Kyiv Mayor’s Coronavirus Update – March 5, 2021
05.03.2021
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, over the last week, the number of new cases in Kyiv has significantly increased and is steadily approaching a mark of 1,000 per day.
There are 910 new coronavirus cases in Kyiv in the past 24 hours, totalling 140,916. Among new infections are 495 women (age range 18-99 years), 365 men (19-87 years old) and 50 children. Also, 24 medical workers got infected. 120 new patients were admitted to hospitals overnight.
There are 96,149 recoveries from the infection in Kyiv so far, with 454 overnight. 17 more people died to bring the death toll to 2,735.
Desniansky district has the highest number of confirmed overnight cases, 162.
The number of new hospital cases is also rising, reaching 1,887 today. Nine of them are children. 1,224 patients are very ill, 41 of them are in ICUs. 1,424 are under oxygen therapy. Today’s bed occupancy rate at municipal coronavirus hospitals stands at 45 per cent.
Since hospital admissions are rising fast and to make the healthcare available to all coronavirus infected patients we have deployed over 5,000 municipal beds. 80 per cent of them have oxygen access.
Also, new flu cases are steadily growing. According to the Kyiv Central Laboratory under Ukraine’s Health Ministry, the number of influenza cases in Kyiv has almost reached 15,000, including 8,500 adults and over 6,000 children. At least 52 per cent of those children are school students. 754 patients were hospitalised with flu, including 80 kids.
I would like to say thank you to the staff of the Kyiv Central Laboratory under Ukraine’s Health Ministry who are working very hard amid the pandemic. Over the last year they have performed 250,000 coronavirus tests apart from other viral tests, compared to an average of 200 PCR tests conducted per year prior to the outbreak.
Now an update on the situation in schools. There are no fully closed quarantined schools and kindergartens. Students from 427 separate school classes in 165 schools are self-isolating and learning remotely. The active COVID-19 cases are 457 school students and 217 teachers. Also, 87 kindergarten classes in 68 nursery schools are under quarantine. The kindergarten attendance rate is almost 60 per cent.
As you may know, the municipality has received 42,600 Covishield vaccine doses provided by the Health Ministry. The vaccination rollout is underway. 434 health professionals have already received their first coronavirus shots, along with 16 opinion makers who encourage people to get inoculated. Let me remind you that the municipality has established 120 vaccination hubs at health facilities and boarding schools and 120 pop-up vaccination offices and deployed 15 coronavirus mobile vaccination teams.
And again I urge caution and want everyone to remember that our own attitude determines virus prevalence. The further development of the situation including the possible move of Kyiv to the ‘red zone’ depends on our readiness to obey the health recommendations. Washing and sanitising hands, wearing a facial mask and observing a physical distance are simple rules but they protect us and save our health, especially now when the virus mutates.