COVID-19. Another wave of the epidemic is sweeping through Europe and Poland – Dr. Grzesiowski

In July, pharmacies sold almost 187,000 tests for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, more than twice as many as in June, according to data from the analytical company PEX Pharma Sequence. The number of infected people is also growing coronavirus in the register of the Ministry of Health.

– Covid is still with us, the virus has not disappeared, the virus is still active, releasing new variants. The effect of this is another wave of the epidemic, which is sweeping through Europe and Poland – said Dr. Paweł Grzesiowski, Chief Sanitary Inspector, on TVN24. He added that “many people do not react to warnings and do not take it to heart”.

– Besides, we have a holiday season and people are more likely to think about where to go, how to spend the weekend, or moving somewhere, than about taking a mask or simply being careful about interpersonal contacts. Because if someone among us is sick, we should simply avoid this contact – the epidemiologist appealed.

Grzesiowski said that “it is difficult to return to the conversation about COVID-19”. – At the moment, most people have a reflex to reject this sphere of information and many people believe that we are being scared, that this is another manipulation – he noted. Meanwhile – as he added – “COVID is another infectious disease that escapes seasonality, that attacks in the middle of summer and we simply have to talk about it”.

– We are warning that the number of sick people is growing at the moment. We do not have an effective medicine that is widely available. Vaccines will run out by the end of August and we are waiting for new ones, which are only being registered by the European Medicines Agency, so all we can do is wear a mask, disinfect and avoid contact with sick people, and then when we start having symptoms, we simply take a test to find out what we are sick with – said Grzesiowski.

When asked how many cases we currently have, he replied that it is impossible to count all the sick due to the lack of tests performed on all people who have symptoms. – Besides, these people do not report to doctors, because the disease is currently so mild in many, many cases that after 3-4 days of feeling worse, weakness, muscle pain, or even fever, we simply return to normal functioning – noted the TVN24 guest.

In connection with this – he added – “the total number of cases is unknown”. – We can only approximately assess the scale of the phenomenon or the dynamics of the disease progression, because we see how many tests are being purchased. We also see an increase in the number of visits, medical consultations, in almost all provinces at the moment, with family doctors. And finally, we have an increased content of the virus's genetic material in sewage – he indicated.

He noted that “it is true that few cities still maintain this monitoring, but where we do have it, especially in Warsaw, we see an increase in the amount of the virus in sewage”. – This is absolutely indisputable confirmation that we are dealing with another wave. However, whether it is a million people, half a million people, or 100,000 people per day, I am not able to answer this question – he admitted.