Cities flaunt weekend lockdown, led by Dnipro, Lviv

Numerous cities flaunted the strict weekend lockdown
imposed by the cabinet last week, led by Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city.
Borys Filatov, the city’s mayor, said the local COVID-19 safety commission is
exhausted and doesn’t have a quorum to implement the cabinet’s decision. The
local commission “simply got sick,” Filatov wrote on his Facebook page. “No,
not with coronavirus. Simply got sick and there isn’t a quorum. They got tired.
And aren’t capable of implementing the cabinet’s decision … Respect
entrepreneurs, have a good weekend.” In justifying the decision, Filatov said
the city and the Dnipropetrovsk region is among the top three lowest for the
COVID-19 infection rate. “We simply did a lot colossally to get this,” he
wrote, adding that he wouldn’t cancel anything but called the cabinet’s
initiative stupidity that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.

Other cities that defied the weekend lockdown were
Lviv (Ukraine’s seventh largest), Ivanko-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Zhytomyr,
Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, among others. As part of its defiance, the Lviv City
Council ruled on Nov. 13 to declare the weekend to be working days for public
eateries, shopping malls, cultural and sports venues, fitness clubs and
markets. “This means that it’s impossible to impose a weekend quarantine in
Lviv because we don’t have a weekend. People have a right to work,” wrote Lviv
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi on his Facebook page. He published a scan of the ruling by
the city’s executive committee, urging entrepreneurs to present it to any
authorities “who are interfering with you working.” He also announced a hotline
for such situations. “This is not a typical situation. I don’t remember an
example of the government reaching a decision, not consulting with
entrepreneurs, who are being thrown to the streets without any means of
existence,” he said.

Ukrainian President Zelensky accused certain mayors of
campaigning for the second round runoff – held this weekend in numerous cities,
including Odesa and Kherson – in defying the weekend lockdown. “They are
thinking not about the number of sick in their own cities, but the number of
votes in the second round. If we continue to play ‘good cop,’ not fulfilling
the government’s decision and commemorating this with a grandiose concert in
city squares, and continue to not believe in the coronavirus … then I am sure
that we all will lose. Not a single mayor, not a minister, not the president,
but the entire country. Let’s not allow this,” Zelensky said in a video
announcement. Lviv, among the largest cities defying the lockdown, will hold
its second-round runoff on Nov. 22.

New infections of the COVID-19 disease caused by the
coronavirus dropped to 9,832 on Sunday, Nov. 15, Health Minister Maksym
Stepanov announced this morning. That’s compared to 10,681 on Nov. 14 and
12,524 on Nov. 13. An estimated 94 people died on Nov. 15, compared to 95 on
Nov. 14 and 121 on Nov. 13. The city of Kyiv set a daily record of 1,083
infections on Nov. 12, which reached 1,053 on Nov. 13. Health Minister Maksym
Stepanov joined the ranks of the infected, the ministry announced on Nov. 14.
The newly elected mayor of Konotop in the Sumy region, Oleksandr Luhoviy, was
reported today to have died of the disease.

Zenon Zawada: It’s true
that some mayors were trying to score votes with the weekend lockdowns. Others
were merely boosting their image, as is the case with the Zhytomyr mayor, who
announced a resistance while local law enforcement was enforcing the lockdown,
according to our source. But certain mayors were simply pursuing policy what
they believed to be the necessary policy, including Filatov, and we expect
ongoing defiance by cities because of genuine economic concerns.