Andres Pajula, head of the city government's education board, said Tuesday that: "The school leaders concluded that it was not right to just sit and watch the virus spread in Tallinn schools. They thought that it was still best to do something, and from a medical and immunological point of view, it was thought that restrictions should be at least two weeks, in order to have some impact."

Pajula added that serious discussion about testing in schools yielded more questions than answers. 

"Certainly schools can carry out the testing, but there have also been a lot of questions about how best to do that - whether sending test kits home to parents, or carrying it out at school. Opinions were divided equally, or rather there were different opinions," he said.

The two-hour deliberations which preceded Wednesday's decision also involved West Tallinn Central Hospital (LTKH) chief doctor Arkadi Popov, a frequently consulted expert throughout the pandemic, who also ran for Center in last month's local elections and who gave school leaders an overview of viral spread and forecasts.

The ruling sees grades 4-8 at municipal schools on remote learning for the week November 8-12, a situation already in place this week after schoolchildren returned from the half-term break. The city government's rationale is that this age-group is hardest hit by Covid rates.

The city government is likely to review the situation late next week.

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