Poland may be able to open up a significant part of the economy at the end of May or beginning of June, depending on progress with COVID-19 vaccinations, the prime minister said on Monday.
Emerging Europe's largest economy last week extended restrictions that have forced the closure of hotels, cinemas, hair salons and many shops.
"We are getting closer to the turning point," Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference. "(This) may in the coming weeks lead to a situation in which, at the turn of May and June, it will be possible to unfreeze a significant part of the economy."
"Skepticism and lack of faith in the national vaccination programme are causing the return to normality to last longer" - Morawiecki said. He stressed that all data suggested that reaching a certain level of herd immunity was necessary to start thinking of getting back to normal.
Morawiecki also said that from May 10 everyone in Poland aged 18 and over would be able to register to be vaccinated.
Spokesman for the government Piotr Müller told a conference on Monday that more than 20 million vaccinations would be done by the end of June. "All willing person will be able to get vaccinated by the end of August" - he added.
So far almost 2.3 million people in the country of 38 million have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Elzbieta Krzysztof / Shutterstock.com