Adam Niedzielski said in a media interview published on Thursday that the rate of infections in the country remained "relatively low" compared to last year, “even though the current Delta variant of the coronavirus is much more infectious and dangerous.”
He added: “Our forecasts indicate the wave is set to peak in November, although it is possible that this will happen in December.”
Niedzielski told the polskatimes.pl website that warm temperatures could slow down the wave as people would be spending more time outdoors.
According to Niedzielski, the fourth wave is “most likely” to peak at 20,000 daily cases in November, but the most important figure is the number of hospitalisations.
“We are assuming that the national vaccination programme will result in fewer people being hospitalised,“ he said, as cited by state news agency PAP.
He told polskatimes.pl that Poland’s rate of hospitalisations “won’t shoot up drastically even if there are 20,000 to 30,000 infections per day."
He also said that any further steps would mostly depend on the number of hospitalisations.
“If the pandemic gathers pace, the restrictions may be stepped up,” he added.
In a previous prediction earlier this month, Niedzielski warned that the daily number of new coronavirus infections in the country could reach 5,000 by late October.
Poland on Thursday reported 1,208 new coronavirus infections and 27 more deaths related to COVID-19, bringing the country's total number of cases during the pandemic to 2,907,071 and fatalities to 75,650.
By Thursday, Poland had injected over 19.8 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines, while more than 19.4 million people had been fully inoculated, health ministry data showed.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP