On Friday, October 30, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal held a conference call with the heads of regions on the situation with the spread of COVID-19 in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister noted that 8,312 new cases of the disease had been confirmed the previous day.

During the meeting, Denys Shmyhal heard reports from the heads of regional state administrations on the progress of implementation of commissions to find areas to organize mobile hospitals and to expand hospital beds availability. Budget requests for the subvention to provide beds with oxygen and the current state of implementation of the order by the RSA were analyzed as well.

"The Government has simplified the procedures at maximum stipulating for expanding the hospital beds availability and supplying them with oxygen devices. Money for oxygen system was allocated, you have received the resource. You had to settle the issue by October 30. There are no bureaucratic obstacles to organizing these processes. Now it is critical to speed up the work, because it is of topmost importance for us to preserve people's health and lives," Denys Shmygal stressed.

Minister of Health Maxym Stepanov informed the Prime Minister that the statistics by regions would be collected on November 1. And depending on the implementation of the indicators, which were signed by the regional state administrations, the Prime Minister will be submitted proposals for making appropriate disciplinary decisions.

Maxym Stepanov added that according to the decision of the State Commission for Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergencies, starting Monday, November 2, 112 administrative units from 20 regions would be classified as a red epidemic zone due to exceeding the incidence rate in the last 14 days.

In total, according to Maxym Stepanov, 11 regional centers will fall into the red zone. While over 75% of the territory of Ukraine will be classified as the orange level.

The Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, together with the heads of regional state administrations and the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, to ensure control over the observance of restrictions on working hours by institutions.