New wave of COVID-19 beginning in Ukraine - chief sanitary doctor

Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Health, Chief State Sanitary Doctor Ihor Kuzin said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"We are seeing the beginning of an increase in the incidence, and this is the beginning of the autumn wave, which is basic. We are gradually registering higher relative indicators by the number of patients. For example, last week it was 9,100, and now [this week] it is 11,500 who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and who fell ill. That's what we expected. A surge in COVID-19 cases has been recorded for the third year in a row in September, and the incidence will begin to decrease in March - April, and maybe at the beginning of May," Kuzin said.

At the same time, he said that the key factor now is the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations, which is also increasing.

"The key thing for us is the rate of hospitalizations. We earlier recorded an average of less than 1,000 hospitalizations per week, but this number has been increasing over the past few weeks. In the week before last, it was 2,600, and now it is about 3,100 patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19 per week," Kuzin said.