Coronavirus in Poland

[Bonobo]

The second wave has hit Poland. Every few days we witness a new record in infections or deaths.

Unfortunately, the rightist PiS government had done LITERALLY nothing to prepare for it. Now, they are hastily building field hospitals in stadiums but who is going to work there if regular hospitals are understaffed?

Online education also hasn`t been improved - again, it is catch-as-catch-can and every school has adopted its own solutions, instead of one national system.

Certain branches, like eateries and gyms are restricted, no consumption on the premises.

Generally, there is a lot of mess and chaos, nobody knows anything, crucial decisions are taken at the last moment. E.g., they announced closing the cemeteries for All Saints` Holiday (3 days) on the last day - Friday. Can you imagine what fury it caused among lantern and flower sellers who were taken by complete surprise - the government had promised several times before that the cemeteries would stay open.

It is not wonder the polls are merciless - within a month, PiS has lost 10%. It is an amazing slide downwards and I hope it will continue - PiS are the most harmful rulers in the history of independent Poland since 1989 - they are like gangrene which is slowy rotting Poland.

[Bonobo]

PiS rightist government is accused of doing nothing to stop the record covid death toll which devastates Poland. Last year there were extra 100.000 deaths, the biggest number since WW2.
Why is PiS so negligent? They don`t want to lose their voters who mostly opt against vaccinations. If PiS introduces harsher laws about compulsory vaccination, voters might pay them back at the elections.

www.onet.pl/informacje/onetwiadomosci/koronawirus-liczby-i-mapa-ktore-mowia-wszystko-o-pandemii-w-polsce/2zre6lj,79cfc278



Shocking numbers and one map that tell everything about the pandemic in Poland
9.7 thousand
January 19, 2022, 2:24 pm

Piotr Kozanecki
Head of Onet's News department
Most deaths since World War II. In 2021, over 100,000 people died. more people than in 2019. Almost as many as died in the Warsaw Uprising. Never so many people died in Poland after 1945. After nearly two years of the pandemic, it can be said clearly and straightforwardly: Poland is completely defeated in the fight against the coronavirus. And the easiest way to show this defeat is the same as in the war: the number of dead Poles.

We have the second highest excess death rate in the EU. The statistical Dane tested himself twenty times in the two years of the pandemic. A statistical Pole 0.74 times. In terms of the percentage of people vaccinated with two doses, we are in the tail of the EU. Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia are behind us. The map of the least vaccinated municipalities exactly matches the map of support for the United Right. We don't care much about all of this.

In 2021, 506,000 died in Poland. people. An abstract number. To understand it, you have to relate it to something.


We can die in 2019 and in earlier years. In 2019, 410 thousand people died in Poland. people, in 2018 412 thousand, in 2017 404 thousand Do you see the gulf? In 2021, 100,000 people died in Poland. more people than died in the years before the pandemic.

This is the second such tragic year (486,000 people died in 2020). Which means that our government has learned nothing and has taken almost no action that would save Poles' lives. The tragedy lasts for two years, and there is little evidence as yet that there will be any improvement in the third year.

Someone will say that there are more people living in Poland at the moment than right after the war, so these statistics are manipulation. Okay, let's count the number of deaths per 1,000 inhabitants then. It was done by Danuta Pawłowska from "Gazeta Wyborcza". Also in such statistics, the last two years have been the worst since World War II. In 2021, the average was 13.14 deaths per 1000 inhabitants, in 2020 12.64, in the previous years it ranged between 10 and 10.75. Only the post-war years, until 1953, have similar (although still lower) rates to the two years of the pandemic.

As if Gliwice became extinct ...

Few people are concerned about the fact that every day people die who absolutely should not die in a civilized country, is concerned. Last year, we wrote about excess deaths many times, pointing out that this is the only statistic that credibly and unquestionably shows the scale of the destruction wreaking by the coronavirus on the Vistula River. Nothing has changed since last year. We have the second worst result in the EU, after Bulgaria, in terms of excess deaths relative to the pre-pandemic average.

A huge increase in the number of infections. Three scenarios of Niedzielski

Nothing happens to it. And we don't quite understand why it is so bad at all.

In the text from last year, we wrote that we have a very low percentage of doctors per million inhabitants in Poland, which meant that our health care system quickly clogged up and was not able to help people whom it normally helped. This year, the failure of the health care system is accompanied by a completely missed opportunity in the form of vaccinations. Unused, because politicians on the margins of the coalition have anti-vaccine phobias and have nothing to do with scientifically proven facts. What is more, the state is so cardboard that it cannot (does not want to?) Enforce the execution of the restrictions introduced a long time ago.

The effect is that while we adhered to the full lockdowns of 2020, when there were no vaccinations yet, we completely laid down compliance with mixed restrictions, i.e. those applicable to the unvaccinated. For months, the government has been unable to spit out an unequivocal answer to a simple question: can the owner of a restaurant / hotel / cinema / shop / shopping mall / service point be able to ask for a vaccination certificate and refuse to admit to the premises or perform the service if not shown. Even today, the Minister of Health, Adam Niedzielski, admitted it with disarming frankness, saying that in his opinion he can, but that others believe that a law is needed. And there is no act. And it is not known when it will be.

The government's flirting with anti-vaccines obviously translates into the number of vaccinated people. Flirting, which is, unfortunately for all of us, politically profitable. Just look at two maps. On the left, we see support for the United Right in the last parliamentary elections (the darker, the higher). On the right, the level of vaccination (the lighter, the less vaccinated).



