Health Minister Adam Niedzielski recommended the government to abolish quarantine, isolation and the obligation to use masks from April. Meanwhile, around the world, including Europe, there are alarmingly high increases in the number of infections, despite a much lower level of testing. WHO cautions to remain vigilant.
Poland plans to lift restrictions, WHO warns against an increase in infections
Published March 18, 2022 07:46
In recent days, a high increase in coronavirus infections has been observed in many countries. The World Health Organization does not hide its concern, especially as these increases are visible despite the much lower level of tests performed. WHO experts fear that the increase in infections could be much higher than the numbers show.
A record of new infections was set in South Korea on Wednesday - over 400,000. The second place in the world in terms of new cases was taken by our western neighbor - Germany (over 275,000). In this country, the record was broken on March 10 (over 300,000 infections).
The number of new infections worldwide increased by 5% on a weekly basis. However, there are countries that record tremendous increases. The world is looking at China again, where new cases have been recorded by more than 400%. more than last week. Lockdown has been implemented in several major Chinese cities.
Some European countries have also recorded a several dozen percent increases in infections: Ireland and Finland - over 70 percent, Italy and Great Britain - almost 40 percent. In all these countries, the level of vaccination is very high, so experts hope that infections will not be followed by a high wave of hospitalizations and - above all - deaths. When it comes to hospitalizations - the example of Great Britain shows that the infection curve translates into the number of patients staying in hospitals - within two weeks the number of hospitalized patients increased from around 10,000 to over 14,000. It is too early to judge how COVID-19 death rates will change.
WHO experts estimate that the increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections is influenced by a combination of several factors. This is, firstly, the spread of the omicron variant and its sub-variant BA.2, which is more infectious than the previous ones, and the increasingly common abandonment of restrictions, removal of masks covering the nose and mouth, and a lack of social distance. "This increase is taking place despite the restriction of testing in some countries, which means the cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Reuters reporters. In some countries where vaccination rates are not high, this liberalization of epidemic safety measures may have more serious effects. Poland is one of the countries - on the European scale - less vaccinated. The low level of booster dose intake is particularly worrying. However, experts are hoping that the spring wave will not take a sharp turn, due to the large number of those infected in the fourth and fifth waves.
