On Tuesday, the council of Kuressaare Hospital decided to move four patients to larger hospitals on the mainland, but one patient refused to go.

As of Wednesday morning, 55 patients who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 were being treated at Kuressaare Hospital.

Edward Laane, the hospital's medical chief, said almost half of the patients have milder symptoms and the rest are severely or very severely ill.

Based on its experience, Kuressaare Hospital, which is treating almost half of Estonia's hospitalized COVID patients, says patients may need hospital treatment for more than two weeks, although it had previously been hoped the virus could be cured faster. 

Laane said the use of the so-called malaria drug in the treatment of COVID patients has been shown to be effective in the early stages of the virus.

"We will definitely analyze all patients when the epidemic ends, but we have seen positive results," said Laane.

There have been 502 cases of the disease diagnosed in residents from Saare County out of 1,400 cases across Estonia. On Wednesday, 147 people were being treated in hospitals across the country after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

In total, 25 patients with COVID-19 have been transferred from Kuressaare Hospital to larger hospitals on the mainland.

It was decided on Tuesday to move more patients to the mainland to reduce the workload of the hospital and staff. Previously only critically ill patients had been sent to the mainland for treatment.

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