The map on the left shows support for the United Right in the last parliamentary elections in 2019. The darker the color, the higher the support for PiS and its coalition partners. The map on the right shows the vaccination coverage by municipalities. The lighter the color, the lower the percentage of vaccinated people. Maps developed by the BIQdata.pl team from Wyborcza.pl, based on data from the government and PKW - Press materials

The fact that PiS won in regions that are the least vaccinated today can be seen not only in large-scale regions, such as Podkarpacie and Podlasie. It can be seen even on a microscale, as in the non-Scripture bridgeheads in the Bieszczady (Cisna and Lutowiska) or in Białowieża, which do not vote for the right and the vaccination rate is clearly higher than that of neighboring municipalities.

Traditionally, in terms of the percentage of vaccinated with two doses, we are in the tail of the EU. Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia are behind us.

And for the record, let's just add that of the people who die diagnosed with COVID-19, approx. 90 percent. are unvaccinated people.

The most expressive number given today by the minister of health is not of special importance: 30,000. infections in the last 24 hours. So what? Austria has the same number of infections as Poland. And France, 1.5 times larger, has 464 thousand of them, which is fifteen times more! The number of infections is a function of the tests performed. And in the tests performed, we are in ... 99th place in the world with 774 thousand. tests for 1 million inhabitants. More tests are performed in Vietnam, Botswana, Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia. Denmark, at the top of this statistic, performed nearly 20 million tests per million inhabitants. So the statistical Dane tested himself twenty times in the two years of the pandemic. A statistical Pole 0.74 times. (data from worldometers.info)

Since we test little, the statistics telling us how many people died from the coronavirus are also of little importance. In many cases, we just don't know if someone died from COVID-19, and it's not crucial what someone ultimately died of.

The key thing is, and it must be emphasized with full force, that in 2021, 100,000 people died in Poland. people more than two years earlier. This is almost as much as died in the Warsaw Uprising.

[Bonobo]

Shops, restaurants and other facilities close down due to pandemic restrictions and fewer customers. Here an article about the new trend in Wrocław,

businessinsider.com.pl/gospodarka/pustki-na-wroclawskim-rynku-nawet-znana-siec-sie-zwinela/eyh13v2

More and more empty premises in Wrocław's Market Square. Even the known web has collapsed
Mateusz Madejski

January 23, 2022, 12:00 p.m.

The center of Wrocław is considered to be one of the most interesting tourist places in the country. Crowds of people usually stroll between historic tenement houses. However, recently the premises are collapsing from there. We ask if these are temporary problems or maybe the effect of inflation, pandemic and the Polish Order.

The market square in Wrocław is the main point of one of the largest Polish metropolises - and at the same time a place very much appreciated by tourists
Recently, there are - and in the immediate vicinity - more and more empty premises
There are also more and more advertisements for the sale, rent or even takeover of premises
An expert on the local gastronomic market admits - there are many concerns. However, he is convinced that everything will soon return to normal
More such information can be found on the main page of Onet.pl
Both tourists and the inhabitants of the capital of Lower Silesia are surprised. The market square, the city's showpiece, is getting empty and empty. There are also more and more empty premises in the vicinity of the main square.

According to TripAdvisor, Wrocław's Market Square is the fourth best-rated tourist attraction in the country. So why are restaurants, bars, cafes and shops disappearing from there?

Market Square in Wrocław and empty premises
For example, the recent shutdown of the Sphinx chain restaurants has been widely discussed. The restaurant has been operating in a prestigious location for two decades. The network, however, did not completely move away from the historic part of the center of Wrocław - Sphinx moved to Solny Square. However, as Piotr Gładczak, the author of the blog Wrocławskie Podróże Kulinarne , tells Business Insider, it is definitely a worse and less prestigious location than the Market Square itself.

Meanwhile, the Sphinx tenement house is empty and it is not known yet when anyone will take its place. At the end of 2020, the famous La Scala restaurant, which operated in this place for a quarter of a century, disappeared from the Market Square. After a year, however, the place returned to ul. Butchery. It's a slightly worse location, but it's still the very center of the city.

However, there are many more empty places on the market. Many other Wrocław entrepreneurs are losing their hearts to the gastronomic business. According to the TuWrocław portal , currently you can find at least 10 restaurant withdrawal offers on websites. For example, the owner of the pizzeria Veni Vidi Picka said that there was no more time to run a restaurant. This one can be taken over for 90 thousand. zloty. However, there are definitely lower offers. Like It from Szczytnicka can be taken over for just 5,000. zloty. For the same price, you can buy a pizzeria, which is now closed, on ul. Nowowiejska.

Crisis in Wrocław gastronomy?
Gastronomy has not had an easy time lately. The industry is suffering badly from the pandemic, but that is only part of the problem. The premises are hit hard by inflation, especially gas heating costs. On the other hand, labor costs are rising. As if that were not enough, the real estate market is still booming, which translates into higher rental prices.

- Rental prices are becoming very expensive. Some entrepreneurs from the industry refrain from investing - believes Piotr Gładczak.

A specialist in Wrocław gastronomy, however, is an optimist and believes that these are only temporary problems.

- In the long run, I would rather not worry. We have a shortage of premises in Wrocław, the owners are looking for new locations. It is also known that some empty spaces will soon be developed - he says.

See also: The famous Wrocław skyscraper Sky Tower will have a new owner

- It is also worth adding that those premises that closed were not among the most popular - he adds. He admits, however, that entrepreneurs have serious concerns about the Polish Government or the constantly growing inflation.

Of course, the difficult situation in the catering industry does not only apply to Wrocław. The Chamber of Commerce of Polish Gastronomy estimates that in the years 2019-2021 , approximately 20,000 restaurants were closed or changed. As a result, as many as 200,000 people could lose their jobs.