The quarantine in Ukraine will prolong until May 11. Only after this date the Government will begin the phasing out or relaxation of restrictions.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal announced this in his opening statement during a regular Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, April 22.

At first, the Head of Government thanked everyone who had demonstrated responsibility and abided by the recommendations of the authorities staying to celebrate Easter at home. According to the PM, only due to the preliminary introduced quarantine measures as of today, Ukraine has one of the lowest death tolls from COVID-19 which is 2.7%.

“But the predictions of the analysts from the NAS of Ukraine and the Ministry of Health data indicate that we have not passed the peak of the disease and it may come in early May. On this basis, the Government will today decide to extend the quarantine until May 11. We have a very clear roadmap of getting out of the quarantine. It contains five stages,” the Prime Minister said.

Denys Shmyhal noted that the implementation of this plan would be commenced approximately on May 12 only if the epidemic situation was improving. According to the PM, there should be several reasons for that: if within 10 days the percentage of detected cases in the country does not change or fluctuate within 5% and hospitals should be filled with patients with COVID-19 less than 50%.

“After that, we embark on the implementation of the roadmap of quarantine exit and we realize the next four stages. Meanwhile, we have some very critical objectives to accomplish by May 11,” urged the Prime Minister.

According to Denys Shmyhal, those include an increase in the number of coronavirus testing, improvement in providing our hospitals and doctors with everything necessary, the introduction of E-control of self-isolation as an alternative to observation, creation of new rules of functioning for facilities of providing services to the population with compulsory social distance, face mask regime and constant disinfection procedures.

“Given that all goes well and the epidemic situation improving, on May 11 we will have a chance to talk about the opening of parks and public gardens, establishments other than foodstores, some consumer services facilities. There may be other lockdown relaxing measures. But we will be able to talk about those measures later,” said Denys Shmyhal.

According to the Prime Minister, such actions will allow returning some people to work, improve the emotional health of Ukrainians and launch the recovery of the economy.

Moreover, Denys Shmyhal noted that the Government is well aware that both people and businesses are experiencing challenges: “Therefore, we are introducing a series of measures aimed at supporting Ukrainians. In particular, we are increasing unemployment benefits, expanding our business support programs and actually introducing repayment holidays, raising pensions, and creating new jobs yet today.”

Apart from that, the Head of the Government drew attention to the situation with the forest fires in Zhytomyr region. He noted that the Cabinet of Ministers is keeping the situation under control and is ready to allocate UAH 25 million for the elimination of the consequences and support of the people affected by the fires.