Manipulating the environment to test a hypothesis is a bad idea when it could kill you.
(Ukraine’s president likely to appear at parliament’s plenary session on October 20. I’ll add a link to his monologue later.)
Past is Prologue
At the beginning of the outbreak, Ukraine had a chance to contain the novel virus by identifying each person bringing the infection into the country and stopping it before it spread throughout the community.
President Volodymyr Zelensky told us not to worry on January 31.
Ze!Team did nothing to prepare for the pandemic in February and March.
There was no individual-level containment, which would have had minimal effect on the economy. Instead, Illia Yemets, a corrupt hack from the era of disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych, was installed as Health Minister. He said the country’s limited medical resources shouldn’t be wasted on people over the age of 65.
Yemets was sacked after members of Ukraine’s jet set brought the virus back to Ukraine from European ski resorts. Germy priests co-mingled with hundreds of thousands of returning migrant workers and exacerbated the situation. All regions have since seen a steady increase in cases.
The idea that that restrictions imposed in March could be lifted after hospitals were re-equipped has been abandoned. Ze!Team in April gave up on a policy of sufficient testing and contact tracing altogether, opting for harm reduction. The success of this policy will likely depend on the unpredictable zeal of the nation’s vertically-integrated 300,000+ police force to delouse infected establishments and their owners.