The policy shift by the Zelensky government, though, touched off several street protests in Kyiv, including one on Monday where a group turned up in white protective suits and masks.

Ukraine has seven reported cases of coronavirus. The Ukrainian National Security Council has said its intelligence reports show one case of infection in the separatist regions.

The government has acted quickly to close schools and the border to foreign travelers while the numbers of infected remain low.

The ban on street protests has been harder to enforce. At Friday’s protest, demonstrators carried signs reading “Don’t shake the Kremlin’s hand!”

“I am afraid of the virus and I think that Ukraine is not ready for the epidemic, but coming here is still my priority,” said Ms. Kovtun at one of the protests on Saturday. Despite the ban on public gatherings, the police made no attempt to disperse the crowd. But the Interior Ministry on Saturday proposed a new law that would criminalize “conscious endangerment of another person with a dangerous or very dangerous infection.”

Pavlo Bilous, a war veteran and one of the organizers of Saturday’s protest, said demonstrations must continue because the government would otherwise use the period of quarantines to ram through measures that would otherwise spark large rallies.

“We will come to the square to commemorate those who fought and died,” he said. “We risked our lives back then on the front line, so why should we be scared of some virus?”