The beginning of the end of the epidemic? Big changes to restrictions

What speaks for the fact that the trend has finally broken? According to the minister of health, it is mainly the decreasing number of infections, the number of tests performed and the number of orders from primary care physicians, which is shrinking for the second week. - In the fifth wave, the increases in infections were dynamic and the decreases also fulfill such a scenario, reaching 20%. February will be the month when these declines in infections should be relatively large and the serious threat to the healthcare system will be exhausted. I hope that in March we will be able to make bold decisions about lifting the restrictions - said Niedzielski.

- We are dealing with the beginning of the end of the pandemic - he assessed. He said it was a bold declaration, but cited examples of other countries where the Omikron wave had also passed its peak and were already lifting the restrictions. - This is the scenario that awaits us as well.

Although the daily readings for infections are still very high, the minister of health emphasized that the large number of new infections did not translate into a similar dynamics of increases in hospitalization. - There is a slight increase in occupied coviod beds, but the number of new hospitalizations is relatively small, and Tuesday was the first day in the fifth wave with a decrease in the number of hospitalizations. - The tendency is that the number of hospitalizations in relation to infections is decreasing - he said and stressed that, as a result, "the threat to hospital infrastructure and the risk to its efficiency is clearly decreasing". According to Niedzielski, the fact that the wave is not so devastating is also evidenced by the shorter hospitalization time (about a week compared to ten days or more in the case of Delta) and lower oxygen consumption in hospitals.

Therefore, not only is there no question of implementing the scenario of increasing the number of covid beds to 40,000, but out of the current 30,000 this week, 5,000 will be returned to the needs of non-covid patients. Currently, less than 20,000 beds are occupied.

From February 15th, a 7-day isolation period will be applied to all infected. So far it has been running for 10 days.

Also, from February 15, co-house quarantine will be imposed only during the isolation period of the infected.

However, the most important change concerns the liquidation of the quarantine from the contact. According to the Minister of Health, on February 10 people who are in such quarantine will receive an SMS that will take it down. This will mostly apply to schools and kindergartens - contact with an infected person will no longer impose automatic quarantine.

In turn, on February 11, the arrival quarantine (currently 10 or 14 days) is to be lifted. The seven-day quarantine will cover persons coming from outside the Schengen area.

The Minister of National Education and Science, Przemysław Czarnek, announced that the return to full-time education would be accelerated by one week. The return to school of senior primary and secondary school students will take place on February 21.