The death toll increased by 12, according to public health authorities.
A total of 78,330 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Poland since the start of the pandemic, and 2,282 have died from the COVID-19 respiratory disease so far, officials said on Saturday.
Poland’s previous daily record was set on August 21, when 903 new coronavirus infections were confirmed nationwide.
On Friday, the health ministry confirmed 757 new cases, compared to 837 on Thursday, 600 on Wednesday, 605 on Tuesday and 377 on Monday.
Of the new cases confirmed on Saturday, the most - 149 - were in the southern province of Małopolskie, which includes the historic city of Kraków.
The latest deaths in Poland’s coronavirus outbreak are people aged from 46 to 92. The Polish health ministry said that most of these patients had pre-existing medical conditions.
The health ministry announced on Saturday morning that 1,977 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals nationwide, 83 of them on ventilators, with a further 118,864 people quarantined for possible coronavirus exposure.
Meanwhile, 63,861 people have now recovered from COVID-19 throughout the country, according to the health ministry.
Wojciech Andrusiewicz, a spokesman for the health ministry, said that Saturday's spike was the result of people “returning to normal daily life.”
"We do not have large hotbeds at the moment,” he added.
58 COVID-19 deaths per million
With 58 COVID-19 deaths per million population, Poland remains far less affected by the coronavirus epidemic than many other countries in Europe, according to a set of data released by the country’s health ministry this week.
To compare, Belgium has 856 deaths per million residents, according to new statistics released by the Polish health ministry on Tuesday, while Spain has 638 and Britain reports 613.
Vaccine in the spring?
Poland’s health minister has said a vaccine against the coronavirus is likely to be available in his country next spring, and that will “definitively end the pandemic”.
Meanwhile, Polish experts announced on Friday that they have developed a “prototype” of a home-grown vaccine against the coronavirus.
(pk)
Source: PAP