Ukraine to keep adaptive quarantine instead of total lockdown

Ukraine’s Health Ministry is working on several
scenarios of extending the adaptive quarantine currently in place, Prime
Minister Shmyhal told reporters on Nov. 5, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine
agency. “I’m not making any announcements because truly several options are
being worked on. Discussions were held with French and German epidemiologists
yesterday. We are looking and searching for the best practices,” he said. The
economy is not supposed to suffer from a total lockdown, Shmyhal said,
stressing, “our adaptive local quarantine has been justified very well.”

The Health Ministry is contemplating a weekend
quarantine for Nov. 14 and 15 in which only food stories, pharmacies and public
transport will be allowed to operate, minister Maksym Stepanov told a political
television talk show on Nov. 5, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site.
“This gives us the ability to at least somehow break the chain of transferring
the disease, owing to the absence of communication of people with each other,”
he said.

As for full-time measures, the government will propose
intensified quarantine restrictions that include prohibiting all mass
gatherings, closing sports complexes and pools, and allowing only stores to
operate in shopping malls, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko told a Nov. 5
press briefing. It will punish enterprises violating the epidemiological norms
prescribed by the Cabinet of Ministers, and prohibit the activity of those in
violation, while allowing those in conformity to operate under the new
quarantine conditions. On Nov. 3, parliament approved legislation in the first
reading that fines enterprises or organizations that allow people on their
premises to be present without masks.

Meanwhile, a national curfew or lockdown isn’t being
planned, Stepanov told the Ukraine 24 television news channel the prior day.
“We are supposed to weigh, to find a balance from the point of protection, and
on the other hand, the viewpoint of ordinary people. We understand that
introducing a strict lockdown for three weeks a month, and afterwards
returning, that means that a large number of people will simply be left without
work,” he said.

New infections of the COVID-19 disease caused by the
coronavirus reached 9,721 on Nov. 5, the health minister reported this morning.
That’s compared to 9,850 on Nov. 4 and 9,524 on Nov. 3. An estimated 201 people
died from the disease on Nov. 5, compared to 193 on Nov. 4 and 199 on Nov. 3.
The city of Kyiv reported ñonsecutive daily records of 1,002 infections on Nov.
5, 983 cases on Nov. 4 and 856 cases on Nov. 3.

Zenon Zawada: It’s positive to see the government weighing its preventative measures
with economic concerns. From this angle, the likely measures mentioned by top
officials – to be employed or reintroduced – are quite reasonable. We continue
to have a mildly favorable view of how the government is handling the pandemic,
despite drawing criticism for using pandemic funds to finance such things as
road repair. UAH 16.3 bln was reportedly allocated for this sphere, known for
its corruption, instead of acquiring artificial ventilators, critics said. But
Ukraine’s casualty rate from the virus is not especially high, and we view the
latest surge in cases owing to factors largely beyond the government’s control,
especially since it has swept much of Europe.