Poland again - is not testing

Almost from the beginning of his term in office, many experts accused the minister of health of not managing the pandemic, but describing it. It describes, moreover, the consequences of its own bad, missed or good, but late decisions. This was the case in September and October 2020, when the minister insisted on limiting testing for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 only in symptomatic patients, additionally stating that these symptoms will have to be confirmed by a primary care physician in a personal examination. This reduction in testing, probably dictated by a desire to save money, fueled the dynamics of the wave that swept through Polish healthcare with devastating force, claiming tens of thousands of deaths - the vast majority of seniors.

Will we have a similar scenario in the summer of 2022? Poland again - is not testing. We perform 0.09 tests per day per 1,000 inhabitants. Europe, at least most of it, tests with an intensity of several to even a hundred times greater. In Poland, the thermometer was broken in April, sending reassuring messages about an extremely high level of immunization ("over 90 percent of Poles have antibodies" - said Adam Niedzielski). Experts were ignored and warned in May that Omikron and its sub-variants did not do much with antibodies, and it became easier and easier - along with mutations - to avoid both naturally acquired and even post-vaccine ones. The society has a vision of a calm, as it summer, signaling that we can feel minor perturbations in the fall. Despite the fact that, for example, Germany - our close, anyway, neighbor - began to notice a clear increase in infections already at the beginning of June (!).

However, something is changing in the health ministry's narrative. - The holiday season was usually the time when the incidence of covid-19 was much lower. This year is a bit different - Deputy Minister of Health Waldemar Kraska said on public television on Monday. - The increase in the number of cases, which began with a large wave in Portugal, and now in Italy and Germany, is due to a submutation of the Omikron virus, which unfortunately breaks our immunity to some extent - he explained, only slightly ignoring the inconvenient truth that infections beyond our western border were on the rise for over five weeks, so there was time to reflect on whether we were really doing everything as recommended.

We don't. The embarrassingly low level of testing is a result of the fact that the National Health Fund has ceased to finance testing on a larger scale (although the tests themselves are available for medical entities, it is enough to submit a request in RARS) and the fact that the signals from the health ministry were interpreted by many entities as discouraging from testing , even touching on the suggestion that excessive (!) use of tests may be punished - for example by the Patient Ombudsman.

- We will return to mass testing when we have 5,000 hospitalizations - said Minister Adam Niedzielski at the end of last week. Today the department is starting to look for an alibi. Kraska on TVP reminded that in May the World Health Organization issued guidelines not to test population, but mainly disease outbreaks, i.e. those places that are most exposed, such as health care facilities. It is difficult to say why some WHO recommendations are so eagerly listened to, and others - concerning the same matter - much less. Because the WHO still maintains that the threshold of 5 percent is exceeded. positive results in the total number of tests performed indicates a loss of control of the pandemic. Poland has never had a problem with that. The same as with the fact that WHO experts recommend focusing on achieving 100% vaccination with a full regimen and a booster for groups most at risk of severe COVID-19. This goal is achievable for highly developed countries - the example of Spain or Portugal is enough, but other Western European countries are also close to success. We stood at 76 percent. vaccinated people over 60 years of age full regimen and 58 percent. vaccinated with a booster.

Poland becomes infected in the summer of 2022, but also suffers from COVID-19 not only in the gray, but even in the black zone. Contrary to what policymakers are saying in the glare of the headlights.