Ukraine COVID-19 infections drop after new daily record set

New infections of the COVID-19 disease caused by the
coronavirus reached 9,946 on Nov. 29, Stepanov reported on his Facebook page
this morning. That’s compared to 12,978 on Nov. 28 and 16,294 on Nov. 27, which
was a daily record. An estimated 114 patients died on Nov. 29, compared to 120
on Nov. 28 and 184 on Nov. 27. A new daily record of 1,740 COVID-19 cases was
set in the city of Kyiv on Nov. 28. Meanwhile, Ukraine ranked seventh in the
world by daily number of new COVID-19 cases as of Nov. 28, as reported by the
worldometers.info web site.

Two patients at a Lviv regional hospital reportedly
died on Nov. 27 as a direct result of their artificial ventilators being
deactivated owing to an electricity outage, the National Police reported on its
website. The hospital’s two electric generators that provide backup power in an
outage were not activated. As a result, the 66-year-old and 61-year-old
patients didn’t receive enough oxygen. Police said they opened criminal cases
of negligence and murder from negligence. Authorities didn’t confirm whether
the two casualties were infected with COVID-19. Health Minister Maksym Stepanov
said on Facebook on Nov. 29 that such incidents are unacceptable and announced
a review of medical equipment in all hospitals.

During an unannounced visit to the Zhytomyr regional
hospital that day, Stepanov said it had reported to have made 66 artificial
ventilators available, despite receiving 117. “The situation with infection
control at this hospital is horrible. Besides that, as I learned from speaking
with them, doctors don’t have full access to means of individual protection,
with which the hospital has been fully supplied,” Stepanov wrote on Facebook.

Zenon Zawada: The pattern since the weekend lockdowns were imposed on Nov. 14 is
that COVID-19 cases spike on Thursday or Friday before cooling down over the
weekend, which is a sign that the lockdowns are having a positive effect. It
also implies that a full lockdown would have an even better effect. Although
records of new infections were set in recent days, they still aren’t close to
the rate that authorities said would be needed to reimpose a full lockdown (or
about 30,000 per day).