Zelensky: Government alarmed over rising COVID-19 cases, safety measure violations

The Ukrainian government is growing alarmed over an increase in new COVID-19 cases during the past week as the country lifts quarantine measures imposed to prevent the disease’s spread, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a coronavirus task force meeting on June 8.

Since June 1, when Ukraine entered the third stage of lifting quarantine restrictions, the country has registered between 450 and 590 new COVID-19 cases per day, more than in weeks past, statistics show.

Since the start of the quarantine on March 12, the Ukrainian government has walked a thin line between preventing new infections and preserving as much of the economy as possible. In the last few weeks, however, the government has placed a greater emphasis on reopening the country. That appears to have led to an uptick of new cases.

Zelensky said he was worried by the lack of compliance with safety measures after the quarantine was eased, but did not specify what kinds of violations the authorities were seeing.

“Easing quarantine will save the economy, but let’s not forget that the coronavirus has not disappeared, and we need to continue to save lives,” Zelensky said.

Not ready to reopen

The same day as the task force meeting, the Ministry of Health added three oblasts to the list of five Ukrainian regions that are not prepared for a full reopening, according to government standards for further easing quarantine. The eight regions are the city of Kyiv; Volyn, Lviv, Rivne, Chernivtsi and  Zakarpattia oblasts in the west of the country; and Zhytomyr and Chernihiv oblasts in northern central Ukraine.

As of June 8, Chernivtsi Oblast remains the region worst hit by COVID-19 in Ukraine, with 3,698 confirmed cases, including 59 new infections over the past 24 hours. Its total population is just under 728,000 people, according to an electronic census published in January.

Chernivtsi Oblast was followed by the city of Kyiv, with a total of 3,490 cases and 72 new infections, and Lviv Oblast, with 2,162 cases and  41 new infections. Kyiv and Lviv Oblast have populations of 3.7 million and 2.29 million, respectively.

The number of officially confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ukraine reached 27,462 on June 8, according to the Ministry of Health and the National Security and Defense Council.

According to the country’s “adaptive quarantine” plan, the government should ease restrictions every 10 days for oblasts that meet certain criteria up until June 22, the current expiration date for the quarantine that began on March 12.

Those criteria include a steady decline in new confirmed coronavirus cases, a growing number of recovered patients and bed occupancy rates in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

Ukraine’s daily COVID-19 cases, deaths and recoveries from May 1 to June 7, 2020. All data were released by the Ministry of Health.

Safety measures

On June 3, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that the Ukrainian government would allow indoor restaurants to reopen after two months of lockdown. However, in Kyiv, the city administration ruled that most restaurants can only reopen on June 10.

But with outdoor restaurant terraces open since May 11, people have flocked to the streets to enjoy the sunny weather and warm temperatures outside, overcrowding the outdoor premises of the restaurants.

That worries the authorities. At the June 8 coronavirus meeting, Zelensky said the government does not want to return the harsh restrictions.

“For that reason, we are keeping our finger on the pulse of the situation’s development and reminding people that social distancing and mask rules should remain in force,” he said. “And for now, unfortunately, we cannot allow mass recreational events.”

Rules violations aren’t the only problem. As the country returns to some semblance of normal economic life, it also faces the risk of localized outbreaks of COVID-19.

Most recently, an outbreak was uncovered in a kindergarten in Brovary, a city located 24 kilometers to the northeast of the Kyiv city center. Nine children and three adults tested positive for the virus, the city mayor Ihor Sapozhenko wrote on Facebook on June 8.

According to him, two children have been hospitalized in the oblast children’s hospital in Boyarka, another town outside Kyiv. The kindergarten, which reopened on June 1, has again been closed. All the employees, children and their parents are currently in self-isolation.

On May 25, the government allowed kindergartens to reopen after Ukrainian parents staged protests demanding early childhood education facilities be allowed to operate so they could go back to work.