For three weeks the disease has been growing in Ukraine. During this time, the daily number of cases of infection increased by 7 times, hospitalizations - by 2 times. Such data was announced today by Health Minister Viktor Lyashko at a morning briefing, reports Government Portal.

"Despite the encouraging trend that the number of people seriously ill and in need of hospital treatment is not growing at the same rate as the total number of cases of infection with COVID-19, the virus is still a serious threat, especially for risk groups and the unvaccinated", - the Minister noted.

The number of new cases reported last week was again almost double that of the week before: 194,000 versus 110,000.

Such a significant increase in the number of new cases is associated with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in Ukraine. The Omicron strain has already been detected in 20 regions of the country. The highest number of confirmed cases is registered in Zhytomyr, Chernivtsi and Ternopil regions and Kiev.

Today Ukraine is on the 46th place among 54 territories of the European region of the World Health Organization according to the number of cases per 100 thousand people for the last 14 days.

The number of cases has increased most in Zhytomyr region twice. Ivano-Frankivsk region, which was the leader of the increase the week before last and was at the red level of epidemic safety, last week had a much lower increase of +35.6%.