Some 33% of Ukrainians already have immunity to the coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksiy Danilov has said.
“I can say the preliminary results of a sociological study conducted in our country. The results indicate that 33% of the population already has immunity to COVID-19,” Danilov said at a briefing following the NSDC meeting on Friday, July 16.
“In addition, with regard to vaccinated people, we believe that 38-40% of people in our country are already immunized,” he said.
According to Danilov, “this is not a reason for us not to comply with the restrictive measures proposed by doctors.”
“Moreover, I want to ask everyone to speed up vaccination as soon as possible. We believe that everyone will be vaccinated in the near future. This is very important, because, having the herd immunity of our citizens, this will be a preventive measure against morbidity,” he said.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has voted in favor of bill No. 7203 amending Article 80 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which envisages lifting parliamentary immunity from 2020. An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that 373 MPs backed the decision at a plenary session of parliament on Tuesday. It requires at least 300 for the final approval of the constitutional changes, according to the law.
Presidential candidate of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky offers to lift immunity from the country’s president, parliamentarians and judges by one law.
“Let it sound in a populist way, but no one offered or read in the programs of other candidates the following: stripping immunity from the president, deputies and judges. It is advisable that all this should be consolidated in one law,” he said in the “Interview with the presidential candidate” program on ICTV.
Zelensky pointed out that the Verkhovna Rada can lift immunity from the president, but block its withdrawal from deputies.
Responding to the comment that the immunity of deputies and the president is written into the Constitution of Ukraine, and the immunity of judges is a “slightly different” issue, Zelensky responded: “Our legal experts and lawyers are already preparing this bill. We’ll see.”
