Mayor of Dnipro Borys Filatov announced the introduction of strict quarantine restrictions in the city on Thursday night, March 25, identical to those provided for the "red" level of epidemiological danger, to counter the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.

"The City Commission on Environmental Safety, Manmade Disaster and Emergency Response introduces strict quarantine restrictions from Thursday at 00:00. The corresponding decision will be published in the near future. And although Dnipro is not yet in the 'red' zone [and, I hope, will not be] a strong-willed decision has been made to do so. Unlike other territorial communities, we will not wait 'to the end' and then suffer from the collapse of the healthcare system," Filatov wrote on Facebook.

He noted that the virus has become too aggressive, seriously ill patients are "younger" and there are too many deaths in the city.

"Neither political squabbles, nor material losses, nor the mayor's rating, nothing, nothing is worth at least one saved human life. We will try to make the restrictions as comfortable as possible for business and are already thinking over a compensation mechanism from the local budget," Filatov said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health reported that Kyiv city, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Odesa, Sumy and Lviv regions entered the "red" quarantine zone of epidemic danger for COVID-19: within three days the hospitalization level there was significantly exceeded per 100,000 of the population, which normally should not exceed 60 hospitalizations.