Three people have died in a fire which broke out at an Ida-Viru County boarding house late on Tuesday night.
Emergency services were informed of the blaze, at the Männiku boarding house in Lüganuse municipality, just after 10.15 p.m.
The blaze had taken a hold of the building by the time first responders arrived, ERR reports. A Rescue Board (Päästeamet) spokesperson said that it was difficult to access the boarding house due to the volume of snow. The Rescue Board said that a little after 11.30 p.m., a bulldozer had been found to help with clearing snow drifts.
0 >Doctors were the first to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in Tallinn on December 27. Source: Ken Mürk/ERR
Regardless of pharmaceutical developer Pfizer/BioNTech s inability to meet the contractually agreed delivery capacities for the company s coronavirus vaccine so far, Estonia has purchased additional vials from the developer with another shipment of more than 10,000 doses set to arrive in Estonia next week.
Estonia, along with many other European Union countries, procured additional coronavirus vaccine doses from developers Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. While the effectiveness and trustworthiness of the product is the same, Estonia has decided to go to Pfizer for additional doses, even though the company has so far not met its end of the base contract made with the EU.
According to tourism companies in Ida-Viru County, the government should have one support measure in place instead of many different ones, making it difficult to understand which measure should be applied for in which situation.
Ministry representatives gave Ida-Viru County entrepreneurs an overview of the support measures, ETV s daily affairs show Aktuaalne kaamera reported on Wednesday.
The county s tourism coordinator Kadri Jalonen said entrepreneurs are worried as crisis measures are very different. In addition, the companies have a proposal to add measures to any restrictions placed instead of establishing restrictions first and then working out alleviation measures. This time, one of the measures was completely prepared, but in total, five ministries talked to us and presented their measures because there will be many and there are limitation to the measures, meaning if you apply for one, you are partially restricted from another. We have a request to have fewer measures,
0 >Finance minister Martin Helme (EKRE) was deputizing for Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Center), who is quarantining, at the Riigikogu Wednesday. Source: Priit Mürk/ERR
While Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Center) wished success to Joe Biden, who on Thursday was declared to have won the U.S. presidential election, Estonian Conservative People s Party (EKRE) leader and Finance Minister Martin Helme once again did not extend congratulations to the next U.S. president.
According to Helme, he wishes strength, wisdom and success to the people of the U.S. I keep my fingers crossed for the people, not for one or other politician or party, the minister said.
The Health Insurance Fund (Haigekassa) has been permitted to go into the red for 2021, for the first time ever, largely the result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Riho Peek, head of the Health Insurance Fund s finance department, said that 2021 had been an extraordinary year.
He said: In the past, the Health Insurance Fund has had to end the year with balanced revenues and expenses.
This would not be the case for 2021 due to the extra costs incurred by the pandemic at a time when social tax receipts have fallen, and taking into account the effects of the second COVID-19 wave from October last year.