Hospitals in Poland struggled over the Easter weekend following a surge in coronavirus cases.
Some 40,000 cases were confirmed in each of the two weeks leading up to Easter weekend, leading to a large influx of COVID-19 patients, amid a surge in infections across central and eastern Europe.
There have been reports in Polish media about the health sector reaching a breaking point, and in some hospitals almost all beds are filled by coronavirus patients.
One such hospital is the County Hospital of Bochnia, some 40 kilometers east of the southern city of Krakow, which had almost all of its 120 beds occupied by COVID patients on Easter Sunday.
One of the patients, Edward Szumanski, voiced concerns about how some still refuse to see the virus as a threat.
"The disease is certainly there and it is very serious. Those who have not been through it, those who do not have it in their family, may be deluding themselves, but the reality is different," he said.
He said he was worried that hospital spaces could soon run out and that more people will die.
The hospital's medical director, Jaroslaw Gucwa, said the pandemic had been made worse by those who believe it is all a hoax.
He added that the hospital is so overrun that it is now discharging patients who still need more treatment to make room for worse cases.
"The health service as such will not collapse," he said, but noted that some patients in the past year had been waiting for hours in ambulances or been shuffled from hospital to hospital in search of an empty bed.
"It is a difficult situation, because there are a lot of patients," said Bozena Gicala, a nurse at the Bochnia hospital.
Another nurse, Ewa Ptak, said she'd had COVID-19 herself and was on a mission to help those who are suffering more than she did.
"Thank God I went without a hospital and I was fine. But I know what it is and I just want to help people," Ptak said.
Tougher new pandemic restrictions were ordered in Poland for a two-week period surrounding Easter in order to slow down the infection rate.
The aim was to prevent large gatherings over the three-day weekend, culminating with Easter Monday.
Poland has nearly 2.5 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, and almost 55,000 deaths.
It is hitting new records for daily infections, and recently daily deaths have been in the hundreds.
The government is speeding up the country's vaccine rollout, but there are no signs of the pressure on hospitals easing just yet.
A  foi o país da Europa que mais teve mortes por  ontem, tendo registrado 768 fatalidades. Em 2º lugar ficou a Itália, com 718 óbitos. 

O país também foi o 2º do ranking a registar mais novos casos de covid, com 28.523 novas infecções, ficando atrás apenas da França, que ontem reportou 41.243 novos casos. 

O total de mortes de poloneses por covid hoje já chega a 57.427, enquanto o total de casos chega a 2.528.042.

O recorde de mortes aconteceu esta semana, no dia 08 de abri, quando 954 poloneses morreram de covid num único dia, no que o jornal polonês Wyborcza chamou de "recorde sombrio". 

Os números são do Worldometer.

'''Hospitais lotados'''

Segundo a agência de notícias Euronews no dia 04 passado, as internações nos hospitais poloneses haviam chegado a um ponto crítico no feriado de Páscoa e que, por exemplo, o Hospital Municipal de Bochnia, a cerca de 40 quilômetros de , estava com quase todos seus 120 leitos ocupados no domingo de Páscoa. Já o jornal Wyborcza reportou no dia 08 que dos dos 44.878 leitos hospitalares preparados para pacientes de covid que requerem cuidados intensivos, 78% já estavam ocupados. 

A Euronews também reportou que a Europa Central e Oriental está sofrendo um surto de novas infecções. Ontem, por exemplo, em dados do Worldometer, entre os 15 países europeus que mais reportaram casos, 8 eram destas regiões: Polônia (28.523 novos casos), Ucrânia (19.676), Rússia (9.150), Hungria (7.325), Tchéquia (5.269), Romênia (4.942), Sérvia (3.405) e Bulgária (2.803).

'''Caos vacinal'''

No que o jornal Wyborcza chamou de "caos vacinal, há desde quem fura a fila, como jovens de 20 anos sendo vacinados na cidade de Rzeszów, até a falta de uma estrutura adequada para a aplicação de vacinas. Segundo o jornal, com a chegada de novos 7 milhões de imunizantes, o governo precisará criar pontos de vacinação extra e contratar pessoal adicional para aplicar as doses. "Farmacêuticos, fisioterapeutas, paramédicos, dentistas, etc, devem todos ser capazes de administrar as vacinas", escreveu o jornal.