Ukrainian response to the COVID-19 pandemic: governmental interventions

In this article, the governmental response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine is described, starting from the first detected cases, up until the summer of 2020. Pandemic caught Ukraine’s health care system in the midst of a reform. At the time of COVID-19 outbreak, the first steps of primary health care reform were already being implemented while the reform at the secondary health care level were about to started. However, changes of the political environment (due to the elections 2019), two changes of the Minister of Health (since the beginning of the pandemic), the absence of the general plan of action followed by the inconsistent political decisions, and the uncertainty in financing mechanisms of the secondary health care facilities, made the COVID-19 pandemic challenging for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government had difficulties in devoting additional recourses to medical facilities to protect medical professionals and provide treatment for patients. Instead, as a main intervention to combat COVID-19, the government implemented lockdown from 12 of March to 12th of May that only postponed the raise of infections, preserved lives. While the pandemic still had a highly negative impact on the economy, initial analysis indicate that lockdown could be considered effective from the economics point of view.