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Ukraine's COVID-19 surge as November 2020 unfolded
Summary
A look back at the days around 14 November 2020, when Ukraine's case count hit a record and its president was in hospital.
What did the pandemic look like in Ukraine on 14 November 2020? The reports from the preceding two days point to a country under strain at the very top and across the population.
On 12 November 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky was hospitalised after contracting COVID-19 earlier that week. The illness of the head of state became part of the national story of the outbreak.
The following day, 13 November 2020, Ukraine recorded its highest number of new confirmed cases to that point: 11,787 in a single day. That pushed the nationwide total since the start of the pandemic to 512,652 cases.
The two reports, one day apart, framed the situation as it stood on 14 November 2020: a record daily rise in infections and a president receiving hospital treatment.
The same day's international news carried another story. In London, two special advisers to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain, who was also Downing Street Director of Communications, left their roles in Number 10 Downing Street after a series of briefings against Johnson and his wife.
