The Polish government has announced a slight loosening of its coronavirus restrictions. Nurseries and preschools, attended by children up to the age of seven, will reopen on Monday. Groups of up to 25 will also be allowed to practise sport together outdoors.
All other current restrictions have been extended until 25 April, while it has been announced that hotels will have to remain closed until at least 3 May – covering the long May holiday weekend when many Poles traditionally take breaks.
Among the restrictions that remain in place are the closure of non-essential stores in shopping centres; restaurants only being allowed to offer takeaways; schools, gyms, beauty salons and cultural institutions being shut; and limits on numbers allowed to enter churches and shops.
At a press conference this morning, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, noted that, although daily infection numbers have been in decline since the end of March, this week has seen a spike in new cases. This is the consequence of greater travel and mixing over the Easter weekend, he said.
Poland today reported 21,283 new COVID-19 cases. The daily figure of 803 deaths was the second highest ever recorded, behind the 954 on Thursday last week (which included some additional deaths whose reporting had been delayed over Easter).
Niedzielski noted that the situation remained difficult in hospitals, but assured that there remained a “buffer” of capacity. The number of hospitalised COVID-19 patients (33,906) remains close to the peak recorded earlier this month, as does the number on ventilators (3,457).
Having grown rapidly since mid-February, the figures have now “stabilised” but the situation is still “serious”, noted the health minister.
Poland last year had the EU's highest excess death rate https://t.co/fMDxlgcYmZ
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 13, 2021
Main image credit: Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr (under CC BY-SA 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
