Scientists of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and Lev Gromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases analyzed the state of COVID-19 vaccination in the global and national dimensions. They also examined the disease peculiarities in the world and Ukraine in early 2021. The research studies spread of COVID-19 in Ukraine considering other infectious diseases against which routine vaccination is carried out in Ukraine by age.
This research reports that Israel (90.22), the UAE (59.11), the United Kingdom (28.57), the United States (20.08), and Chile (16.78) are currently in the lead in the number of doses of vaccine per 100 citizens. The European Union countries stay far behind vaccination leaders. The average for the European Union is 6.82, where about 2 million people have vaccinated. In terms of the total number of vaccinations, Great Britain takes first place in Europe. The vaccination process in the Scandinavian countries and the Balkans has some delay.
Ukraine did not start vaccination until February 24, 2021, with the Covishield vaccine. The vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford and the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and produced at the Serum Institute (India).
As of February 28, 2021, about 3,140 people, mostly medical workers, have been vaccinated in Ukraine. If such vaccination low rates continue, it will take almost 8 months to administer 250,000 doses for the first vaccination. Since the Covishield vaccine can be stored for up to six months at a temperature of +2 to +8 C, there is a need to revise the vaccination plan approved by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. The important thing is to make vaccination more accessible, mostly free of charge, for those who want to be vaccinated, to most effectively influence the reduction of epidemic threats in the country.
Ukrainians show a high degree of uncertainty about the vaccination feasibility with the Covishield vaccine (from 56 to 92%). One of the reasons for such hesitation is that the active discussion in the information environment of Ukraine on the feasibility of using the Covishield vaccine is only 7-10 days.After some improvement in the epidemic situation in early 2021, the second half of February, the downward trend in the registered incidence rate stopped and began to reverse growth - especially in the western regions.
Predictive modeling using neural networks suggests that over the next 10–14 days, the number of newly diagnosed patients may range from 4,500–9,000 per day in the optimistic scenario and 5,000–10,000 in the pessimistic scenario. The number of fatalities in this period can range from 40-140 per day, the number of recoveries - 1,500-5,500 per day.
The pace of society's adaptation to the disease has deteriorated almost fivefold in the last month. The adaptation coefficient increased from 0.8 to 4%. This tendency is likely to an increase in mortality in the first half of March 2021 in the range of 1.93-1.95% with a further slight downward trend. There are grounds that shortly, without taking preventing measures, the epidemic situation in other regions of the country will complicate.