Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says that Ukraine has 30,000 beds reserved for the first and second waves of the coronavirus epidemic, while lung ventilators load is now at 7%.
"We see that moderate rise [of incidence] has started, now we analyze and figure out which indicators are key ones. This is hospital load. We don't want it to exceed 50%. Although there are already two regions where the load is 52% and 60%. This is a signal that we need to form the so-called second line of hospitals. In total, we have 30,000 beds reserved for the first and second waves [of COVID-19]. We have lung ventilators' load at 7%, so this is also a good indicator," he told the BBC's Ukrainian service on June 30.
According to Shmyhal, the Ukrainian government has an advantage today over the period when the quarantine was introduced back in March. "We have our healthcare system ready: we have purchased PPE, ensuring at least the first-line hospitals' readiness for the first wave of COVID-19. We've prepared the health care system morally," he added.
Shmyhal added that public managed to mentally prepare for the coronavirus epidemic. There was no panic in Ukraine that would destabilize the healthcare system and increase the number of victims.
"The first wave we passed quietly under a base-case scenario," he said.
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The prime minister noted that the situation is changing every day. "This can be compared with combat action. It's like at a front line, you never know how the situation will change tomorrow," he said.
"The daily number of PCR and ELISA tests run exceeded 20,000. We started with 1,000 or 2,000 and set a goal of 10,000. This gives us the opportunity to monitor the situation and understand how it is developing," he added.
As UNIAN reported earlier, as of 09:00 Kyiv time on June 30, there were 44,334 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ukraine. They included 1,159 deaths and 19,115 recoveries. Some 706 new cases were recorded in the past day, 192 of them were hospitalized. In the past 24 hours, 12 coronavirus patients died, while 88 recovered.
