The ban on the work of public catering establishments from January 8 to January 24 is justified, since public catering has the highest risk of infection, Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov said.

"We know how the incidence will rise, what factors affect the growth. It would be appropriate not to hold celebrations at restaurants at all, the risk of infection in catering establishments is the highest," he told reporters on Thursday.

At the same time, the minister said there is no need to completely close public transport, since the restrictions that are being introduced will lead to a significant reduction in the number of passengers in transport.

Stepanov said the strategy of the Ministry of Health regarding anti-epidemic measures has always shown its effectiveness.

"It all started with a lockdown at the beginning of the year, which made it possible to reduce the first wave to a minimum. If then the number of cases during the week was 1,000 patients per day, we would have gotten a collapse of the medical system," he said.

"After that, we switched to the adaptive quarantine format, which could work up to a certain level of incidence. But we did not reach the figures that some European countries did, which allowed us not to enter a tough lockdown. On November 9, we introduced a unified quarantine regime, when we weekly grew by 30-35% of cases and hospitalizations. We also left December for workers. In January, we warned in advance that we would introduce tough quarantine in order to bring down the number of cases to a minimum," the minister said.