The pandemic-related collapse of the Polish healthcare system resulting in one of the highest excess death rates compared to other countries in Europe – this will be the background for all the analyses to emerge in the Polish public opinion in the years to come.
A collapse caused not only by the rise of the coronavirus, but also the adoption of erroneous assumptions in the fight against it, and later persistent tenacity to stick with them. One mistake triggered another, while institutional indolence deepened. Prior to the pandemic, Polish healthcare did not stand out from other countries in any extraordinary way – apart from chronic underfinancing of countless years. During the pandemic, however, the differences between individual countries manifested in the strategies adopted to combat the coronavirus.
