Ukraine's Deputy Health Minister, Chief Medical Officer Viktor Liashko has said there is no need yet to reimpose a second national coronavirus lockdown.
However, in case when all beds allocated for hospitalization of COVID-19 patients are completely occupied, Ukraine will be forced to reimpose a lockdown, he told the Ukrayinska Pravda.Life online newspaper in an interview.
Read alsoKyiv to be put in orange quarantine zone from Oct 12, official saysCommenting on the data that the healthcare system may provide 50,000 beds for coronavirus patients, Liashko clarified such a number of designated places had become available thanks to preliminary quarantine.
"The quarantine [originally introduced in Ukraine from March 12 to April 3, 2020] has worked 100%. The system was prepared, there was no outbreak, there was no [critical level of] fatalities, and now we are ready to continue working when the number of cases has increased, without significantly affecting the economy amid the adaptive quarantine [introduced on May 22]," he said.
Today the Health Ministry is calculating how many patients per day, within one-two weeks, will lead to 100% bed occupancy, the official said.
"For example, if we talk about some figure X. Two weeks is an incubation period on average. Then, as a medical officer, I will say: look, we have reached this figure, we have two weeks left, and we have no other choice but to follow the example of Israel, Madrid, Paris, and impose strict, quarantine-based, restrictive measures. Here it will no longer be possible to find a balance between the economy and saving lives," Liashko added.
COVID-19 in Ukraine: Latest developments
- Ukraine has registered 5,397 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the first time the country has exceeded 5,000 cases in a single day since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic. The total number of confirmed cases grew to 244,734 as of October 8, 2020.
- Ukraine's Health Minister Maksym Stepanov says Ukraine cannot yet follow the path of some European countries and Israel and impose a second national coronavirus lockdown.
- The Cabinet of Ministers, Ukraine's government, rules out the introduction of a new lockdown in the country or the postponement of pending local election over the coronavirus epidemic.
