According to the World Health Organisation, Estonia’s two-week coronavirus infection rate per capita is now the highest in the world.
According to the WHO coronavirus dataset, Estonia’s two-week coronavirus infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants was as of writing this article 1,553. Only a week earlier, that number was 1,465 and Estonia was still second behind the Czech Republic.
A week ago, Estonia’s seven-day infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants was the highest in the world – 1,111.3. However, it’s the two-week rate that countries use to impose travel restrictions.
In comparison, the two-week coronavirus infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants in Finland is just 154 and in Latvia 388.
Estonia still dragging its feet with vaccinations
In the past 24 hours as of writing this article, Estonia had registered a whopping 1,751 new coronavirus cases. Almost 700 people are hospitalised with the virus, of whom 48 need the help of a ventilator and 69 are in intensive care.
The novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of 769 people in Estonia.
At the same time, Estonia is still dragging its feet with vaccinations. Only 11.85% of the country’s population have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and just 4.121% have received both shots.
To put this in plain numbers, Estonia has managed to vaccinate at least once a little over 157,000 of its people. At the same time, even in the United States, for example, 77 million people have received at least one shot – that’s over a quarter of the country’s population.
And the United Kingdom just broke a record on 18 March, administering 660,276 doses of vaccine in one day – including 528,260 first jabs and 132,016 second doses. Altogether, in the UK, 26,263,732 people have now had a first dose and 2,011,070 have had a second dose.
The UK is just short of giving first doses to half the adult population, at 49.9%.
Read also: Keegan McBride: The current government is making the same mistakes the previous one did.
Cover: Nurses taking care of a patient with COVID-19 at the North Estonia Medical Centre in Tallinn. Photo by the North Estonia Medical Centre.
