Falling coronavirus cases could give hospitals hope

Although more than 600 patients are being treated in Estonia's hospitals, the number of new cases has fallen, medical director of the Health Board's crisis unit Urmas Sule said on Monday. This could bring some hope to hospitals if the trend continues.
Sule said the number of patients in hospital will not fall significantly for some time but looking at the whole picture, new cases are "currently showing a stable decline".
"[A]nd we very much hope that it will remain that way, although there is no certainty yet," he said Sule. "We now rather hope that the level of morbidity or the level of need for hospital will stabilize."
Speaking about patients in hospital, he said: "Of particular concern is the fact that 60 patients are in intensive care and 44 of them are on ventilators - the highest number in this period."
Sule stressed the need for hospital care is greatly affected by how sick older people become as people in care institutions have underlying health problems.

He said both Tartu University Hospital and the North Estonia Medical Center - Estonia's largest hospitals - are each treating more than 100 coronavirus patients.
On Sunday, an outbreak was recorded at Jõgeva Hospital, in south Estonia, for the first time.
"Now it can be said that all hospitals in the Estonian hospital network have contributed and are contributing to the fight against COVID-19," said Sule.
On Monday, Estonia recorded 788 new cases of coronavirus during the last 24 hours. This is the lowest number for several weeks and comes after a new record number - 2,306 - was confirmed on a single day last week.
The "last 30 days" section of the graph below shows how the number of new cases has declined over the last week. However, it should be noted, that it is usual to have lower numbers of new cases over the weekend.
Estonia still has Europe's highest 14-day infection rate.
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Editor: Helen Wright