“We can be sure that some restrictions will appear, mostly in provinces with very low vaccination rates,” Wojciech Andrusiewicz, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said on Monday in an interview with the Polish commercial broadcaster Polsat News.

Mr Andrusiewicz stressed that the government is aware that atin the peak of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the daily number of new infections may reach up to 20,000.

On Monday, the Polish Ministry of Health reported 107 new COVID-19 infections, and no deaths due to the disease. With nearly half of all Poles having had two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts warn this may not be enough to halt the upcoming fourth wave.

According to them, this is the final moment to get the jab. A significant rise in infection numbers is expected to occur as early as September, coinciding with the beginning of the next school year across Poland.

“We should all definitely get vaccinated right now. We have to remember that we need a few weeks for the vaccine to take effect and fully protect us,” Paweł Zmora PhD from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) said.

“The falling number of daily vaccinations is really worrying. It’s like rejecting the only effective method of preventing this pandemic,” Włodzimierz Mazur, Silesian consultant of infectious diseases added.