Current travel in Poland as it relates to COVID

Thanks for the report. I'm dying to get to Poland. I hope you will tell us more about what you saw/did in a trip report!

Thank you so much for that update. I came "this close" to snapping up a cheap ticket to spend about 10 days just in Warsaw, with Poland's statistics looking very favorable at the time. I'm also surprised by what you experienced vs the rules in place, which seemed quite strict; but apparently not so much in practice.

I'm glad to know you made it to Świdnica and will look forward to living vicariously through your trip report, until I'm able to reinstate my 2020 trip.

Thanks for the update! I agree something seems a little fishy with the covid numbers in Poland... Czechia and Hungary too for that matter. Even RS Co-author Cameron Hewitt raises the same questions about the covid protocols in Czechia in his trip report from this week.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic (where reported cases are low… suspiciously low?) feels a bit like the USA before the Delta surge: masking “requirements” are loose, and I found I was often the only person in line at the coffee shop who bothered to put on a mask. On my train from Prague to Berlin, the guy across the aisle (who was Czech) pulled his mask under his chin soon after boarding, and punctuated the four-hour trip with coughs.

https://blog.ricksteves.com/cameron/2021/09/travel-europe-covid/

Seems to mirror your experiences too, no?

I agree something seems a little fishy with the covid numbers in Poland... Czechia and Hungary too for that matter.

I have been shaking my head at the amazing "success" Poland and other countries are reporting on covid infections, especially after reading how lax the locals are with masking and other protocols. Fishy data indeed...

My sense is that the travelers we encounter are Polish, Czech and German.. I am both appalled and intrigued by the mask wearing. Is it some kind of passive resistance? Surely people know by now that the mask needs to cover the nose and mouth. It’s obvious that masks aren’t being enforced, so why wear one to just hold up your chin?

There is something a little off with the stats for this part of Europe.

This all said, the people we’ve met are so warm and friendly. If I open a map or stop to look at navigation on my phone, chances are someone will ask if they can help.

Thanks Jules for your current experience in Poland. I can understand your disappointment with the inconsistent protocols. That said, happy to hear you had a wonderful time. Looking forward to your trip report!

Well, I guess it makes sense there are such low case numbers, if it's so difficult to get a covid test in the first place!

That's called 'living with covid'. It's something everybody will eventually have to do.

I just had a few days of flu-like symptoms like many Poles at this time of year. Couldn't be bothered to do a test. Recovered quickly with natural remedies. I'm not sure if you are aware that coronaviruses account for up to 20% percent of all respiratory infections in Poland every year. So now apart from the four old ones, we have another one. And they all give some cross immunity, apparently.

There are estimates based on antibody testing studies that the number of people who have had covid in Poland is actually 10 times higher than the official numbers and most of them happened in winter/spring 2021 when even official numbers went up to 30k/day. You can't force people to have a test if they do not want to.

DELTA variant has been in Poland since April 2021.

Regarding testing sites - Poles and Polish residents covered by national health insurance can get a test for free if they need one for medical reasons and these are done in lots of places. It's commercial testing sites where you have to pay that are much fewer although not as scarce as you make it. I live on the outskirts of Warsaw and have two private labs doing such tests within walking distance.

AW--

I hope you will entertain a few questions. I ask out of genuine curiosity, not out of a spirit of being contentious. I promise I won't come back at you with "well the scientists/researchers/WHO/doctors say..." (though I can't promise what others will do -- hopefully they will be more interested in understanding the Polish mindset on this than trying to argue in a venue that has right at a 0% chance of changing anyone's opinion).

1. What do the vulnerable do in the current climate in Poland? I'm talking about the elderly, the immunodeficient, and people with chronic illnesses. Do they just take their chances? Do they have friends and family who help shield them from the virus by running errands for them and otherwise helping them out?

2. What do people do if they are sick and have some event to attend? Do they get tested and make decisions from there or just go?
   Is the approach different for a football/soccer game or concert versus the family patriarch's 99th birthday?

