Health ministry reports 13,227 new COVID cases and 644 deaths

Tuesday's infections number - 13,227 - was higher by 4,982 than a week ago when 8,245 cases had been reported.

The ministry also informed about the death of 644 COVID patients, of which 428 had pre-existing medical conditions. Today's fatalities rate has been the 6th-highest since the start of the pandemic.

The average daily mortality rate of COVID patients for the last 7 days - 580 - has been the highest so far. The previous record 7-day average - 505 - was reported on November 25, 2020.

The highest number of daily infections - 35,251 - was reported on April 1, while the highest fatalities number - 954 - on April 8. The latter, however, did not represent a 24-hour period, but included unreported cases from the Easter holiday.

"In the course of the last 7 days we've had a 15-percent drop in the number of infections. We've also seen a week-to-week drop in the number of people requesting coronavirus tests" - said Health Ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz.

"Tomorrow we should have more reliable numbers showing the real scale of the epidemic" - he added.

Poland has reported a total of 2,599,850 infections and 59,126 deaths since the start of the pandemic on March 4, 2020.