At a press conference yesterday, Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she was “glad to be safe in Warsaw” after refusing to return home to Belarus.
Last Sunday, Belarusian sports officials attempted to force Tsimanouskaya to board a flight back to Minsk via Istanbul, at which point Tsimanouskaya sought police and later international protection. On Monday, she was granted a Polish humanitarian visa at Poland’s embassy in Tokyo and arrived in Warsaw (via Vienna) on Wednesday.

According to Tsimanouskaya, she had been told by team officials in the Olympic Village to feign injury and return to Belarus, or else she “would have problems.”

At yesterday’s press conference, Tsimanouskaya thanked the Polish foreign ministry, the Polish prime minister’s office, and the country’s diplomatic service, as well as the Japanese authorities for allowing her to fly from Japan to Poland.

When asked about her future plans, Tsimanouskaya expressed hope that she and her husband could remain in Poland and she could carry on with her career.

Source: Radio Poland, PAP

US President Joe Biden has nominated diplomat Mark Brzezinski to serve as the new Ambassador to Poland, according to a White House announcement released yesterday.

Brzezinski previously served in the administration of President Obama and was the US Ambassador to Sweden from 2011 to 2015, as well as the director for Russia and Eurasia on the National Security Council of President Clinton.

Brzezinski, who speaks both Polish and French, was a Fulbright scholar in Poland in the early 1990s, where he began conducting research for his book The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland.

He is the son of Polish-born diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who also served as US National Security Adviser under President Jimmy Carter and was later awarded the Order of White Eagle, Poland’s highest state honor.

The previous US Ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, left her post when the new US presidential administration was inaugurated last January.

Source: Radio Poland, Radio Gdańsk

Poland’s Health Minister Adam Niedzielski has warned that new restrictions may be put in place if the number of coronavirus cases nationwide exceeds 1,000 per day.

According to Niedzielski, “areas where vaccination levels are low” would be the first to face renewed lockdown restrictions, as “the risk of COVID-19 being transmitted is greater”  in such locations.

According to official figures from the Ministry of Health, vaccination levels are highest in the central Mazowieckie province, where almost 53 percent of adult inhabitants have been vaccinated.

In addition to Mazowieckie, only four of the country’s 16 provinces have surpassed the 50-percent mark, including Dolnośląskie in the southwest, Pomorskie in the north, and Zachodniopomorskie in the northwest.

At the other end of the scale, just under 37 percent of the adult population has been vaccinated in the southeastern region of Podkarpackie, with similarly low levels in the eastern province of Lubelskie and the south-central province of Świętokrzyskie.

Source: Radio Poland

The Polish health ministry reported 176 new coronavirus infections and six more deaths related to COVID-19 yesterday.

The updated figures bring the country’s total number of cases during the pandemic to over 2.8 million (2,883,624) and the total number of deaths to over 75,000 (75,275).

Public health authorities in Poland and elsewhere have warned that the number of COVID-19 infections could rise in the coming weeks as the Delta variant of the coronavirus begins to spread more quickly.

As of Thursday morning, 298 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals across Poland, with 42 of these patients on ventilators. In addition, nearly 75,000 (74,265) people were quarantined for possible coronavirus exposure.

Source: Radio Poland

Weather

Today will be mostly cloudy and cool, with winds coming in from the north and a good chance of rain throughout the afternoon. Temperatures will peak around a high of 19°C, or 66°F, cooling off slightly to a low of 15°C or 59°F overnight. More sunshine and warmer temps will return tomorrow, with a chance for rain returning again Sunday morning.