Niedzielski: A peak in the fifth wave in mid-February with 60,000 illnesses per day

by   CIJ News iDesk III
2022-01-18   07:45
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The peak in the fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic will fall in Poland in mid-February, when the number of new and confirmed cases will be around 60,000 per day, according to the forecasts of the Ministry of Health, presented by the head of this ministry, Adam Niedzielski. The forecasts of the MOCOS center indicate 120,000 cases per day and the ICM center of the University of Warsaw on 100-140 thousand illnesses.

"In the case of our own forecast, because also here at the Ministry of Health, we are working on modeling pandemic phenomena, the peak of infections at the moment is expected in mid-February and this peak is about 60,000 infections a day," Niedzielski said during a press conference.

Forecasts of the centers with which the Ministry of Health cooperates indicate that there may be more cases. According to the MOCOS center, the Polish-German COVID-1 forecast hub, the peak of the incidence will fall at the end of January, when you can expect 120,000 new infections daily. This forecast as Niedzielski said was presented on January 5, 2022.

In turn, the ICM center, Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling of the University of Warsaw presented two variants of forecasts. Depending on the variant, at the peak of this wave, you can expect from 100 to 140 thousand illnesses. And this summit will appear either in mid-February or in early March.

Niedzielski emphasized that "the key element that may help in controlling and dealing with this risk of very high infections" is the draft act on special solutions ensuring the possibility of running a business during the COVID-19 epidemic, which was submitted to the Sejm in mid-December last year.

The minister informed that during the weekend talks with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the president of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński, he received an assurance that the bill, which is in the Sejm, will be processed and will be subject to a second reading.

The draft act amending the act on special solutions ensuring the possibility of running a business during the COVID-19 epidemic introduces the possibility of an employee (or a person remaining in a civil law relationship with the employer) performing free SARS-CoV-2 tests, including those financed from public funds. At the same time, it specifies that the employer will be able to request from the employee (regardless of the form of employment) information about a negative result of the SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test (performed no earlier than 48 hours), information about a past SARS-CoV-2 virus infection, or vaccination against COVID-19.

The draft assumes that the head of the entity performing medical activities may impose the obligation to vaccinate against COVID-19 on its employees and persons remaining in a civil law relationship with this entity, if there are no contraindications for vaccination in terms of their health condition.

Source: ISBnews