Author: Journalist Volodymyr Katsman
I am writing this for my readers and viewers outside of Ukraine. These are my subjective notes on current events, on measures aimed to overcome the most severe crisis; I am writing subjectively and – I assure you – truthfully, not pretending to be comprehensive.
The Ukrainian authorities did not want to notice the progressive spreading of the coronovirus around the world almost until the last decade of February – early March. Even when the first warning bell pealed from Israel and Europe, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Mr. Danyliv, – the person who is actually in charge for safety measures for the country’s citizens – at one of the briefings joked with journalists, saying that it’s best to treat coronavirus with garlic, lard and vodka …
All garlic that is in the country is grown in China (it is cheaper than the grown ones in Ukraine), lard and horilka [in the Ukrainian language to mean vodka] are really in abundance in Ukraine, although they have risen in price, but it did not help much: at the time when I’m writing these notes, less than a thousand (!) coronavirus laboratory tests – not rapid test systems – have already shown more than 40 positive results for coronavirus, with three fatal cases and one (by the way, the very first!) recovered and discharged from the hospital.
The statistics hardly reflect the real picture. For the reason that Ukraine is sorely lacking normal test systems, and 11 laboratories (throughout the whole country!) are not able to cope with a huge flow of applications for tests. So far, only those who need to confirm the disease are tested there. Preventive tests are not provided at all.
Three things are able to illustrate the scale of a disaster. Heaven forbid if suddenly the incidence rate will increase.
Firstly, the number of cases increases every day, and the region after the region (including Kyiv region and the city of Kyiv) are introducing an “emergency situation” regime, which common people call quarantine. Quarantine measures are not too severe so far, but all the shops, except for food, grocery, banks and car parking, are closed, the metro in those cities where it existed was stopped, regional centers and Kyiv impose a ban on the movement of any public transport. The economy of Ukraine has practically stopped. And this is a dangerous syndrome – the fact is that in the coronavirus era the country entered a period of severe economic crisis. Ukraine is obliged to pay record loans this year. Previously, they were repaying, in fact, by re-borrowing money from the IMF. Now, it was not possible to come to agreement with the IMF: first they waited for the election results, then for the new Honcharuk government, then for the new government of Shmygal, the person the Fund doesn’t really manage to agree with. After the government of Ukraine was shacked up (two weeks ago, Prime Minister Honcharuk was replaced by Prime Minister Shmygal), the state budget fell UAH 62 billion (!) – this is a hole in the budget for the Q1, which calls into question payment of scarce social programs and low salaries of state employees. This year, since March 1, pensions were not indexed despite the law requirement, simply because there were no funds to do this. Neither the government of Honcharuk nor the government of Shmygal fulfilled the promise to reduce utility bills: payments for gas, water, electricity only growing, amounting to truly astronomical sums, which are overwhelming not only for pensioners, but even for workers. The cost of the hryvnia sharply decreased: at the beginning of the year, the exchange rate was set at UAH 23 per 1 US dollar, now it’s UAH 28 per 1 US dollar. Ukraine is full of talk that the UAH 30 per dollar exchange rate is just around the corner. Quarantine stops almost 700,000 Ukrainian enterprises. From where Ukraine will get the money to fight national currency inflation, for payments to state employees and retirees, repayment of losses from an economic halt? Will the country do default?
What measures can help the Ukrainian economy to withstand such a crisis? Let me assert with confidence that no one knows the answer to this question!
Secondly, two significant holidays for Ukraine – the Orthodox and Catholic Easter – will bring to Ukraine (and already brings!) tens (if not hundreds!) of thousands labor workers, also called “migrant workers”, who will return from abroad for a short vacation to several western regions of Ukraine (i.e., Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Khmelnytskiy) from Europe, as well as to the eastern and northern regions (Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv) from Russia. Ukraine is not able to withstand the flow of such “returnees”: even now, these people, after returning to the country, do not undergo two-week preventive quarantine …
And thirdly. Medical reform failed in Ukraine. Through the efforts of US citizen Ulyana Suprun, who was instructed to head the Ministry of Health at the beginning of President Poroshenko’s presidential term, the so-called “Semashko system” in Ukraine was destroyed to the ground, including the closure and liquidation of many hospital beds and medical facilities. But the new promised “similar to the UK ” system never appeared. Suprun was hardly dismissed from the chair and was even accused of misappropriation of the Ministry of Health, but the followers decided to continue the system she founded. This have led to a catastrophic situation in the medical industry. 70,000 mid-level health workers left Ukraine for Europe and Russia, followed by qualified doctors and specialists. Large numbers of scientific institutes were closed because they simply did not provide money for scientific medicine, the therapists were practically removed from Ukrainians’ everyday life and replaced with “family” doctors; the ambulances were replaced with paramedical teams. There are no protective equipment and medicines in hospitals, less than USD 1 is allocated for patients a day! … And most importantly, almost all medicine in Ukraine has ceased to be free for the elderly citizens, which means the Article 49 of the Constitution of Ukraine on free medicine has ceased to act de facto.
But instead of abolishing the “Suprun reform” immediately, the current government plans to continue it – and this, perhaps, is no less destructive for people than the pandemic itself. Please admit that it is impossible to detect the coronavirus on an X-ray apparatus, which, for example, in a district clinic somewhere in the Kherson region seems to have been assembled and mounted either by Wilhelm Röntgen itself or by his peers, because this unit looks more than a century old …
According to the Ministry of Health, the state hospitals in Ukraine had no more than 200-300 serviceable and suitable ventilation devices, although in the private hands of businessmen there are several times more of these devices. The destroyed hospitals of Ukraine are not ready to receive thousands of patients if necessary; district hospitals (those that have not been closed yet!) have not even gauze dressings, not to mention special suits or boxes.
The Verkhovna Rada even adopted a special law, which limited the sale of gauze dressings abroad, because hundreds of tons of such masks were simply sold out of the country’s reserve fund. Alas, the officials’ habit of preying on the misfortunes did not disappear in Ukraine even under the new government.
The Verkhovna Rada is in complete commotion: MP Shakhiv fell ill in Courchevel resort and infected his wife, frightened his colleagues in the Rada to death. Now Shakhiv is isolated in the hospital having deep pneumonia and temperature. Another people’s deputy, Mr. Velmozhniy, was also hospitalized with coronavirus diagnose … Now, it seems, the Parliament will not gather for another meeting soon: all deputies are urgently ordered to undergo a test – they have already ordered tests in China which are currently being transported by plane.
Without the Verkhovna Rada, President Zelensky cannot enforce the Law on the State of Emergency, which provides not only for toughening quarantine measures, but also for restrictions on fundamental rights, the closure of the media and restrictions on the use of the Internet, the possibility of confiscating apartments and vehicles from citizens, searches and detentions, curfews, prohibitions of rallies and demonstrations, or even walking out on the streets, etc. The democratically-minded public and the opposition strongly oppose this, believing that such measures are used use to suppress any manifestation of democracy.
While the government is pondering, the people habitually stand at stops waiting for a “ride” and pulled into the food shops to buy cheaper buckwheat, cereals, salt, toilet paper and other goods. No one is sure that this measure will somehow mitigate the blow to Ukrainian economy, but this measure is familiar to the local population.
Ukraine froze in anticipation.
What Ukrainians understand for sure is that they will have to live in quarantine and defenseless medicine in the near future, and life after the coronavirus will never be the same as it was before March 2020
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