Four Cabinet members were told to undergo quarantine, government spokesman Piotr Müller said.
Müller added that the move, which comes as Poland battles a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections, would not damage the functioning of the government.
The four Cabinet members who have been sent into quarantine are Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State Assets Jacek Sasin; outgoing Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski; the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Michał Dworczyk; and Deputy Climate Minister Jacek Ozdoba.
On Monday morning, Przemysław Czarnek, who is set to take over as the minister of education and science, confirmed he had COVID-19.
Following a Cabinet reshuffle, Czarnek and other ministers had been due to be sworn in by President Andrzej Duda at 3pm.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has asked the president to set another day for the event.
Spike in COVID-19
Meanwhile, the deputy Speaker of Poland’s lower house, Piotr Zgorzelski, also announced he has contracted the coronavirus.
The Speaker of the upper house, Tomasz Grodzki, then went into self-isolation until he has had a coronavirus test, as did a number of other politicians who were at a meeting last week attended by Zgorzelski.
Poland has seen a spike in coronavirus infections in recent days.
On Saturday, public health authorities reported 2,367 new COVID-19 cases, the most since the pandemic hit the country in early March.
The Polish health ministry on Monday reported 2,006 new coronavirus infections and 29 more deaths.
A total of 102,080 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Poland since the start of the epidemic, and 2,659 have died from the COVID-19 respiratory disease so far.
With 65 COVID-19 deaths per million population, Poland remains far less affected by the coronavirus epidemic than many other countries in Europe, according to figures released by the country’s health ministry last week.
(pk)
Source: IAR/PAP