Government scientist: Mask rule may be removed when Estonia reaches “Yellow Level” – but what does this mean in reality?

Text Mark Taylor
Photo Evelin Linholm

In an interview with ERR, Toivo Maimets, chairman of the government’s scientific advisory council, stated that the mask rule may be removed when Estonia reaches “Yellow Level”. However, what does this mean in terms of daily new cases and hospital admissions? And, most importantly, when will the mask mandate be removed?

According to the risk matrix Estonia is currently at the “Red Level”. With an average of 2056 new cases and 67 new hospitalisations each day in the past 7 days.

To reach the “Yellow Level”, daily case numbers in the past 7 days must be lower than 1500. At the same time, the daily number of those admitted to hospital with the virus must be lower than 30. Daily case numbers have fallen from a high of 6700 at the beginning of February to just over 2000 today. However, the total number of people in hospital with the virus remains high (just below 500) and is only slowly beginning to fall from a high of over 600.

Although it appears as if the number of cases may fall below the required 1500 in the coming days or week or so (according to current trends), the number of new daily hospitalisations will take longer to fall below this threshold.

At the same time, it is also worth bearing in mind that Estonia has a lower prevalence of the new BA.2 omicron strain than countries such as the UK – which has seen daily infections begin to increase again in recent days. Because the BA.2 strain is more infectious than the original BA.1 omicron strain, this is also a trend that we will likely see here in Estonia in the coming weeks.

When will the mask mandate in Estonia be removed? The answer right now is we just don’t know. However, if the government were to use the “Yellow Level” in its policymaking, there would be a clear target to reach, and something residents could follow and understand.

Source ERR 

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BA.1 Omicron Strain BA.2 Omicron Strain Covid Restrictions Mask Estonia Mask Mandate Scientific Advisory Council Toivo Maimets Yellow Level