Meanwhile, 33 percent of respondents plan to travel outside their place of residence to visit their family graves, and 14 percent say they will remember their dead without visiting cemeteries, according to a survey by pollster IBRiS commissioned by broadcaster Radio Zet.
All Saints' Day on November 1 and All Souls' Day on November 2 are when millions of Poles usually visit the graves of their loved ones, often travelling hundreds of kilometres to their home towns.
This year, amid a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authorities have urged Poles to spread their visits to cemeteries over a longer period of time to minimize social contact and help curb the virus.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski has said that All Saints’ Day is a celebration deeply rooted in Polish culture and that the government is not planning to shut down cemeteries or restrict traffic in the run-up to the holiday by means of administrative decisions.
He called on people, however, to wear face masks and exercise social distancing to protect themselves and others.
Poland on Friday reported 9,387 new coronavirus infections and 102 more deaths related to COVID-19, bringing the country's total number of cases during the pandemic to 3,008,294 and fatalities to 76,875.
Niedzielski said last week that the number of daily COVID-19 infections was growing sharply and that “drastic steps” could be necessary to counteract what he called an “explosion of the pandemic” in the country.
The survey asking Poles about their All Saints' Day plans was conducted on October 22 and 23, the radiozet.pl website reported.
Meanwhile, Polish police on Friday launched their annual Operation Torch road safety campaign, stepping up traffic patrols for the All Saints' long weekend.
Polish police on Friday launched their annual Operation Torch road safety campaign, stepping up traffic patrols for the All Saints' long weekend. Photo: PAP/Albert Zawada
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Source: radiozet.pl, polskatimes.pl, dorzeczy.pl, onet.pl