Poland recorded almost 25% more deaths than normal in the first three months of this year, with over 27,000 excess fatalities compared to the recent average for that period. During that period, the government reported around 24,400 Covid-related deaths.
The figures come as Poland continues to struggle with a third wave of the virus, which began in mid-February and saw the country record some of the world’s highest infection rates at its peak.
The numbers of Covid deaths have also risen to their highest ever level. However, because fatalities naturally lag behind cases, most of the current spike in deaths has occurred after the first quarter. Last year, Poland had the highest excess death rate among all EU member states, at over 20%.
The new figures for the first quarter, which come from a government database and were analysed by Konkret24, a fact-checking service, show that there were 139,638 deaths (from all causes) in Poland in the first three months of 2021.
In the same period over the previous three years, the average figure was 112,297. That means that this year saw 27,341 additional deaths, and that the number of fatalities was 24.35% above the recent average.
As the number of Covid deaths rose in March, that month saw an excess mortality rate of over 33%. With figures continuing to go up, April’s rate is likely to be even higher. In the first 10 days of the month alone, there were 6,076 more deaths than average, notes Konkret24.
Poland last year had the EU's highest excess death rate https://t.co/fMDxlgcYmZ
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 13, 2021
Poland came through the first wave of the pandemic relatively unscathed, recording some of the EU’s lowest infection and death rates after introducing one of Europe’s earlier and toughest lockdowns.
However, it was hit hard by the second, autumn wave, with the excess death rate reaching 97% in November – meaning almost twice as many deaths as usual in that month.
The number of deaths relative to population fell back to the EU average in January and February, after the Polish government reintroduced tough restrictions. However, after the rules started to be relaxed, and the highly infectious British variant began to spread, infections started rising rapidly again.
As of yesterday, Poland had the EU’s third-highest weekly average of COVID-19 deaths per million people, behind only Bulgaria and Hungary. Last month, the country fell to 50th out of 53 countries in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, which assesses how well the pandemic is being managed.
In response, the Polish government moved to reintroduce restrictions in late March. It also implemented measures to accelerate its vaccination programme. By 13 April, 15.4% of Poland’s population had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, just below the EU average of 16.5%.
However, as the number of new infections has dropped since early April, the government moved this week to slightly relax restrictions, allowing nurseries, preschools and outdoor sports facilities to reopen.
Main image credit: Grzegorz Celejewski / Agencja Gazeta
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.
