29 July 2020, Wednesday, 18:32 356

New Criteria For Categorizing Countries Into Red And Green Coronavirus Zones Will Be Introduced In August – Stepanov

Даша Зубкова

New criteria for categorizing countries into red and green coronavirus zones will be introduced on August 1.

Health Minister Maksym Stepanov announced this at a news briefing, the Ukrainian News Agency reports.

According to Stepanov, statistics on Ukrainian citizens returning from abroad will be updated once a week from August 1 (it is currently updated once every three days).

"We will also change the indicators. If we currently determine the number of active patients in a country, then this will be done the way it is done in European countries from August 1. There will be two indicators: if the increase in the number of coronavirus cases [in a foreign country] in the past 14 days exceeds the increase in the number of case in Ukraine and if the percentage of increase over the past 14 days is more than 30 compared with the previous 14 days…" said Stepanov.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Ministry of Health has updated the lists of countries in the red and green coronavirus zones, bringing the number of countries in the red zone to 62, including Ukraine.

The list of countries in the red zone, where the number of active COVID-19 coronavirus cases exceeds 55 per 100,000 population, includes the United States, Panama, Bolivia, Israel, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Montenegro, Peru, Luxembourg, South Africa, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Portugal, France, Romania, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Albania, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bulgaria.

The countries in the green zone include Egypt, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Iran, Greece, Canada, Turkey, Lithuania, Slovakia, Germany, Iceland, Finland, and China.

People arriving in Ukraine from countries in the red zone are required to self-isolate or go under observation.