Nearly a quarter of those deaths — some 24,000 — occurred in
the most recent wave of infection that began in October, a period in which
vaccines have been widely available in the European Union nation of 38 million
people.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said Tuesday that 493 more
people with COVID-19 had died, pushing the overall pandemic death toll to
100,254 in the central European nation.
The bleak marker comes as daily new infections have fallen
following a peak in what officials call the country’s “fourth wave” of COVID-19
driven by the delta variant. But with the omicron variant spreading, another
large infection wave is looming.
The first two deaths from omicron were reported Monday, both
in elderly and unvaccinated people.
Niedzielski said over 18,000 COVID-19 patients are
hospitalized, making this “the most difficult situation compared to other
waves.”
Poland has struggled through the pandemic with a health care
sector strapped by limited funding and the emigration of many medical
professionals to Western Europe in the past two decades.
According to OECD statistics, Poland is the EU nation with
the lowest number of working doctors in proportion to its population — just 2.4
to 1,000 inhabitants compared with 4.5 in Germany. Poland also has only 5
nurses to 1,000 inhabitants, below the EU average of 8 and far below richer
countries like Germany, which has 14.
The vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the last wave — 83%
— are of unvaccinated people. Among people under 44, more than 90% of those who
died were not vaccinated.
The vaccination rate in Poland is nearly 56% — much lower
than countries in Western Europe but much higher than some other central
European countries like Bulgaria and Romania.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has sought to
encourage vaccinations but is also up against fears and hesitancy among some in
the population — and sometimes among the governing Law and Justice party’s own
supporters.
In recent days, a school superintendent and party loyalist
in the province surrounding Krakow, Barbara Nowak, said she opposed making
vaccines compulsory for teachers, an idea supported by the health minister. She
claimed that “the consequences of this experiment are not fully established.”
Her words were sharply criticized by the health and
education ministers and medical professionals, but the education minister has
refused calls for her dismissal.
Poland now joins Russia, the U.K., Italy, France and Germany
as European nations that have recorded over 100,000 deaths. -AP
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