Ukraine to enter new stage of lifting quarantine on June 1

Ukraine will enter the third stage of rolling back COVID-19 quarantine measures on June 1, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko, the country’s top sanitary doctor, said during a press briefing on May 26.

Ukrainian oblasts that meet requirements set by the Ministry of Health will be allowed to restore passenger railway and bus travel between oblasts, open gyms and swimming pools and relaunch certain educational classes — like driving lessons — in groups of no more than 10 people.

The three criteria for oblasts to enter stage three are the same as for stage two: having less than 12 new cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days, having less than 50% occupancy of hospital beds and having tested more than 12 people per 100,000 members of the regional population over the last seven days.

Ukraine lifted its first restrictions on May 11-12 and entered the second stage of loosening quarantine on May 22. With the second stage, the country entered what the government has termed an “adaptive quarantine” — meaning the restrictions can be increased or decreased regionally depending on the number of COVID-19 cases.

According to the government, seven out of 24 Ukrainian oblasts still have not entered the second stage.

Gradual reopening

As of May 26, Ukraine has registered 21,584 coronavirus cases, 644 people have died from the disease and 7,575 patients have recovered. 

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the country is now in the plateau phase of the local COVID-19 epidemic, meaning that doctors are registering roughly the same number of cases every day.

Since entering stage two, the Ukrainian government has restored public transportation within cities and connecting cities with suburban areas and other cities in the same oblast. It has also relaunched subways in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro — a major step toward returning major cities to normal economic activity.

Stage three will restore passenger buses and trains between different oblasts, the backbone of the Ukrainian domestic transportation network. 

Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy said that Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine’s state-owned railway monopoly, will start selling train tickets when oblasts approve the decision to lift restrictions on travel.

However, even as different enterprises reopen under stage three, they won’t return to the pre-pandemic reality.

Lyashko said that, in a few days, the health ministry will publish guidelines on preventive measures that gyms and pools will have to implement to reopen.

According to him, the government initially did not plan to allow pools to reopen. However, new data about the risk of COVID-19 spreading through water changed their plans. 

Ready or not

The seven regions that still haven’t entered the second stage are Donetsk, Luhansk, Lviv, Rivne, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia and Volyn oblasts.

As of May 26, Lviv, Rivne, Chernivtsi, Volyn and Zakarpattia oblasts all have had more than 12 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days.

The only oblast that hasn’t met the hospital beds requirement is Chernivtsi Oblast. It has the highest number of COVID-19 infections — 3,101 confirmed cases — of any oblast as of May 26, and 54.5% of its hospital beds for treating the disease are occupied.

Donetsk, Luhansk and Lviv oblasts have not reached the requirement to have 12 tests per 100,000 people for seven straight days.