The pandemic is not over yet, Poznan City Hall worries. The number of infections in this city is rising week by week, and officials stress that not everyone is being tested for COVID-19. However, the real scale of the disease shows the monitoring of wastewater. This shows that there has not been such a large amount of coronavirus genetic material in Poznań for more than a year.
According to official data compiled by the Ministry of Health, in the first five days of March alone, 356 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection were registered in Poznań and the Poznań region, three times more than in the first week of February. For the entire past month, 917 infections have been reported, and according to the Poznań City Hall (UMP) in its communiqué, there are many indications that the March result will be much higher. In addition, official data may not reflect reality. This is evidenced by the results of wastewater monitoring.
Wastewater monitoring allows assessing the real scale of contamination
Wastewater monitoring shows that the amount of coronavirus genetic material is the highest since September 2021, according to Poznań officials. There are now more copies of the virus in wastewater than at the beginning of 2022, that is, at the time when the largest wave of infections passed through Poland.
— Until March 2022, the level of coronavirus genetic material in wastewater was comparable to the official number of cases registered by the Ministry of Health. The results were reliable and consistent with official data. However, since April 2022, not all cases have been reported to the health department. It is no longer possible to perform a free antigen test at a pharmacy and a swab collection point. Thus, wastewater monitoring remains the most reliable method to estimate the actual number of infections,” says Magdalena Pietrusik-Adamska, Director of the Department of Health and Social Affairs of the City of Poznań.
Poznań is monitoring the progress of the pandemic by analyzing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater in collaboration with scientists from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences and specialists from the Aquanet group.
The number of infections is growing throughout Poland
Last week, Deputy Minister of Health Waldemar Kraska stressed on Polish Radio 1 that we are at the peak of the spring wave of infections. He pointed out that more than 2.6 thousand people were hospitalized, which is also a record figure. At the same time, he assured that, according to forecasts, a downward trend in the number of infections is expected in the near future.
According to the latest report published by the Ministry of Health on March 8, 19,051 cases of coronavirus infection were recorded in the country during the week (against 15,679 a week earlier), including 4,869 cases of re-infection. This is close to 18 percent. more than week after week.
Source: Wprost
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