2020-12-22 20:22 update: 2020-12-23, 18:25
Fot. PAP/Adam Warżawa
First doses of Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in Poland on the day after Christmas, December 26, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has announced.
On Tuesday, Morawiecki inspected Warsaw's Central Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, one of 73 hospitals countrywide that will begin vaccinations of medical staff.
Morawiecki told a press conference at the clinic that he hoped the vaccine would prove to be a breakthrough in combatting the coronavirus and that, in effect, Poland's economy would be able to return to a normal path.
"The Covid-19 vaccine will reach Poland on the day after Christmas. I would want it to be a real breakthrough for the public health service. The sooner we manage to overcome the virus, the sooner we will be able to return to economic normality," he said.
Morawiecki also said that Covid-19 was reaping a high daily death toll, and that the vaccine offered a hopeful measure against it, in spite of there not yet being a cure for the disease. He added that first in line for the vaccine would be medical personnel, and that the vaccine would be decisive in the battle with the virus.
"We will first vaccinate the 'zero group,' i.e. medical staff, as they need it most. Christmas, this year, will be a special time, and may turn out to be a turning point, a breakthrough. Because our fight with the virus and the pandemic that is massacring the world will depend on the vaccinations," the prime minister said.
He added that a second vaccine ordered by Poland would probably be cleared by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the first week of 2021.
Morawiecki said the National Vaccination Programme for the Polish population would launch after Christmas and would continue over several months. He added that the programme would be the biggest logistics undertaking in years, and that all safety measures would be followed during the vaccinations.
Morawiecki also said that the vaccinations would be voluntary, and encouraged Poles to receive them.
The government's commissioner for the vaccination programme, Michal Dworczyk, confirmed that a tranche of 10,000 Covid-19 vaccines would arrive in Poland on December 26. He said that the 73 hospitals designated to administer the first vaccinations would receive them on the following day and that a further 300,000 vaccines would arrive in Poland before the end of December. By the end of January 2021, Poland expects to have 1.5 million doses of the vaccine, Dworczyk said. (PAP)
