In mid-November, Ukraine adopted a weekend lockdown, closing down all non-essential businesses on Saturdays and Sundays.
The decision sparked outrage among those working in restaurants, retail and other industries affected by the lockdown.
Moreover, experts see little evidence that the weekend lockdown alone can help slow the rapidly growing rate of COVID‑19 infections.
Now the country is considering the idea of a total lockdown, though politicians have been reluctant to take this step despite surging caseloads.
Weekend lockdown
The government adopted a weekend lockdown on Nov. 11, despite the protests of businesses.
The weekend lockdown was “a chance for us to avoid a total lockdown,” according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
All non-essential businesses — basically everything apart from grocery stores and pharmacies — must now shut down on Saturdays and Sundays. Restaurants, cafes and bars can only do take-out and delivery.
Some cities across Ukraine balked at the new policy. The local governments of Ternopil, Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Cherkasy, Odesa, Sloviansk and Rivne all spoke out against the weekend lockdown, with some refusing to follow Kyiv’s orders.
The Lviv City Council went as far as to officially declare Saturdays and Sundays workdays for the service sector to avoid the lockdown.
“This means that we can’t implement a ‘weekend lockdown’ because we don’t have weekends. People have the right to work,” said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
The business community also harshly criticized the weekend lockdown, as many enterprises in the service sector receive the majority of their revenue on Saturdays and Sundays.
One of the most vocal critics was Dmytro Derkach, co-owner of the cinema chain Planeta Kino. He emphasized that nearly 80% of the cinemas’ revenue comes from Saturdays and Sundays. He added that his company received virtually no aid from the government, such as exemptions from paying taxes for a certain period or direct financial payments, during the quarantine.
Now, Planeta Kino will likely have to close down and fire its 500 employees.
The businesses’ suffering could be in vain.
Experts point out that that there isn’t clear proof that a weekend lockdown alone can curb the infections.
“There is no evidence that the spread of the virus is much greater on weekends than on weekdays,” Pavlo Kovtonyuk, head of the Health Economics Center at the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote on Facebook. “There is also no success reported by countries that have already implemented a weekend lockdown.”
Kovtonyuk thinks that the weekend lockdown is most likely a mistake.
“This is a classic ‘lose-lose’ situation,” he wrote. “Businesses lose. The epidemiological situation worsens. Doctors lose. Patients lose. The only thing the weekend lockdown does is delay an unpleasant decision (to implement a full lockdown) for some time.”
Meanwhile, the president has already declared the new policy a success.
“Weekend quarantine and additional security measures are showing results,” Zelensky said.
But there is not yet enough data to analyze the effectiveness of the weekend lockdown in Ukraine, according to Kovtonyuk.
During the two weekends of lockdown, Nov. 14–15 and Nov. 21–22, the police reported shutting down some 1,500 businesses that broke quarantine rules, including shops and restaurants.
Total lockdown?
Ukraine’s government has been pushing back against the idea of a total lockdown for months.
On Oct. 19, Zelensky declared 9,500 daily COVID‑19 cases to be the critical number for a lockdown. He later raised the bar to 15,000 daily cases, claiming that the medical system is still able to serve people adequately.
On Nov. 26, Ukraine set its new record — 15,331 daily cases of COVID‑19. Still, it didn’t prompt the government to immediately announce new measures.
Health Minister Maksym Stepanov pushed further and said that the medical system will be nearing collapse at 25,000 to 30,000 cases a day.
Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko proposed a total lockdown for about two weeks during the winter holidays.
“I’m not trying to steal Сhristmas,” Tkachenko said. “But we need these restrictions because we have high numbers of infections.”
He stressed that there are always bigger crowds in the city during the holidays.
On Nov. 26, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov proposed to introduce a full lockdown for three or four weeks and do it as soon as possible, not waiting until the holidays.
Kovtonyuk also thinks a full lockdown should be implemented.
“The weekend lockdown will very likely not produce the expected results,” Kovtonyuk told the Kyiv Post.
He believes the government has to adopt a one-month lockdown as soon as possible. After that month, he proposes to ease restrictions in those oblasts where the infections rates are under control.
Compulsory masks
On Nov. 21, Ukraine implemented fines of Hr 170–255 ($6–9) for not wearing a mask in public transport and public spaces.
Many countries around the world have made masks compulsory since the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic. The Czech Republic became the first country in Europe to do so back in March. Neighboring Slovakia followed suit a week later. In Poland, fines for not wearing a mask were introduced in April.
But even after Ukraine implemented the policy, it’s easy to avoid paying the fine.
According to the police, officers first ask a person to put on a mask if they aren’t wearing one. If the person doesn’t have a mask, the police officer should offer one to them. Only if the person refuses to wear it can the officer fine them.
In the first two days since masks became compulsory, the police fined 1,395 people around Ukraine for not wearing them.
Over 80% of Ukrainians wear a mask “often”, according to a poll conducted by the Rating Group sociological agency.
Progression of COVID‑19
There are currently over 348,000 active cases of COVID‑19 in Ukraine. It is less than in Poland, but more than in Germany, where the population is twice the size of Ukraine.
As of Nov. 26, the number of Ukrainians who have succumbed to the virus stands at 11,717.
The Kyiv School of Economics projects three scenarios for how the pandemic will progress in Ukraine — green, yellow, and black.
According to the “green scenario,” the country will reach 17,000 deaths from the virus by the end of 2020. This is the least likely course of events, as it requires complex quarantine restrictions that Ukraine still doesn’t have.
The “yellow scenario” supposes 26,000 deaths, but only if the weekend lockdown proves to be a success and reduces the transmission of the virus.
Nearly 33,000 deaths can be expected according to a “black scenario,” which is likely to happen if the weekend lockdown didn’t work.
Right now Ukraine is moving in the direction of the “yellow” and “black” scenarios.
