At a meeting of parliaments of the Visegrad Group countries in the Polish Sejm, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said "we all long for getting back to normal, but unfortunately there will always have a certain fear creeping back in our heads". He added there was still a high risk of new variants of coronavirus and new viruses.
A meeting of the presidiums of parliaments of the Visegrad Group countries was held on Tuesday in the Polish Sejm. Poland's Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said that after the after the recent loosening of restrictions "symptoms of changing reality can be seen very clearly". "This is obviously very optimistic and we all long for getting back to normal, but unfortunately there will always have a certain fear creeping back in our heads" - he said.
"I'm afraid we have to realise that the risk of the pandemic, of new variants of the coronavirus, or the general risk of new viruses, are something we must get to used to" - the minister urged.
Niedzielski also said the health care system has shifted its priorities onto restoring public health, post-covid rehabilitation, and other elements facilitating faster recovery.
The other priority mentioned by the minister is development of epidemic containment, which would include launching genome research, "that is developing the potential of Polish laboratories and Polish epidemiological system, to be able to identify new variants".
"The third wave absolutely surpassed the second. We were reaching up to a 7-day average of 30,000 daily infection cases" - the minister informed.
He added that the third wave of the pandemic was caused mainly by the spread of the so-called British variant. "During the third wave nearly 46,000 out of 100,000 available hospital beds were used only by COVID patients. This shows the scale of the strain Polish hospital were under."
According to minister Niedzielski, "the second wave which culminated in early November brought a weekly average of up to 26,000 daily infections, and we also had to deal with 1,500 hospitalisations every day". "This was a moment in which the health care system was facing a fundamental strain" - he explained.
"Looking at the dynamic of the decrease in the number of infections, and at the dynamic development of the National Vaccination Programme, it seems we're back on track to normal, but we need to remain cautious" - Adam Niedzielski said.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP