WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's coronavirus infections have doubled in less than three weeks and now exceed 200,000, the health ministry said, as it announced a new daily record of 10,040 cases.
Poland's lower house of parliament is holding an emergency session on Wednesday to discuss a draft bill proposed by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) to unblock the overwhelmed health system.
The meeting was postponed from Tuesday at the request of the opposition, which said it needed more time to analyse the bill.
"We have prepared about forty amendments. We have found some obvious errors, including one that allows calling young female doctors the day after giving birth to work in infectious wards," said Cezary Tomczyk, who heads the parliamentary caucus of the biggest opposition party, Civic Coalition.
PiS lawmakers say the situation demands quick action.
Government COVID-19 advisor Andrzej Horban 10,000 daily cases is the upper limit of the health system's current capacity, with up to 2,000 patients admitted to hospitals every day.
As of Wednesday, COVID-19 patients occupied 9,439 hospital beds and were using 757 ventilators, compared with 8,962 and 725 a day earlier, the ministry said.
Its spokesman said that capacity as of Wednesday is around 17,000 COVID-19 hospital beds.
Poland is building temporary hospitals, mostly in big cities, which report the biggest spikes in new cases. Horban said if the number of daily cases does not increase, field hospitals may not be necessary.
"If we manage to stop the transmission at this level, if we manage to get off this transmission in a moment, the entire healthcare system will stand up beautifully," Horban told radio RMF24.
Poland has now recorded 202,579 cases and 3,851 deaths, 130 of those reported on Wednesday. It passed 100,000 infections on Oct. 4.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Gareth Jones and Giles Elgood)