Jules--

I should have mentioned this upthread, but I'm glad that the Delta conundrum (airline, not variant) worked itself out in a way that you got to take a trip! My feeble mind also failed to hold onto the "I will write a trip report at some point" line (the first line of your post!) by the end of it. I'm very much looking forward to the trip report!

What do the vulnerable do in the current climate in Poland? I'm talking about the elderly, the immunodeficient, and people with chronic illnesses. Do they just take their chances? Do they have friends and family who help shield them from the virus by running errands for them and otherwise helping them out?

They are not one homogeneous mass of people that behave in the same way. They are not legally incapacitated either. They do what they decide is best in their individual situation. I assume that most of them are vaccinated, many with the third dose now. Many, right at the beginning decided to live as normally as possible throughout the whole pandemic so they do not lose any of the precious time that they might have left. My own grandmother refused to change her routine saying that she'd had lived through much worse than a virus. She passed away a few months ago at the age of 97, her death was not covid related.

Yes, in Poland it's customary to take care of your parents and relatives when they get old or sick. You do not dump them in some care facility, then lament that they died and blame others that they did not take proper care of them.

What do people do if they are sick and have some event to attend? Do they get tested and make decisions from there or just go?
Is the approach different for a football/soccer game or concert versus the family patriarch's 99th birthday?

If they are seriously sick they obviously they are not going anywhere. If they are not so sick, they currently out and about like in pre-covid times. I'm not saying that they are all have covid, though. There are other respiratory viruses, including other coronaviruses that cause similar symptoms. I just looked up todays infection numbers - 30k tests yielded 643 positives.

I believe there are still limits at large events but, for example Poland vs England game at the National Stadium in Warsaw at the beginning of September draw a crowd of 60k fans, vast majority mask free and not bothered about any social distancing from what I saw. The vaccinated are not counted towards the limits but anyone can say they are vaccinated as organisers have no legal right to verify anyone's medical records. EU digital covid certificates are not required anywhere and even the vaccinated oppose them - "only for the vaccinated" strongly resembles the "Nur für Deutsche" situation during WW2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_f%C3%BCr_Deutsche). The generation that lived through that sort of segregation is still alive.

I wrote another post on this that seems to have disappeared.

Planning on flying to Poland in a couple weeks. Managed to get myself triple vacc'ed, but I was always less worried about getting very sick and more worried about testing positive on way home and being stuck in a hotel room for a week or two.

A more realistic way to look at the Covid situation in Poland is by looking at CV hospitalizations as they are easily more complete numbers. Poland has around 1300 currently hospitalized. To compare California (39M population vs Poland 37m so close in size) has around 6300. California currently has one of the lowest case counts in the states at around 18 per 100k/day. The US overall is around 36 (where a large part of the population is seems less observant of masking/distancing). Poland is reporting around 2. Looking at the CA hospitalization numbers compared to Poland I'd guess Poland would be at 4 or 5 per 100k/day. Thats still pretty low and gives me some comfort in making my trip even with the rate of the Poland numbers on the upswing.

California (along with most of western Europe) are on the tail end of their 4/5th waves of infection, thus the hospitalisations would be higher. Meanwhile Poland's hospitalisations appear to just be picking back up again (where California was a few months ago).

One only needs to look at the hospitalisations data for Poland (the trend line is more clear in the logarithmic graph) compared with Spain which is just coming out of its recent wave of covid infections- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-patients-hospital?yScale=log&country=POL~ESP

One of the main reasons I've decided to postpone my trip to Poland this year for 2022, just not worth the added risk and added anxiety.

Carlos, I'm certainly not a statistiican or a virologist. First, on the graph you linked you have to press the Log button in upper left for it to be shown in true proportions. There you can see that Poland's hospitalizations, while rising, are still very low and are rising on a gentler slope. You can also see that Polands spring peak was later and slightly larger than Spain's (which has a third more population). I may be a bit of an optimist, but you could read this that Poland has quite a bit of herd immunity and due to the later wave, may have already caught a Delta wave.

One other thing. I see 4 waves for Spain 2 for Poland. Poland's 2 waves covered a longer span than any of Spain's. In a country a 1/3rd smaller the numbers were also higher for a longer duration in all waves. Maybe that explains why they have yet to get a 3rd or 4th.

