Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – November 16, 2020
16.11.2020
The mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko held a briefing providing an update on the coronavirus situation in Ukraine’s capital and the measures the city is taking to respond.
Klitschko: Covid-19 numbers are rising very fast in Kyiv. The total number of infections has reached 51,499, with new 879 cases over the past 24 hours, despite some decline in testing during weekends.
The latest patients are 511 women (aged 18-99), 316 men (18-93 years old) and 52 children. Among new cases are 43 medical workers.
79 patients were admitted to the city’s hospitals.
976 Kyivans have died from the coronavirus infection so far, 11 in the past 24 hours. There are eight overnight recoveries, taking their total number to 18,767.
Darnytsky and Obolonsky districts have the highest rate in new infections, with 125 and 115 respectively.
Hospitalisations are rising too. As of today, 2,062 COVID-19 patients are staying in hospitals (34 children included). 683 of them seriously ill. 31 are on invasive ventilators and 895 are receiving supplementary oxygen.
The municipality has deployed over 4,500 inpatient beds in 26 municipal hospitals. The current bed occupancy rate stands at over 53%.
1,200 beds have access to piped oxygen. There are over 460 ventilators and 160 oxygen concentrators available in the municipal coronavirus facilities across Kyiv. And we are going to purchase 130 more concentrators. Additionally, we are retrofitting some hospitals to implement or repair oxygen flow systems to be able to add 600 oxygen beds.
Now some words about the situation in schools which we have under control so far. Let me stress that all municipal education facilities have enough sanitisers, masks, gloves, and cleaning supplies. The active coronavirus cases are 615 school students and 486 teachers. Seven schools remain quarantined. Students of 464 classes in 194 schools study remotely.
81 kindergartens groups in 65 schools are temporarily closed and two more entire kindergartens are quarantined. The current kindergarten attendance is more than 53%.
Our main task today is to protect the health and lives of people. This is why the municipal authority is set to comply with the government’s weekend quarantine order, which is being widely criticised as an imperfect response measure. But now any infection spike can lead to a collapse of the public healthcare. The strict lockdown can be another means to break the chain of the COVID-19 transmission.
At the same time, it is very important to avoid economic disaster and protect vulnerable businesses. We are fully aware that people are exhausted, they have been living on a tight budget for so long time. So the national government must do everything possible to bring in proactive relief measures to help the business affected by есоnоmіс hаrdshір. The Kyiv city authority has introduced such stimulus package back in March. Now we are reviewing it to secure more jobs and offer more support to the business.
We do not want a new nationwide lockdown, so I urge everyone to follow the health precautions and comply with health guidelines. Whether we like it or not, let us be more careful and sensible. As you know, many countries have already imposed strict quarantine norms. We are still trying to avoid them.