Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – April 22, 2020
22.04.2020
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: Unfortunately, I have more cheerless news today.
97 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Kyiv in the past 24 hours. Overnight 10 more medics have been tested positive, as well as 11 children under 17 years old, 34 women (22-83 years old) and 52 men (18-85 years old). Thus, the total number of coronavirus cases rose to 989.
21 patients are admitted to the city’s hospitals.
Six more people have recovered overnight, bringing the total number of recoveries in Kyiv to 39.
New cases include also a monk from Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra and 12 monks of Pokrovsky Holosiivsky Men’s Monastery. The latter is currently being disinfected before a quarantine shutdown. Also, the municipal disinfection crews are sanitizing city-owned dormitories and hostels.
As I said yesterday, the city has spent ₴101 million to purchase some medications that are used to treat the coronavirus patients. Those are antibiotics, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and other drugs – 17 in total which are currently being delivered to the dedicated coronavirus hospitals in Kyiv. This helps significantly, since as of April 1 the NHS-funded hospital pharmacies are responsible for drugs procurement. And their financial resources are scarce.
Besides, the city continues to purchase facial masks. The municipal Pharmacia pharmacies continue to receive the pre-ordered 550,000 disposable and 100,00 reusable facial masks, rubber gloves and sanitisers. They are now available to buy.
The socially responsible business has donated 100,000 face masks to the Kyiv hospitals, police, rescuers and other essential municipal workers. Additionally, the State Budget Reserve Fund of Ukraine and Monsters Corporation Charity donated 526,000 items of personal protective equipment to the city’s hospitals, maternity clinics and primary care medical centres.
The city continues to take care of vulnerable populations. The Kyiv Coordination Centre for Vulnerable Populations has already delivered over 25,000 boxes of essential supplies, out of 27,300 provided. It also delivered 4,000 Easter paskas which were donated by the charities, to the beneficiaries.
I want to say a big thank you to all donor companies and charity foundations that help the Centre and support the most socially vulnerable people in Kyiv.
A special thank you goes to those Kyivans who respect the restriction rules. And I urge those who do otherwise, to stop ignoring the rules! We are approaching the peak of the infection and how grim and long it will be depends on our attitude. Because if we keep following the rules, the restrictions will be lifted sooner.
As fas as I know, studying the transmission dynamics, Ukraine’s Health Ministry has extended the restrictions at least until May 12. It will suggest the Government to look at relaxing the rules, but not until we know that the реаk іs оvеr. In the first place the Ministry is looking at reopening parks, but only under social distancing rule and with face covering.
The city government is also considering when and how to ease the restrictions. We learn about the рrосеssеs and оutсоmеs in other European cities, which are set to first reopen small businesses, resume public transport and carefully reopen public spaces. Our tentative steps will much depend on when we reach the peak of the outbreak and how bad it looks.
I know, the situation here may look stable due to the early lockdown measures. But still, the risk remains high and the situation can rapidly turn to the worse. Over and over I am asking people to follow the lockdown order, so we can get through this tough time sooner.
As before, there is much speculation about whether the city would complete Vynohradar metro construction in time. Let me assure you, the work on all construction sites remains on schedule. A tunnel boring machine is almost ready and soon tunnelling will start. According to plan, work which is expected to take six months will start on the 1.3-kilometre tunnel that goes from Mostytska station toward Syrets station. A total length of the track under construction is 3,7 km. The extеnsіоn wіll sее а dаіlу rіdеrshір оf 90,000.
Representatives of Kyivmetrobud company which builds the metro extension state, that the city provides full funding, and the company is оn trасk for the unveiling of two new stations by December 2021. Soon I will inspect the progress of construction to ensure work is moving forward as planned.
Commenting on the air pollution in Kyiv. Every day 55 municipal service trucks clean the streets and highways, sanitising them and washing off the grit and debris. Since the air in Kyiv is still dirty, overnight they used over 2 million litres of a special solution to treat the streets and roads, to get rid of the recent haze particles.
Again I have to warn the city residents against the grass and backyard burns. With a sіnglе mаtсh, you may start a disaster! There are 37 grassfires reported over the past 24 hours. Over 1,000 municipal firefighters have been deployed to attend the local fires as well as the wildfires in Chornobyl zone and Zhytomyr region.