Infectious disease expert speaks up for immediate nationwide lockdown

Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at Bogomolets National Medical University, Professor Olha Golubovska has spoken up for the immediate introduction of a nationwide lockdown.

"I believe it needs to be introduced across the country. Because if we do not have it throughout the country, it means the regions that are now calm will break out later. The same was with measles. Luhansk and Donetsk regions were the last to break out," she said in an interview for the Ukrainian online news outlet Obozrevatel.

Read alsoCOVID-19: Ukraine hits this year's high in new cases, second day in row, as of March 19Asked when exactly such restrictions need to be introduced, Golubovska said: "It should have been done yesterday."

The doctor has criticized permission to hold entertainment events in Ukraine, in particular concerts.

"When I look at a crowd at concerts, I immediately imagine how many people may get infected, and immediately think how much oxygen will be needed and where to get it... Restrictive measures are necessary. This will at least reduce the number of new cases. The load will still remain, because there are seriously ill patients now, but there will be more patients who will get more seriously ill for a while," Golubovska said.

Third COVID-19 wave in Ukraine

• On March 4, 2021, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country was entering the third wave of the COVID-19 epidemic.
• Experts from Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences (NAS) claim the mortality rate of the current COVID-19 wave has already exceeded the indicators of the autumn wave, and will increase at least by early April.
• An increase in the number of new cases is seeing in all regions of Ukraine, except for Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia. They faced the growth of new cases in the second half of January, which lasted for about one and a half months, by early March. Experts believe those regions are now going through a peak period in the number of hospitalizations and deaths.
• A tough quarantine has been introduced in the city of Lviv from March 19 until March 28, as well as in the capital city of Kyiv from March 20 until April 9.