Ukraine approaching peak of COVID-19 spread, health minister says

Ukraine is approaching the peak of the spread of the
COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said
in a video announcement published on his Telegram channel on Apr. 7. The number
of infected patients is growing at such a pace that they lack enough doctors,
medicine and hospital beds, he said. Therefore, it’s too early to talk about
ending the quarantine, he said.

The severe quarantine restrictions in Ukraine will be
relaxed only when a consistent tendency occurs in falling numbers of COVID-19
patients, Roman Rodyna, a health ministry official, told the hromadske.ua news
site on Apr. 7. At the moment, a tendency has emerged in declining numbers of
new cases of infection, which he said is evidence that the quarantine
restrictions are truly working. But it’s too early to begin relaxing them, he
added.

Ukrainian President Zelensky criticized on Apr. 7
Volodymyr Buriak – the mayor of Zaporizhia, Ukraine’s sixth-largest city – for
violating the government’s quarantine measures. “I want to turn your attention
to the situation in which the mayor of Zaporizhia is violating the government’s
resolution and is allowing the operation of mass transit in the city. These
actions have already drawn a reaction from the Security Service of Ukraine and
the Internal Affairs Ministry,” he said in a video statement. The head of the
Zaporozhia regional administration was diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease (on
Mar. 30), as well as the director of a market that refused to shut it
(diagnosed on Apr. 3).

As of noon, Apr. 8, 52 people have died of the
COVID-19 disease. An estimated 1,668 have been infected, an increase of 14%, or
206 cases, from the prior day, according to the Center for Public Health of the
Health Ministry. An estimated 35 patients are confirmed to have recovered.
Among those infected in the prior day were 21 medical workers in the rural
Kirovohrad region.

Zenon Zawada: The situation will get worse before it gets better, particularly when
only 35 are confirmed to have recovered so far. At the moment, the situation is
relatively stable in Ukraine.