Poland will lift the requirement to wear masks in confined spaces, except for health care facilities, and remove quarantine rules for travellers and roommates of infected people, Poland's Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Thursday.
"I have decided to introduce two changes as of March 28 - an end to the obligation to wear masks, stipulating that it does not apply to health care facilities", Niedzielski said.
"The second decision is to abolish home isolation and home quarantine for roommates (of infected people) and all quarantines for people entering Poland."
The minister said the migrant crisis, which erupted as a result has of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, did not translate into an increase in coronavirus infections, despite over 2 million refugees arriving in Poland since Feb. 24.
Niedzielski also informed that patients who tested positive would be issued regular sick leaves and, bearing in mind the risk, would have to self-isolate at home. The isolation, however, will no longer be supervised by the State Sanitary Inspection. Nevertheless, this institution will still have authority to impose quarantine and order isolation.
Coronavirus in Poland
Adam Niedzielski also said that 8,994 new infections were confirmed on Thursday. He added that Poland saw a decreasing trend in infections in the last four days.
He informed that the number of hospitalisations in the fifth wave has been maintaining below 20,000. "The Omicron variant turned out to be far less acute than the Delta variant, which we were dealing with in the previous wave," he said.
Commenting on the development of the pandemic, Niedzielski said that both "the international situation, as well as perspectives and forecasts, which we have are positive".
"We assume that by the end of April we will see a significant decrease in infections and hospitalisations," the minister said.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters, TVN24