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Ukraine is going through the current economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic better than its neighbors.
Ukraine was covered by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The Health Ministry warned that this week the daily increase in COVID-19 infections could reach 5,000 people. The authorities have not yet planned to introduce a strict quarantine, especially considering the proximity of the local elections scheduled for October 25.
In Europe, there is also a second wave, and they are also trying to avoid a repeated strict quarantine, fearing a significant drop in the economy weakened by the first lockdown. In the case of Ukraine, according to the World Bank, the pandemic has made it stronger. Correspondent.net says the details.
Better than the neighbors, but worse than expected
To date, Ukraine has set two daily anti-records: 4,753 new infections and 2,569 new ones recovered. During the day 77 people died, a total of 4,597 Ukrainians. According to official data, since the start of the pandemic, the coronavirus has been found in 239,337 residents of Ukraine.
On Monday, Health Minister Maxim Stepanov warned that by the end of the week, the daily increase in infected people could exceed the 5,000 mark. He also noted that since mid-July, the number of Ukrainians with COVID-19 in hospitals has multiplied by five.
“We have almost 37 thousand beds, of which 30 thousand are already in operation, the rest are in reserve. Today, 16 745 people are in the hospital with confirmed or suspected diagnoses,” he said.
The World Health Organization believes that the number of new coronavirus cases per day by the end of the year will reach seven to nine thousand people.
“In the same context, we are also seeing more and more cases in Europe,” Jarno Habicht, head of the WHO Ukraine office, said on 1 October.
American journalists call Ukraine a hot spot in Europe. The Washington Post cited the “wild summer in Odessa” as the reason for the increase in incidence.
Stepanov previously said that the number of cases in Odessa during the summer increased tenfold.
“On the beaches of Odessa, you would not have guessed that there is a pandemic in Ukraine, because those who maintain social distance can be counted on one hand. And in the city it is the same,” said the official.
The sad statistics of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the WHO as a whole are associated with the contemptuous attitude of Ukrainians towards precautionary measures. The WHO estimated that only one in four people in Ukraine washes their hands regularly.
“We have a tense situation, but it is not critical. But as for the attitude we have before the rules of the new reality … we will grow very fast,” warned the Health Minister.
At the same time, WHO says that morbidity and mortality rates in the world are much lower than the true values. Michael Ryan, WHO’s director of health emergencies, says the numbers can be multiplied by two.
In the context of an increase in the number of coronavirus infections, the authorities say they are keeping the situation under control.
“In Ukraine, the epidemic situation is under strict control, and if a problem arises, it is solved immediately,” the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, recently tried to reassure citizens alarmed by the rapid spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
Suspicions circulate on social media that the authorities are deliberately manipulating the statistics of the epidemic so as not to take unpopular measures among the population. Attempts to impose strict quarantine restrictions have previously encountered stiff resistance in some regions.
Pavel Kovtonyuk, director of the Center for Health Economics at the Kiev School of Economics, believes that the authorities have lost control.
First of all, we are talking about an increase in the so-called detection rate: the ratio between the number of tests carried out on a daily basis and the number of detected cases of coronavirus.
In Ukraine, Kovtonyuk says, over the past week, it averaged 17 percent. In some places, 26 percent, and in some regions, up to 40 percent.
“In the latter case, this means that almost one in three tests was positive. We mainly analyze those who are already clearly ill,” quotes the DW expert.
According to him, the minimum proportion recommended by the WHO is five percent. By way of comparison, the other day the New York authorities proposed to introduce severe restrictions in those areas of the city where this proportion exceeds three percent.
“Today there is a gap between the level of distribution and the level of evidence,” says Kovtonyuk. According to him, under current conditions, the Ukrainian government should ensure that an average of at least 80 thousand tests are carried out daily, and not 25 thousand, as it is now.
In his statement, Yermak pointed out that one of the reasons for the increase in the incidence of coronavirus in Ukraine is the increase in the number of tests.
However, as of September 18, the number of tests in Ukraine began to decrease. Contrary to WHO recommendations, Ukraine is now testing only those contact persons who have “characteristic symptoms” of COVID-19, says Viktoria Timoshevskaya, director of the Public Health Program at the International Renaissance Foundation.
Kovtonyuk is sure that the laboratory overload led to such a decision. The loss of control over the epidemic, according to the expert, is also evidenced by the dynamics of growth in the number of deaths from COVID-19, which is more difficult to manipulate.
The reluctance to impose a strict quarantine appears to be mainly due to fears of an economic recession in Ukraine.
The Ministry of Economic Development, Commerce and Agriculture believes that if the restrictions increase, “the economy will return to a downward trend, which will form a W-shaped trajectory.” According to the survey of the second quarter of 2020 (from April to June inclusive), the real GDP of Ukraine has already fallen by 11.4 percent.
However, the World Bank report “COVID-19 and human capital” released the day before suggests that Ukraine is handling the current crisis more easily than its neighbors and better than previous crises.
“The Ukrainian economy entered the coronavirus crisis stronger and more prepared, thanks to a balanced monetary and fiscal policy in previous years,” say experts from the World Bank.
“Digital slavery”. The pandemic displaces cash
However, the fall of the Ukrainian economy at the end of 2020 will be 5.5 percent, says the WB.
At the same time, next year they predict a much more moderate economic recovery for Ukraine than the Ukrainian government expects (4.6 percent below the proposed budget for 2021).
The World Bank also projects growth of just 1.5 percent in 2021 and 3.1 percent in 2022. And there are reasons for this: “a slowdown in the implementation of structural reforms.”
They also point out that it is vitally important for Ukraine to maintain macroeconomic stability and attract investment.
An equally significant factor for the Ukrainian authorities is the local elections scheduled for October 25. According to the permanent representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Verkhovna Rada, Vasily Mokan, the elections will not be canceled due to the epidemiological situation.
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