Carlos, yes but

1/ October to April is the infection season in Poland and it's has always been this way, covid or no covid. Every couple of years infections get so bad ("what a nasty virus!") that the hospitals are overwhelmed and they have to put patients in the corridors. So yes, we are expecting more cases as more people get some symptoms in the coming weeks and months, more go for a covid test, more positives are detected.

2/You are forgetting that the last wave in the spring in Poland was very bad (mainly the Alpha variant). Everybody I know had some symptoms although not many went for a test. It's too early for that immunity to wane. Was is as bad or worse than in Spain, US or elsewhere? I don't know as I stopped following the whole thing and not really interested in wasting any more time on speculating about it. My antibody test from that period came back positive too even though the only thing that was wrong with me was a headache that lasted on and off for a few days but it was not strong enough to even prompt me to go and buy some pain killers. Delta seems to be milder, even the most covid paranoid Polish experts have been forced to admit it.

I quite understand your decision to postpone your trip because if you have been following all the covid protocols and people around you have been following the covid protocols then it's quite likely you did not get the same level of exposure to coronaviruses that the Poles had during the last 1.5 year. If they go around mask free and are OK does not necessarily mean you would be OK, too.

I hope this discussion doesn’t get kicked, because I think it’s important information for people deciding if they want to travel to Poland. Daily new cases has been rising for a few weeks now, levels are still really low, but, I’d say it’s on the upswing especially since testing seems to be low in Poland so actually cases may be quite a bit higher. In terms of “living with COVID” Sweden’s experiment with that didn’t exactly go as planned. I don’t regret my trip, but potential travelers need to know what’s going on. My thought right now is that, I’m glad I didn’t know about lack of masks, etc., or we wouldn’t have come, which would have been sad because we have had a wonderful time , which seems to contradict my last statement. We have been very careful. We ate all meals outside, and some nights were chilly, and we avoided mass transit and walked as much as possible. In terms of masks, my own personal view is just wear the *#& mask! But, I feel, that at least in Poland, people are like wear your mask if you want, no judgement, so that’s nice.

As someone that lived and breathed Poland stats for a couple of weeks prior to travel, my view is that cases are understated because they don’t test as much, there is probably some immunity from Poland’s spring cases, and I think their next wave is coming because they just lag the other European countries.

Bottom line, if you do come, it is a little harder to find conveniently located antigen tests and decide how you want to handle the fact that masks and other precautions are not being utilized that much.

I would be very careful about generalizing on anecdotal information. For example, my brother and his family all got COVID last November, they weren’t terribly sick. That doesn’t mean that would be true for everyone. I think in the U.S. , we are close to 3/4 million people have died from COVID, so more than just a few people have been really sick.

AW... Thanks for your responses!

jules... I agree with you that this discussion should not get kicked. Mask use and sense of safety are huge issues for travelers right now, and this thread provides your excellent on-the-ground reporting on the current environment in Poland plus AW's insight as a native into the reasons that environment exists. To me, this is far more valuable than another "my CDC card worked in France" thread.

Edit: This thread makes me glad I kicked my Poland trip down the road a year or two.

Poland's death rate from COVID-19 isn't all that much lower than the US rate: 1999 deaths per million in Poland vs. 2118 per million in the US. That's a difference of well under 10%. 75,572 deaths in a country the size of Poland is quite a lot.

Deaths that can be attributed solely to covid are still below 10,000. The rest are those with covid and serious coexisting conditions. The average age of covid related death in Poland is 73, which is about the same as the average life expectancy for men.

The excess deaths have been coming from non covid conditions due limited access to medical care, ridiculous protocols that delayed treatment for the main illness if the patient tested positive on admission to hospital (even if they had no covid symptoms), delayed diagnosis, suicides, etc.

For those interested in how the COVID situation in Poland has sadly evolved since... unfortunately it looks like my concerns were validated, as was my decision to postpone my trip to Poland.

