Coronavirus in Poland

Ideal situation would be they make zones,Green,Orange and Red and impose a lock down accordingly,and let some regions to function as required.

To what end ? 9 weeks into this and there are still less than 1000 deaths. What do you expect To achieve by endless testing ? if they were really a disastrous number of spreaders walking around then the deaths would be piling up by now.

For me the biggest test is return to school and return to mass transit

There is definitely an issue, regardless, with the fact that the Ministry of Health does not appear to know their arse from their elbow. A month ago the Minister was saying that they expected the cases to number 10,000 at the peak and it's aready around 17,500 with no decline in sight. They're just winging it basically, which is pretty much always the way with PIS but it's seriously pathetic.

As if PO would have done a better job. they would have kept the borders open longer cause racist for one. Idiot.

Here we go again...PO is not in power. PiS is and it's time they understand that with that comes responsibility for their screw ups

Atch they are saying the same thing about Trump.
With an unknown virus, with nothing to base it on, with dealing with the unknown for the first time....... do tell what other way is there to deal with it then to "wing it" with the little bit that is written in concrete about it so far ?

Calling that 'pathetic' is just wrong as they are doing the best they can with what they've got.
Damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Hell this virus may yet mutate when people are injected with a unknown vaccine and become a real pandemic that kills most of the population on earth.

German government is generally phrased...And it does seem they have good results

@johnny reb

I agree.Every country has been "winging it", some more successfully than others but nobody knew how to deal with this.
And all have made mistakes.But they are all trying their best.


It does seem that way but even there infection rates are increasing again.

Good! Infection rates in a vacuum is meaningless, as is R0... if an illness is generally mild the more infected the better as long as you can protect those who are more liable to be seriously affected (since no virus gets to more than about 25% of the population before burning out).

I think the most relevant number to keep track of is the hospitalization rate, is it going up or down or holding steady?

In Poland that peaked around april 30 (just over 3000) and has been generally declining since...at 2538 (with a new number to be released in an hour or so)

Todays hospitalization rate (as of 18.00) 2538, down from 2648 on the 13th

Today's fatalities 22 (same number as the day before)

The easing of the lockdown...to much, to early! We will pay for it...

What are the German hospitalization and daily death rates?

Germany as of today (source: SPIEGEL)

Infected till now: 174.284
daily increase: +850

New infections trend to last week: sinking -10%

Deaths till now: 7868
daily increase: +84

After the same source the only countries where the infection rates are rising are Russia (+15%), Brazil (+35%) and Iran (+39%).

The infection rates in the US (-15%) and GB (-20%) are sinking...

No data about France though, I wonder why!

To be honest unless you test a sufficient number of people it is very difficult to know the true extent of the numbers affected by Coronavirus....rigourous testing provides more accurate information unlike targeting one area of Poland....

But the total infection rate isn't that important - for the vast majority of people it simply isn't a dangerous disease. More people getting it and not needing hospitalization is a good thing.

Hospitalization rates are far more telling - is the number of hospitalized patients going up or down?

Most media reporting on the numbers has been incredibly uninformative (unless you're willing to dig past the headlines).

Hmmm....I can't find an extra statistic for people in hospitals for Germany...only for infected, deaths and recovered...I guess alot of these events take place in hospitals though...

Trouble is relying purely on hospitalisation rates do not reflect the true picture...Collecting data from hospitals is convenient but to get a true picture extensive testing needs to be carried out.....how does one know what the numbers are in addition to hospitals..?

But what does that tell you in terms of actual danger to the population? Every random test has shown many times more people have had it than they ever imagined....

Testing is about identifying the extent of contamination.....once known then steps can be taken to establish the danger to the population...

What for ? You are just going to test random dudes ?

And then what ? Order everyone indoors for another 2 months ?

The danger to the vast majority is now known to be extremely low... so the question should be more about protecting the vulnerable instead of bean counting asymptomatic (or very mild) cases.

If it were a real widespread danger we'd know by now.

Getting stuck on irrelevant protocols is not the way to go at this point in time.

It would seem to be quite obvious...so that the population is protected from further contamination....


Yes perhaps...it all depends on whether the virus returns after the relaxation of lockdown measures....how lucky do you feel...?

What's the point of protecting people from "contamination" if there's no economy left.... this particular virus is only dangerous in very narrow circumstances to a very small part of the population, finding out how many people have it to little or no effect is useless trivia at this point.

Priorities should be

1. protect the vulnerable

2. get the economy moving again with all possible speed

No it's not obvious - testing costs money and diverts resources. Why test random people who are minding their own business?

What do you mean about another lockdown ? That we must go through this rigmarole again next time 1000 people die? Because the normal flu costs many more Polish lives than that.

