Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his chief of staff Andriy Yermak have been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 9, according to Yermak’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak.
But both remain active and have only mild symptoms of the disease, according to the president’s spokeswoman, Iuliia Mendel.
Zelensky and Yermak are being treated at Kyiv’s Feofaniya Clinical Hospital, designated to provide medical care to Ukrainian officials, Podolyak told the Ukrainska Pravda news website on Nov. 11.
“Everything is quite strictly regulated by protocol,” Podolyak said. “A special office has been equipped there, in which the president can hold (video) conferences. Today, he held many meetings.”
Yermak has a separate, isolated room, but with no equipment for video conferences, Podolyak said.
Zelensky and Yermak are following their standard work schedules, according to Podolyak. They don’t see each other face-to-face and communicate by phone, he said.
“The only restriction is isolation, no one is around,” Podolyak said. “That is, none of the aides are near the president or the chief of staff.”
Zelensky announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 on social media on Nov. 9, followed by Yermak minutes later. Both said they felt fine, although Zelensky added he had a slight fever of 37.5 degrees Celsius.
Zelensky first went home but decided to move to Feofania because there are better conditions for self-isolation and medical care for patients with COVID-19, Mendel said on Facebook.
Two other Ukrainian top officials, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and Defense Minister Andriy Taran, were also reported on Nov. 9 to be infected. Parliament Speaker Dmytro Razumkov announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 11, saying that he feels “normal.”
Ukraine reported a record-breaking 11,057 new COVID-19 cases on Nov. 12, bringing the total number of cases in the country since the start of the pandemic to 500,865. A total of 227,694 patients have recovered and 9,145 have died from the disease in Ukraine.
