President Volodymyr Zelenskyy keeps preparations for the purchase of the COVID-19 vaccine and the mass vaccination of Ukrainians under personal control. This issue, as well as the situation with the spread and counteraction to the pandemic were discussed at the traditional conference call chaired by the Head of State.
"We must be ready with a plan of action for vaccination. The state must decide who will be vaccinated first, how many patients hospitals will be able to vaccinate in a month, and most importantly - we must help medical institutions with vaccination. This is the first time such mass vaccination will be performed in the world,” Volodymyr Zelenskyyi stressed.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the number of people infected with COVID-19 had dropped significantly over the past week. A total of 89,322 patients were identified from November 30 to December 6. For comparison, a week before there were 96,936 infected.
"7.6 thousand fewer people got infected. At the same time, the number of tests is almost unchanged and varies between 280-290 thousand tests per week," the Prime Minister noted.
According to Denys Shmyhal, these indicators were influenced by the introduction of weekend quarantine, as well as the increase in fines for being without masks in public places and transport.
The President asked whether the number of beds with access to medical oxygen was increasing. Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov stressed that since November, more than 15,000 beds had been added. At the same time, he noted that some regions overfulfilled the plan and some underfulfilled it. Among the latter, the Minister named the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.
Maksym Stepanov also said that 66,000 antigen tests had been purchased last week. By the end of the year, the ministry will have purchased 1.3 million such tests.