Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – June 17, 2020
17.06.2020
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: The total number of infected people has risen to 4026, with 41 more cases over the past 24 hours. New cases include 26 females (20 – 81 years old), 10 males (aged 25-75) and five children. 9 patients were hospitalized. Three new cases are medical professionals.
There are two more fatalities, raising the death toll to 94. The total number of recoveries stands at 1230, with further 66 overnight.
Since the start of the outbreak, 582 medical professionals or who are 12% of all coronavirus cases have tested positive for COVID-9 in Kyiv. The majority of them expose to infection in their workplace. Currently, 32 medics are hospitalised, 249 recovered and are back to work.
I urge everyone to help physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers keeping the basic health and safety rules.
The municipality enforces compliance with the quarantine measures. The mobile compliance groups which consist of the city districts officials, the National Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, the police and municipal guards check whether the reopening requirements are being followed by stores, restaurants and other businesses. People who ignore the safety rules face a fine up to ₴34,000, businesses are fined ten times higher. Massive violations can result in mandatory closure.
Over the past two weeks, the groups examined over 2,000 facilities and issued 325 penalty notices. Most common violations are illegal reopening for restaurants and night clubs as well as ignoring the mask regime and social distance rule.
As of June 16, the Kyiv airport hosts international flights following the permission of the State Aviation Administration to resume international air traffic.
The air travel ban greatly impacted the airport operation. Each month it suffers from loss of almost ₴27 million and the city government has developed three relief strategies to help the airport come again to life.
The first option for the airport is to cut its costs and staff, but this is the worst anti-crisis plan. The second plan is that the national government introduces flat-rate payments for the airport’s service fee. The third one is to distribute the airlines’ operation and passenger traffic between Kyiv airport and Boryspil airport which the largest air hub within the Kyiv network, in the ration 30 to 70. The latter strategy which is at the discretion of the Cabinet of Ministers is the most effective and according to experts, will revive the industry after the quarantine as quickly as possible.