The Health Board has sequenced 1,182 COVID-19 tests, of which 178 turned out to be the more agressive British and South African strains.
One of the samples with the South African strain has received the virus in Estonia, the others have been cases where the virus has been brought in via travel. 136 of the British strain cases are locally transmitted and 42 have been brought in, according to the Health Board.
The spread of the British strain in Estonia is constant, but the recently increased infection rates do not stem from that strain specifically. The British strain is turning into the dominant strain in Estonia, Minister of Health and Labour Tanel Kiik (Center) said on Monday.
University of Tartu Hospital COVID-19 patient mortality at 14 percent
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Covid-19 mirstības līmenis Tartu slimnīcā sasniedzis 14%
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The University of Tartu hospital is preparing to treat an increasing number of COVID-19 patients and will reduce the number of scheduled treatments by half, regional newspaper Tartu Postimees reported on Thursday. The COVID-19 pandemic has been worse than ever before in the past few days, Joel Starkopf, head of the crisis management committee of the University of Tartu Hospital, said.
A large number of coronavirus infections are emerging in Estonia on a daily basis, among whom the share of people aged younger than 50 is the largest. The number of coronavirus patients in need of hospital treatment is also on the rise. Unless the infection rate changes, Estonia will average close to 2,000 new cases per day by mid-March, which will put enormous pressure on hospitals, Starkopf said.
The head of Valga Hospital in South Estonia has been trying to give preferential treatment to members of international ethical and humanitarian service organization Rotary International in administering coronavirus vaccines at the hospital he manages. The Tartu branch of Rotary International, known informally as the Rotary Club refused his approach, which comprised vaccinations sufficient for around a dozen potential individuals, Baltic News Service reports.
Margus Ulst, the hospital s director and a member of the Rotary Club s Tartu chapter himself, made the club the offer, for its senior members, despite a strict national plan for coronavirus vaccination having been established.
Ulst does not deny making the offer, saying that just over 100 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTEch vaccine had arrived at their hospital in an initial delivery. Some front-line healthcare workers had already been inoculated, he said.