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– I recommended to the prime minister that from the beginning of April the solutions concerning wearing masks, applying quarantine and isolation should be abolished – Minister Adam Niedzielski recently said. – This is really not the time to wear masks »- comments the drug contagious. Lidia Stopyra. – There is no expert voice that would correct the minister’s dreamy plans – says Dr. Paweł Grzesiowski directly. There are more specialists who give their opinion on the health minister’s announcement. There are important arguments. Read on.
- Commenting on the words of the Minister of Health, announcing the lifting of the restrictions, doctors point out that this is not the time to announce the end of the pandemic, that it is too early to lift the restrictions
- Medics indicate that still too few Poles have taken the COVID-19 vaccine, that there is an increase in infections in Western Europe, and that there is also a huge influx of refugees from Ukraine, a country where the level of vaccination is low
- Bow. Lidia Stopyra: This is really not the time to wear off face masks. And certainly they should not be abandoned by unvaccinated people. If we do this and vaccination remains so low, severe infections and deaths will increase
- Bow. Bartosz Fiałek: if, despite the real epidemic threat and clear signals from around the world, such decisions are made, I am afraid for the health safety of Polish women and Poles
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Minister Niedzielski recommends lifting covid restrictions
We are in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and to say that we are all very tired of it is saying nothing. Hope that all this is finally over was brought by the recent words of the Minister of Health, Adam Niedzielski, regarding the easing of restrictions.
– I recommended the prime minister to abolish the solutions for wearing masks, applying quarantine and isolation from the beginning of April, said Adam Niedzielski on Radio Plus on March 17. As the Minister of Health argued, “it is such a decision, the moment when we start to treat the coronavirus as one of the diseases that exist somewhere in our environment. They are dangerous all the time, of course, but we have them increasingly under our control ».
Adam Niedzielski had already talked about easing the restrictions in the daily “Fakt”. He then stipulated that the prospect of lifting the restrictions was the beginning of April, but “this perspective may always change”. – If we have increases in infections, the deadline for lifting the restrictions will have to be postponed – he said. The announcement of the recommendation to lift the restrictions caused a lot of emotions. Many people took this as a signal that the pandemic is over or that it will be soon. However, the doctors who commented on the words of the minister of health had no doubts.
Further part below the video.
COVID-19 in Poland. Doctors: This is not the time to announce the end of the pandemic
– Not the first minister is signaling something that is not in line with the current situation and current knowledge. It is certainly not the moment to announce the end of the pandemic, Dr. Paweł Grzesiowski, expert of the Supreme Medical Council for COVID-19, told PAP. – When we look at the data in Poland from the last month, we can see that the pandemic scale has decreased to zero, and even week to week the results are the same, the doctor pointed out. We cannot talk about the end of the fifth wave, it is too early to lift the restrictions – the specialist assessed.
- Read also: The biggest health problems of refugees from Ukraine. Explains the family doctor
Bow. Bartosz Fiałek, on the other hand, draws attention to the increases in coronavirus infections visible in Western Europe. According to experts, they are mostly caused by an Omicron sub-variant called BA.2.
It is really hard to expect and hope that Poland will be a green island that the sub-variant BA.2 will save. These infections will reach us and it will happen soon (…) This is another, sixth warning that we seem to be taking lightly. In the next few weeks, we will see an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Poland.
When assessing our epidemic situation, doctors also point to a huge influx of refugees from Ukraine. – Many people who had not been vaccinated came to Poland. In Ukraine, only 35 percent of them were vaccinated. society, and they live in large clusters, are malnourished and cold. This is an ideal situation for the virus – noted Dr. Grzesiowski. – We should also remember that many children came to Poland, who – like ours – are mostly not vaccinated due to the lack of entitlement resulting from their age. – adds Bartosz Fiałek.
The lack of vaccinations, of course, cannot in any way determine our assistance to runaway mothers with children, victims of bombed cities and a humanitarian catastrophe. But we appeal to remember not only PUTIN-22, but also COVID-19.
The whole conversation with prof. dr. hab. med. Krzysztof J. Filipiak, cardiologist, internist, hypertensiologist and clinical pharmacologist, co-author of the first Polish textbook on COVID-19.
“Taking off your masks is just unwise”
– This is really not the time to wear a mask. And certainly they should not be abandoned by unvaccinated people. If we do this and the level of vaccination remains so low, the number of severe infections and deaths will increase – warns the drug Lidia Stopyra, specialist in infectious diseases and paediatrics, head of the Infectious Diseases and Pediatrics Department at Szpital Specjalistyczny im. S. Żeromski in Krakow. – Of course, we have COVID-19 under better control than before – there are more drugs, the level of vaccination – although not sufficient, it is still higher than even six months ago. But this does not mean that the disease does not exist – adds the doctor.
Lidia Stopyra also commented on the idea of abolishing isolation. Every airborne infectious disease requires it, and we cannot pretend that COVID-19 is not contagious. Only formal issues can be considered. A sick person should isolate himself, this cuts the path of infection. Especially since in the case of COVID-19, the isolation does not last long, seven days – he explains.
COVID-19 can only be treated similar to a cold if you are close to 100 percent. immunized people. This ensures that even when an infection does occur, it will be very mild or asymptomatic. However, we should remember that if we have a cold, we should not go to school and work and infect others.
– If, after all, we were to talk about the abolition of the obligation to wear protective masks, it would certainly have to be conditioned by the local epidemic situation – believes the drug. Bartosz Fiałek. – If we have green locations somewhere in Poland, i.e. regions where there are very few COVID-19 cases and the risk of significant spread of the virus is not great, then one could think to partially abandon the obligation to wear protective masks. However, such a scenario does not come into play when the daily number of new infections increases – emphasizes the doctor. – Removing masks, the protective barrier to reduce the transmission of the pathogen causing the epidemic, is simply unwise, there is no scientific basis.
When will it be safe to lift the restrictions? The Infantile explains
– Personally, I think that the voice of experts is clearly missing, which corrected these dreamy plans of the minister, because they are supposed to breathe optimism into the society, but they are now absolutely not up-to-date – says Dr. Grzesiowski. Bartosz Fiałek says directly: – You cannot make such decisions on the basis of faith or whim. If, despite the real epidemic threat and clear signals from around the world, such decisions are made, I am afraid for the health safety of Polish women and Poles. The whole conversation with the drug. Bartosz Fiałek.
Do you want to test your COVID-19 immunity after vaccination? Have you been infected and want to check your antibody levels? See the COVID-19 immunity test package, which you will perform at Diagnostics network points.
Under what circumstances could we safely say goodbye to the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic? Lidia Stopyra has no doubts. – We could talk about it in a situation where almost everyone would be vaccinated, and people from risk groups (the elderly, with chronic diseases, patients on dialysis, undergoing chemotherapy), who, despite vaccination, may not develop full immunity, would enjoy special protection. In a situation where in Poland, 58 percent are vaccinated with two doses. people and the booster dose was taken by only about 30 percent, and millions of even less vaccinated refugees are coming to our country, we should be careful. So I repeat: in the situation in which we are now, abandoning masks and isolation is risky – says the doctor.
We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we are talking about the war in Ukraine and the drama of our eastern neighbors. We help as much as we can, but we ourselves are full of fears. Is it possible to get rid of them? How to help, but also how to take care of yourself? You will hear about this and many others below.
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