Poland announces nationwide restrictions amid coronavirus surge
- We no longer have the ability to only put forward regional restrictions. The only way forward right now is to broaden these restrictions to all of Poland.
- If this move does not result in easing the pandemic, or at least in slowing down of the third wave, the next steps would be a typical lockdown, a typical situation in which we will be totally closing everything.
WARSAW: Poland announced on Wednesday it was introducing nationwide restrictions as new daily coronavirus cases reached their highest level this year.
Poland has been implementing regional lockdowns in a bid to contain a surge in infections driven by a highly contagious variant first discovered in Britain, but the government has said that if case numbers kept rising a nationwide lockdown was possible.
Theatres, shopping malls, hotels and cinemas will be closed from Saturday, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told a news conference.
"We no longer have the ability to only put forward regional restrictions. The only way forward right now is to broaden these restrictions to all of Poland," Niedzielski said, adding that schools would move to online learning.
"If this move does not result in easing the pandemic, or at least in slowing down of the third wave, the next steps would be a typical lockdown, a typical situation in which we will be totally closing everything," Niedzielski said.
He said 52% of new cases were tied to the variant first discovered in Britain.
The country of 38 million people reported 25,052 daily COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, according to health ministry data, a significant increase on the previous 2021 record of 21,049, reported on Saturday. There were 453 deaths related to COVID-19 on Wednesday.
In total, Poland has reported 1,956,974 cases and 48,032 deaths.
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