Coronavirus in Poland

And their winter is yet to come.


At least part of that is because of lockdowns and social distancing.

Which obviously doesn't take into account an influx of non-coronaflu related deaths which were caused by the health system being overhelmed with irrational response to coronavirus.

I would be surprised if there weren't more deaths in that period of time because of coronahysteria due to delay of treatment of circulatory and hearth diseases for example.

No doubt politicians, and 'health' system directors will mask it as corona related deaths to avoid any possible repercussions in the future once [some] people start thinking rationally again.

- So your father had a major hearth problems and waited for a treatment? Oh, but it says here that he also had a corona-flu and that's what killed him my friend. Case dismissed.

In Poland, the death rate for the period has actually dropped, probably due to operations being cancelled. Which doesn't say much for the hospitals here.


If Covid-19 (byw, it isn't flu) caused someone's death, then it caused someone's death.

Indeed. It becomes clearer and clearer that Corona is not only more deadly and more contageous, but also prone to causing significant long-term damage in those who survive it.

I'm talking about global situation and global numbers numbers here. And those cancelled operations are just a delay in statistics of mortality reated to .

Poland's reaction to Chinese flu wasn't much different from that of Germany. Unfortunatelly Poland has wasted an opportunity to pick a rational Swedish way of dealing with this "deadly pandemia" which can be stopped by dust masks. I'm not going to defend that decision just because most European muppets and the US has chosen the other way.

And Chinese corona is a flu and should be called that way to make people realize that it is a hoax. The major difference between them are an official WHO mortality rates which were bloated up due to many untested symptomless virus carriers, which is a majority of cases.

And this is something which most people will learn in the future when the panic switch end and the brains switch on again. And then those numbers will get debunked. Obviously some, maybe even most people, will still believe it was all for real but there's no cure for fools. Not even a vaccine ;-)

Yeah i think sweden did a great job. The cases are so low in poland yet they acted as if they were hit like italy or spain or nyc.

One of clients is a hospital gp and he said that it was way overblown. And this is coming from illinois which has 100k cases 5k dead alone. He sais they were only slightly busier than usual at the hospital he works at

Yeah, Sweden is doing really great.... .

ft.com/content/46733256-5a84-4429-89e0-8cce9d4095e4

Sweden has an abysmal record despite the fact that it is thinly populated and thus better suited than most countries to keep the virus under control.

Trump stated that he WILL NOT close America on the second wave of the China virus.

The first wave really wasn't that bad, except in NYC where Cuomo screwed up, but he gets a pass coz his brother is a CNN anchor. Thousands of elderly in nursing homes perished because of his draconian policies.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a hypocrite on life, death and nursing homes: Devine
nypost.com/2020/05/20/gov-cuomo-is-a-hypocrite-on-life-death-and-nursing-homes-devine/

Its being downplayed because hes a liberal Democrat. If Trump did this, sky writing planes would be flying over the city announcing it.


Its totally overblown and politicalized.

The only thing the Dems have done is snobbleling and pandering to the Commie Chinese, who they support more than Americans.


The Commies cant be trusted and their numbers are totally fictitious. We will never get the truth out of these scumbags.

Its pretty clear, in densely populated areas, and close quarters, COVID is transmitted much easier. It's also pretty clear that its not a deadly threat to most people who are in good health. Clearly its a threat to those in poor health, already hospitalized, and non whites. That's actually a lot of information though it may be simplified.

Its also pretty clear that China can not be trusted under any circumstances. A trade war and probably cold war will develop from this. I am all for it personally and already look at things I buy to make sure they are not produced in China. This is happening all over the world now.

Poland closed the borders early and took a lot of $>>T for it at first. Remember the EU complaining? I am not a PiS supporter, but that got that part of things right. Closing the borders helped a lot. Bringing Poles home from abroad probably spread the infection more. That said, Poland is emerging from this getting ready to experience the worst economic downturn in thirty years. How will the country pay for everything they have spent and promised? More important, how will testing at an elevated and accelerated rate be paid for in case this comes back?

Looks as if face masks outdoors will no longer be necessary within another two weeks, thank goodness, though apparently it will vary from region to region of Poland. Will still have to be worn indoors though.

Well nothing in the modern world has prepared the political establishment to think in those terms (people are supposed to be interchangeable widgets with no distinguishing features).

In the US blacks are prone to obesity (mostly due to poor diet - food for the poor in the US is abundant but of very low quality at best and dangerous for health at worse) and high blood pressure and some other stuff and non-whites (and orthodox Jews) were noticeably not paying any attention to shelter in place orders...

In places like Latin America and Africa the real devastation is because these countries have no history of good governance and local values (which are about loyalty to extended families or clans or tribes) get in the way of ever achieving that. The people can be quite nice at the individual level but their ability to run a country is.... not good.

Institutional robustness seems to be a big factor - countries that are well run tend to do better but there are a lot of confounding factors that make getting a clearer picture more difficult.

The evidence seems to suggest that in a reasonably well run country with robust state institutions - coronavirus just isn't that deadly (not least because its easier to take effective measures) but any slip up gives it a chance to wreak havok among the more vulnerable...

There also seem to be.... genetic factors but in that areas there's a lot of noise and not much signal .

For the record I no longer think of the US as a well run country and it seems close to a failed state in many ways (and the same is also true of the UK). You can hack away at government and infrastructure for short term gains but eventually something will come along to bite your @ss....

