Prof. Jarosław J. Fedorowski, president of the Polish Federation of Hospitals warns that it will be very tough if Poland really gets to the number of 60 thousand infections per day. This would bring an indicator of over 1.5 thousand hospitalized patients per million inhabitants. Only Bulgaria had a rate of over 1.5 thousand in the pandemic so far and it was the maximum result in any EU country. He called to do all to avoid a system collapse.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Health, Wojciech Andrusiewicz, admitted that Poland must be prepared for the fifth wave caused by Omicron. The culmination of infections caused by the spread of this variant will most likely take place at the end of January. Therefore, the Ministry of Health decided to enlarge the base for COVID-19 patients. There are two scenarios. The first assumes the launch of 40 thousand so-called covid beds. By Saturday, January 15, each of the voivodes will prepare a plan to expand the base in their region.

Minister of Health said that if the situation worsens and this number turns out to be too insufficient, it will be necessary to implement the second, more pessimistic plan, assuming the preparation of 60 thousand covid beds across the country, which is almost a third of all available places.

Asked if Poland can deal with the fifth wave of the pandemic, Prof. Fedorowski, the president of the Polish Federation of Hospitals, governor and member of the Presidium of the European Federation of Hospitals and a member of the board of the World Federation of Hospitals replied that “there is no such certainty, but now we have much more tools to fight the virus, so we should avoid a system collapse”.

Prof. Fedorowski adds that “there are drugs that are administered orally in the early stages of the disease and hospitalization. Their use significantly reduces the number of severe COVID-19 cases, and therefore the number of hospitalizations. The drug molnupiravir, which is currently administered to immunocompromised patients, recently was received by Poland. Also, a second drug that inhibits viral replication, has been already approved in the US. We also have extra beds in temporary hospitals”.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński