The State Commission for Emergencies and Emergency Situations has decided since midnight of 11 February to put three regions of Ukraine - Zakarpattia, Luhansk and Khmelnytskyy - in the red zone, the Health Ministry said.
As of February 8, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne regions are in the red zone, while the remaining regions are in the yellow or orange zones.
The Ministry of Health believes that up to 60 thousand cases of coronavirus per day may be recorded in Ukraine in the next two weeks, and then the incidence will begin to decline. The department attributes the increase in the incidence of disease with the spread of the Omicron strain.
Meanwhile, worldwide, the number of new COVID-19 cases declined 17 percent last week through Feb. 6, according to WHO, and the number of new deaths was up 7 percent from a week earlier.
"Globally, during the week of January 31 to February 6, 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased by 17% from the number reported the previous week, while the number of new fatalities increased by 7%," WHO said in its weekly epidemiological bulletin.
And Swedish authorities, amid a rise in fatal cases, did decide to stop widespread testing for COVID-19 even among people with symptoms of infection, the AP wrote.
"We have reached a point where the cost and relevance of testing is no longer justified. If we had widespread testing adapted for everyone with COVID-19, it would mean half a billion kroner a week (about $55 million) and 2 billion a month ($220 million)," Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of Sweden's public health agency, said this week on the national broadcaster SVT.
Stockholm alone spent the equivalent of more than $320 million on PCR tests in 2021, and according to the government, that money would have been better spent elsewhere.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the law that previously required self-isolation of people with COVID-19 could be repealed by the end of this month, ending all domestic restrictions related to the coronavirus, Reuters writes.
"Provided the current encouraging data trends continue, I expect that we will be able to lift the latest domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement for self-isolation if the test is positive, a full month early," Johnson told Parliament.
The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 400 million as the outbreak is dominated by the highly contagious Omicron variant, putting health systems in several countries at the limit of capacity, Reuters reported.
Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky is among those infected, Russian media reported. The politician is reported to have 50-75% of his lungs affected and is hospitalized.It is noteworthy that Zhirinovsky has been vaccinated against COVID-19 seven times.