Especially compared to neighbouring countries.


Covid-19 is neither a flu nor a hoax. If it were a hoax, that would raise the question "cui bono". And nobody has benefitted.

They are really of no value now as it can be contracted thru the eyes.
And as far as outdoors this summer they are now saying that it is possible for mosquito's to spread it.
We are all going to die now for sure.

Yes and let's not forget it can be caught from ATMs, money, beer glasses, ashtrays and door handles. It's a wonder we are all still here frankly.

Todays numbers....

Hospitalization (running total): 2261 people are now hospitalized, down 69 from yesterday's 2330 (lowest number since April 1)

Fatalities (day totals): 10 people have died, same number as yesterday.. (total 982)

The plateau of around 2400-2500 in the hospital and between 10 and 15 fatalities each day is seems to be slowly falling

A special charter flight from London to Poland is planned for 27 May to repatriate Poles who want to come home permanently or who were visiting UK and got stranded. Supposedly, they have to do a mandatory quarantine when they get back - we'll see how that works out.

Maf, what's your take on the situation in Silesia and Lower Silesia?

It seems to me that they've made a terrible, terrible mistake by letting people back into Poland en masse this weekend from Germany.

Why are so many people returning to Poland from Germany this weekend....I presume they will self isolate for 14 days...?

In Germany Thursday was a holiday (Ascension Day /Fathers Day)...many people took Friday off too and got themselves a really long weekend. Perfect for short trip home! :)

Thanks for the information.....if they return for a long weekend, will they not have to remain in self isolation for 14 days....or can people come and go......?

Basically, if you're in Germany for work, you can return to Poland without quarantine.

Ok thanks for this....it does seem strange that everyone else needs to self isolate whereas people working in Germany can come and go when they like....it does sound like a very risky arrangement....

A lot depends on who they'll come into contact with... the longer this goes on the more it's clear that it's no real danger to the vast majority of the population.

Given the fatality numbers vs confirmed cases I'm assuming there's two to three times as many carriers than they've found so far...

But with no vaccine and brute economic facts.... the lockdown lasted as long as it feasibly could and it's time to get things moving economically.... meh

Be careful with the China virus hand sanitizers as they can explode in a hot car.
Here is the damage they are a capable of doing.
msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/authorities-warn-hand-sanitizers-can-explode-in-hot-cars/vi-BB14sK4w

More than that, given the R0 number and the fact that the number of known infections in Poland is rising all the time. The fact that the number of infections is continuing to rise, shows clearly that the virus is not under control in Poland and it will continue to increase throughout the summer. As soon as you reopen borders fully, you will have new infections coming into a community where the virus is still very active.

There was no properly structured management put in place and there is no properly structured exit plan. The whole thing has been very loosely and randomly managed by fairly inept people, that's my impression. The so-called lockdown didn't really work because it wasn't strict enough and the lack of effective communication by the government with the public, in getting the necessary public health information out there, meant that after the first two weeks, people got very casual. Even during the two week lockdown at the beginning, I know of people who were continuting to got out visting and socializing and people who were travelling all over the country so at this stage, everybody is simply going to carry on as normal.

Given the poor management and the subsequent continuing rise in infections, don't be surprised if there's panic by PIS a couple of months down the road and another lockdown.

The number is never going to fall...

They haven't updated the hospitalization rates and might not till Monday so we'll see what's going on there...

Interestingly I had a hunch and found an interesting correlation (not perfect but far better than chance)...

Those in care homes are especially vulnerable and, as it turns out, nursing and elderly home beds (per 100,000 population) is a fairly good predictor of high death rates.

Poland is pretty low with just 182. Prosperity is relatively new in Poland and not well enough established that lots of people can foist off unwanted elders into institutional "care" ...

Not all countries with high bed counts have had really high fatality rates but the other direction works out pretty well in the EU at least: most of the countries with really high fatality rates have high senior/nursing care bed counts....

gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_490-5100-nursing-and-elderly-home-beds-per-100-000/visualizations/#id=20069

The Polish response has not been... inspiring but I can't think of a single country that's done especially well (Taiwan but it's not officially a country, so.....)

Cyprus (both parts) maybe?


There's definitely something about it that ravages nursing homes, as we're seeing the same thing here. Could it be that the combination of badly paid staff and elderly people unable to do something about the abuses is a perfect breeding ground for the virus?

True, but fortunately a much smaller percentage of the population is stuck in them....

Interestingly in Florida the governor locked down nursing homes but not the rest of the population and the results have been much better.


People that think that geronticide was only practiced by primitive groups like Eskimos.... are wrong.

Apparently in Sweden (and Belgium) geronticide is an accepted part of elderly care.

In Italy the situation was exacerbated by foreign care workers fleeing in fear... that's the danger of outsourcing elder care to badly paid foreigners, when the chips are down they're more likely to cut their losses and run...

Ideally this should make western countries completely rethink elder care policies, but in reality... I'm sure it won't.

Well, that is a very difficult subject. Neither being just under the care of the family nor being in care homes is perfect IMO. Care homes of course are usually soulless with the potential for abuse. At home they often are on the periphery of the family, feeling like a burden and lonely. A mixture where the older can meet in like a culture centre with nurses, having meals and care but also the company of their peers and go back for the evening and night? But then they quitr often feel to tired for such stuff