The heads of regional state administrations (RSA) have sufficient powers to ensure all appropriate measures are taken to prevent a sharp increase in the COVID-19 morbidity rate in their regions amid the adaptive quarantine stage.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal stated at an extraordinary meeting of the State Commission on technogenic and environmental safety and emergencies.

Addressing the RSA heads, the PM stressed that it is now of first importance to keep the epidemic under control, especially given the fact that the weakening of quarantine measures, unfortunately, is perceived by the society as the abolition of quarantine.

"We must raise people’s awareness of these issues. Concerning observance of social distance regime, concerning the observance of wearing a mask. We are ready to reconsider the issue of wearing masks outside, but wearing masks indoors will be relevant for a long time. Therefore, we are planning to submit at the sitting of the Government and the Verkhovna Rada the issue of strengthening the administrative responsibility for non-compliance with the mask regime in the premises and public transport. It is essential to constantly communicate with society in order to obey these social measures," stressed Denys Shmyhal.

Regarding the purchase of personal protective equipment in the regions, the Head of the Government stressed that the Ministry of Health is fulfilling its part of the responsibilities: "Funding has been transferred, all necessary medical equipment and means are purchased to hand over to the regions. However, each region, each medical institution has available resources. I request to speed up the procurement process and control that we fill medical facilities with personal protective equipment."

"So far we can see a slight but increasing number of officially confirmed COVID-19 cases. In order to prevent at some point the exponential growth of patients who contracted the infection and overloading of medical institutions, it is critical to act immediately. Everyone of you has sufficient powers, responsibilities, respected heads of regional state administrations, to ensure the situation is under control and adaptive quarantine brings anticipated results", Denys Shmyhal summed up.