Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said the number of new coronavirus cases in Ukraine in January may rise to 20,000-25,000 daily.
"Preliminary calculations, which we see, predict about 20,000-25,000 cases per day for the first decade of January. We won't wait for 32,000 cases when the healthcare system falls. Of course, quarantine must be introduced before this figure," he told the Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper in an interview.
Shmyhal also explained the logic behind January's quarantine restrictions that at the same time allow for continued operations of hotels and public transport, including air travel: "We need to give people the opportunity to leave megacities to avoid crowding. Because the main [coronavirus] transmission routes are in large gatherings of people," the prime minister said.
Read alsoCOVID-19: Number of recoveries exceeds that of new cases, third day in a raw, on Dec 10According to Shmyhal, restaurants, entertainment centers, and concerts are banned worldwide since people are actively communicating there, remaining in indoor settings for a long time. The increase in the number of new cases is due to people's non-compliance with quarantine rules and their indifference, the prime minister said.
"They are exhausted from quarantine restrictions, from fear of getting sick. And people have grown indifferent, many wearing masks on their chins, dining out in restaurants, etc. It happened throughout Europe, it was like a rocket that flew across Europe," Shmyhal added.
COVID-19 in Ukraine: Latest developments
Ukraine said 13,371 new active COVID-19 cases had been confirmed across the country in the past 24 hours as of December 10, 2020.
The total number of confirmed cases grew to 858,714.
