Photo from UNIAN

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said a lockdown may be restored in Ukraine again if half of the country's regions see growth in the coronavirus (COVID-19) incidence rate.

"We envisage no situation where a lockdown across the whole country may be imposed [again]. If we see a local outbreak of contagion in some area or region, a local quarantine will be introduced there. This is about quarantine adaptability. A tremendous growth [in incidence rate] in half of the regions and a health care system overload are conditions for a lockdown to be announced across country," Shmyhal said at a morning TV show "Snidanok z 1+1" on May 12, as reported by the Ukrainian TSN TV news service.

According to Shmyhal, five stages of easing quarantine restrictions have been scheduled to avoid another coronavirus spike. The first stage began on May 11, when part of businesses were allowed to reopen and certain restrictions were lifted.

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"The second stage will be introduced when certain conditions are met. In particular, the number of patients will be decreasing every day for a certain period. The third stage is the unloading of our healthcare system. When the number of recoveries will be at least twice as high as those infected. Accordingly, the healthcare system will be unloaded," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine lifted some quarantine-related curbs from May 11.