'Let's not be fooled into being told the virus is in retreat': scientists
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"It depends on us how high the fourth wave of Covid-19 cases will be and whether it will paralyze the health care system. Therefore, the current calming down of the situation should not weaken our vigilance," the scientists of the Covid-19 team at the president of the Polish Academy of Sciences said.
The researchers who model the course of the epidemic do not rule out that the fourth wave may surprise us.
The current situation in Poland – the opening of the economy and the restoration of social life, the still insufficient level of vaccination, and the emergence of a new, more contagious variant of the virus – may contribute to the rapid development of the epidemic and a dangerous fourth wave of infections, as experts of the Polish Academy of Sciences warn.
A few days ago, Dr. Aneta Afelt from the ICM UW team, a member of the Covid-19 PAN advisory team, spoke about the possible fourth wave of the pandemic in the fall.
"We have a low level of immunization, we have children who will not have immunity in the fall," she explained.
In Poland, almost 13.3 million people are fully vaccinated (as of July 2, 2021), i.e. approx. 35.3 percent of the population. According to government data, 54 percent of adult Poles are either vaccinated against Covid-19 with the first dose or registered for vaccination. The Ministry of Health assumes that 16 percent of people (among those who have not yet been vaccinated with the first dose or have not registered for vaccination) will still be vaccinated against coronavirus. A few months ago, we would have said that these are hopeful estimates, but today we have to take into account that, according to experts, with a much more infectious Delta variant, the level of population vaccination should reach over 80 or even 90 percent if we really want to extinguish the epidemic. The first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine does not provide adequate protection against Delta (the second gives it a high level).
