President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine was at a crossroads at the moment. Right now, Ukrainians will have to choose between imposing a full lockdown in the country and mass vaccination.
«There are two ways at the crossroads. When the number of people increases (with coronavirus—Ed. note) in your country, no system will make it. We now have one of the largest systems in Europe in terms of the number of thousands of beds. But no one will make it with 300,000 or 500,000 of them. Therefore, there are two ways at this crossroads: vaccination and lockdown. That's all.»
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine
The Head of State added that he personally categorically opposed imposing the most severe restrictions in the country.
«I am very much against the lockdown because of the economy. Because there is no lockdown—we see figures, we grow. Our GDP is growing, the budget is growing, the budget filling this year is more than planned.»
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine
Context. The Ukrainian Ministry of Health expects the peak of the current wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and peak loads on the healthcare system in late October—mid-November.
15, 579 new cases of coronavirus disease and 538 deaths were recorded in Ukraine on the morning of October 19. Since the beginning of vaccination against coronavirus in Ukraine, 8,065,762 people have been vaccinated, of which 6,573,564 people received two doses of the vaccine.
As of October 18, five regions imposed the "red" quarantine zone (Kherson, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa,and Zaporizhzhia regions), but the incidence rate exceeds the permissible value in more than half of the regions. Vinnytsia, Zakarpattia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Rivne, and Ternopil regions are now in the "yellow" zone, the rest are in the "orange" one.
The Latvian authorities decided to announce a nationwide four-week lockdown in the country—from October 21 to November 15.
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