Poland records 100,000 deaths from COVID-19
Warsaw Jan. 11 (BNA): Poland became the latest European country to reach 100,000 coronavirus-related deaths, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Nearly a quarter of those deaths – about 24,000 – occurred in the latest wave of infections that began in October, a period when vaccines were widely available in the European Union country of 38 million people.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Adam Nidzelsky said 493 more people infected with COVID-19 have died, bringing the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 100,254 in the central European country.
The dismal sign comes as new daily infections decline after the peak of what officials call the country’s “fourth wave” of COVID-19 driven by the delta formula. But with the spread of the omicron variable, another major infection wave loomed.
The first two deaths from Omicron were reported Monday, in both the elderly and unvaccinated.
More than 18,000 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, Nidzelsky said, making this “the most difficult situation compared to other waves.”
Poland has struggled during the pandemic with a healthcare sector under strain due to limited funding and the migration of many medical professionals to Western Europe in the past two decades.
According to the statistics of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Poland is the European country with the fewest working doctors relative to its population – only 2.4 to 1,000 inhabitants compared to 4.5 in Germany. Poland also has only 5 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants, lower than the European Union average of 8 and far less than richer countries such as Germany with a population of 14.
The vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the latest wave – 83% – are of unvaccinated people. Among people under 44 years of age, more than 90% of those who died had not been vaccinated.
Poland’s vaccination rate is around 56% – much lower than in Western European countries but much higher than in some other Central European countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has sought to encourage vaccinations, but it also faces fears and hesitation among some in the population – and sometimes among supporters of the ruling Law and Justice party.
In recent days, the school’s principal and loyalist to the district around Krakow, Barbara Novak, has said she opposes making vaccinations mandatory for teachers, an idea endorsed by the health minister. And she claimed that “the results of this experiment have not been fully proven.”
Her words have come under fire from the health and education ministers and medical professionals, but the education minister has rejected calls for her dismissal.
Poland now joins Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany as European countries that have recorded more than 100,000 deaths.
AOQ