The Ministry of Health in a statement on Friday reported 47.534 new cases of coronavirus infection; 56 people died due to COVID-19, and 190 people died from COVID-19 with other diseases. According to an expert of the Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling of the University of Warsaw, the country can peak in a week.

For comparison, on February 3, the Ministry recorded 54. 477 new cases and 238 people died. A week ago, it informed about 57. 262 new and confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and death of 271 people.

The Ministry of Health also reported 17.262 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, including 1,095 patients requiring ventilator treatment. Generally, 30.769 beds and 2,701 respirators are prepared for COVID-19 patients.

The health ministry said that 577.964 people stay quarantined and 4 million 152.725 infected recovered so far.

Dr Franciszek Rakowski from the University of Warsaw, who leads the team preparing the pandemic development model, estimates that the peak of infections will come in a week with an estimated number of 800,000. daytime infections. This number results from the observation that the numbers given by the ministry should be multiplied by 12, according to the model. This means that in the last few days as many as 600,000 people were infected each day.

The expert adds that fewer deaths will be caused by the Omicron variant dominating currently in Poland compared to the delta variant earlier. Rakowski estimates that the peak, which is at the beginning of March will bring no more than 450-400 deaths a day. He adds that the pandemic will gradually calm down in the coming months until August.

According to the scientist from Warsaw University, if another dangerous variant of the coronavirus does not appear, the next wave in Poland should not be burdensome, because most citizens in the previous months were infected with the virus and thus obtained immunity.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński