Data from the population register suggests most new cases where diagnosed in Harju County at 16 of which 14 in the capital Tallinn. Võru County got four and Ida-Viru, Jõgeva and Rapla counties one new case each. Two people who tested positive did not have a registered place of residence.

New outbreaks in Harju and Võru counties

Of the 16 new cases in Harju County and one in Rapla County, four concern the same group of friends. The remaining infections are still being investigated.

Six cases diagnosed in September 4-5 have to do with the Nõmme Kalju soccer club, while five are workplace and acquaintances-related. Three cases were imported from EU countries.

Eight cases were the result of a private party held at the Gourmet Coffee café on August 29. The Health Board and the café are working together to find close contacts of patrons affected. Gourmet Coffee employees were not present for the event and are not counted as close contacts.

The Health Board's norther regional arm is monitoring five active outbreaks, including the Nõmme Kalju (14 people), Ülemiste City (nine people), Gourmet Coffee (eight people) and a sauna party (seven people) outbreaks. The Russian Drama Theater outbreak concerns seven people.

The case rate per 100,000 residents stands at 27.4 in Tallinn.

Five outbreaks in Ida-Viru County

The new case in Ida-Viru County concerns a person catching the disease from a family member.

The Health Board's eastern regional arm is monitoring over 580 people in connection with COVID-19. The branch's territory has five active outbreaks the largest one of which is the so-called Estonia oil shale mine outbreak that concerns 56 people, including 31 employees and 25 family members.

The Jõhvi Kelder outbreak counts 15 cases, an outbreak imported from the UK also 15, the Ojamaa mine outbreak nine and the Viru Prison outbreak five cases.

All four cases in Võru County are tied to a social gathering, with the incident behind a total of seven cases. The southern regional arm of the Health Board is monitoring nearly 200 people for COVID-19 of whom 17 have taken ill.

Seven people in need of hospital treatment

As of the morning of September 6, seven people need to be treated in hospital, while none are on assisted breathing. No new treatment cases were opened or closed in the last day.

Hospitals have closed a total of 418 COVID-19 cases involving 405 people. A single person could be behind several cases – for example, when a person is moved from one hospital to another. The distinction is necessary in order to gauge hospitals' workload.

As of September 6, 2,170 people have recovered from COVID-19. The cases of 1,642 people (75.7 percent) have been closed, with 528 people (24.3 percent) having gone more than 28 days since testing positive and are awaiting a clean bill of health.

The nationwide case rate for the past 14 days stands at 18.36 per 100,000 people.

Estonia has administered a total of 160,000 initial COVID-19 tests, 2,516 or 1.6 percent of which have been positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Attending social functions when ill a surefire way to infect friends

The Health Board urges people to keep in mind that because a situation where people are less than two meters apart from one another for 15 minutes or longer is considered a close contact, attending a social gathering while ill is a surefire way to infect friends.

People often spend hours together in a closed room, talking in raised voices.

People attending events would do well to install the HOIA mobile application that can help detect possible close contacts.

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