Author Archives: martynaroz

Can the majority of Poland’s population be fully vaccinated by the end of summer 2021?

The Ministry of Health has announced today that Poland for the first time has vaccinated over 400 000 within 24 hours and the numbers keep growing.

In total, 13,034,348 vaccinations for COVID-19 were carried out in Poland (according to data as of 10:30 on May 7).

Photo by Mat Napo on Unsplash

As United Kingdom’s Covid-19 vaccination is slowing down, Poland at the end of April released the plan with the dates of when each age group will be able to register to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

Almost 40% of the population received the vaccine and 9,735,602 people got vaccinated with the first dose in Poland.

3,298,739 people have received two doses.

By the end of this week, all adults are going to be able to book a date for their vaccine.

However, in some cities, it is possible to get vaccinated even before your scheduled date and you can get your first dose the next day after booking your visit.

Photo by Mat Napo on Unsplash

Wioletta, 21 years old who got her first dose of Pfizer before her scheduled date said “I believe that the accelerated vaccination system in Poland was a great idea. It will allow vaccinating as many people as possible in a short amount of time. The ability to get vaccinated faster, and before our turn, also allows us to return to our normal lives sooner.”

All you have to do to get the first dose of the vaccine before your age group is allowed to register is to keep an eye on your online patient profile and see if there is any date available and you can even choose the vaccine you want to be vaccinated with.

As some people are not unable to make their appointments for unseen reasons, others are able to take earlier slots, allowing for society to reach normality earlier than initially expected it.

Featured photo by Steven Cornfield on Unsplash

Is it the end of lockdown for Poland?

As England already started lifting restrictions, Poland went into another big lockdown on March 27 when the 3rd wave of coronavirus hit. At first, the new restrictions were supposed to apply only for two weeks but were quickly stretched until the end of April.

On Wednesday Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Health Minister Adam Niedzielski held a live conference where they announced the reopening plan for May. It looks like by the end of the next month Poland will be fully out of lockdown.

The first stage of restarting the economy begins on May 4 as museums, art galleries, malls and elementary schools classes 1-3 will be reopening. On May 8th hotels in Poland will be finally reopened with an occupancy rate of 50%.

However, restaurant, wellness and spa zones in these places will stay closed.

A week later, from May 15, people are going to be able to go out and enjoy their time in the restaurant gardens. And from May 29th the opening of the restaurant under a strict sanitary regime will be possible.

From that day on, it will also be possible to go to the cinema and theater. It is important to mention that from May 15 elementary school classes 4-8 will be reopened and high schools will follow on May 29.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As most people are happy about lifting the restrictions we cannot say the same about students and teachers, as all schools are reopening 4 weeks before the end of the school year. Most people believe that there is not a point in reopening school this close to the end and are afraid that it will only increase Covid-19 cases which would cause a 4th wave.

Headmaster Ewelina Bober of Sport school SMS Rzeszów said “In my opinion reopening schools on May 29 wasn’t the best decision. Schools should have stayed closed as we still have around 8,000 new cases per day. In addiction, the end of the school year is on June 25 and we have to announce final grades on June 10 and there is nothing we can really do in schools after that. I believe that reopening schools for 4 week will bring more harm than good.”

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THE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC ON ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels

The outgoing pandemic of coronavirus has turned upside down everyone’s life.

A lot of people lost their job and were left on their own as the pandemic impacted a lot of different industries. One of the most touched is the entertainment industry. Once coronavirus took over the world, venus, arenas, etc. shut down immediately. Concerts, festivals and other planned events were instantly postponed or unfortunately canceled.

A lot of venues were forced to shut down. Sandra Johnsson who works in Eventim Apollo in London says her workplace was lucky enough to not be one of them. “My work closed down early March and has been closed since so the pandemic has made it impossible for our venue to get income. But once it opens back up it might take some time for everything to go back to normal.”

The government is trying to deal with the pandemic in the best way possible. Even though almost everything is closed people are getting furloughs and other support. Nevertheless, it doesn’t include all industries.

Sandra thinks the government is not doing enough for the entertainment industry. “Of what I have seen online they haven’t been doing as much for the entertainment industry as they have for other industries. Although I haven’t noticed or been affected by it much myself, it’s still sad to see as in the music industry especially, get most of their revenue from live music.”

A lot of people working in the industry had to take another work to be able to pay bills. Niall Horan in the interview for BBC stated that some people he’s been working on while touring are now working in other places to be able to support their families as the “furlough doesn’t touch them”.

Through the past year a few online concerts took place to raise money for people working in the industry to help them in these hard times.

The Prime Minister declared that concert venues and theaters will re-open from 17 May. A lot of artists already announced new dates for their upcoming tours and some of them are planning to go on the road even this year.

It looks like the entertainment industry is coming back to life and soon we will be able to enjoy live music again. “The venue I’m working at has the benefits of being able to have chairs out so it will be possible for them to sell tickets to events while still being able to do social distancing. The one problem can be when arriving as many people can show up at the same time. But with other venues that don’t have the same benefit of keeping social distancing it might be harder for them to open up” says Sandra.