President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced the priority of vaccination over the introduction of a lockdown, as well as the need to increase the speed of vaccination in the country.

"The right response to today's increase in a number of patients with coronavirus [COVID-19] infection is vaccination, not a lockdown. This is the decision to avoid a large increase in patients. We are approaching the middle of March and should provide more opportunities for people to receive the first doses of the vaccine, especially if they work at the front line of the fight against coronavirus," Zelensky said during a conference call with the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister of Ukraine on Tuesday.

As Zelensky said, "the country needs to increase the rate of vaccination, for which it would be possible to involve mobile teams and the resources of other departments, along with resources of the Health Ministry." Also, "the misinformation about vaccines must be dealt with carefully."

According to Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, "The Ministry of Internal Affairs has already trained 50 mobile teams that will help to conduct the vaccination."

In turn, Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov during the meeting drew attention to the need for closer cooperation with the heads of regional state administrations.

Stepanov also announced the stabilization of situation in the Carpathian region. He said that "in the future, he will actively conduct negotiations on Ukraine's receipt of vaccines against COVID-19."

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, "over the previous week, if we compare with the week before last, the number of hospitalizations of patients with coronavirus increased - almost 21,000 people compared to 17,600 people. Today, 29,573 beds are occupied. In total, 70,157 beds have been allocated for COVID-19 patients, of which 60,000 are provided with oxygen. The number of occupied intensive care beds has also increased from 1,500 to 2,000. This means that the number of severe cases is increasing."

"Adaptive quarantine continues to operate in Ukraine. A red level has been introduced in regions with a wide spread of coronavirus disease. These are Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zakarpattia and Zhytomyr regions. Also, almost ten regions are in orange zone and are close to the red level," Shmyhal said.