Odesa restaurant, club workers protest reintroduced quarantine

Several hundred members of Odesa’s restaurant and
night club business held a protest at 11:00 p.m. on July 15 against a city
council ruling the prior day reintroducing quarantine restrictions. In
particular, restaurants and night clubs were prohibited from operating between
11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. As part of the protests, they placed dozens of empty
chairs across a central square. “This is a very stupid decision. We have day-
and night-shift workers. And now the night shift should be fired? That’s
impossible,” said one restaurateur, as reported by the usionline.com.ua news
site. The next day, an Odesa orphanage reported that 17 of its employees were
infected with the COVID-19 disease.

The national quarantine, which consists of minimal
restrictions, should be extended for no longer than a month, or no longer than
Aug. 31, President Zelensky said on July 16, according to the president’s
website. “There’s no need to rush with extending the quarantine for a long
time. We need to act on how the situation develops. Everyone is already tired
from this quarantine. Clear limits are needed on how we will extend it, so that
people have the opportunity to live in safety, business could function and for
the economy not to be on pause. So first we’ll extend it for a month, but not
longer,” Zelensky told his daily coronavirus meeting.

Cases of the COVID-19 disease reached 809 on July 16,
Health Minister Maksym Stepanov reported at his daily briefing this morning.
That’s compared to 848 new infections on July 15 and 835 on July 14. An
estimated 11 people died on July 16, while 838 recovered.

Zenon Zawada: We share
the widely held view that the government’s adaptive quarantine has been a
strong approach to dealing with the coronavirus. That way, local governments
are empowered to impose the necessary restrictions and if people have
complaints, they can address them. A disadvantage to this approach has been
reversals of decisions to relax measures, such as the reintroduced restrictions
in Odesa, which hurt entrepreneurs. But overall, the Zelensky administration
can still boast of its success in dealing with the pandemic. Three straight
days of 800-plus new infections is a concern, but not cause for alarm.

Zelensky’s statement of not extending the basic
national quarantine beyond August is likely related to the widely held public sentiment
of needing to reopen schools and educational institutions. Once again, Zelensky
is taking the populist route. We expect these schools and educational
institutions to reopen in September, but with an unclear effect on the
infection rate.