Emergency medicine chief: 3-y-o child hospitalized in Estonia due to COVID-19

  • 2021-10-20
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN – Speaking about the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Estonia at a press conference on Wednesday, medical chief at the Health Board's crisis management headquarters Urmas Sule said that infection has moved to the younger age group, and on Tuesday, for example, a three-year-old child needed hospital treatment.

"It is in the nature of all of us to hope for the best, and the beginning of the third wave has been milder than we feared," Sule said.

According to him, the beginning of the third wave was milder, because there are responsible people who got vaccinated, which means that the disease spreads more slowly and the disease is much more prevalent among younger people.

"Yesterday, for example, a three-year-old child was hospitalized," Sule said.

"When it comes to the need for hospital treatment, one can give an illustrative figure, that is if there were 273 patients in hospital last Monday, then there are already 408 COVID-19 patients this Monday. There is no need to calculate percentages here," he said.

According to Sule, there is no such hospital capacity at the moment as there was in spring. "People are overworked, tired and many have left work. We do not have this workforce. We are trying to do everything to achieve it, but the challenge is even more serious than in the spring," he said.

 Ragnar Vaiknemets, head of the emergency headquarters at the Health Board, said that the hospital treatment burden is increasing, which means health damage for the society as a whole.

"We are on the second level -- all resources are final, which means moving to the principle of emergency aid, where aid is provided to those whose lives are in imminent danger or who need emergency assistance. The third level is a disaster situation. We are very close to the third level," Vaiknemets said.

According to Vaiknemets, unvaccinated people have a higher chance of being hospitalized and most of those who have died have been unvaccinated. "We have a pandemic that is killing and it is not an experiment or a joke," he said.

Vaiknemets added that the school holidays are starting and therefore infection will grow as well, which is why it is not recommended to take children to their grandparents.