Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – March 12, 2021
12.03.2021
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: This March marks a year into the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions. To prevent the virus spread Kyiv imposed quarantine restrictions on March 12, 2020. Kindergartens and schools closed and their students were learning remotely. We limited public event attendance and put into place public health precautions. Then came the lockdown and suspended public transport service. We all had to adjust to the new reality.
The early introduced measures helped us save Kyiv and the whole country from the devastating first wave of the infection hitting many countries across the world.
A year passed but we must not drop our guard since we have not still fought the virus which surges back in both Ukraine and Kyiv. We must still keep precautions and be careful to avoid the infection.
There are new 896 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours. With this, their total number has reached 144,910.
The latest patients are 505 women (aged 18-99), 350 men (18-89 years old) and 41 children. Among new cases are 21 medical workers. 129 patients were admitted to the city’s hospitals. More 292 Kyivans are admitted to hospitals with suspected coronavirus diagnosis
23 overnight fatalities bring the death toll to 2,857. There are 428 overnight recoveries, taking recoveries to 97,648.
Desniansky district has the highest rate in new transmissions, 188.
Covid-19 hospitalisations are reaching a record high in Kyiv. Hospitals face fast growing numbers of patients who are seriously ill and need supplemental oxygen.
Today, a total of 2,548 patients including 14 children are taken to hospitals with coronavirus diagnosis. 1,689 in-patients are very ill, 1,978 are under oxygen therapy and 38 are put on an invasive ventilator. Today’s hospital bed occupancy rate reaches 57 per cent.
Flu cases are also growing. According to the Kyiv Central Laboratory under Ukraine’s Health Ministry, there were about 18,000 influenza cases registered last week in Kyiv, a 20 per cent jump compared to the previous week. Those cases include over 10,700 adults and some 7,000 children, at least half of whom are school students. 719 patients were admitted to hospitals with flu, including 37 kids.
Now some words about the situation in schools. Two entire schools are quarantined now, as well as 460 separate classes in 182 schools.
576 school students and 352 teachers are active coronavirus cases so far. Also, 92 nursery groups in 72 kindergartens are temporarily closed due to the detected infections. The kindergarten attendance rate is almost 50 per cent.
Since the Covid-19 numbers in Kyiv are growing fast, I am often asked about a potential new lockdown.
According to the previous announcements of the Prime Minister and the Healthcare Ministry, the national government is prepared to re-impose a new lockdown if most regions are in the red epidemic zone. As you know, Kyiv is still in the orange epidemiological zone though the situation in Western Ukraine is very complicated.
Let me remind you that the responsibility to implement the national lockdown rests with the central government. If we do not want tougher restrictions in force, we all have to be careful and sensible and follow the health precautions. Because the economic impact of another national lockdown would be devastating for the business which has already hit hard. SMEs drives the city’s economy and the municipality does everything it can to support the business and provide various relief measures.
It is also very important to avoid the collapse of public healthcare. Currently, we keep the situation under control having set up almost 5,100 coronavirus beds in 29 dedicated healthcare facilities, including those three affiliated with the Ukrzaliznytsia. Now 24 hospitals with a bed capacity of over 4,000 and 1,075 oxygen concentrators treat coronavirus patients. About 3,760 beds are oxygen-supported, including those 2,700 with access to piped oxygen.
At least, ₴30 million is committed to scale up the oxygen-supported beds and cover the expenses related to the repaired oxygen flow systems at the hospitals. Another ₴7.5 million went to purchase more oxygen concentrators.