Of the new cases confirmed on Tuesday, 1,279 were in the central region of Mazowieckie, which includes the national capital Warsaw.
Meanwhile, 924 new infections were reported in the northeastern province of Warmińsko-Mazurskie, which is home to the city of Olsztyn.
The southern coal mining region of Silesia had the third-highest number of new infections confirmed by officials on Tuesday, at 746.
The latest deaths in Poland’s coronavirus outbreak are 154 people with pre-existing medical conditions and 62 who died directly because of COVID-19, the Polish health ministry said.
On Monday, Poland confirmed 24 deaths and 4,786 new coronavirus infections nationwide, compared with 114 deaths and 10,099 fresh cases a day earlier.
On November 25, the country reported its highest daily toll of 674 deaths related to the coronavirus.
On November 7, the Polish health ministry confirmed 27,875 new single-day cases, the most since the pandemic hit the country last March.
15,400 in hospitals, 192,491 quarantined
The health ministry announced on Tuesday morning that 15,400 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals nationwide, 1,540 of them on ventilators, with a further 192,491 people quarantined for possible coronavirus exposure.
Meanwhile, 1,438,032 people have now recovered from COVID-19 throughout the country, including 7,171 over the last 24 hours, the health ministry also said.
Stricter rules on face masks, border crossing
Under a new set of coronavirus restrictions that took effect on February 27, Poles are no longer allowed to use scarves, bandanas and plastic visors instead of masks to cover their face in public.
Meanwhile, anyone crossing Poland’s southern border with the Czech Republic and Slovakia will have to go into quarantine unless a test carried out in the last 48 hours shows they do not have the coronavirus.
Regional curbs
In another move designed to counter a recent spike in cases, a range of restrictions on public life were reintroduced in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie region of northeastern Poland, where the level of infections has caused concern.
Hotels, shopping malls, cinemas, theatres, museums and swimming pools there had to shut, while young schoolchildren in the region had to return to remote classes.
Pandemic restrictions in the rest of the country will remain unchanged until at least March 14 following an easing of containment measures earlier this year, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski has said.
Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski. Photo: PAP/Marcin Obara
Restrictions eased
Amid signs of a letup in the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Poland in the middle of January reopened schools for young children after a prolonged period of distance learning.
In a further easing of coronavirus curbs, shopping malls, museums and art galleries across the country were allowed to reopen last month.
Meanwhile, restrictions on hotels, entertainment venues and outdoor sports areas including ski slopes were partially lifted on February 12.
A host of other restrictions on public life, including the closure of restaurants and gyms, remain in place, following an announcement last month by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki seen on a screen during a virtual news conference last month. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
'Third wave'
Public health officials have warned that the daily number of new COVID-19 infections in the country is starting to rise again in a worrying new trend.
Health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz has declared that a third wave of the epidemic has started in Poland.
Under restrictions announced in October, pubs, restaurants and cafes throughout the country remain closed and are only allowed to provide take-aways and delivery orders.
Beginning October 10, people must cover their mouths and noses when outdoors in public places as well as in most indoor environments nationwide.
Temporary hospitals, remote patient monitoring
In an effort to deal with the second wave of the pandemic, the country has set up a network of temporary hospitals to treat coronavirus patients.
Meanwhile, some of those testing positive for COVID-19 are monitored remotely from their homes using special finger-clip devices called pulse oximeters, under an initiative announced by the country’s health minister at the end of November.
Vaccinations approach 3.4 million
A 52-year-old Warsaw hospital nurse on December 27 became the first Pole to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced in December that his government had secured vaccines for the Polish population from six leading international drug makers.
The Polish health minister said last month that around 6.7 million coronavirus vaccine doses were expected to reach the country by the end of March, including 4.8 million from Pfizer/BioNTech, 1.15 million from AstraZeneca, and 744,000 from Moderna.
Poland hopes to vaccinate 60 to 70 percent of its population against the coronavirus by the autumn, Niedzielski has told the media.
Frontline healthcare workers are first in line to be inoculated, followed by nursing home residents, the elderly, people with chronic health conditions, teachers, police, and soldiers.