And your question about do I feel lucky is just plain dumb. Of course I might die from coronavirus and it wouldn't be pleasant, but my chances of dying from a heart attack or a stroke or from a genetic condition I have are far higher.

In fact my chances of dying from a car accident are also several times higher and I happily got in a car more or less every day for the last 20 years

Not sure what you mean by 'minding their own business'....do you think that people don't want to be tested and would prefer to be doing something else....are you concerned about peoples rights or something...this is not a time to be challenging the experts or taking your own decisions on whether you comply or not...it is that serious....if after relaxation of lockdown rules numbers of cases increase above the R number then you are looking at a possible second wave and a decision will need to be taken about distancing rules and ways to separate people etc....I wouldn't want to catch this virus just because some selfish person decides to ignore warnings and do what they like spreading what they have to others.....


my chances of dying from a heart attack or stroke etc are far less than catching the virus.....the virus is highly contagious and nothing like the common flu.....

In the end there will always be people who believe they know best and flout the rules in the mistaken belief that they won't catch the virus....

It seemed to be at one point, but most of the evidence now seems to show it's not very contagious and usually requires extended close contact in a closed air environments. And children don't seem to catch it often and when they do don't easily transmit it.

This is still an evolving situation. I was very concerned in early March but most of the evidence (not most media coverage) has gone in the other direction. It's not super contagious and no danger at all to the vast majority of people.

It's important not to get stuck at a single speed and to keep one's opinions current with new evidence.

That is a fair point you make mafketis.....it is evolving and opinions will start changing as we learn more about it....

Testing is the only way they really have of finding out the numbers of people infected. Those numbers are needed so that the fatality rate of the disease can be worked out. For sure, this disease doesn't have the fatality rate of something like Ebola, but scientists still don't know enough about it yet.

My personal feelings are that a vaccine is a long way off yet, so if this doesn't just disappear, we all have to find a way to live with it.

I think the UK government, not that they are going to admit to it, are thinking once again along the lines of herd immunity. Easing of lockdown restrictions means that in theory, whole families can get in the car and drive to a seaside resort for daily exercise without being stopped by the police. As the weather warms up, beaches and other local beauty spots are going to be heaving with people. Cue second wave and more deaths in a very short space of time. Wales, Scotland and Ireland are being sensible and not allowing this.

In addition, schools here will be reopening from June 1st. Even Poland with far fewer cases and deaths has extended school closures until the end of the year on June 26th.Our scientific advisors are clearly on a very different path to those of other countries.


The elderly can't be shielded indefinitely though, and what do you tell someone who is black, asian or ethnic minority? Stay indoors till it's over? I read a report yesterday that said that 26% of coronavirus deaths in England had diabetes as an underlying factor. And how many people suffer from respiratory disorders? So quite a large part of the population are potentially affected by this.


I agree that this is necesssary, but it will most definitely be at the expense of lives.


Unfortunately this guy was probably one of them:

metro.co.uk/2020/04/21/anti-lockdown-protester-branded-covid-19-political-ploy-killed-coronavirus-12588467/

I think there are many people who won't take this seriously until it impacts on them personally.

The "experts" around the world have made it very clear that there are certain "at risk" groups of people. Those who are not in those who are not in those groups simply have a very small chance of getting very sick if they are exposed. The global killer that all these "experts" predicted never happened. Largely in part to lock down efforts, but where it did happen was in close confined quarters to people who were already in at risk groups.

It really is a simple decision to make. If you are at risk then you need to take all precautions possible. If you are not at risk then you have your own free will but you must recognize that people at risk will wear masks and other items, so respect their boundaries. What is so difficult to understand?

Inflation already hitting food in Poland because of this virus. All fruits and vegetable prices are going up from 30 to 90%. Time to get people back to work. I for one will be having lunch and dinner on Rynek Monday with a cold beer. Not going to live in someone else's version of reality.

That really doesn't make sense Maf. Look at how many cases were in hospital in the beginning when the epidemic was in the early stages. It IS very contagious because if one person in what you call an 'enclosed setting' has it, and you spend a few hours every day with them, then you will catch it. And there is a far greater chance that you will need to go to hospital than if you catch the flu.

I suggest you read this article, it's very informative. It sets out the criteria for lifting restrictions (plenty of numbers/stats to delight your heart). It analyses Ireland's situation but serves as a model for any country. Broken down, it's:

Progress of the disease.
Capacity and resilience of hospitals.
Testing for virus and contact tracing.
Ability to shield and care for at risk groups.
Risk of secondary morbidity due to Covid-19

rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2020/0514/1138504-analysis-lifting-coronavirus-restrictions/