The beginning of an increase in the incidence of COVID-19 is observed in Ukraine. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Health, Chief State Sanitary Doctor Ihor Kuzin 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 the base one. We are gradually registering larger relative indicators in terms of the number of patients. For example, it was 9.1 thousand last week, now it is 11.5 thousand diagnosed and fell ill with COVID-19. This is expected, there is an increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in September for the third year in a row, and it will begin to subside in March-April, and maybe in early May", - he informed.
According to him, now there is an increase in the number of tests from week to week by almost 10-15%.
If there were 56.5 thousand tests last week, now it is 62 thousand tests.
"The vast majority use rapid tests at the level of primary care. But now state laboratories are fully working to detect COVID-19, and private ones are also working. We see that in terms of testing, the system is already approaching its usual pace", - Kuzin noted.
In addition, according to him, the level of hospitalizations has increased.
"If earlier we recorded an average of less than 1 thousand hospitalizations per week, then over the past few weeks, this figure has been growing. The week before last, it was 2.6 thousand, now about 3.1 thousand patients are hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID- 19", - he said.
"But this number is not so critical that the healthcare system cannot cope with. We have approximate estimated data on how the wave will move, we do not see any features or negative forecasts yet", - the chief medical officer of Ukraine emphasized.
As previously reported, the death rate from COVID-19 in the world began to rapidly rise again.