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Poland reports new daily record of 36,665 COVID-19 cases

21.01.2022 10:45
Poland reported a new record daily rise in coronavirus infections on Friday, confirming 36,665 new cases, the most since the pandemic hit the country almost two years ago.
A drive-through coronavirus testing site in the central Polish city of Łódź.
A drive-through coronavirus testing site in the central Polish city of Łódź.Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Michałowski

The death toll increased by 248, according to public health authorities.

A total of 4,443,217 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Poland since the start of the pandemic, and 103,626 have died in connection with the COVID-19 respiratory disease so far, officials said on Friday.

Poland’s previous daily record was when 35,251 new coronavirus infections were confirmed nationwide on April 1, 2021.

Of the new cases confirmed on Fridaythe most—6,227—were in the central Mazowieckie region, which includes the national capital Warsaw.

Meanwhile, 5,923 new infections were reported in the densely populated southern coal mining region of Silesia.

The latest deaths in Poland’s coronavirus outbreak are 181 people with pre-existing medical conditions and 67 others who died directly because of COVID-19, the health ministry said.

On Thursday, Poland confirmed 315 deaths and 32,835 new coronavirus infections nationwide, compared with 375 deaths and 30,586 fresh caseday earlier.

On April 8, 2021, the country reported its highest daily toll of 954 deaths related to the coronavirus.

Poland's first case of coronavirus infection was reported on March 4, 2020.

13,624 in hospitals, 747,290 quarantined

The Polish health ministry announced on Friday morning that 13,624 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals nationwide, 1,271 of them on ventilators, with a further 747,290 people quarantined for possible coronavirus exposure.

Meanwhile, 3,823,409 people have now recovered from COVID-19 throughout the country, the health ministry also said.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told reporters on Wednesday that the government would make remote working mandatory for public-sector employees as the number of daily COVID-19 cases surpassed 30,000.

Niedzielski said earlier this week that Poland had entered a fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic amid the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

He warned that coronavirus infections in the country could soon hit record levels, peaking at about 60,000 in mid-February.

Public health authorities in the middle of last month confirmed Poland's first case of the omicron COVID-19 variant. By Friday morning, a total of 1,390 omicron cases had been detected nationwide, according to Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska.

A range of coronavirus restrictions took effect in the country in December as it seeks to fend off the new, highly contagious strain of the coronavirus.

(gs)

Source: IAR, PAP