A young man wearing a face mask takes photos with his smartphone in Warsaw, Poland, July 30, 2020. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)
The reopening of schools at the start of this month very likely contributed to the steady rise in the number of new cases of COVID-19, said experts.
WARSAW, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Polish health ministry reported on Saturday 1,002 new cases of COVID-19 over a 24-hour period, the largest single-day surge since the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The government expects numbers to rise steadily over the coming weeks as people return to their normal lives, a health ministry spokesperson told local media after a press conference.
"People are returning to work," the spokesperson said. "We have a large number of contacts on the streets. This is simply the effect of returning to normality."
A woman wearing a face mask takes a tram in Warsaw, Poland, on July 27, 2020. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)
He added that the ministry currently does not identify any particular hotspots.
Experts note that the reopening of schools at the start of this month very likely contributed to the steady rise in numbers. "Every country that opened its schools is seeing a rise in sickness numbers," pediatrician Lukasz Durajski told news website Onet.
Up to 78,330 people in the country have been infected by COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, with the death toll reaching 2,282, according to the health ministry. ■
