Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will meet with opposition leaders this week to discuss plans to respond to the spike in Covid-19 infections. Saturday’s total (40,876) broke records for daily infection numbers, with Sunday’s totals (34,088) dropping only slightly. According to data from the Polish Ministry of Health, 35 percent of new cases are the highly-contagious Omicron variant, which will likely become the dominant strain in Poland in the coming weeks.
As a result, Prime Minister Morawiecki has invited the heads of parliamentary caucuses, clubs, and political parties to debate potential measures to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant. According to government spokesperson Piotr Mueller, the talks are set for Tuesday, ahead of the next session of the Sejm.
Last week, the Ministry of Health published a strategy for combating the fifth wave of COVID-19. In addition to strengthening outpatient care options, the plan focused on enhancing and promoting the importance of immunization and increasing the availability of COVID-19 tests.
Based on data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), only 56.8 percent of the Polish population is fully vaccinated, well below the EU/EEA average of 69.7%.
Source: Radio Gdańsk, Radio Poland, PAP
New health regulations on quarantine requirements set to go into effect today will be delayed until Tuesday due to IT maintenance of the epidemiology reporting system.
The latest revision to Poland’s coronavirus regulations will shorten the length of mandatory quarantine from 10 to seven days for those infected by close contact.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski previously warned that coronavirus infections would hit new records during the next few weeks, surpassing 60,000 daily cases and possibly approaching 140,000.
Source: Radio Gdańsk, Radio Poland
A Polish research station at the South Pole has officially been reopened by a team of geophysicists from the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), following a hiatus of more than four decades.
A special inauguration ceremony was conducted on Sunday to celebrate the official reopening of the A.B. Dobrowolski Polar Station. Four Polish scientists, accompanied by a group of their Russian peers from a nearby station, displayed the Polish national flag and played the national anthem to mark the occasion.
The Dobrowolski Station, established by Russian scientists and taken over by Poland in 1959, has been inactive since 1979. According to scientists, its location in the Bunger Oasis region of the East Antarctic makes it uniquely suitable for comprehensive geophysical research.
According to the head of the Polish expedition, Prof. Marek Lewandowski, “it’s a unique place on Earth, where you can observe the framework of our planet’s inner core in a way that is unaffected by human activity or by seismic waves induced by the ocean.”
Source: Radio Poland
Barbara Krafftówna, a Polish actress renowned for her roles in theatre, film, and television, passed away over the weekend at the age of 93.
Born in Warsaw in 1928, Krafftówna made her theatre debut in November of 1946 at Teatr Wybrzeże in Gdynia, spending the next several decades in various theatre and cabaret performances in Warsaw and Lódź. She later went on to star in numerous films, including Andrzej Wajda’s celebrated “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958) and the films of Wojciech J. Has.
She added to her film and theatre repertoire with comedic roles on the small screen, such as the popular series “Four Tank Men and a Dog” (1966-1970) and “The Elderly Gentlemen’s Cabaret” (1958-1966).
In 2006, Krafftówna returned to Gdynia to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her stage career in a monodrama “The Blue Devil” performance about the last years in the life of the iconic German-American film star Marlene Dietrich.
Krafftówna received numerous awards and accolades for her work, including the Gloria Artis Gold Medal in 2006 and the prestigious Commander’s Cross with a Star of the Polonia Restituta Order in 2019.
Polish President Andrzej Duda called her “the Grand Lady of the Polish Stage,” adding in a post on Twitter that “she remains in her creations.”
Source: Radio Gdańsk, Radio Poland
Weather
Today will be cold and overcast, with a slight chance of rain during the day and a strong breeze coming in from the southwest. Temperatures will peak around a high of 4°C, or 39°F, dropping to an overnight low of 2°C or 36°F. Similar weather is expected tomorrow, with a chance for rain or snow later in the week.
Elizabeth Peck/ua
