Kyiv, eight regions to be hardest-hit by COVID-19 – forecast

The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) has said the capital city of Kyiv, as well as eight regions will be hardest-hit by COVID-19.

"According to the scenarios considered, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky regions, as well as the city of Kyiv are the areas with the highest expected number of the infected," according to an NASU forecast about COVID-19 epidemic developments in Ukraine from March 24 to April 6, 2021.

In particular, the forecast shows the current wave of the COVID-19 epidemic will continue growing.

Read alsoUkraine extends mask rules to outdoor public locations in so-called "red zones""The current trend in Ukraine in the forecast of the number of new patients, made according to the FB Prophet model, is similar to most European countries. Although, a number of countries in these regions (the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc.) also see a downward trend," the report says.

"Unfortunately, Ukraine belongs to the group of European countries with the highest growth, which also includes Poland and Germany," the experts said.

According to the NASU, the growth in the number of new patients in other neighboring countries (Moldova, Romania, and Hungary) is slow, but the trend is also showing an increase there.

At the same time, on a global scale, India and Brazil are characterized by a trend that is growing much faster than in Ukraine or Poland.

Third COVID-19 wave in Ukraine

• Ukraine said 14,174 new active COVID-19 cases were confirmed across the country in the past 24 hours as of March 24, 2021.
• The total number of confirmed cases rose to 1,579,906. As many as 1,276,272 patients have recovered, while the death toll has hit 30,773 since the start of the epidemic.
• On March 4, 2021, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country was entering the third wave of the COVID-19 epidemic.
• The Health Ministry predicts a surge in new COVID-19 cases by late April.