COVID-19 infections set latest daily record in Ukraine

New infections of the COVID-19 disease caused by the
coronavirus set the latest daily record of 2,134 on Aug. 19, Health Minister
Maksym Stepanov told his daily press briefing this morning. That’s compared to
1,967 on Aug. 18 and 1,616 on Aug. 17. Forty people died on Aug. 19, also a
daily record, while 704 recovered and 407 were hospitalized (the third daily
record set that day). The most cases were reported in the Kharkiv region (242),
the city of Kyiv (227) and the Chernivtsi region (189).

Stepanov told the press briefing he doesn’t want a
fourth record set of the number of cities designated a red zone by the national
policy of adaptive quarantine. The ecological safety and emergency situations
commission will hold a meeting today to determine which regions will be
designated red zones of epidemiological danger, he said. Meanwhile, more
hospitals will be launched to handle COVID-19 patients in six regions, Deputy
Health Minister Viktor Liashko told a press briefing on Aug. 19.

Zenon Zawada: The COVID-19 pandemic is once again posing a threat to Ukraine’s
economic life, particularly if more regions are designated as red zones. The
reopening of schools in two weeks is particularly under threat in red zone
regions, which could prevent tens of thousands of parents from returning to the
workforce to be at home with their children (and hundreds of thousands if the
city of Kyiv is designated a red zone). Already faced with difficulty in
finding qualified workers before the epidemic, companies will be even more hard-pressed
to recruit workers, which will inevitably inflate wages.