Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – March 31, 2021
31.03.2021
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: Unfortunately, the number of positive coronavirus cases and related hospitalisations remains high in Kyiv.
There are new 1,100 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, reaching 162,291 in total. The latest cases are 567 females (aged 17-89 years), 476 males (aged 17-85 years) and 57 children. There are 25 more confirmed cases among medical staff.
A total of 105,605 Kyivans have recovered so far, 26 overnight. There are 35 more deaths, taking the death toll in Kyiv to 3,405.
Desniansky district leads, with 201 new virus transmissions in the past 24 hours.
The number of Covid-19 hospitalisations remains stable high. With 792 patients admitted to hospitals overnight (including 636 ones with suspected diagnosis), there are 4,464 coronavirus in-patients in Kyiv (34 children included).
2,946 patients are seriously ill, 57 of them are on a ventilator. 3,526 people need supplemental oxygen. The municipal Covid-19 hospitals are almost 80 per cent full.
Keeping our hospitals from collapsing we add more coronavirus beds. Currently, 30 municipal coronavirus hospitals can hold up to 6,169 infected people altogether. And we are tаkіng stерs to mаkе more 236 beds аvаіlаblе. A total of 1,100 inpatient beds have been deployed by the municipality since the beginning of the third wave.
Despite October’s ruling of the Health Ministry, three hospitals affiliated with the Ukrzaliznytsia have only recently begun to admit infected Kyivans though their number is very restricted.
Regardless numerous requests and talks other health facilities attached to the Health Ministry and the Academy of Medical Sciences are allegedly not ready to admit the Covid-19 positive Kyivans.
The municipality has committed over ₴23.5 million of reserve funds to purchase oxygen concentrators, patient’s monitors and ventilators.
The testing capacity for COVID-19 in Kyiv is still the highest in Ukraine and exceeds 660 tests performed per 100,000 population. We have done everything to make the testing widely available. Tests can be done at 71 testing collection centres by appointment of a family doctor at no out-of-pocket cost. A full list of those centres is available on the city administration site.
Also, the mobile response brigades continue to collect samples of the people with symptoms at home. About 3,000 Kyivans have tested for the infection at home in the past week.
As you may know, along with other regions, Kyiv has begun its Covid-19 inoculation programme with the Covishield vaccine provided by the Health Ministry. Ukraine’s capital city received 42,600 vaccine doses and now leads in vaccination rate compared to other Ukrainian cities. 17,300 people have already received their first shot. They are mainly medical professionals (11,670), Kyivans of the 80-plus age group (2,830), the ATO combatants (776), the essential services employees (360) and other priority recipients (1,380). Let me remind you that vaccines are being administered by 15 coronavirus mobile vaccination teams in 120 vaccination hubs installed at health facilities and boarding schools and 85 pop-up vaccination offices.
Now an update on the situation in schools. Students of grade 5-11 are back to remote learning. Elementary schools are open for in-person learning. Quarantined are one school which is fully closed and 163 separate school classes in 82 facilities in Kyiv. Active Covid-19 cases are 482 schools students and more than 580 teachers. Also, 271 kindergarten classes in 170 nursery schools are under quarantine. The kindergarten attendance rate is almost 46 per cent.
Today the situation is controllable. Should it worsen, much tougher measures will be re-imposed, including suspended public transportation and closed kindergartens and schools.
Let me stress that the situation in Kyiv is beyond a joke! This is the matter of life and death literally! Every day we have up to 40 new coronavirus deaths and long lines of ambulances with Covid-19 patients waiting outside the hospitals.
I want to make it clear for those who keep ignoring the rules, crowding on public transport and going outside without a mask. How can the municipality protect citizens if they do not want to keep themselves safe?