People buy flowers at traditional flower shops near a cemetery in Warsaw, Poland on Oct. 31, 2020. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced at a Friday press conference that cemeteries in the whole country will be closed this weekend and on Monday. Sunday marks All Saints' Day, when Poles traditionally visit the graves of their loved ones. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Poland has increased by 21,897 in a 24-hour span, hitting another one-day high and pushing the total infections in the country to 362,731, the Ministry of Health said Saturday. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)
WARSAW, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Poland has increased by 21,897 in a 24-hour span, hitting another one-day high and pushing the total infections in the country to 362,731, the Ministry of Health said Saturday.
The previous highest daily spike, at 20,629 cases, was recorded on Friday. Over the past 24 hours, another 280 people have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, bringing the death toll in Poland to 5,631.
Also on Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that his government's agricultural agencies will buy out flowers from traders who stocked up for All Saints' Day but cannot sell their produce because of the government's decision to shut down cemeteries.
Morawiecki announced at a Friday press conference that cemeteries in the whole country will be closed this weekend and on Monday. Sunday marks All Saints' Day, when Poles traditionally visit the graves of their loved ones.
In a Twitter post later on Friday, Morawiecki wrote that the government would prepare aid for retailers who incur losses within the three days. In his Saturday post, he asked people to "understand the difficult decision that we had to make due to the pandemic," according to English channel Poland In run by TVP, the country's largest television network.
"In accordance with my declaration yesterday on helping those retailers who will suffer due to the closing of cemeteries, local branches of ARiMR and KOWR (government agricultural agencies) will buy in flowers and plants that would have been sold during those days in front of cemeteries from producers and retailers. We will also reimburse from the COVID-19 fund the costs borne by local governments that are running similar actions," Morawiecki wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday, according to a report by polandin.com.
Some small-time flower sellers in Poland, however, voiced their discontent over the government's decision to close cemeteries during the All Saints' weekend.
For many traders, mostly small-time farmers, the run on chrysanthemums on All Saints' Day is important to their business. Nov. 1 is the traditional day that Catholics commemorate their dead. It is closely followed by a vast majority of Poles, who come out in droves to lay flowers and put up candles.
As the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across the globe -- including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the U.S. -- are racing to find a vaccine.
In Poland, one candidate medication developed from the blood plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients is currently undergoing testing in the country's eastern town of Lublin.