Poland in January began administering COVID-19 vaccines to citizens over 70.
Citizens over 80 have been able to sign up for COVID-19 shots since January 15. On January 22, registration opened to those in the 70+ age group.
Poland last month began administering COVID-19 vaccines to citizens over 70. People can send a text message to sign up for a shot. They can also go online to register or call a 989 vaccination hotline to schedule an appointment. Photo: PAP/Wojtek Jargiło
Meanwhile, younger Polish adults can put their names on a waiting list for a vaccine, but for now there is no timeline on when they will be able to receive a shot.
On February 12, Poland began vaccinating teachers. Over half a million teachers have signed up for the shots and more than 205,000 had been vaccinated by last Friday, according to officials.
Almost 6,000 vaccination sites are available to citizens as the country rolls out its COVID-19 inoculation programme, according to the prime minister's top aide, Michał Dworczyk, who is spearheading the drive.
The government has announced a plan to roll out 16 mobile COVID-19 vaccination units in an effort to broaden the public's access to coronavirus shots.
Poland originally announced plans to spend PLN 3 billion (EUR 675 million, USD 820 million) on more than 60 million doses of coronavirus vaccines under a national inoculation program adopted by the government.
Dworczyk told reporters last month that Poland had ordered almost 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in total, enough to inoculate 58 million people, more than its population of around 38 million.
As of Tuesday, a total of 3,383,426 coronavirus vaccine shots had been administered nationwide, including almost 2.2 million first doses and nearly 1.2 million second doses, according to data released by officials.
'Let's get vaccinated'
At the end of December, the government launched a media campaign called Szczepimy Się (Let's Get Vaccinated) to encourage Poles to get COVID-19 shots.
The immunization effort began after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on December 21 recommended conditional approval for a coronavirus vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech for use across the European Union.
The decision by the EU regulator was subsequently greenlighted by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission.
The first vaccines for the coronavirus were administered in Poland on Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020, as part of a coordinated rollout across the European Union. Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
The European Union, of which Poland is part, has struck deals to secure vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Moderna, CureVac, Sanofi-GSK, and Johnson & Johnson.
The Polish prime minister last month called on the bloc's executive, the European Commission, to use its "economic power and "the strongest instruments" to ensure the timely execution of agreements by international drug makers amid delays in vaccine supplies.
"Europe is a powerful market that has been hard hit by COVID-19," Morawiecki said. "Every day we are all paying a huge price for displaying a weakness toward drug makers. We can't stand aside and watch the next waves of infections engulf us."
He added: "The Polish vaccination system is prepared to vaccinate the country's entire adult population quickly. But we need the right amount of vaccine doses. The EU must demonstrate it can effectively take care of the interests of its citizens. What is at stake is not only the credibility of European institutions, but the lives and health of the Polish people and millions of Europeans."
W Europie trwa szczepionkowy wyścig z czasem. Dziś nie mamy ani chwili do stracenia. Koncerny farmaceutyczne muszą...
Posted by Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday, February 18, 2021
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
The European Medicines Agency on January 6 gave the green light to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, the second shot it approved as countries stepped up inoculation efforts amid fears of more contagious strains of the coronavirus.
The European medicines regulator on January 29 approved the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine for people over the age of 18, the third coronavirus shot to be cleared for use in the EU.
The European Medicines Agency said on February 12 it had launched a real-time review of CureVac's COVID-19 vaccine to speed up potential approvals.
The regulator said its human medicines committee would review data from ongoing trials of the German biopharmaceutical firm's vaccine until there is enough clinical data for approval.
CureVac is also working with Britain's GSK to develop a COVID-19 vaccine from next year that could target several variants with one shot, as new, more contagious mutations of the coronavirus have emerged, the Reuters news agency reported.
The European Medicines Agency is expected to issue an opinion by mid-March on whether to approve US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine under a speedy review.
Johnson & Johnson has said it is ready to start distributing the vaccine across the EU in the second quarter of 2021.
Meanwhile, Polish President Andrzej Duda has talked to China’s leader Xi Jinping about a possible purchase of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine, a top aide said on Monday.
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Source: IAR, PAP, TVP Info, Reuters