LUBLIN, Poland (Reuters) – Poles lit candles and laid flowers on their loved ones’ graves on Monday to celebrate All Saints Day, resuming a tradition interrupted last year by the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2020, the government closed all cemeteries for the holiday to avoid crowds forming at a time when COVID-19 vaccines were not yet available and the country was reporting more than 20,000 daily infections.
The number of confirmed cases in Poland rose strongly again in October but it remains below 10,000 a day as more than 60% of adult Poles are vaccinated.
“It’s a huge joy that we can finally visit the graves of our loved ones this year, that we can get back to this tradition,” said Aleksander Zarzeka, a 31-year old lawyer from Warsaw who came to Lublin, eastern Poland, to visit family graves.
Asked if he was worried about getting infected, particularly as the Lublin region has one of the highest incidences of COVID-19 in the country, he said he was not as he was fully vaccinated.
Few people wore masks at the historic necropolis in Lublin despite calls from the health minister to do so, but even the elderly did not seem worried.
“Lots of people don’t wear masks, we got used to the fact it’s OK outside…but luckily today on the bus only one young man had no mask,” said 86-year old Krystyna Chruszczewska, adding she had got three doses of a COVID vaccine so she felt safe.
Facing the highest number of infections during the fourth wave of the pandemic, the government has said it could consider reintroducing tighter pandemic curbs regionally at the beginning of November.
For now, the police said they had stepped up enforcement of current restrictions such as wearing masks in enclosed spaces and on public transport.
(Reporting by Kacper Pempel; Writing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
