emergency service in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast has also deployed a mobile hospital for patients with COVID-19 due to the spike in cases. The mobile hospital consists of several modules and has 120 beds for patients infected with the coronavirus.
Liashko says that the spike in the number of cases in Western Ukraine is connected to winter tourism.
“If we analyze the outbreaks that exist in Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattia Oblasts, the three areas with a critical increase in the number of cases, we can clearly see that these are routes associated with mass movement in tourism business,” Liashko said at the “Svoboda Slova” talk show on Feb. 19.
The new restrictions apply as well to Bukovel, the largest ski resort in Eastern Europe located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
Mykola Sendetskyi, first deputy head of the State Food and Consumer Service in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, announced at a press conference on Feb. 18 that restaurants and cafes will be closed on the territory of Bukovel on Feb. 22-28.
However, the State Food and Consumer Service explained that if people are staying in a hotel and breakfast is included, it will not be considered a violation, but lunch and dinner for guests must be delivered to a hotel room or ordered for take out.
Sendetsky also noted that observance of the quarantine measures in Bukovel will be monitored by additional groups of specialists who will inspect catering establishments in the ski resort on a daily basis.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine’s Health Ministry has recorded a total of 1,299,967 cases of coronavirus, with 6,295 new daily cases detected as of Feb. 20.
According to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, Ukraine will extend the current adaptive quarantine restrictions until April 30.
Read more: Ukraine extends quarantine until April 30, updates restrictions
