The Polish minister of health, Łukasz Szumowski, told Gazeta.pl that he cannot promise that everyone can count on essential medical equipment if coronavirus spreads and noted that the situation in Italy or Spain could repeat itself in Poland.
“This depends on how we behave, not on how much equipment we will have in Poland. As we can see in the cases of Italy and Spain, despite having a lot of equipment and being rich countries, due to ignoring recommendations to remain at home, the situation spiraled out of control,” he explained.
Szumowski stressed that ”if Poles remain disciplined and stay at home, and if they treat each other with mutual kindness but at a distance, then Poland can flatten the curve so that every patient has a chance to get treatment.”
Spain and Poland also implemented dramatically different restrictions on different timelines, which an influential Spanish blog writes may have contributed to the different outcomes in the two countries so far.
The minister pointed out that it is hard to foresee when infections will peak in Poland, but that given the analysis of outbreak in other countries, it could happen in weeks.
