Poland today recorded its highest daily number of new COVID-19 cases since late November, continuing a recent growth in infections. The third wave is now “not only a fact”, but “gaining momentum”, says the deputy health minister.
A total of 15,698 positive tests were reported today, the highest since 27 November. The number of cases is more than 3,500 higher than a week ago and almost twice the number from two weeks ago. The current seven-day average of daily cases of 10,614 is the highest since mid-December.
The government has been warning of the danger of a third wave since mid-February, when infection rates again began to rise and amid evidence of the spread of the so-called British variant of the virus.
“Today’s results show that the third wave is not only a fact, but we also see that it is gaining momentum,” said deputy health minister Waldemar Kraska, quoted by TVN24. “We see that unfortunately there are more and more cases every day, and that is a very worrying sign.”
“We expected a third wave,” Andrzej Horban, the prime minister’s adviser on COVID-19, said in an interview with Polskie Radio. “Unfortunately it has arrived [but we still] don’t know what it will look like.”
The proportion of tests that are positive is also rising, reaching 25% of 62,600 tests reported today. Kraska also says that the number of hospital admissions gives cause for concern.
“At the moment we have more than 15,500 so-called Covid beds occupied,” he said at today’s press conference. “There are also more people being put on ventilators – over 1,500 of those machines are being used.”
At the peak of the second wave in the autumn, more than 23,000 COVID-19 patients in Poland were hospitalised and 2,150 were on ventilators. After falling significantly since then, both figures have again been steadily rising since mid-February.
Horban added that Poland could expect to see a rate of 16,000-20,000 daily infections this week. “It is very logical, we know that, because we are following the path that countries further west of us have already gone along,” he added.
The third wave is being felt by doctors and medical personnel in hospitals, according to Andrzej Matyja, president of Poland’s Supreme Medical Council. “It is difficult to say what will happen in a week or two. However, we have seen in recent weeks that the rise in infections is visible,” he told TVN 24.
Today, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, announced that field hospitals would be opened in nine of Poland’s 16 provinces to help deal with increased patient numbers. The government is also distributing 15 million free masks in the two provinces with the highest infection rates.
The rise in infections has followed a gradual relaxation of restrictions. Last week, the government reimposed tighter controls in Warmia-Masuria, the province with Poland’s highest infection and positive test rates. The health minister also warned at the time that other northern provinces were not far behind.
Yesterday, however, Kraska confirmed that no decision had yet been made on the closure of schools, cultural institutions and shopping malls in other regions.
Asked today about the prospect of returning to a full lockdown, Horban told Polskie Radio that it would not work for three reasons: it would be impossible to close all of Poland’s borders, hard to shut down the economy, which is “barely breathing”, and also very difficult to keep people at home. Instead he called for a policy of damage limitation.
Main image credit: ŽupaBA VUCBA/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
