NMPT sought information about the situation in 65 social care homes throughout the country. Also, the NMPT requested heads of voivodeship (i.e. regional) governments to provide information about the situation in their respective regions’ social care homes and 24-hour care facilities318. The Mazowieckie Voivodeship Office sent periodic reports on the epidemiological situation and indicated the numbers of infected people in individual facilities. According to the information received by the NMPT, in some establishments over 70% of residents were infected. The official data presented to the Sejm319 by Deputy Minister of Family Iwona Michałek as of 1 October, SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infections were confirmed in 48 social care homes i.e. in 5.8% of all facilities (there were 824 SCHs operating in Poland at that time). 890 out of 80 thousand SCH residents, and 339 out of 58 thousand staff members were infected. Between the first registered infection and 1 October, 204 residents of SCHs died of the infection. Covid tests conducting Since there were no ministerial guidelines on tests conducting and quarantine at the SCHs, these aspects were dependent on the locally competent sanitary inspectors320. In his reply to the NMPT letter regarding the situation in the John Paul II Social Care Home in Głowno, the head of Zgierz poviat government informed that the coronavirus was diagnosed in 26 residents and four staff members, and that 29 residents and 7 staff members were quarantined. Among the activities aimed at counteracting the spread of the coronavirus he mentioned e.g. that as a result of the SCH’s negotiations, the local sanitary inspectorate agreed to conduct coronavirus swab tests for all residents and staff members at the SCH and those in home quarantine321. This example shows that a lot was dependent on mutual relations between the facilities’ funding authorities and the local sanitary and epidemiological stations, and on the workload on individual health care entities and laboratories conducting the tests, particularly during the first wave of the pandemic. In this context, it should be mentioned that when the pandemic situation began to stabilize, in some voivodeships screening test programmes were introduced for SCH employees and long-term care facilities, which was not possible at the beginning of the epidemic ( due to limited availability of the 318 Letter of 14 April 2020, file ref. KMPT.071.4.2020. 319 The Sejm of the 9th term of office, Office for the Parliamentary Committees. Full minutes of the session of the Senior Policy Committee (No. 10) of 6 October 2020. 320 GPs got authorized to refer patients to the tests only in the autumn. 321 Reply of 4 May 2020. 125