Poland goes into partial lockdown

Warsaw, March 20 The Polish government has announced a new nationwide partial lockdown after the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases exceeded two million.

Starting from Saturday, only a select number of shops, among them supermarkets and pharmacies, located in shopping malls with over 2,000 square metres of retail space will be allowed to operate, Xinhua news agency reported.

Service providers, such as banks, hairdressers and optic, have also been given a pass.

Cinemas, theatres and museums will have to remain closed, and schools will return to online learning.

The restrictions have already been in place in four of Poland's 16 provinces, including Mazovia, where the capital Warsaw is located.

In the last 24 hours, 25,998 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed, taking the total since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to 2,010,244.

Since then, 48,807 people in Poland have lost their lives to the coronavirus.

According to the Health Ministry, over 60 per cent of the new infections involve the coronavirus variant first detected in Britain, which is more contagious and more lethal than the original strain.

"Also, an increasing number of children are among the infected," the Ministry's Press Secretary Wojciech Andrusiewicz told journalists.

Currently, 400 children are hospitalised with symptoms, he said.

( With inputs from IANS )