More people in Poland willing to take AstraZeneca shot, says PM

WARSAW: Poland is seeing an increase in people willing to take AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, the prime minister said on Monday, after reports that as many as 70% in some places had been unwilling to get the shot due to safety concerns.

After briefly halting its use, many European countries have resumed using the AstraZeneca shot after the EU regulator said it was safe. Poland did not suspend its use it at any stage, arguing that the benefits outweighed potential risks.

"In the morning I got a report... showing that there are more and more people willing to get vaccinated and also to get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine," Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters.

"This shows that we made the right decision not to suspend vaccinations with AstraZeneca. There are definitely more people willing to be vaccinated with this vaccine."

Morawiecki's top aide, Michal Dworczyk, who heads the country's vaccination programme, said that on Saturday the number of people not showing up to get their shot had reached 70% at some vaccination points.

However, he said the numbers of people registering to be vaccinated this week had increased from a week ago.

"The registration level is much better than the registration which started on March 18... I hope this confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine comes back," he told a separate news conference.

Poland is grappling with spiralling infection rates amid a third wave driven by a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in Britain.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Monday the numbers of daily cases would continue to grow for two to three weeks.

The country of 38 million has reported 2,073,129 cases of the coronavirus and 49,365 deaths.