From 12 December 2022, children aged between 6 months and 4 years will be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. “On the night of 11-12 December, we will issue nearly 2 million e-enrolments”, said Health Minister Adam Niedzielski at a press conference.

The primary vaccination consists of 3 doses of the vaccine – two given 3 weeks apart and a third dose 8 weeks after the second dose.

“Children will be vaccinated with the Comirnaty vaccine. The vaccines are completely safe. In addition, the young patient is qualified for vaccination by a doctor. Vaccinations will be performed at 6,900 vaccination points”, Minister Niedzielski announced.

During the conference, the head of the Ministry of Health admitted that so far there was a systematic decrease in coronavirus infections and hospitalisations. However, for the past 1.5 weeks, the trend has reversed, and we have seen an increase.

“In terms of the number of infections, the week-on-week increases are about 20 %. This is quite a large rate. The number of infections itself remains relatively small, we are talking about an average weekly daily number of infections, which is about 450-500 infections, resulting in 3-3,500 infections per week”, said Adam Niedzielski.

The minister conveyed that on 22 November, the number of infected patients in hospitals was less than 700, with the latest report already stating 950 hospitalisations.

“COVID-19 is currently not the only epidemic threat. The number of flu cases has been increasing dynamically in recent months. Weekly it is as high as 160,000”, said Adam Niedzielski.

The Ministry of Health informed that from September to the end of November, flu was diagnosed in almost 1.3 million Poles, almost half of them children. As many as 4.2 thousand people were admitted to hospitals, and 60 % of those hospitalised were children. An effective form of protection is vaccination. So far, almost 3 million doses have been delivered to Poland. However, only 640 000 people have been vaccinated.

Adrian Andrzejewski