Poland considers drastic steps to tackle COVID 'explosion' (October 20, 2021)

Poland is facing an explosion of COVID-19 cases that may require drastic action, the health minister said on Wednesday, after more than 5,000 daily new infections were reported for the first time since May. Central Europe has suffered a surge in COVID-19 cases over recent days, fuelling fears that vaccination rates that are lower than in the west of the continent could fan a damaging fresh wave of infections.

Earlier in the day, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski warned that Poland had been hit by "an explosion of the pandemic" over the last two days. "We have increases from week to week of 85% and over 100%," Niedzielski told a news conference. He said daily cases could be "well above" 5,000 next week.

"We will want to observe if this trend continues for a few days, and maybe we will have to take drastic measures," Niedzielski said, while adding that there was currently no discussion in government about imposing another lockdown. Asked what he meant by "drastic" measures, Niedzielski said it would involve stricter enforcement of existing rules about wearing masks indoors and practicing social distancing.

source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-daily-covid-cases-exceed-5000-first-time-since-may-2021-10-20/

I'm sorry to hear that the situation in Poland is worsening. Had I taken the plunge of buying those cheap tickets to Poland when I saw them, I might be there round about this time. Warsaw someday I'll make it!

What Reuters does not tell you is what the general public thinks about Niedzielski, from all political spectrum, not only the opposition... Read the comment sections in Polish media and watch independent tv channels.

Business as usual all over Poland. 15,000 daily cases of flu, hospitals packed with children with RSV - doctors blame lost immunity to common viruses due to masks, excessive sanitizing and "stay at home" nonsense during the last infection season.

Correction: just checked last week's data - now it's over 18,000 daily cases of flu (128,461 during week 8-15 Oct). Over 80% of all hospitalisations in children are RSV, norovirus, rotavirus, adenovirus and Coxsackie virus infections. Sort of puts covid into perspective.

To me the apparent vast number of cases of influenza in Poland speaks to the importance of vaccination. I am a little surprised that influenza is raging right now in Poland. As a Minnesotan, who was just in Poland, I believe our climates/weather are quite similar. People in Minnesota are starting to spend more time indoors much like Polish people are at this point. Last week, we had 2 confirmed influenza hospitalizations in Minnesota. One rural and one in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro. There were 6 confirmed cases in the schools. Obviously, the population of Poland is much greater than Minnesota, about 7 times more, I believe.

It is anticipated that RSV in the U.S. will be a significant problem this year as people are more out and about. Unfortunately, there is not a good vaccination for RSV. Is there not an effort to keep vulnerable infants a bit more isolated in Poland? I have a 2 month old grandson who spent some time after birth in a NICU. My son's boss's preschooler was diagnosed with RSV and measures were taken to prevent possible exposure to my son and thus grandson. Usually, RSV is only an issue with the very young.

EDITED TO ADD: I was just looking at some stats for "flu" in Poland. At least the source I was looking at, lumped influenza, flu and "flu-like" illness together, including Avian flu.

Flu is a reportable disease in Poland but since flu has never been tested as extensively as covid, statistics are based largely on clinical symptoms, not tests. If diagnostic criteria for flu in the US are different then you should not compare the US with Poland.

I wouldn't say "flu is raging" as it's at a similar level as most years - it's now back to levels observed in 2017/2018 and 2019/2020, and will most likely go up higher just as it did in those years.

I have brought it up to show where covid stands in comparison to other infectious diseases once the infection season gets under way (October to April). I have a feeling some posters may not understand that prevalence of respiratory infections is not the same across the whole world, and therefore not everybody gets hysterical if some years are worse than others. What is tragic, though, is that people have let their general health to deteriorate so much that they are no longer able to fight infections easily. This spring I was shocked to see how many Poles of all ages got obese, +25% I'd say, within just a few months of #StayAtHome. I guess I do not have to tell you that obesity does to your health. No vaccines can compensate for that.

Still no sign of any "drastic steps" announced in Reuters two weeks ago. Business as usual all over Poland. No vax certificates required for anything except entering from outside the EU/Schengen. Masks are still required in enclosed spaces and public transport (maybe slightly better compliance lately, but using public transport is still a daily covid party anyway, especially at peak times.)