Ukraine reports record daily high of coronavirus-related deaths

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine registered a record daily high of 407 coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours, and infections are likely to rise further over the next one to two weeks, its health minister said on Wednesday.

© Reuters/Gleb Garanich
FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Kyiv

The country began rolling out vaccinations against the COVID-19 pandemic last month and 231,564 people had received the first shot by Wednesday, yet Health Minister Maksym Stepanov described the situation as “tense enough”.

The capital Kyiv, with the highest infection rate in the ex-Soviet republic of 41 million people, may be forced to restrict public transport, close schools and kindergartens, Mayor Vitali Klitschko told a daily media briefing.

He said Kyiv hospitals dedicated to COVID-19 treatment were now 80% full.

A major spike in infections last week to a 24-hour record of 18,132 prompted almost half the country’s regions to impose a tight lockdown.

Stepanov said on Facebook 11,226 new infections were reported over the past 24 hours, pushing the total to 1,674,168 since the pandemic began a little over a year ago.

The previous daily high of 362 deaths was on March 25. A total of 32,825 Ukrainians have died from COVID-19.

Ukraine received 500,000 doses of the Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccine CoviShield in February and the first 215,000 of China’s Sinovac COVID-19 shot.

Thirty-seven million vaccine doses are expected to arrive in Ukraine in 2021 and the health ministry hopes most of the adult population will be inoculated this year, Stepanov told a televised government meeting.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets; Editing by Mark Heinrich)