All of Ukraine’s 24 oblasts will strengthen quarantine measures starting Sept. 23, according to a Sept. 21 decision made by the State Commission for Technogenic and Ecological Safety and Emergencies.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has been rapidly growing in Ukraine since late August. Last week, the daily number of cases went from 3,300 on Monday to double that amount on Friday.
“The epidemic situation in the country is deteriorating rapidly, so the duty of the state is to protect human life and health,” Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during the commission’s session.
Under its adaptive COVID-19 quarantine, Ukraine color-codes oblasts green, yellow, orange or red, depending on the severity of the outbreak there.
All of Ukraine’s oblasts are currently green, except Zakarpattia, which went yellow on Sept. 20. Under the new governmental decision, the whole country is moving to yellow in two days.
The yellow zone restrictions require restaurants, cinemas, gyms and cultural institutions to operate with lower capacity.
However, venue owners and event organizers may not follow the new restrictions if they choose to only allow visitors vaccinated with at least one dose or those who had tested negative for COVID-19 in the past 72 hours.
Schools will be allowed to continue working in the yellow zone if 80% of their employees received at least one dose of vaccine.
Read more about all the yellow zone restrictions here.
Earlier on Sept. 20, Ukraine has extended adaptive quarantine until Dec. 31.
