Health minister: daily infection rates may soon spike up to 20,000

Officials said the Law and Justice (PiS) government was in talks with private medical facilities to provide beds and wards for coronavirus patients and planned to double the base salaries of state health workers.

"Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki ordered preparing plans to build temporary hospitals in every big city in each region. Of course, there are regions which are more exposed to COVID-19 than others, which is Masovian region, Lesser Poland region and Greater Poland region and these are the places where these projects will be carried out first" - Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said at a press conference on Monday.

Other major cities are also rushing to set up new hospitals, the health ministry said, after new daily cases reached nearly 10,000 last week. On Monday, 7,482 cases were reported, following a weekend downtick in testing.

Health Minister Niedzielski also said that in coming days new infections could surge to 20,000 a day if social distancing and other restrictions were not widely complied with.

"Of course, we are also preparing... for the worst-case scenarios such as 15,000 or even 20,000 new infections (a day)," Niedzielski said.

The minister also informed that 60 percent (8,000 out of 15,000) of hospital beds devoted to coronavirus patients were being taken.

The government has already urged citizens to stay at home, ordered gyms and pools to close, restaurants to reduce opening hours, and universities and secondary schools to shift to remote classes.

Despite the new measures, Niedzielski said the government had not decided to introduce any additional restrictions on people visiting family and friends' graves on November 1, when millions of Poles remember their loved ones on All Saints' Day.

The PiS government was initially successful in containing the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, but has faced criticism from the opposition and doctors for failing to prepare the country for the second wave.