As Poland’s fourth wave of the pandemic rapidly turns into the fifth – with infections once again rising – the country is facing a “catastrophic scenario”, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, has warned.
He says that, with hospitalisations already high, the healthcare system could struggle to cope with a surge in cases as the Omicron variant spreads. A decision on new restrictions – which could include extending the closure of schools – will be made on Wednesday or Friday, says the minister.
COVID-19 cases have been falling since early December after the peak of the fourth wave, but Niedzielski warned two weeks ago that, as the Omicron variant spreads, the “the most likely scenario is that the fourth wave will smoothly turn into the fifth”. He predicted a rapid acceleration in late January.
Recent days have seen the previous decline in infections reversed. Yesterday’s 6,422 new cases was 28% higher than a week earlier, and today’s 11,670 cases is almost 19% higher than a week ago.
Speaking to RMF FM yesterday, Niedzielski said that the trend is “very worrying” – even more so as the effects of people mixing and travelling over Christmas and New Year’s Eve have not yet been fully reflected in the data.
Another major concern, he noted, is that this is happening at a time when around 20,000 people are already hospitalised with COVID-19. “Starting the fifth wave from this level is a catastrophic scenario,” said the minister.
At the peak of the fourth wave in December, over 24,000 people were hospitalised. The highest ever figure in Poland was almost 35,000 in April last year. The prime minister’s chief Covid advisor, Andrzej Horban, predicted last month that the figure could reach 50-60,000 during the fifth wave.
Speaking to TVN this morning, another member of the prime minister’s medical council, Artur Zaczyński, warned that hospitals are “at the limit of their ability” to deal with the situation, both for Covid and non-Covid patients. Further infections could see “the healthcare system paralysed”.
“If the number of cases and hospitalisations increases, additional restrictions are possible,” warned Zaczyński, who also serves as director of the government’s emergency Covid hospital at the National Stadium in Warsaw.
He said that there remains a “50-50” chance that schools be closed longer than announced by the government when it introduced a brief return to remote learning before and after the holidays. Pupils are currently due to return to in-person teach at the start of next week.
In his interview with RMF, Niedzielski also confirmed that continued closures were a possibility. However, he added that “the most likely scenario is that children will return to school” as planned because “the cost of restricting in-person education is huge”.
The health minister also revealed that, if infections continue to increase this week, other new restrictions may be put in place. These could “relate to limiting economic activity” in places such as shopping centres.
A decision would be made on Wednesday or Friday this week, he said. (Thursday is a public holiday in Poland.)
Niedzielski also appealed to people to vaccinate as the best way of protecting themselves against Omicron. Failing to do so shows “a lack of responsibility”, he warned.
Almost 56% of people in Poland are fully vaccinated, a figure that has hardly risen since September and which is well below the European Union average of almost 70%.
Only 72 cases of Omicron had been detected in Poland so far, a deputy health minister told TV Republika this morning. But “January will be the month of truth” when it comes to the new variant, another member of the prime minister’s medical council, Jacek Wysocki, told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
Main image credit: Hospital CLÍNIC/Flickr (under CC BY-ND 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.
