The move comes after that Ukraine is experiencing many new Covid-19 cases and record deaths while vaccination remains low.
Ukraine is no longer on EUs green list for travelling, reports Ukrinfrom. The EU’s European Council yesterday decided to remove Ukraine and Singapore from the green travel list due to the Covid-19 situation in the countries, which means that EU countries should prevent Ukrainians from entering the union unless people are fully vaccinated.
“Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted. In particular, Singapore and Ukraine were removed from the list,” reads a statement by the EU.
Instead, the EU recommend member states to lift restrictions for people from Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Kuwait, Namibia, New Zealand, Peru, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, and China.
The worsening Covid-situation in Ukraine
The Covid-19 situation in Ukraine has been attracting much attention in recent months due to the spike in cases and reports about how easy it is to buy a fake Covid-19 passport on the black market. For example, ABC News reported in October about how a fake Covid-19 passport in Ukraine costs no more than 20 to 200 dollars and takes minutes to buy.
At the same time, Ukraine has been experiencing a spike in Covid-19 cases. On November 8th, for example, Ukraine recorded 18,988 instances of Covid-19 and 833 deaths, and the numbers are growing by the day, making the EU worried.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 73,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Ukraine, according to the official numbers. The situation could be much worse as Ukraine tests much less than countries in Western Europe because of the lack of good healthcare.
Vaccination levels are growing
Less than 20 per cent of Ukrainians are fully vaccinated, which means that it is difficult for the authorities to get the pandemic under control. Recently, several parts of Ukraine entered the red zone, which means severe restrictions for unvaccinated people who cannot visit bars or restaurants or take public transport.
However, since the introduction of the red zone in several parts of Ukraine, the number of people being vaccinated has been growing. 8,154,792 people are now fully vaccinated, according to Censor.net, but many are still sceptical of vaccines.
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, warned that if people aren’t soon vaccinated, thousands more will die.
“Unfortunately, given what we have, we may see a thousand daily deaths from COVID-19 in early November,” Danilov said last month and added that the daily number of new cases is projected to be more than 50,000 soon in November.
91.1 per cent of those hospitalised with COVID-19 last week were unvaccinated, according to the Ministry of Health.
