Ukraine breaks 15,000 COVID cases as Kyiv closes

Ukraine’s Health Ministry reported that 15,053 people
were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. The ministry’s morning post
on Facebook also included the fact that 267 people had died from the disease.
This puts Ukraine currently at its fourth-worst day, case-wise.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko introduced a city-wide
quarantine on March 18 during an online meeting. The lockdown extends from
March 20 through April 9. Also, the Kyiv City State Administration banned fans
from attending sports events, the administration’s First Deputy Chairman Mykola
Povoroznyk reported on March 17. This affects, first of all, the Shakhtar –
Roma football UEFA Champion’s League 1/8 final match scheduled for March 18.

James Hydzik: Closing mass-attendance of sporting events makes sense, but it won’t
alter the course of the pandemic. The quarantine, however, was effective in December.
Now that the city is accustomed to working in this mode, the effect on the
economy will be inevitable, but kept to a minimum compared to the first one in
Spring 2020. Since the lockdown only affects the capital (Kharkiv is
introducing its own measures, as Lviv has done already), international and
business travel should not be affected.