"Both the general infection rate has started to decrease and the need for hospital treatment has also started to decrease. However, when we look at how it's distributed by regions and hospitals, then it's uneven. The greater decrease is in Tallinn hospitals. But there's one more covid patient in the Tartu University Clinic than the week before. There the hospital's workload has no decreased," Sule told ERR.

He said unlike the second wave in the spring, the outbreak has made it to hospitals in a different way this summer as people are widely vaccinated.

"Behind the fast increase in the need for hospital treatment were the outbreaks. There are also more outbreaks in care homes than there were in spring. But due to the vaccination, we don't have a great wave of infection."

Sule stressed when something is moving towards a positive trend, special care should be taken to not make any mistakes.

"It's like with a young driver, mistakes happen when you think you can drive. We're in the same phase right now. We have to suffer a little to pass the wave," he said.

As of Monday morning, there are 544 Covid patients in the hospitals and 52 of them are in intensive care and 30 on ventilators.

"What is negative about the last 24 hours, the death rate in hospitals was on a downward trend, 17 patients were added. We didn't expect that many deaths. But when we compare the patients in hospitals (544) to last week (617), it is a clear decrease," Sule said.

Sule said the return of scheduled treatment is currently being discussed.

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